TWiV 861: Rough draft of Omicron origins

February 3, 2022

Nels joins TWiV to discuss hypotheses for the origins of Omicron, including that it came from mice or arose during chronic infection of an immunocompromised patient.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Rich Condit, Kathy Spindler, and Brianne Barker

Guest: Nels Elde

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Download TWiV 861 (69 MB .mp3, 114 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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4 comments on “TWiV 861: Rough draft of Omicron origins

  1. Daniel Crummett Feb 4, 2022

    The comments about physicians seemed unnecessary.

    According to an AMA study 96% of physicians were vaccinated pre mandates. I am recently retired and know hundreds of physicians but do not personally know any who have not been vaccinated.

    The problem in getting patients vaccinated is not that there are physicians who are antivax but rather that there has not been sufficient and effective communication from physicians to patients which has been hindered by the antivaxxer movement and the “my body, my choice” folks who have championed a few renegade physicians and made them social media darlings.

  2. Elise Leonard Feb 4, 2022

    Hi TWiV’ers! Thanks for an amazing episode on Omicron origins. The speed of Brianne’s brain and her delight in understanding and testing new ideas is so cool to share. Rich’s thoughts on the interior work that science requires is fascinating to me as a psychiatrist. It takes conscious effort and brain muscles to be open minded, and that may be one of scientists’ biggest gifts to culture aside from the work itself.
    I also wanted to share this email I received on my recent retirement- for almost 2 years I hosted a weekly COVID update call for the many Tribal mental health and substance abuse clinicians in my Indian Health Service region. I share this email because I got most of the COVID information and insights that I shared on the weekly calls from TWiV episodes and clinical updates, Reading that my colleague found our calls “strong, non-alarmist, scientific, and fun” tells me I must have been listening so well to TWiV that some of that spirit got through. Here’s that email I got- if you read it, please don’t use my name as it would seem like bragging. It’s really for you guys, with my gratitude.
    “Elise you need to know that when the world was sheltering in place and I was still coming to the office each day, the weekly call-ins were invaluable to my mental health. It made me feel as if I was part of a larger community, a community of support. It let me know we had additional resources out there. It helped me to connect with other organizations that were having a rough time converting to tele-health. Connecting to those organizations gave me an additional feeling of purpose. Thank you for your strong, non-alarmist, scientific, and fun approach to the meeting each week. The meetings always made me feel grounded. I wish you luck in your retirement and hope you get to do all the bucket list stuff you have in front of you.”
    The work that you guys are doing reaches many more people than the numbers on YouTube can possibly show.