CORONAVIRUS INFO PROVIDED BY DR. JIM HARRIS – 02/10/2021

(J. Harris: When you get your vaccination appointment, please cancel with all the other vaccine sites you have applied to. This will help other folks get vaccinated quicker.)

Safely Reopening Requires Testing, Tracing and Isolation, Not Just Vaccines

“[Like HIV] Until we can overcome these obstacles and ensure equitable delivery of vaccines and treatments once available across the globe, the fundamentals of controlling this virus remain as important as ever…Test, trace and isolate—and ultimately test, trace and treat once more treatments become available—is an efficient, sustainable way to control the virus, especially in contrast to last-resort emergency lockdown measures, which can erode the public support and trust necessary for the success of many other helpful public health measures, including vaccination and mask-wearing.

(J. Harris: This is a short article that takes me back a year when everyone was “planning” but only a few countries did everything right and are looking good right now. This is a short article that is easy to read and understand.)

Hopkins Suggestions:

1. Iran Starts COVID-19 Vaccinations with Sputnik V (Al Jazeera) Iran has launched its vaccination programme against COVID-19 with Russia’s Sputnik V. By order of President Hassan Rouhani, front-line healthcare workers are the first to receive the vaccine on Tuesday.

2. Extraordinary Patient Offers Surprising Clues To Origins Of Coronavirus Variants

3. Comprehensive Mapping of Mutations in the SARS-CoV-2 Receptor-binding Domain That Affect Recognition by Polyclonal Human Plasma Antibodies (Cell) The evolution of SARS-CoV-2 could impair recognition of the virus by human antibody-mediated immunity. To facilitate prospective surveillance for such evolution, we map how convalescent plasma antibodies are impacted by all mutations to the spike’s receptor-binding domain (RBD), the main target of plasma neutralizing activity. Binding by polyclonal plasma antibodies is affected by mutations in three main epitopes [: a molecular region on the surface of an antigen capable of eliciting an immune response and of combining with the specific antibody produced by such a response; an antigenic determinant] in the RBD, but longitudinal samples reveal the impact of these mutations on antibody binding varies substantially both among individuals and within the same individual over time.

(J. Harris: This is a good article. I could understand the summary and the introduction. This type of work in encouraging; we can handle the mutants.

4. Variant-proof Vaccines — Invest Now for the Next Pandemic (Nature) The rapid development and delivery of highly effective COVID-19 vaccines less than a year after the emergence of the disease is a huge success story. This was possible, in part, because of certain properties of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 that favour vaccine design — in particular, the spike protein on the virus’s surface. This prompts the body to make protective neutralizing antibodies (proteins that bind to viruses and prevent them from infecting human cells). These are most likely to be responsible for the efficacy of current COVID-19 vaccines.

Time between slipping on a peel and smacking the pavement: 1

bananosecond

Weight an evangelist carries with God: 1 billigram

Time it takes to sail 220 yards at 1 nautical mile per hour:

Knot-furlong