A study coming out in the British medical journal "Lancet" shows REMDESIVIR to be of little or no value in preventing death in hospitalized patients.
The study followed 857 patients.
On less tool that the Unvaccinated have at their disposal..........GET VACCINATED!
A study coming out in the British medical journal "Lancet" shows REMDESIVIR to be of little or no value in preventing death in hospitalized patients.
The study followed 857 patients.
On less tool that the Unvaccinated have at their disposal..........GET VACCINATED!
In my patent law experience, everything from Gilead is suspect.
In my experience, once the "cytokine storm" hits a patient, there is very little clinicians can do to reverse things. You are at Nature's and biology's mercy. That would be considered stage 4 or so of Covid progression.
Majority of infection in vaccinated people never gets passed stage 1.
Since this won't make it on FOX News, figured it belonged here. I had read about this group's work a few months ago..
[HEADING=2]Newly Discovered Bat Viruses Give Hints to Covid’s Origins[/HEADING]
Coronaviruses discovered in Laotian bats are surprisingly adept at infecting human cells, showing that such deadly features can indeed evolve outside of a lab.
Newly Discovered Bat Viruses Give Hints to Covid’s Origins
[IMG alt="A least horseshoe bat, Rhinolophus pusillus, one of three species of horseshoe bat observed in the study."]
A least horseshoe bat, Rhinolophus pusillus, one of three species of horseshoe bat observed in the study. Credit...Kevin K. Caldwell
By [Carl Zimmer]('https://www.nytimes.com/by/carl-zimmer')
Oct. 14, 2021Updated 12:34 p.m. ET
In the summer of 2020, half a year into the coronavirus pandemic, scientists traveled into the forests of northern Laos to catch bats that might harbor close cousins of the pathogen.
In the dead of night, they used mist nets and canvas traps to snag the animals as they emerged from nearby caves, gathered samples of saliva, urine and feces, then released them back into the darkness.
The fecal samples turned out to contain coronaviruses, which the scientists studied in high security biosafety labs, known as BSL-3, using specialized protective gear and air filters.
Three of the Laos coronaviruses were unusual: They carried a molecular hook on their surface that was very similar to the hook on the virus that causes Covid-19, called SARS-CoV-2. Like SARS-CoV-2, their hook allowed them to latch onto human cells.
“It is even better than early strains of SARS-CoV-2,” said Marc Eloit, a virologist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris who led the study, referring to how well the hook on the Laos coronaviruses binds to human cells. The study was [posted]('https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-871965/v1') online last month and has not yet been published in a scientific journal.
Virus experts are buzzing about the discovery. Some suspect that these SARS-CoV-2-like viruses may already be infecting people from time to time, causing only mild and limited outbreaks. But under the right circumstances, the pathogens could give rise to a Covid-19-like pandemic, they say.
The findings also have significant implications for the [charged debate]('https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/13/science/who-coronavirus-origins.html') over Covid’s origins, experts say. Some people have speculated that SARS-CoV-2’s impressive ability to infect human cells could not have evolved through a natural spillover from an animal. But the new findings seem to suggest otherwise.
“That really puts to bed any notion that this virus had to have been concocted, or somehow manipulated in a lab, to be so good at infecting humans,” said Michael Worobey, a University of Arizona virologist who was not involved in the work.
These bat viruses, along with more than a dozen others discovered in recent months in Laos, Cambodia, China and Thailand, may also help researchers better anticipate future pandemics. The viruses’ family trees offer hints about where potentially dangerous strains are lurking, and which animals scientists should look at to find them.
[HEADING=1]Sampling Wild Viruses[/HEADING]
Three bats captured in northern Laos carried viruses that were remarkably similar to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. Samples from wild animals, below, may help researchers anticipate future pandemics.
Last week, the U.S. government announced a $125 million [project]('https://news.wsu.edu/press-release/2021/10/05/wsu-to-lead-125-million-usaid-project-to-detect-emerging-viruses/') to identify thousands of wild viruses in Asia, Latin America and Africa to determine their risk of spillover. Dr. Eloit predicted that there were many more relatives of SARS-CoV-2 left to find.
“I am a fly fisherman,” he said. “When I am unable to catch a trout, that doesn’t mean there are no trout in the river.”
When SARS-CoV-2 first came to light, its closest known relative was a bat coronavirus that Chinese researchers found in 2016 in a mine in southern China’s Yunnan Province. RaTG13, as it is known, shares 96 percent of its genome with SARS-CoV-2. Based on the mutations carried by each virus, scientists have estimated that RaTG13 and SARS-CoV-2 share a common ancestor that infected bats [about 40 years ago]('https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-020-0771-4').
