Peter writes:
Hi Twivsters,
Maybe you can answer a pretty basic question that my limited research skills could not find an answer for: what is the ace2 receptor doing there in the first place? What is its adaptive function? It must transport something into our cells, no?
Cheers, Pete, Sydney, Australia
(Where at 8 pm, it is 24C with white puffy clouds)
Sofia writes:
Hello TWIVers,
Happy New Year from Portugal!
Quick tip: if you want to show people that vaccines work, just look at vaccination rates, new case numbers, hospitalization and death numbers in my country. Portugal is one of the most vaccinated countries in the world, and so far despite case numbers rising like in so many other countries, our hospitalization and death numbers from covid show very visibly what vaccines can do to protect the population.
Thank you very much for your podcast and the great work you do.
Best regards,
Sofia
Russell writes:
Dear TWIV —
A friend of mine survived cancer and has taken on a personal mantra of internal health. I’m triple vax’d and I’ve tried very patiently, armed with TWIV information, to persuade her to get vaccinated; if not triple vax’d alongside me.
So far I’ve failed and this last conversation left me stumped. My friend is convinced that the vaccine may turn on cellular protein production—possibly restarting the cancer.
I’m afraid I’ve reached the height of my biological knowledge and am looking to you all for help.
Happy New Year 🎈🎊 😷
—Russell
Halfdan writes:
Dear TWIV-team,
I found your Youtube channel recently and have been watching quite a few of the videos from the past months. You have no idea how happy I am to have found a channel with real science-based information, it’s so difficult to find when it comes to SARS-CoV-2 without having to dig into the papers myself.
I live in Denmark so it’s sadly impossible for me to catch you guys live, so this email is just a big thank you to all of you.
I do have one question I haven’t heard asked on stream (I still haven’t watched that many) that I hope you might be able to answer. I’ve had Crohn’s disease for 20 years and have been on Adalimumab (Humira) for quite a few years, and it’s the only drug I’m on. I got my booster shot in November (seven months after the second shot).
Do you think TNF-alpha inhibitors will weaken my response to the three vaccines? So far I’ve been lucky enough to dodge infection.
Thanks in advance and happy new year to you all.
Best regards, Halfdan
Sue writes:
When typing in “TWiV” to download one of the papers, the autofill suggested Twivine Sparkle! Yikes! “Princess Twivine Sparkle is an evil clone of Twilight Sparkle who was created by the Dark Magic of the Plunder Vines. She is now one of Master Xehanort’s apprentices and a member of the Thirteen Seekers of Darkness.”
Alison writes:
Hi,
Instead of any given anecdote or hyped up news story, I think it would be helpful for people to go straight to the source of truth for what medications are in shortage, no longer in shortage, being discontinued, etc. The FSA maintains this list which can be found here:
https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/drugshortages/default.cfm
Stay safe,
Alison (she/her/hers)
Ingrid writes:
Dear TWiVers,
Another listeners’ pick, sorry to bombard you! I just sent you one and then all of a sudden I came across this amazing 16min Oct 2021 video from the New Yorker about a woman in a tiny, rural, seemingly all-black town in Alabama, calling and going door-to-door recruiting people to sign up to get their COVID vaccinations. She and some of her friends have to round up a minimum of 40 people before the state will send vaccines to her town. She is totally clear on how it has to be enough people vaccinated to help protect everybody, that just a few here and there won’t make a dent, but she also wants everyone to be vaccinated for their own sake.
You see her melt one totally reluctant, stony-faced holdout. She must have saved so many lives! This opens your eyes both to what small-town out-of-the-way Americans feel about the disease vs. the vaccine, and also to how many unsung heroes have comprised the ‘front line’ in this pandemic. The town of Panola is 40 mi away from anyplace to get vaccinated and aside from being reluctant, a lot of people living there don’t even have cars. Some are riding around on horses. Some have already had Covid, some have lost family members to it – not all of them are reluctant, plenty are very agreeable to getting vaccinated, but might not have gone anywhere far to do it.
https://www.newyorker.com/video/watch/one-womans-mission-to-get-vaccines-to-her-rural-alabama-town
It’s really well-done, the film-makers mostly just stay out of the way and do some great editing, because the voice of this store-owner is so engaging that she just carries the whole thing. Funny and warm and gripping the whole way along.
One Woman’s Mission to Get Vaccines to Her Rural Alabama Town
“The Panola Project,” a film by Jeremy Levine and Rachael DeCruz, follows Dorothy, a convenience-store owner, as she goes door to door in order to convince her neighbors to get their COVID-19 vaccines.
Released on 08/11/2021
Thanks again for all the great TWiV’s (plus all the rest of the MicrobeTV podcasts)
-Ingrid
Berkeley, CA