Some General Information that helps
 

Well after two decades of warnings we finally have a pandemic. The issue of (1) Adding a Billion People to the world population every 13 years (staggering), along with (2) Travel being cheap and Prevalent, is a way for unusually contagious viruses to get out of containment like never before.

Bad news it it's relationship to MERS and SARS, both pretty bad players.

Good news is that it's relatively stable (unlike Influenza). It seems that a 2001 Coronavirus originally isolated in the 1960's was isolated and sequenced. In the entire sequence only 2 amino acids changed in 40 years. This means that a good vaccine that triggers antibodies against the coat protein of the virus should be good - for good. At least on this virus. I firmly believe that Science will prevail on this one - in time....

As far as what's coming, we only have it's close Coronavirus relatives, SARS and MERS, to look at...

Although North America got out of SARS pretty easily, one city that got hit hard was Toronto. Long before Fauci or others started to talk about a return, Here is an article in the NY Times that evaluated the pattern in Toronto. Spoiler alert - it came back in the Fall.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/31/w...ronavirus.html

https://www.biospace.com/article/cor..._hsmi=85186564

Here is an RNA genetic relationship tree on the current virus related to it's brothers that I am attaching here (COVID-19 is also known as SARS-CoV-2)


A great 12 minute video from Stanford - created specifically for most people to be able to follow:
https://stanford.cloud-cme.com/defau...=35620&Panel=4
click on "LAUNCH WEBSITE" when you get to the page

In the meantime, God bless us everyone - and please use common sense when you're out and about in the greatest place to live in the world (OK that is an opinion!). Please protect yourself, and protect others from you!
Attached Images

Moderna Phase 3 trial for COVID-19 prevention
 

IT looks like Moderna has gained FDA agreement on the COVID vaccine trial.
https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotec...ead-july-start

* Uses their RNA technology for the coat protein rather than actual virus
* Will start next month - wow
* 30,000 patients, placebo-controlled.
* 2 shots 28 days apart
* Two different strengths will be tested - 50 ug and 100 ug
* Test for antibody response as the primary endpoint
* but ALSO real-world follow-up on participants contracting the virus over time or not (measured by infection rates and hospitalizations of both groups). They are silent on how long this follow-up time period is.

Moderna has also contracted with Lonza in case the vaccine is looking good. They may even Manufacture while the application for approval is under review at FDA, which is highly unusual. Lonza has a number of plants in the world but we know that the one here in Portsmouth will be for sure one of the manufacturing sites.

Of the 60+ companies developing a vaccine there are 3 front-runners. The other two are Inovio (also a US company and also not using virus, but their DNA plasmid technology) and the Bejing Institute of Technology (although they are way behind Moderna and Inovio) We know that neither Moderna nor Inovio has yet to get a vaccine approved by FDA and they are using new technologies (although many vaccine candidates for both companies are nearing the end of trials). That is a draw-back. Moderna has a manufacturing contract with a world leader (Lonza) but Inovio is a little involved in a "tiff" with their manufacturer (Creative Biolabs). So from that perspective Moderna may be considered better-positioned.

Fingers crossed!
In the meantime stay as safe as you can. But now we know why there is hope in having a vaccine by Q1 of next year!

Agreed, the second factor is why it hit the US particularly hard. We travel so much for business and so many come here from other countries for the same reason.

We seem to have forgotten about population and it's effect on the climate and our health Growing up the the world population was around 4B (I'm 56) now it is close to 8B. Back then, the Chinese government restricted how many kids one could have. Setting aside everything except the number of people, if you put 8 light bulbs under a dome it will be hotter than if you put 4 under the same dome. This population growth is not tenable.