Both viruses infect cells by using a molecular hook, called the “receptor-binding domain,” to latch on to their surface. RaTG13’s hook, adapted for attaching to bat cells, can only [cling weakly]('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8142884/') to human cells. SARS-CoV-2’s hook, by contrast, can clasp cells in the human airway, the first step toward a potentially lethal case of Covid-19.
To find other close relatives of SARS-CoV-2, wildlife virus experts checked their freezers full of old samples from across the world. They identified several similar coronaviruses from [southern China]('https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2021.06.008'), [Cambodia]('https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.01.26.428212'), and [Thailand]('https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-21240-1'). Most came from bats, while a few came from scaly mammals known as pangolins. None was a closer relative than RaTG13.
Dr. Eloit and his colleagues instead set out to find new coronaviruses.
They traveled to northern Laos, about 150 miles from the mine where Chinese researchers had found RaTG13. Over six months they caught 645 bats, belonging to 45 different species. The bats harbored two dozen kinds of coronaviruses, three of which were strikingly similar to SARS-CoV-2 — especially in the receptor-binding domain.
Dr. Eloit speculated that one or more of the coronaviruses might be able to infect humans and cause mild disease. In a separate [study]('https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanwpc/article/PIIS2666-6065(21)00106-1/fulltext'), he and colleagues took blood samples from people in Laos who collect bat guano for a living. Although the Laotians did not show signs of having been infected with SARS-CoV-2, they carried immune markers, called antibodies, that appeared to be caused by a similar virus.
Linfa Wang, a molecular virologist at the Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore who was not involved in the study, agreed that such an infection was possible, since the newly discovered viruses can attach tightly to a protein on human cells called ACE2.
“If the receptor binding domain is ready to use ACE2, these guys are dangerous,” Dr. Wang said.
Paradoxically, some other genes in the three Laotian viruses are more distantly related to SARS-CoV-2 than other bat viruses. The cause of this genetic patchwork is the complex evolution of coronaviruses.
If a bat infected with one coronavirus catches a second one, the two different viruses may end up in a single cell at once. As that cell begins to replicate each of those viruses, their genes get shuffled together, producing new virus hybrids.
In the Laotian coronaviruses, this gene shuffling has given them a receptor-binding domain that’s very similar to that of SARS-CoV-2. The original genetic swap took place about a decade ago, according to a preliminary analysis by Spyros Lytras, a graduate student at the University of Glasgow in Scotland.
Mr. Lytras and his colleagues are now comparing SARS-CoV-2 not just to the new viruses from Laos, but to other close relatives that have been found in recent months. They’re finding even more evidence of gene shuffling. This process — known as recombination — may be reshaping the viruses from year to year.
“It’s becoming more and more obvious how important recombination is,” Mr. Lytras said.
He and his colleagues are now drawing the messy evolutionary trees of SARS-CoV-2-like viruses based on these new insights. Finding more viruses could help clear up the picture. But scientists are divided as to where to look for them.
Dr. Eloit believes the best bet is a zone of Southeast Asia that includes the site where his colleagues found their coronaviruses, as well as the nearby mine in Yunnan where RaTG13 was found.
“I think the main landscape corresponds to north Vietnam, north Laos and south China,” Dr. Eloit said.
The U.S. government’s new virus-hunting project, called DEEP VZN, may turn up one or more SARS-CoV-2-like viruses in that region. A spokesman for USAID, the agency funding the effort, named Vietnam as one of the countries where researchers will be searching, and said that new coronaviruses are one of their top priorities.
Other scientists think it’s worth looking for relatives of SARS-CoV-2 further afield. Dr. Worobey of the University of Arizona said that some bat coronaviruses carrying SARS-CoV-2-like segments have been found in eastern China and Thailand.
“Clearly the recombination is showing us that these viruses are part of a single gene pool over hundreds and hundreds of miles, if not thousands of miles,” Dr. Worobey said.
Colin Carlson, a biologist at Georgetown University, suspects that a virus capable of producing a Covid-like outbreak might be lurking even further away. Bats as far east as Indonesia and as far west as India, he noted, share many biological features with the animals known to carry SARS-CoV-2-like viruses.
“This is not just a Southeast Asia problem,” Dr. Carlson said. “These viruses are diverse, and they are more cosmopolitan than we have thought.”
