Cornelius Roemer. (2021, December 22). @mccarthy_kr I took a look at all these NY sequences. I don’t think these point mutations S:681H are real. Why? Because they appear all over the Omicron diversity. Some sequences have S:346K, some S:701V, most miss S679K, a few have it. That’s the signature of contamination/co-infection. Https://t.co/DcJD4q44EM [Tweet]. @CorneliusRoemer. https://twitter.com/CorneliusRoemer/status/1473507369455923203

Best for Britain. (2022, January 1). Your 2022 reminder that Arnold Schwarzenegger is an absolute gem https://t.co/HmE81i7V0h [Tweet]. @BestForBritain. https://twitter.com/BestForBritain/status/1477209735841689606

Virology Down Under. (n.d.). Virology Down Under. Retrieved 3 January 2022, from https://virologydownunder.com/

Couzin-Frankel, J. (2021). Antiviral pills could change pandemic’s course. Science, 374(6569), 799–800. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.acx9605

Waltz, E. (2021). COVID vaccine makers brace for a variant worse than Delta. Nature, d41586-021-02854–3. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02854-3

As a virologist I’m shocked my work has been hijacked by anti-vaxxers | David LV Bauer | The Guardian. (n.d.). Retrieved September 8, 2021, from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/07/virologist-work-anti-vaxxers-covid

While the op-ed portion comes into play at the very bottom, there is some solid information, history, and questions here about the potential origins of Covid-19.

Gupta, Prateek, Tegan Maharaj, Martin Weiss, Nasim Rahaman, Hannah Alsdurf, Abhinav Sharma, Nanor Minoyan, et al. ‘COVI-AgentSim: An Agent-Based Model for Evaluating Methods of Digital Contact Tracing’. ArXiv:2010.16004 [Cs], 29 October 2020. http://arxiv.org/abs/2010.16004.

Mandavilli, A. (2021, January 28). Some Covid Survivors Have Antibodies That Attack the Body, not Virus. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/27/health/covid-antibodies-autoimmunity.html

Nature Editorial. (2020, October 23). The race to make COVID antibody therapies cheaper and more potent. Nature. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02965-3?utm_source=twt_nnc&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=naturenews&sf239165668=1&error=cookies_not_supported&code=2b2dd7c6-d01f-4057-8389-3be656a7ba58

Bredow, R., & Hackenbroch, V. (2021, January 22). Interview with Virologist Christian Drosten “I Am Quite Apprehensive about What Might Otherwise Happen in Spring and Summer.” Der Spiegel, Hamburg, Germany. https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/interview-with-virologist-christian-drosten-i-am-quite-apprehensive-about-what-might-otherwise-happen-in-spring-and-summer-a-f22c0495-5257-426e-bddc-c6082d6434d5

Press, A. A. (2020, October 12). Virus that causes Covid-19 can survive up to 28 days on surfaces, scientists find. The Guardian. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/12/virus-that-causes-covid-19-can-survive-up-to-28-days-on-surfaces-scientists-find

Chin, A. W. H., Chu, J. T. S., Perera, M. R. A., Hui, K. P. Y., Yen, H.-L., Chan, M. C. W., Peiris, M., & Poon, L. L. M. (2020). Stability of SARS-CoV-2 in different environmental conditions. The Lancet Microbe, 1(1), e10. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2666-5247(20)30003-3

Take away: The COVID-19 virus (SARS-CoV2) did not exist in 2012, however a related virus was isolated from bats in 2013.

The claim: The same virus that is causing the COVID-19 pandemic existed in miners in 2012.

The evidence:RaTG13, a virus that was isolated from bats by the Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2013 is the closest known relative to SARS-CoV2, the virus that causes COVID-19 (Ge 2016, Zhou 2020). This bat virus is not the same virus as SARS-CoV2, but is closely related (96% identical DNA). The virus was isolated from bats, not humans. However, it was isolated from a cave near where workers the previous year became sick and some died, and may be linked to the illnesses. The SARS-CoV2 virus shows a number of key adaptations that likely makes it much more infectious in humans than the related bat virus (Wrobel, 2020).

