For this first episode of 2021, the complete TWiV team reviews compelling virology stories of 2020, and thanks the multitude of guests who have helped us to navigate the pandemic, and our many listeners who turn to us for scientific facts.
Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Dickson Despommier, Alan Dove, Rich Condit, Kathy Spindler, and Brianne Barker
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Download TWiV 702 (58 MB .mp3, 97 min)
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Links for this episode
- Poems are at Twiverse 1:17:48
- This little virus went to market (TWiV 581) 5:39, 14:46
- Host genetics initiative TWiV 628 27:29
- Inborn errors of immunity & serious COVID TWiV 671 28:04
- Lisa Gralinski TWiV 674 29:20
- Tragic gene flow from Neanderthals TWiV 676 30:05
- Ivermectin and COVID-19 (TWiV 599) 32:40
- DC and Galveston road trips: TWiV 625, 643, 646, 589, 580, 583, 587) 5:48, 36:28
- Fauci and Hotez interviews (TWiV 641, 687) 43:09
- Long-haul COVID, pro-thrombotic autoantibodies (TWiV 680, 683) 49:09
- Minority health and disparities (TWiV 655) 58:49
- Diversity in science (TWiV 672, 670) 59:29
- SeXX matters (TWiV 624) 1:00:00
- Kate Rubins (TWiV 682) 1:08:11
- Laura Splan (TWiV 691) 1:11:58
- Protective immune responses (TWiV 693, 685, 683) 1:13:50
- Immune memory/cross-reactivity (TWiV 684, 681, 650, 631) 1:14:23
- Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!
Weekly Picks 1:20:04
Dickson – Best of 2020 by NASA and The Plague Year
Brianne – Where Year Two of the Pandemic Will Take Us
Alan – Japan’s distinct form of vaccine hesitancy
Kathy – Paul Offit updates on the vaccine rollout and Choral Scholars of University College Dublin (John Greene’s videoessay on the song)
Rich – Do You Love Me?
Vincent – Story on Katalin Kariko’s career
Listener Pick
Louise – Virus socks
Intro music is by Ronald Jenkees
Send your virology questions and comments to twiv@microbe.tv
What a great podcast–not just today but all of them. For the past few months my Sundays have stared like this:
Get up
bathroom
get coffee
sign on to TWiV
Thank you Vince and company.
Many thanks for further flagging up of virus impacted long haulers, they sometimes feel misunderstood by healthcare professionals, families and employers.
Go to IRS site. Request for Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN).
Then go to your Secretary of State in your State and apply for its non-profit form.
When you get that number go to the IRS site and apply for your non-profit number. Last year it cost $600.00 what it will be this year might be higher.
Listening to TWiV 702 right now and it is just the right mix of a heart- and brain-warming with life lessons for all, pandemic or no. Also, Road Trips!!! TwivMobile! TWiV The Movie?!
What Kathy brought up about the Neanderthal inheritance and Covid19 severity reminded me of the surprising finding of high percentage of people in Bangladesh with these genes and that is perhaps relevant to this finding from Singapore where asymptomatic migrant workers went on to suffer thromboses post-infection.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11239-020-02332-z
It would seem to me that some effort should go into discovering any markers that would help to identify those at risk in case they, in particular, respond to different therapies or prophylactics. I worry that data relevant to a minority subset gets lost in the search for effective general standard of care.
These people would not even have known they had an infection were it not for the pro-active surveillance of Singapore so are going under the radar as far as therapies are concerned. Leaving aside the healthcare they received there, not guaranteed acoss the globe…and the tragedy of young lives lost and loss of livelihood for the families and communities they support.
Given that the process of producing and distributing vaccines is going to take time, and the likelihood of the whole thing not reflecting the global inequalities is small to none, I think more attention should be given to therapies and prophylaxis, beyond NPIs as the risk is going to be with us all for a good while yet.
It may be that Ivermectin is protective by impeding entry of virus into cells: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32871846/
and this prophylactic would be more important for this subset who can have an asymptomatic infection but still go on to suffer severe after-effects afterwards… even if high quality data are not in yet. It could also be that the benefit for a minority just doesn’t show up in large scale randomised control trials unless the genetic inheritance is factored in.
Small observational study in Bangladesh: https://www.ejmed.org/index.php/ejmed/article/view/599
To all and Dixon in particular,
Please make sure Dixon knows, that I too cried copiously at the end of The Plague Year, the article in he New Yorker.
Thanks,
Scott Schiff-Slater, MD
Hallowell, Maine