The interest in the origins of the pandemic has put renewed attention on the safety measures researchers are using when studying potentially dangerous viruses. To win DEEP VZN grants, scientists will have to provide a biosafety and biosecurity plan, according to a USAID spokesman, including training for staff, guidelines on protective equipment to be worn in the field and safety measures for lab work.
If scientists find more close cousins of SARS-CoV-2, it doesn’t necessarily mean they pose a deadly threat. They might fail to spread in humans or, as some scientists speculate, cause only small outbreaks. Just seven coronaviruses are known to have jumped the species barrier to become well-established human pathogens.
“There’s probably a vast range of other coronaviruses that end up going nowhere,” said Jessica Metcalf, an evolutionary ecologist at Princeton University.
Still, recombination may be able to turn a virus going nowhere into a new threat. In May, researchers [reported]('https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciab456/6278597') that two coronaviruses in dogs recombined in Indonesia. The result was a hybrid that infected eight children.
“When a coronavirus that we have monitored for decades, that we think of as just something our pets can get, can make the jump — we should have seen that coming, right?” Dr. Carlson said.
When you add in the population density of most larger cities around the globe, you can see with some certainty that ANY virus or bacterium can easily spread. Cruise ships are a microcosm of this effect.
When you add in the population density of most larger cities around the globe, you can see with some certainty that ANY virus or bacterium can easily spread. Cruise ships are a microcosm of this effect.
which is why our Viking cruise, and many others, are mandating vaccinations or don't bother to come.
FDA has approved boosters for Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
They also stated that the boosters are interchangeable.
Wife got Pfizer booster shot weeks ago Its cool they mixin shit up now any clue when they will get one spot on?
FDA has approved boosters for Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
They also stated that the boosters are interchangeable.
Wife got Pfizer booster shot weeks ago Its cool they mixin shit up now any clue when they will get one spot on?
An FDA Advisory Committee approved booster shots for all three, Pfizer, Moderna and J&J. To date, only the Pfizer booster has been OK'd by FDA and CDC, so it's available. It's believed within the next week or two both Moderna and J&J boosters will be approved and available.
There has been NO approval for interchangeable boosters by any group at FDA or CDC. They have been looking at the data, but there has been no action on this yet.
Not that this is a scientific study, but all my friends who have had the 3 jab Pfizer regime have said the booster knocked the crap out of them, some saying worse than either of the 1st 2 injections. Hopefully I'll be able to report back on the Moderna booster in the next week or two, as soon as it gets an approval...
"Mix and match" is pretty much a done deal
From an immunological standpoint, I still don't feel a booster is necessary. Just my $0.02.
Not that this is a scientific study, but all my friends who have had the 3 jab Pfizer regime have said the booster knocked the crap out of them, some saying worse than either of the 1st 2 injections. Hopefully I'll be able to report back on the Moderna booster in the next week or two, as soon as it gets an approval...
going for my booster (Pfizer) on Thursday this coming week....
Hope it's not worse then the second shot. That one kicked my arse.
[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.yahoo.com/news/gov-northam-leader-virginia-fight-131900384.html[/URL]
In the latest issue of Science, there was a discussion on the use of the booster shot.
Apparently there is some disagreement on the usage of the booster. CDCs Advisory committee on immunization practices had recommended boosters "only for people 65 and older,those at high risk of serious disease because of underlying medical conditions, and residents of long-term care facilities."
They voted 9-6 However they rejected boosters for "high-risk, front line workers" stating "data were LACKING to support a benefit in such workers" CDC director Walensky included the workers to have what she called "the greatest impact". her decision is also in line with the FDA.
So, were told to "follow the science" with all these decisions so why hasnt the CDC followed the science?
In the latest issue of Science, there was a discussion on the use of the booster shot.
Apparently there is some disagreement on the usage of the booster. CDCs Advisory committee on immunization practices had recommended boosters "only for people 65 and older,those at high risk of serious disease because of underlying medical conditions, and residents of long-term care facilities."
They voted 9-6 However they rejected boosters for "high-risk, front line workers" stating "data were LACKING to support a benefit in such workers" CDC director Walensky included the workers to have what she called "the greatest impact". her decision is also in line with the FDA.
So, were told to "follow the science" with all these decisions so why hasnt the CDC followed the science?
..
Good question that highlights the "kinetics" of all the different advisory panels at CDC and FDA. They are "advisory" and their recommendations can be taken verbatim, totally ignored or modified by those on high. Can't tell you how many times I've come out of an FDA Advisory Committee meeting thinking one thing was going to to happen based on the meeting, only to find out it was overruled or significantly altered.
