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ɪᴀɴ ᴍ. ᴍᴀᴄᴋᴀʏ, ᴘʜᴅ 🦠🤧🧬🥼🦟🧻 Profile picture
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17 Nov, 5 tweets, 3 min read
I wonder if we'll ever really discuss eye protection for the public?
Pros/Cons.
Useful? Over-the-top?
So many things still have so little actual evidence to makes these calls.
An yet you see images like this...
Ugh.
Coincidentally...
Prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in human post-mortem ocular tissues sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
Small studies have rarely found (old links):
😷SARS-CoV-2 RNA in tears & conjunctival secretion in 1 of 30 COVID-19 cases
doi.org/10.1002/jmv.25…
😷2 of 72 COVID-19 cases with conjunctivitis had viral RNA detected in a conjunctival swab
medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
I'm most interested in the eyes as *portals of entry*-through drainage of tears laden with virus via aerosol/droplet into upper resp tract via nasolacrimal duct.
I'm not interested in using rarity of ocular *disease* to rule out role for eyes
[Image from teachmeanatomy.info/head/organs/ey…]
😷Hypothesized as a route
thelancet.com/journals/lance…
😷We know from a primate study that ocular conjunctival inoculation resulted in RNA detection, infection and seroconversion
biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

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More from @MackayIM

ɪᴀɴ ᴍ. ᴍᴀᴄᴋᴀʏ, ᴘʜᴅ 🦠🤧🧬🥼🦟🧻 Profile picture
16 Nov
Where is South Australia, I hear you ask (hopefully I hear no Aussies ask that!)
A couple of amateur but curmudgeonly Comms thoughts
🦠Parafield cluster - the name of this #COVID19 event in #SouthAustralia.
sahealth.sa.gov.au/wps/wcm/connec…
🌊This isn't Wave 2 for SA-it's a cluster. And talking about it as if it is the start of Wave 2 may induce fear rather than caution and risk reduction activities.
Qld dealt with a cluster recently without statewide lockdown. Can be done.
Read 6 tweets
ɪᴀɴ ᴍ. ᴍᴀᴄᴋᴀʏ, ᴘʜᴅ 🦠🤧🧬🥼🦟🧻 Profile picture
12 Nov
This is a key point that should be discussed more (if you don't understand it) or repeated more (to get it past other, now outdated paradigms).
👇👇👇
And yes. There is⏩actual evidence⏪ that small particle *aerosols* (SPA; not droplets-although I can't find the specific SPA size range in this paper) infect & result in inflammation and can generate ARDS (highlighted below were SPA infected) in primates
ajp.amjpathol.org/article/S0002-…
Some studies don't adequately discriminate larger droplets from SPAs in their "aerosol" so which was the more likely, or whether both were equally likely, cannot be determined and so the precise route remains unclear
e.g. nature.com/articles/s4158… and sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
Read 8 tweets
ɪᴀɴ ᴍ. ᴍᴀᴄᴋᴀʏ, ᴘʜᴅ 🦠🤧🧬🥼🦟🧻 Profile picture
9 Nov
"I am not a biologist, but have been discussing this article with a university student who is studying the field. He is questioning whether a PCR test can distinguish two viruses which differ in segments that have a few different base pairs but are of the same length"
-puts aside
I love the quality of expert who comes to comment on my blog.
"There are several millions of different viruses, but we only have a little more than 10.000 full genomes..."
-I know some head just exploded
Read 9 tweets
ɪᴀɴ ᴍ. ᴍᴀᴄᴋᴀʏ, ᴘʜᴅ 🦠🤧🧬🥼🦟🧻 Profile picture
2 Nov
If there's a link provided, it points to an Emergency Use Only instruction document for the CDC's SARS-CoV-2 PCR (July here, may be other versions) in which there's a comment: testing had to use a viral sequence made in the lab because didn't have *quantified* virus isolates
This whole misunderstanding (I'm being generous) hinges on the word "quantified". CDC researchers *had* cultured virus (see 👇) in January & March, but they didn't have a preparation of virus in which they knew number of infectious particles present. That's the quantified bit.
When you know how many infectious particles present, you can determine the limit of the sensitivity of the RT-PCR, in those same terms. Which is nice but not essential.
You can also do this using the same viral sequence target, prepared & quantified in the lab as RNA. They did 👇
Read 19 tweets
ɪᴀɴ ᴍ. ᴍᴀᴄᴋᴀʏ, ᴘʜᴅ 🦠🤧🧬🥼🦟🧻 Profile picture
1 Nov
Israel begins gradual easing of lockdown measures as Covid-19 cases decline
-from18OCT2020
f24.my/6zCZ.T via @FRANCE24
Other reading on Israel's lockdowns...
theguardian.com/world/2020/sep…
theguardian.com/world/2020/oct…
wsj.com/articles/israe…
"“I never thought a lockdown was a healthy solution. But we reached a level of morbidity in which we had no choice,”"
theguardian.com/world/2020/oct…
Read 4 tweets
ɪᴀɴ ᴍ. ᴍᴀᴄᴋᴀʏ, ᴘʜᴅ 🦠🤧🧬🥼🦟🧻 Profile picture
29 Oct
1580-1350 BC
An Egyptian stele portrays a priest with a withered leg, suggesting highly infectious polio has existed for thousands of years.
1916 AD
A polio epidemic on New York, USA.
The 1900s saw epidemics of polio worldwide
2020
After extensive global vaccination programs, only a handful of wild cases can be found. Africa is declared free of wild poliovirus transmission.
Regions that include 90% of the world's population are now free of wild polio.
Read 6 tweets

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