“You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you did not know.”
— William Wilberforce
Story Highlights Rapid decline of neutralizing antibodies following COVID-19 infection in some people have led to concerns that immunity to the SARS-CoV-2 virus Is temporary. However, several recent studies have shown a presence of virus-specific T-cells that remain, including among patients with mild or asymptomatic infections. Long-lasting immunity after recovery from COVID-19 infection may be […]
A team of South Korean infectious disease researchers has concluded there is no evidence that people can be reinfected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The researchers, led by Oh Myoung-don, MD, head of Seoul National University Hospital’s division of infectious diseases, believe that reports of patients who have recovered from COVID-19 and subsequently tested positive again […]
Story Highlights An international group of geneticists has compared DNA of patients hospitalized for severe COVID-19 infection with that of healthy volunteers and found six gene clusters that may provide insight into the wide range of responses to the virus. Results showed that patients with Type A blood appeared to have a greater susceptibility for […]
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) acknowledged last week that it had lumped genetic tests that identify people with current COVID-19 infections together with serology (blood) antibody tests that measure whether someone has had the viral infection in the past.1 Combining the tally of the two tests overstates the country’s ability to […]
In a new document providing guidance for public health officials on COVID-19, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates the infection fatality rate (IFR) for the disease at 0.4 percent, or about half the nearly one percent fatality rate the CDC estimated in March 2020 when it was predicting up to 1.7 […]
Story Highlights Seven different coronaviruses have been shown to cause disease in human beings, including common ones that tend to cause transient respiratory infections often referred to as the “common cold,” and others that cause more serious illnesses such as SERS, MERS and the current COVID-19. The virus that causes COVID-19 has been believed to […]
The University of Southern California (USC) and the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health released preliminary results on Apr. 20, 2020 from a collaborative study that suggests infections from the coronavirus in Los Angeles County are more widespread, and the fatality rate much lower, than previously assumed. Based on antibody testing results from 863 […]
A new study by researchers associated with Stanford University Medical School has concluded, based on a sample of Santa Clara County, California residents, that the number of people infected with SARS-CoV-2, is 50-to 80-fold more than the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases.1 The researchers tested a sample of 3,330 residents of the county on Apr. […]
After officials at the World Health Organization (WHO) declared on Mar. 11, 2020 that outbreaks of a mutated coronavirus (COVID-19)1 2 had become a global pandemic and urged countries to take strong action to stop its spread,3 4 the governments of countries representing one-third of the world’s population5 closed borders, restricted or halted travel between […]
Story Highlights A soldier was vaccinated for smallpox and developed a local and systemic vaccine virus smallpox infection after tattooing over his injection site. Despite global eradication of wild-type smallpox, fears over its potential use as a biological weapon have prompted vaccination of military personnel and first responders. Similar processes for administration of the smallpox […]