• Identifying Factors Affecting COVID-19 Transmission

    Much remains unknown about how SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, spreads through the environment. A major reason for this is that the behaviors and traits of viruses are highly variable – some spread more easily through water, others through air; some are wrapped in layers of fatty molecules that help them avoid their host’s immune system, while others are “naked.”
    Rob Jordan writes in Stanford News that this makes it urgent for environmental engineers and scientists to collaborate on pinpointing viral and environmental characteristics that affect transmission via surfaces, the air and fecal matter. Alexandria Boehm, a Stanford professor of civil and environmental engineering, and Krista Wigginton, the Shimizu Visiting Professor in Stanford’s department of civil and environmental engineering and an associate professor at the University of Michigan. co-authored a recently published viewpoint in Environmental Science & Technology calling for a broader, long-term and more quantitative approach to understanding viruses, such as SARS-CoV-2, that are spread through the environment. 

  • Coronavirus Treatments and Vaccines – Research on 3 Types of Antivirals and 10 Different Vaccines Is Being Fast-Tracked

    Just three months after China first notified the World Health Organization about a deadly new coronavirus, studies of numerous antiviral treatments and potential vaccines are already underway. Never has science advanced so much in such a short period of time to combat an epidemic.
    Ignacio López-Goñi writes in The Conversationthat many of the proposals now under study come from research groups that have spent years working to combat similar coronaviruses, particularly SARS and MERS. All that accumulated knowledge has allowed scientists to advance at unprecedented speed.
    We know, for example, that the genome of the novel coronavirus, called SARS-CoV-2, is 79 percent like that of SARS. We know the “key” used by the virus to get into human lung cells is protein S and that the “lock” in the cell is the ACE2 receptor. We also know that the entry of the virus is facilitated by a protease, or an enzyme that breaks down proteins, from the cell itself, called TMPRSS211.

  • Debate Flares over Using AI to Detect COVID-19 in Lung Scans

    A series of studies, starting as a steady drip and quickening to a deluge, has reported the same core finding amid the global spread of COVID-19: Artificial intelligence could analyze chest images to accurately detect the disease in legions of untested patients.
    Casey Ross writes in STAT that the results promised a ready solution to the shortage of diagnostic testing in the U.S. and some other countries and triggered splashy press releases and a cascade of hopeful headlines. But in recent days, the initial burst of optimism has given way to an intensifying debate over the plausibility of building AI systems during an unprecedented public health emergency.

  • Not All Genetic Tests Convey Risk in the Same Way, Scientists Warn

    Research presented virtually at the World Congress of Cardiology meeting over the weekend suggests that some direct-to-consumer or lab-based genetic tests may not convey the full risk of inherited disease. Scientists analyzed de-identified data from more than 14,000 patients who were referred to genetic testing for cardiomyopathy, an inherited condition that can lead to heart failure. Patients were subject to two different kinds of genetic sequencing, and the results were compared to a simpler genetic test that only screens for nine variants in two genes known to cause cardiomyopathy. If patients had been screened using the simpler test, 96% of the patients who actually had a risk for cardiomyopathy would have been falsely reassured that they didn’t have a such a risk. The scientists behind the study warn against relying on limited tests that paint an inaccurate picture.  

  • How Sick Will the Coronavirus Make You? The Answer May Be in Your Genes

    COVID-19, caused by the new pandemic coronavirus, is strangely—and tragically—selective. Only some infected people get sick, and although most of the critically ill are elderly or have complicating problems such as heart disease, some killed by the disease are previously healthy and even relatively young. Jocelyn Kaiser writes in Science that researchers are now gearing up to scour the patients’ genomes for DNA variations that explain this mystery. The findings could be used to identify those most at risk of serious illness and those who might be protected, and they might also guide the search for new treatments.

  • Lessons from Italy’s Response to Coronavirus

    As policymakers around the world struggle to combat the rapidly escalating Covid-19 pandemic, they find themselves in uncharted territory. Much has been written about the practices and policies used in countries such as China, South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan to stifle the pandemic. Gary P. Pisano , Raffaella Sadun, and Michele Zanini write in the Harvard Business Review that unfortunately, throughout much of Europe and the United States, it is already too late to contain Covid-19 in its infancy, and policymakers are struggling to keep up with the spreading pandemic. In doing so, however, they are repeating many of the errors made early on in Italy, where the pandemic has turned into a disaster. “The purpose of this article is to help U.S. and European policymakers at all levels learn from Italy’s mistakes so they can  recognize and address the unprecedented challenges presented by the rapidly expanding crisis,” they write.

     

  • Understanding the Economic Shock of Coronavirus

    As the coronavirus continues its march around the world, governments have turned to proven public health measures, such as social distancing, to physically disrupt the contagion. Yet, doing so has severed the flow of goods and people, stalled economies, and is in the process of delivering a global recession. Economic contagion is now spreading as fast as the disease itself.
    Philipp Carlsson-Szlezak , Martin Reeves, and Paul Swartz write in the Harvard Business Review that this didn’t look plausible even a few weeks ago. As the virus began to spread, politicians, policy makers, and markets, informed by the pattern of historical outbreaks, looked on while the early (and thus more effective and less costly) window for social distancing closed. Now, much further along the disease trajectory, the economic costs are much higher, and predicting the path ahead has become nearly impossible, as multiple dimensions of the crisis are unprecedented and unknowable.
    “In this uncharted territory, naming a global recession adds little clarity beyond setting the expectation of negative growth. Pressing questions include the path of the shock and recovery, whether economies will be able to return to their pre-shock output levels and growth rates, and whether there will be any structural legacy from the coronavirus crisis,” they write.

