Thread by @GraduatedBen

Seeing rumors that the World Cup outbreak in Qatar is MERS (coronavirus found in camels). Typically acquired through primary contact with animals (not human-to-human) but immunocompromised hosts have been found to harbor and shed the virus without exhibiting symptoms.

WHO is calling it “camel flu” which is incorrect labeling. It’s not related to influenza, it’s a beta coronavirus that is about 3x more deadly than SARS and 15x more deadly than SARS-CoV-2 (CFR 10%-30% depending on strain and comorbidity).

Note on case fatality rate: that 10%-30% estimate is based on people diagnosed. It may be lower if there is a high degree of mild cases that go unreported/untested. There hasn’t been a large enough outbreak to date to really figure that out, and challenge trials are unethical.

US soccer journalist Grant Wahl described respiratory symptoms that are consistent with some MERS cases - mildish symptoms followed by sudden death. Wahl died suddenly a day after this clip was posted.

https://twitter.com/jacksettleman/status/1601400617377083393

Wahl was also vaccinated/boosted (his wife is on Biden’s Covid advisory committee and both she and him have been big proponents of boosting), so it may be unrelated, or it may be that we should consider booster uptake as a significant comorbidity.

Another journalist died suddenly, Qatari photojournalist Khalid al-Misslam. No details currently reported as to whether he was sick prior to this.

https://twitter.com/foxnews/status/1602304783611748353

We’ll probably know in a couple weeks whether it’s just a routine respiratory bug going around at the World Cup or if it’s something more serious. But if it’s the latter, it’s already worldwide, or at least in Los Angeles.

The big worry isn’t so much a zoonotic spillover as it is an engineered variant with a furin cleavage site added. That gives you the virulence of MERS and the contagiousness of Covid. Other bad scenario is recombination during coinfection.

Qatar and FIFA are both at the center of major international intrigue, with some of the same cast of characters that keep cropping up in seemingly disconnected conspiracies. In any event, this would all make a great Jack Carr novel.

Seems like the entire Brazil squad got sick early in the cup. They all recovered and played well which is a good sign for healthy fit people.

Probably not a great sign that the first person to make a MERS virus that could affect mice was…Ralph Baric.

The UNC professor who taught the Wuhan researchers how to make what became COVID-19.

sph.unc.edu/sph-news/unc-r…

Baric continued his work on MERS by developing an mRNA vaccine for it with Moderna, the DARPA funded mRNA vaccination pioneer.

nature.com/articles/s4158…

🤡

In another vaccine development, researchers modified the Vaccinia Ankara virus (close relative of smallpox) to express the MERS-COV spike protein.

Why is this research allowed, much less funded by taxpayers???

clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03…