Look at the FDA approval of Aducanumab for Alzheimer's even though their Advisory Panel recommended it wasn't approved. IIRC more than one Panel members resigned in protest after the approval.
Hey now that I think about it, NOAA, NMFS and ASMFC do the same thing. Advisory Panels say one thing, but they end up doing the opposite!!
Speaks volumes that WHO will risk potential patent infringement charges to get adequate COVID vaccine for poorer countries, especially for something that addresses a "hoax", "isn't a vaccine" and contains "tracking devices".
Guess I was wrong, but I thought part of the Operation Warp Speed funding was the agreement to share some of the IP if the manufacturers couldn't supply poorer countries with adequate vaccine supplies...
[HEADING=2]Africa tries to end vaccine inequity by replicating its own[/HEADING]
[pressherald.com/2021/10/24/africa-tries-to-end-vaccine-inequity-by-replicating-its-own/]('https://www.pressherald.com/2021/10/24/africa-tries-to-end-vaccine-inequity-by-replicating-its-own/')
LORI HINNANT, MARIA CHENG and ANDREW MELDRUM October 24, 2021
[IMG alt="Scientists re-enact the calibration procedure of equipment at an Afrigen Biologics and Vaccines facility Oct. 19 in Cape Town, South Africa. In a pair of warehouses converted into a maze of airlocked sterile rooms, young scientists are assembling and calibrating the equipment needed to reverse engineer a coronavirus vaccine that has yet to reach South Africa and most of the world's poor."]https://multifiles.pressherald.com/uploads/sites/4/2021/10/Virus_Outbreak_78403-1635107849.jpg[/IMG]
CAPE TOWN, South Africa — In a pair of Cape Town warehouses converted into a maze of airlocked sterile rooms, young scientists are assembling and calibrating the equipment needed to reverse engineer a coronavirus vaccine that has yet to reach South Africa and most of the world’s poorest people.
The energy in the gleaming labs matches the urgency of their mission to narrow vaccine disparities. By working to replicate Moderna’s COVID-19 shot, the scientists are effectively making an end run around an industry that has vastly prioritized rich countries over poor in both sales and manufacturing.
And they are doing it with unusual backing from the World Health Organization, which is coordinating a vaccine research, training and production hub in South Africa along with a related supply chain for critical raw materials. It’s a last-resort effort to make doses for people going without, and the intellectual property implications are still murky.
“We are doing this for Africa at this moment, and that drives us,” said Emile Hendricks, a 22-year-old biotechnologist for Afrigen Biologics and Vaccines, the company trying to reproduce the Moderna shot. “We can no longer rely on these big superpowers to come in and save us.”
Some experts see reverse engineering – recreating vaccines from fragments of publicly available information – as one of the few remaining ways to redress the power imbalances of the pandemic. Only 0.7 percent of vaccines have gone to low-income countries so far, while nearly half have gone to wealthy countries, according to an analysis by the People’s Vaccine Alliance.
That WHO, which relies upon the goodwill of wealthy countries and the pharmaceutical industry for its continued existence, is leading the attempt to reproduce a proprietary vaccine demonstrates the depths of the supply disparities.
The U.N.-backed effort to even out global vaccine distribution, known as COVAX, has failed to alleviate dire shortages in poor countries. Donated doses are coming in at a fraction of what is needed to fill the gap. Meanwhile, pressure for drug companies to share, including Biden administration demands on Moderna, has led nowhere.
Until now, WHO has never directly taken part in replicating a novel vaccine for current global use over the objections of the original developers. The Cape Town hub is intended to expand access to the novel messenger RNA technology that Moderna, as well as Pfizer and German partner BioNTech, used in their vaccines.
“This is the first time we’re doing it to this level, because of the urgency and also because of the novelty of this technology,” said Martin Friede, a WHO vaccine research coordinator who is helping direct the hub.
Dr. Tom Frieden, the former head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has described the world as “being held hostage” by Moderna and Pfizer, whose vaccines are considered the most effective against COVID-19. The novel mRNA process uses the genetic code for the spike protein of the coronavirus and is thought to trigger a better immune response than traditional vaccines.
Arguing that American taxpayers largely funded Moderna’s vaccine development, the Biden administration has insisted the company must expand production to help supply developing nations. The global shortfall through 2022 is estimated at 500 million and 4 billion doses, depending on how many other vaccines come on the market.