Source:

Ge XY, Wang N, Zhang W, Hu B, Li B, Zhang YZ, Zhou JH, Luo CM, Yang XL, Wu LJ, Wang B. Coexistence of multiple coronaviruses in several bat colonies in an abandoned mineshaft. Virologica Sinica. 2016 Feb 1;31(1):31-40.

Zhou P, Yang XL, Wang XG, Hu B, Zhang L, Zhang W, Si HR, Zhu Y, Li B, Huang CL, Chen HD. A pneumonia outbreak associated with a new coronavirus of probable bat origin. nature. 2020 Mar;579(7798):270-3.

Wrobel AG, Benton DJ, Xu P, Roustan C, Martin SR, Rosenthal PB, Skehel JJ, Gamblin SJ. SARS-CoV-2 and bat RaTG13 spike glycoprotein structures inform on virus evolution and furin-cleavage effects. Nature Structural & Molecular Biology. 2020 Aug;27(8):763-7.

Take away: In their 2019 report the WHO actually recommended for, not against, the use of masks in severe influenza epidemics or pandemics, contrasting the statement made in this tweet. Further, recent evidence overwhelmingly supports the benefit of masks for preventing the spread of SARS-CoV2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

The claim: Overall the claim here appears to be that masks are ineffective against the spread of SARS-CoV2, the virus that causes the clinical syndrome known as COVID-19. The evidence used in support of this claim is that “the WHO found ‘moderate’ evidence AGAINST using masks” in their 2019 report on the use of non-pharmaceutical interventions for mitigating influenza pandemics.

The evidence: This overall claim is poorly supported by data and the evidence used to support this claim is incorrectly characterized by the claimant. Narrowly, the claim that the WHO recommended against mask use is patently false. In their report, the WHO reviewed 10 separate studies and did conclude that there was scant evidence that masks significantly decreased spread of the flu. However, they found no evidence that masks increased spread, and based on mechanistic plausibility (i.e. masks are barriers that prevent droplets from passing between people) and the low risk/high reward, they made a conditional recommendation for mask use in severe influenza epidemics or pandemics.

While influenza does not behave exactly like the SARS-CoV2 virus, the similarities in mode of transmission make it reasonably likely that masks would also have protective effects against the spread of this virus is well. The best evidence is hard data, and that too increasingly points to the benefit of masks for slowing down or preventing the transmission of SARS-CoV2. A recent summary of that data is available here.

Clausen, T. M., Sandoval, D. R., Spliid, C. B., Pihl, J., Painter, C. D., Thacker, B. E., Glass, C. A., Narayanan, A., Majowicz, S. A., Zhang, Y., Torres, J. L., Golden, G. J., Porell, R., Garretson, A. F., Laubach, L., Feldman, J., Yin, X., Pu, Y., Hauser, B., … Esko, J. D. (2020). SARS-CoV-2 Infection Depends on Cellular Heparan Sulfate and ACE2. BioRxiv, 2020.07.14.201616. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.07.14.201616

Vivanti, A. J., Vauloup-Fellous, C., Prevot, S., Zupan, V., Suffee, C., Do Cao, J., Benachi, A., & De Luca, D. (2020). Transplacental transmission of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Nature Communications, 11(1), 3572. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-17436-6

Wang, C., Li, W., Drabek, D. et al. A human monoclonal antibody blocking SARS-CoV-2 infection. Nat Commun 11, 2251 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-16256-y

Wölfel, R., Corman, V.M., Guggemos, W. et al. Virological assessment of hospitalized patients with COVID-2019. Nature (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2196-x

unidad_COVID2019

PMID: 31987001

DOI: 10.1080/22221751.2020.1719902

unidad_COVID2019

PMID: 31978945

DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa2001017

unidad_COVID2019

PMID: 31991541

DOI: 10.3390/v12020135

unidad_COVID2019

unidad_COVID2019

unidad_COVID2019

unidad_COVID2019

unidad_COVID2019

unidad_COVID2019

unidad_COVID2019

unidad_COVID2019

unidad_COVID2019

unidad_COVID2019

unidad_COVID2019

unidad_COVID2019

unidad_COVID2019

unidad_COVID2019

unidad_COVID2019

unidad_COVID2019

unidad_COVID2019

unidad_COVID2019