Bradley writes:
Why can’t candidate-vaccines be manufactured in “industrial quantities” prior to passing the tests?
If they don’t pass the tests: dump them.
Normally this would be wasteful but not in the Current crisis.
Martin
Bradley writes:
FYI
Partial answer to question in TWiV 596 as to whether different
languages create different aerosols and are thus more infective:
Aerosol emission and superemission during human
speech increase with voice loudness
–bks
Magda writes:
Dear Microbes 🙂
People are on their phones almost constantly these days.
I was wondering what do you think about disinfecting our pesonal phones after every use? Is there any point in washing our hands more often if we don’t disinfect our personal phones?
Thank you for amazing work in spreading the science! Love the show!
I want to be microbiologists now!!!
I am veterinary surgeon from Poland working in the UK.
Kind regards to all involved in making the show!
Russell writes:
Dear Vincent and the TWIV Team,
I want to say that I’m a fairly new listener to the Pod having logged on since understanding what was happening in Wuhan in January. I’ve gained incredible insight from the Pod and its Guests and have donated via Patreon as a gesture of appreciation.
My question is pretty straight forward and one I don’t think you’ve all really reflected on as of yet:
Having tracked this virus with you from TWIV 585 (or thereabouts), I always noticed a calm demeanor when approaching it (almost as if it was just another run of the mill virus). As the shows went on, I could see that it was more serious than we all believed at first.
Any reflections on if TWIV underestimated the virus and its impact and what we could have done differently if we all understood the severity of the Wuhan situation?
Thanks for all you do. I can’t wait for each week of TWIV.
-Russell
Jassi writes: (she)
Dear TWiV, I am a medical student in California and I love your podcast – it has been keeping me company while I shelter-in-place. Although, now that Governor Newsom is permitting Californian medica0l students to graduate early, I should be back on the front lines soon!
I’ve found your discussion on broad-spectrum antivirals, CEPI and BARDA extremely interesting as you’ve highlighted the important market failures for these drugs. I hope you don’t mind, but I took the liberty of quoting your podcast in a policy brief I recently wrote. I’d like to convince more lawmakers and funders to prioritize developing drugs, especially antivirals, in advance of pandemics.
My question: What are your thoughts on a future where we have a roster of drugs against all known viral polymerases, for example, or some other suite of antiviral drugs specifically for pandemic preparedness?
Best wishes,
Jassi
P.S. If you think it’s appropriate, please feel free to share this brief with anyone who’d like to better understand the economics of pandemic drugs.
Jassi Pannu | MD Candidate
Stanford School of Medicine
Sherrill writes:
Aloha Vincent & Guests,
Just wanted to send a note from Hawaii (where I have lived and practiced for over 25 years) to let you know how much I appreciate your podcasts. I started with TWiV and added TWiP as well as Immune to my podcast subscription list.
I am an attorney/broker by profession, but have a passion for biology and natural history. I studied molecular biology some years ago.
Your fascinating science based podcasts with top academicians and clinicians, who are genuine highly credentialed authorities -with boots on ground -are vital.
And more than welcome relief from the many shrill, sensationalist, and inaccurate news and social media sites.
Keep up the great work.
We are listening.
As of March 31st we have the following:
Hopefully, the current viral pandemic will be a wake up call to governments to make it a top priority to incentivize and fund scientific research in virology so that we can be as prepared as possible for future pandemics.
Mahalo!
Sherrill
Attorney, Broker
Hilo, Hawaii
Yuri writes:
Hello, dear TWiVers!
I’m just a human being who loves biology in general and virology in particular 🙂 I’ve been listening to your podcast for a year or so and I think that you make an amazing job, thanks a lot! I’m a graphic designer so I have not many people to talk about biology, so you all are my virtual friends and guides 🙂
I have a question. Last time on TWiV you talked about low probability of antigen drift in SARS-CoV-2. At the same time I’ve heard from several virologists that it’s a common thing among coronaviruses. I’ve looked up and I’ve found an article about gene drift of S-protein gene in several strains of HCoV-OC43 (www.nature.com/articles/srep11451) and another one about HCoV-229E (www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/jgv/10.1099/vir.0.81662-0).
As I mentioned I’m not a biologist and because of that I can not understand many things. But assumptions in these articles are pretty interesting for me. So why don’t you think that SARS-CoV-2 in the future won’t evolve in several strains? Does it connected with the genome structure somehow (I mean that influenza has structured genome and coronaviruses don’t)? Or something else?
I’d be pleased if you shade a light on my question and I think it intrigues many people.
Anyway, thank you so much for your podcast, you are great! Be safe and healthy.
Anonymous writes:
Q1
Why is everyone urging more testing? If your symptoms are not severe enough to go to the hospital, you stay home and heal on your own without spreading to other people (except that other family members will probably get infected.) If your symptoms are severe enough to go to the hospital, you will get tested. Why does it make a difference by testing more people without symptoms or with mild symptoms? I understand that testing antibodies will make a difference because if you already have antibodies and if you are a healthcare worker, you can be a workforce to help patients. I read somewhere that the reason why Japanese death count is relatively lower could be because testing has been limited to patients with severe symptoms so that people with milder symptoms won’t overflow in the hospitals and the resources are saved for severe cases.
