Eagerly awaiting 2022’s global COVID policy… happy holidays y’all!
Hopefully, this year:
1) rapid tests can be received by every US household free of cost and same-day / next-day
2) we can update vaccines beyond the wildtype, Wuhan sequence
3) “COVID is airborne” is understood globally and accepted by WHO
4) better therapeutics
5) better masks
6) better ventilation and filtration systems in schools and workplaces
7) more global vaccine equity
8) more awareness and emphasis on prevention and treatment of long-COVID / viral-driven ME/CFS
9) more funding for therapeutics outside of monoclonals and Pfizer/Merck
2020-2021 in a nutshell:

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Andre Watson 🧬

Andre Watson 🧬 Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @nanogenomic

26 Dec
@postmates, @ubereats, @instacart, @uber and @lyft could make a major impact on the pandemic by working with @walgreens, @cvspharmacy, and others to deliver rapid antigen tests to people’s doors. Shocked how difficult it is to get a rapid Ag test delivered in San Francisco.
Biden’s 500 million rapid tests won’t be available until mid January. By that point in time omicron will already have done most of its damage in populated cities and tens of thousands of people will be dead in the US.
It’s been 2 years since the pandemic started, and we still don’t have a centralized and easy way to nationally order rapid tests? Let alone receive them for free?
Read 5 tweets
8 Dec
I am concerned about sub-threshold neutralizing antibodies tied to disease enhancing antibodies leading to greater persistence of COVID. Those with long COVID are canaries in the coalmine and we should be directing far more attention to the pathogenesis underlying these cases.
For example, we know omicron is ~40x less potently neutralized by antibodies against the original SARS-CoV-2 strain, which we based our vaccines off. So our strategy is a booster to boost levels 25x, breaking past this threshold.
But what happens when those antibodies wane? Where are the studies examining the disease-enhancing thresholds for Group IV and other infection-enhancing antibodies?
Read 15 tweets
1 Dec
There weren't any SARS-CoV-2 omicron variant spike protein structures online, so I simulated it and docked its binding to ACE2, Vir antibodies, and Regeneron antibodies. Considering publishing but done just for fun at the moment. Please cite if you want to publish with this.
PDB files of omicron spike available here: ligandal.com/uploads/5/7/9/…
Credit to SwissModel and PDB for structures.
Vir antibodies: rcsb.org/structure/6WPS
Regeneron antibodies: rcsb.org/structure/6XDG
SARS-CoV-2 w/ ACE2: rcsb.org/structure/7KJ2
Read 13 tweets
1 Oct
This study shows that as antibody levels drop, antibody-dependent enhancement can be a factor in enhanced infectivity of SARS-CoV-2. The authors took convalescent antibodies from recovered COVID patients and studied the role of different Fc receptors in mediating this effect.
These findings are concerning, as they suggest that below certain thresholds of neutralizing antibodies, “off-target” antibodies can enhance infectivity.
I worry that as we give boosters against older strains of COVID, the risk of this occurring clinically may also increase. It shouldn’t be controversial to state this, and this isn’t to suggest that vaccines aren’t necessary for saving lives.
Read 16 tweets
16 Sep
(1/6) Fermi’s Paradox, expressed as the Drake Equation, allows us to estimate the frequency of habitable planets and intelligent, spacefaring life. Each additional event is a fraction that reduces the final probability of life within a given distance in the universe ever lower… Image
(2/6) How can we think of a Fermi’s Paradox and Drake Equation for Lab Leaks? We can call it the Emergent Pathogen Equation.

L = 1-N = P*G*N*R*C

L = probability of lab leak
N = probability of natural origin
(3/6) P = pathogenic research of relevant viral families in a nearby lab occurred (1 if 100% yes scaling to 0 if 100% no)
G = genetic engineering or selection research adapted for human enhanced infection of a previous virus occurred (1 if 100% yes scaling to 0 if 100% no)
Read 7 tweets
12 Sep
9/11 was the first time we got attacked on our own soil since Pearl Harbor. I remember being in 5th grade and being incredulous when I heard that an airplane hit a building in NYC. Initially it sounded like an accident. I remember we had school get cancelled.
Since then, we engaged in a 20 year war and spent trillions of dollars protecting freedom and democracy. And now, we are seeing that the next wave of terrorism is an invisible, biological threat.
We will look back on 2020-2021 similarly to how we look back on 9/11. We got caught off guard, and many people died. It happened on American soil.
Read 5 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(