TWiV 626: Ralph Baric and fancy ferrets

June 14, 2020

MicrobeTV condemns violence of any kind and will commit resources as an educational platform to support the African American community and people of color worldwide. Black Lives Matter, and our hearts, our support and our solidarity are with everyone who suffers from racial injustice.  Human dignity starts with the singular premise that we are all the same, no matter our skin color, religion, sex, gender, or where we live. At all times and in all circumstances, people are entitled to respect, and humane treatment especially by those in position of authority. MicrobeTV says “no more” racism and we will work with educators, scientists and civil society globally to do what is in our power to end social injustice in all its forms.

Daniel Griffin provides a clinical update on COVID-19, then Ralph Baric joins TWiV to discuss SARS-CoV-2 transmission, vaccines, diagnostic tests, and a new animal model from his laboratory that does not use transgenic mice.

Note: Daniel’s update is in the audio only version of this episode.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Dickson Despommier, Alan Dove, Rich Condit, and Brianne Barker

Guests: Daniel Griffin, Chuck Knirsch, and Ralph Baric

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Download TWiV 626 (98 MB .mp3, 163 min)
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Intro music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your virology questions and comments to twiv@microbe.tv

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8 comments on “TWiV 626: Ralph Baric and fancy ferrets

  1. I look forward to Dr. Griffin’s update each week, but he really buried the lede this week. No pulmonary embolism mortality in weeks? They are getting much better at tamping down immune overdrive? That’s great news! Not sure why he saved it for the Q&A section, but that was the real news!

    May also explain why in the US we’ve been at a steady 20K+ new cases per week but deaths have had a steady decline.

  2. Richard Cornell Jun 14, 2020

    TWiV # 626.
    Not enough vaccines to combat COVID-19. If those who who are under 60 might want to wait, while I, like my generation would like to be first to get the “proven” vaccine first.
    It all depends what happens in the next few months on how many who decided not to mask will either get sick a little or step into their grave. If this virus dies out then there is no problem but it flares up I will still be hiding from others.
    One thing nice as I see it more people are interested in virus and for all of history everyone has something in common.
    Too bad mice are used to test vaccines to see if they work. Humans make better subjects.
    They can tell you faster if the feel sick.

  3. Nancy L Hope Jun 14, 2020

    Hello, virus peeps.

    I am little concerned about your friend wanting to introduce you to critical race theory. I am sending you this link. I hope you have time to take a look. You may have heard of Evergreen a liberal college where a very wrong kind of Black Lives Matter group took over the campus and forces the firing of tenured professors teaching biology and Darwin etc. Black students were denigrated for taking sTEM courses. Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying were the profs. You can find them and talk to them. Very intelligent and thoughtful people.

    Please understand that since I read To kill a Mockingbird at age 11 I have always held views and spoken for equality of opportunity for anyone regardless of colour or all the other discriminatory markers.

    Anyway here is the link. There are murky waters here alas.

    https://newdiscourses.com/2020/06/reasons-critical-race-theory-terrible-dealing-racism/?fbclid=IwAR2qPXM0T8H85seXqj38ZtYhNrPRnfvoSAyoSosbbnDs9YkfVzKFBd6AdH0

    Thank you for the work you do – always a good time learning.

  4. Vincent and TWIV team: Thank you for the fine discussions on SARS CoV-2 and its disease COVID-19. While there have been many conversations about the serological response and the assays (commercial and otherwise) to measure the humoral response, I don’t think I have heard any about secretory IgA responses of infected hosts. This is an infection of the Upper Respiratory tract where IgA is very important. I think I have seen only one medRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.06.10.20126532 paper on it, as well. Could you include this in an upcoming session? Thanks!

  5. Tim Escher Jun 15, 2020

    I enjoy Dr. Griffin’s clinical updates each week, but I think he really buried the lede this week! He casually mentioned in an answer to a listener question that they are getting much better at treating the coagulation issues (no pulmonary embolism deaths in weeks!?) and now know much better when to expect what stages of the disease. That may explain the continuing drop in deaths seen, even with a steady case rate in the US.

    That was the real news!

  6. Katie Jun 16, 2020

    I love cats so this episode gets extra bonus points. Is it wrong that the thought of a human being purposely challenged with SARS-CoV-2 disturbs me less than the thought of that happening to a cat? In that regard I kid of agree with the comment before me.

    Meow

  7. Michelle Jun 24, 2020

    Excellent Dr. Griffen. Yes, it is known that SES is the biggest predictor of disease outcome across a broad spectrum of diseases (Sapolsky, Stanford), and SES is an ongoing, massive and mostly ignored problem is the U.S. (Social Security Admin: https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/netcomp.cgi?year=2014 ). Thank you for your interest and work. That point of view should be much more widespread.