Q2
What’s your opinion about Japanese flu drug called Avigan (favipiravir)? It seems very promising.
Thank you so much!
Sanjana writes:
Hello,
I’m Sanjana Kulkarni, a junior undergraduate student at Caltech, but I’m currently at home in South Bend, Indiana per social distancing measures. I am an aspiring virologist or immunologist, and I really enjoy your TWiV and Immune podcasts. I also find Vincent’s virology course resources very informative, so thank you for making those freely available!
My question is about the relative contagiousness of SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV. Epidemiologists use the basic reproductive number to describe an outbreak, but it’s a population measure that is influenced by human behavior (like social distancing), and it changes as an outbreak waxes and wanes. Estimates for the basic reproductive numbers are ~3 for SARS-CoV and ~2.2 for SARS-CoV-2 (according to this study), but it seems to me that intuitively, SARS-CoV-2 is more contagious than SARS-CoV because the former has reached pandemic level, though perhaps SARS-CoV-2 could make up for a lower R_0 with large asymptomatic and presymptomatic transmission. With confidence intervals though, I’m not sure I’d believe that there’s a significant difference between the R_0 values of the two viruses until we know the full scope of SARS-CoV-2 infections. So how do you measure contagiousness or infectivity as an intrinsic property of a microbe or virus, independent of population dynamics?
Thank you,
Sanjana
Kevin writes:
On a recent episode, you discussed testing sewage for SARS-CoV-2 RNA as a public health surveillance measure. Apparently this is already being tried in The Netherlands: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.29.20045880v1.full.pdf
Cheers,
Kevin McGhee
—
Kevin McGhee, CSP, CHMM
Associate Director, EHS & Compliance
New York Genome Center
Janet writes:
This analysis gives a different argument than you gave in #596
Janet
Halifax, NS, Canada
Ioannis writes:
Hey
Very excited to hear from established scientists discuss the current pandemic
I was really surprised that convalescent serum got FDA approval, while human isolated neutralizing monoclonal antibodies (cultured in CHO cell lines) against RBD of SARS-CoV-2 are required to pass all the phases of clinical trials. I think that it is unethical to stop drugs that are like 99% likely to work with minimal side effects while dangerous procedures are allowed to go through. Some rational thought should take
Ioannis Zacharioudakis PhD
Kristi writes:
Hi all,
What is your outlook for the next 6 months? I mean, how do you see this playing out (best guess anyway). What are we waiting for as we isolate in our homes. I understand the point of isolation, but I’m wondering what ends that and what comes after. I know we’re working on vaccines but that is about 18 months away from my understanding.
Also, do you see this as being a flu-like virus that sticks around as one to worry about and immunize for yearly?
Thanks,
Kristi
Kevin writes:
Hi all,
Thank you for the frequent updates to your podcast during all of this. I have what is likely another stupid question but again, I want to be sure I’m not doing something potentially harmful should I have Covid-19 symptoms.
I workout/exercise quite a bit and generally when I get sick from a cold, I will tend to continue exercising, though never at a gym – I wait until I’m over it!! If only everybody did the same.
I like the idea that I’m keeping my heart strong and my breathing full and strong but I’ve never been quite sure if that’s helping or hurting me while ill. I feel horrible if I just lie in bed when I’m sick. Is there any evidence that exercising while ill can be better or worse for you with any virus/bacteria, not just SARS CoV-2?
Thank you.
-Kevin
PS apologies if this has already been covered. I try to listen to all of your QAs but sometimes miss some.
Robin writes:
Hi all,
I live in an apartment building with probably about 100-200 tenants and was curious about transmission within apartment buildings. We walk through communal hallways for leaving the house, taking out trash, and so on, and have to turn doorknobs to open doors. Laundry rooms are shared by dozens of people and obviously people touch the machines, though from what I’ve heard it sounds like washers+dryers should effectively kill SARS-CoV-2. Any guesses about how much transmission risk there is from apartment to apartment and how much it can be reduced?
I’m also wondering how you’d estimate the contribution of hospital overloading to mortality. I’ve heard a lot of noise about plans for ventilator rationing but not much about whether it’s actually gone into practice, and I’ve heard of ICU wait times in some hotspots, but don’t know how much that actually affects outcomes.
Thanks,
Robin
Mike writes:
Sending this relative to Rich’s comment in TWIV 596 about trying to determine how this ends and Alan’s subsequent comments about how the world is now watching China. The linked video is from a British visitor to Shanghai. It shows that as of March 18th the lockdown isn’t so much lifted as partially relaxed two months after it was implemented. People are out and about, but in smaller numbers. Restaurants are still closed for sit-down dining. Internal movement around the country is still heavily constrained by a cellphone app that gives each person a status of green, yellow or red. Red means you are restricted from driving in many parts of the country.
China’s current approach relies very heavily on their pervasive domestic surveillance apparatus. The maker of the video has some very guarded comments at the end about the darker sides of this system to avoid placing his Chinese friends in jeopardy. I thought it was revealing and wanted to pass along. Personally, I hope democratic nations can implement something closer to the South Korean model.
https://ln2.sync.com/dl/d3051a970/7uxvy8nh-68qmnect-v4xvrkq6-msnnweux
-Mike