  • Global COVID-19 Cases Top 700,000; Trump Extends Plan to Slow Virus

    The global COVID-19 total easily passed 700,000 cases yesterday, just 1 day after passing the 600,000-case mark, fueled by steep rises in Europe and the United States, where President Donald Trump said yesterday that social (physical) distancing guidelines will be extended through the end of April. The global total has now reached 718,685 cases, with the U.S. total at 139,675.

  • MIT-Based Team Works on Rapid Deployment of Open-Source, Low-Cost Ventilator

    By David L. Chandler

    One of the most pressing shortages facing hospitals during the COVID-19 emergency is a lack of ventilators. These machines can keep patients breathing when they no longer can on their own, and they can cost around $30,000 each. Now, a rapidly assembled volunteer team of engineers, physicians, computer scientists, and others, centered at MIT, is working to implement a safe, inexpensive alternative for emergency use, which could be built quickly around the world. The goal is to support rapid scale-up of device production to alleviate hospital shortages.

  • Sweden under Fire for “Relaxed” Coronavirus Approach – Here’s the Science Behind It

    By Paul W Franks and Peter M Nilsson

    A growing number of Swedish doctors and scientists are raising alarm over the Swedish government’s approach to COVID-19. Unlike its Nordic neighbors, Sweden has adopted a relatively relaxed strategy, seemingly assuming that overreaction is more harmful than under-reaction. Some support the government’s policy as rational and reasonable, while critics say that Sweden is hurtling toward a disaster of biblical proportions and that the direction of travel must change. The truth is that of all these opinions, none is derived from direct experience of a global pandemic. No one knows for sure what lies ahead.

  • Combating the Coronavirus Infodemic: Is Social Media Doing Enough?

    By Lindsay Gorman and Nathan Kohlenberg

    The global coronavirus pandemic has also spawned an epidemic of online disinformation, ranging from false home remedies to state-sponsored influence campaigns. To stem the growing “infodemic,” social media platforms have moved quickly to quash disinformation on their platforms. Their response represents the strongest attempts to police disinformation to date, though actual results have been mixed.

  • Most Mass Shootings Occur Closest to Non-Trauma Hospitals

    In an analysis of 2019 mass shootings and hospital locations, researchers found that the closest hospital to more than 70 percent of mass shootings was a non-trauma center, where sudden, high casualty loads were more likely to overwhelm capacity and trauma-specific care options may have been limited. They also found that in more than half of mass shooting events, the nearest pediatric trauma center was more than 10 miles away.

  • How to Keep the New Coronavirus from Being Used as a Terrorist Weapon

    The possibility that extremist groups may attempt to deliberately spread SARS-CoV-2—the virus causing the current pandemic—should not be ignored. In fact, one of the primary limiting factors to such an attack—recruiting humans willing to infect themselves—does not apply in this case; potential perpetrators would come from the ranks of those already infected with the virus. We are faced, therefore, with a genuinely challenging task: preemption.

  • Coronavirus: A New Type of Vaccine Using RNA Could Help Defeat COVID-19

    Scientists had already identified the polio virus in 1916, but it took 50 more years to develop a vaccine. That vaccine eradicated polio in the U.S. in less than a decade. Vaccines are one of the most effective modern disease-fighting tools.
    Sanjay Mishra and Robert Carnahan write in The Conversation that as of this writing, the fast-spreading COVID-19 has already infected almost half a million worldwide, and has killed over 22,000 patients. There is an urgent need for a vaccine to prevent it from infecting and killing millions more. But traditional vaccine development takes, on average, 16 years.
    So how can scientists quickly develop a vaccine for SARS-CoV-2?
    “As immunologists, we are trying to expedite development of vaccines and antibody therapeutics,” Mishra and Carnahan write, noting that the Pandemic Protection Platform Program run by the Defense Advanced Research Agency (DARPA) of the U.S. Department of Defense uses fast-track “sprints” to help us identify and deploy protective antibody treatments against viral outbreaks, such as SARS-CoV-2. Now other colleagues of ours are working on expediting a new type of vaccine for COVID-19.

  • Labs Are Experimenting with New – but Unproven – Methods to Create a Coronavirus Vaccine Fast

    This is the idea behind vaccines: give the body an opportunity to build defenses against a virus it may encounter in the future.Jean Peccoud writes in The Conversation that with the coronavirus literally making time a matter of life and death, nearly 50 public and private labs are turning to newer, safer and faster methods to develop a coronavirus vaccine. There are three categories of vaccines:
    Protein-based vaccines: Rather than injecting the whole virus, it is possible to vaccinate a person with a single virus component. The pieces most commonly used are proteins from the surface of a virus.Two companies, Sanofi and Novawax, are both developing protein vaccines based on the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, the tower-shaped structures on the surface of the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
    Gene-based vaccines: Theoretically, the simplest and fastest way to make a vaccine would be to have a person’s own cells produce minute quantities of the viral protein that trigger an immune response. To do that researchers are turning to genetics.As of yet, there are no DNA vaccines currently approved by the FDA for human use and the success of this method has been limited. But there is promise. In 2016, several groups developed candidate Zika vaccines using this technology and at least one company, INOVIO Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is developing INO-4800, a DNA vaccine candidate for the coronavirus. Notable in the U.S. is Moderna, and on March 16, the National Institutes of Health started a clinical trial of Moderna’s lead coronavirus vaccine candidate, mRNA-1273.
    Friendly virus vaccines: The main issue with gene-based vaccines is getting the DNA or RNA to where it needs to be. One elegant way to solve this challenge is to use a harmless virus as a delivery system. This technique is being pursued by a few companies around the world. For example, Hong Kong-based CanSino Biologics is inserting the coronavirus gene that codes for the spike protein into an adenovirus. They used this strategy to produce the first government-approved Ebola vaccine, and clinical trials of an engineered adenovirus that would protect against the coronavirus have already started in China.