The Coronavirus Thread

[JimC]

Bron's sister has covid - miserable, but not bad enough for hospital...

Melbourne is currently in the grip of a Legionnaire's disease outbreak, most probably from a contaminated cooling tower. 2 dead and nearly a hundred infected, many in hospital. The health department is frantically testing and sterilising cooling systems on commercial buildings. Surely there should have been a planned program of testing and sterilisation... The current Labour government is showing increasingly incompetent, sadly. Probably a Liberal win in the next state elections...

[macdoc]

Yeah neither partner nor I have had it that I know of tho I have my suspicions that I had an unrecorded round recovering from my mcycle accident. I have a blood test coming up that will determine if I have covid anti-bodies which will tell me one way or the t'other. My persistent dry cough and changes in taste plus intermittent weakness have my suspicions aroused over long covid.

Almost did a test today for a current infection since I was feeling so miserable last night, scratchy throat, nasty cough and sneezing...the only possible contact was at Bowls Club but feel much better so will skip for now.
It's not anywhere near the fatal risk the original bug was but stupid infectious now and endemic in society. Rather avoid it if possible.

[macdoc]

ouch

Long COVID has cost the Australian economy billions in lost work hours, new research says

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-08-19/ ... /104234434

[Strontium Dog]

Given he's a right wing kook, I can't tell if he's talking about the vaccine or COVID.

Given you're as dumb as a box of rocks, it's no wonder you've forgotten that I've had three covid jabs.

[Brian Peacock]

Covid lockdowns prematurely aged girls’ brains more than boys’, study finds


MRI scans found girls’ brains appeared 4.2 years older than expected after lockdowns, compared with 1.4 years for boys.

[Strontium Dog]

The consequences of shutting down the education of children, a cohort at negligible risk from coronavirus, will prove to be the most damaging long-term effect of the entire pandemic.

[NineBerry]

The Spanish have three months of summer vacation for children every year.

[pErvinalia]

The consequences of shutting down the education of children, a cohort at negligible risk from coronavirus, will prove to be the most damaging long-term effect of the entire pandemic.

Protecting lives (the elderly who would have been exposed to the virus through their kids/grandkids) isn't always a simple calculus. Although, I guess it appears simple to those of a simple nature.

[Brian Peacock]

Covid on the rise as experts say England has ‘capitulated’ to the virus

Covid is on the rise in England, and experts have warned that more must be done to prevent and control infections after a “capitulation to the virus”.

Prof Danny Altmann, an immunologist at Imperial College London, said those working in the field were perplexed by the current attitude to the battle against Covid, as the latest figures showed an increase in hospital admissions.

The latest data for England from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) showed that hospital admissions increased to 3.71 per 100,000 population for the week between 16 and 22 September 2024, compared with 2.56 per 100,000 the previous week.

The percentage of people with symptoms who have tested positive for Covid, based on tests at sentinel “spotter” laboratories, has also risen in the last week to 11.8% compared with 9.1% in the previous week.

Altmann described the prevailing stance on the virus as a “capitulation”. “To those who work in this field, the current attitude of acceptance to losing this war of attrition against Covid is puzzling and a little desperate,” he said....

[aufbahrung]

Only kills the old and health stragglers. Compassion fatigue. Happens in every war.

[Brian Peacock]

Wisconsin reports presumptive avian flu in poultry worker as California declares emergency

[Tero]

Covid vaccines were all tested with placebo. The vaccine protected in those trials. Yearly boosters of flu and covid vaccines did not require a placebo. Now they do, causing delay.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/30/health/h ... index.html

[L'Emmerdeur]

This could prove important if verified and developed. I wonder if Kennedy will allow it to be used in the US? It looks as if the study used something similar to 'gain of function' testing, which we all know is horrible and should be forbidden.

'Scientists discover llama antibodies that shut down COVID — and its future variants'

Scientists have discovered a unique class of small antibodies that are strongly protective against a wide range of SARS coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-1 and numerous early and recent SARS-CoV-2 variants. The unique antibodies target an essential highly conserved site at the base of the virus's spike protein, effectively clamping it shut and preventing the virus from infecting cells. The findings, published in Nature Communications, offer a promising route to developing broad-spectrum antiviral treatments that could remain effective against future viral variants.

SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind COVID-19, continues to be a potential threat as it evolves into newer variants that are resistant to currently approved antibody therapies. Resistance largely emerges because antibodies typically target virus regions, such as the receptor binding domain of the spike protein, that also frequently mutate, enabling escape from antibody recognition.

To address this, a research team led by Prof. Xavier Saelens and Dr. Bert Schepens at the VIB-UGent Center for Medical Biotechnology explored a different strategy by focusing on one of the more stable subunits of the spike protein. The so-called S2 subunit is critical for the virus's ability to fuse with host cells, a process essential for infection, and it is more conserved across different coronaviruses.

The team turned to llamas (more specifically a llama called Winter). Llamas generate so-called single-domain antibodies, also known as VHHs or nanobodies, that are much smaller than the antibodies generated by most animals, including humans. The researchers identified several llama antibodies that strongly neutralize a broad panel of SARS coronaviruses.

What makes these antibodies particularly promising is their unique mode of action: they act like a molecular clamp. They latch onto the poorly exposed, highly conserved region (a coiled coil of 3 alpha helices) at the base of the virus's spike protein. In doing so, they lock the spike protein in its original shape, physically preventing it from unfolding into the form the virus needs to infect cells.

The antibodies showed strong protection against infection in lab animals, even at low doses. And when researchers attempted to force the virus to evolve resistance, the virus struggled, producing only rare escape variants that were much less infectious. This points to a powerful, hard-to-evade treatment option.

The paper is open access:

'Ultrapotent SARS coronavirus-neutralizing single-domain antibodies that clamp the spike at its base'

Abstract:

Therapeutic monoclonal antibodies can prevent severe disease in SARS-CoV-2 exposed individuals. However, currently circulating virus variants have evolved to gain significant resistance to nearly all neutralizing human immune system-derived therapeutic monoclonal antibodies that had previously been emergency-authorized for use in the clinic.

Here, we describe the discovery of a panel of single-domain antibodies (VHHs) directed against the spike protein S2 subunit that broadly neutralize SARS-CoV-1 and −2 with unusually high potency. One of these VHHs tightly clamps the spike’s monomers at a highly conserved, quaternary epitope in the membrane proximal part of the trimeric Heptad Repeat 2 (HR2) coiled-coil, thereby locking the HR2 in its prefusion conformation.

Low dose systemic administration of a VHH-human IgG1 Fc fusion prevented SARS-CoV-2 infection in two animal models. Pseudovirus escape selection experiments demonstrate that the very rare escape variants are rendered almost non-infectious. This VHH-based antibody with a highly potent mechanism of antiviral action forms the basis for a new class of pan-sarbecovirus neutralizing biologics, which are currently under development. In addition, the unique quaternary binding mode of the VHHs to the prefusion HR2 could be exploited for other class I fusion proteins.

[JimC]

Those foolish scientists!

Don't they realise that miasmas and food additives are the cause of all illness!

[L'Emmerdeur]

Germ theory is just a theory.

(Hat tip to pErvinalia!)