“The United States government has played a very substantial role in making Moderna the company it is,” said David Kessler, the head of Operation Warp Speed, the U.S. program to accelerate COVID-19 vaccine development.
Kessler would not say how far the administration would go in pressing the company. “They understand what we expect to happen,” he said.
Moderna has pledged to build a vaccine factory in Africa at some point in the future. But after pleading with drugmakers to share their recipes, raw materials and technological know-how, some poorer countries are done waiting.
Afrigen Managing Director Petro Terblanche said the Cape Town company is aiming to have a version of the Moderna vaccine ready for testing in people within a year and scaled up for commercial production not long after.
“We have a lot of competition coming from Big Pharma. They don’t want to see us succeed,” Terblanche said. “They are already starting to say that we don’t have the capability to do this. We are going to show them.”
If the team in South Africa succeeds in making a version of Moderna’s vaccine, the information will be publicly released for use by others, Terblanche said. Such sharing is closer to an approach U.S. President Joe Biden championed in the spring and the pharmaceutical industry strongly opposes.
Commercial production is the point at which intellectual property could become an issue. Moderna has said it would not pursue legal action against a company for infringing on its vaccine rights, but neither has it offered to help companies that have volunteered to make its mRNA shot.
Chairman Noubar Afeyan said Moderna determined it would be better to expand production itself than to share technology and plans to deliver billions of additional doses next year.
“Within the next six to nine months, the most reliable way to make high-quality vaccines and in an efficient way is going to be if we make them,” Afeyan said.
Zoltan Kis, an expert in messenger RNA vaccines at Britain’s University of Sheffield, said reproducing Moderna’s vaccine is “doable” but the task would be far easier if the company shared its expertise. Kis estimated the process involves fewer than a dozen major steps. But certain procedures are tricky, such as sealing the fragile messenger RNA in lipid nanoparticles, he said.
“It’s like a very complicated cooking recipe,” he said. “Having the recipe would be very, very helpful, and it would also help if someone could show you how to do it.”
A U.N.-backed public health organization still hopes to persuade Moderna that its approach to providing vaccines for poorer countries misses the mark. Formed in 2010, the Medicines Patent Pool initially focused on convincing pharmaceutical companies to share patents for AIDS drugs.
“It’s not about outsiders helping Africa,” Executive Director Charles Gore said of the South Africa vaccine hub. “Africa wants to be empowered, and that’s what this is about.”
It will eventually fall to Gore to try to resolve the intellectual property question. Work to recreate Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine is protected as research, so a potential dispute would surround steps to sell a replicated version commercially, he said.
“It’s about persuading Moderna to work with us rather than using other methods,” Gore said.
He said the Medicines Patent Pool repeatedly tried but failed to convince Pfizer and BioNTech to even discuss sharing their formulas.
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, who is among the members of Congress backing a bill that calls on the United States to invest more in making and distributing COVID-19 vaccines in low- and middle-income countries, said reverse engineering isn’t going to happen fast enough to keep the virus from mutating and spreading further.
“We need to show some hustle. We have to show a sense of urgency, and I’m not seeing that urgency,” he said. “Either we end this pandemic or we muddle our way through.”
Campaigners argue the meager amount of vaccines available to poorer countries through donations, COVAX and purchases suggests the Western-dominated pharmaceutical industry is broken.
“The enemy to these corporations is losing their potential profit down the line,” Joia Mukherjee, chief medical officer of the global health nonprofit Partners in Health, said. “The enemy isn’t the virus, the enemy isn’t suffering.”
Back in Cape Town, the promise of using mRNA technology against other diseases motivates the young scientists.
“The excitement is around learning how we harness mRNA technology to develop a COVID-19 vaccine,” Caryn Fenner, Afrigen’s technical director, said. But more important, Fenner said, “is not only using the mRNA platform for COVID, but for beyond COVID.”
Cheng reported from London; Hinnant reported from Paris.
This all seems to be for show as these countries don't have the technology and support to pull this off.
This pandemic has shown the glaring disparities that exists in the world. We're fortunate to live where we live!
The amount of vaccine that ended up in the garbage here could have vaccinated a small country.
This all seems to be for show as these countries don't have the technology and support to pull this off.
This pandemic has shown the glaring disparities that exists in the world. We're fortunate to live where we live!
The amount of vaccine that ended up in the garbage here could have vaccinated a small country.
South Africa does have the tech & support; I've dealt with Biotechs there. Big question is can they unlock the "magic" of scale up.
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