Promising results in treatment of #COVID19: Oslo team have designed a long-acting viral-entry blocking ACE2 molecule that can be administered needle-free and can block SARS-CoV-2 from getting into cells. Congrats to the team @AndersenJT and first author Sopisa Benjakul

https://twitter.com/AndersenJT/status/1729977786557763718

@AndersenJT This soluble ACE2 molecule is not connected to the cell surface. When SARS-CoV-2 spike variants meet free floating ACE2, they attach to this instead of our cells
"Importantly, the dimeric ACE2-fused albumin demonstrated potent neutralization of SARS-CoV-2 immune escape variants."

New findings on PEM in #LongCovid in Yale study

Invasive cardiopulmonary exercise test (iCPET) measured pressure through right heart catheterizaton
on 55 patients w/post-Covid exercise intolerance.

Result: Oxygen extraction in tissues was compromised 1/
news.yale.edu/2023/12/19/stu… This was in spite of 41 of them having no evidence of heart/lung limitations on initial tests.
openres.ersjournals.com/content/early/…

Article in @Nature w important contribution to our understanding of how COVID can trigger clotting _and_ compromise our innate immune system to make us more vulnerable to secondary infections (look around you & re-think the myth that what you see is caused by lockdowns)@Helsedir

https://twitter.com/weselymd/status/1610257204090896385

The authors found monocytes (immune cells) from C19 patients displayed a profound defect in pathogen sensing. The defect was also found when testing for secondary rhinovirus or bacterial infections.

This may explain poor SARSCoV2 clearance & increased risk of sec. infections

Study finds differences in biomarkers in #longCovid
Using conventional statistics + state-of-the-art machine learning, two vascular transformation biomarkers were identified distinguishing LC patients from acutely ill C19 inpatients +healthy controls (classification accuracy 96%) "Our study has identified 14 significantly elevated vascular transformation biomarkers", among them two diagnostic biomarkers (ANG-1 and P-SEL).
The study also finds angiogenesis as a potential therapeutic target molmed.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.11…

Among all these reports of children falling seriously ill from normally milder diseases, and all the speculations about immunity debt: it is known that infections with SARSCoV2 leads to severe perturbations in immune cell populations that lasts a long time frontiersin.org/articles/10.33… Not just T cell but B cell function is affected
"SARS-CoV-2 infection causes severe immune disruption

CD19 expression was significantly reduced in almost all the B-cell subsets in recovered patients

BCR signaling and early B-cell response were disrupted"nature.com/articles/s4139…

Er det ingen som ser hva som foregår? En stor andel av befolkningen har nylig gjennomgått minst en COVID-infeksjon. Dette gir kognitive problemer hos mange og økt risiko for slag, arytmier og svimmelhet ⬇️ @tryggtrafikk nrk.no/dokumentar/xl/… @tryggtrafikk I en relativt ung, frisk kohort fant man fortsatt 6 måneder etter COVID at "Cognitive assessment identified a specific deficit of the same magnitude as intoxication at the UK drink driving limit or the deterioration expected with 10 years ageing"‼️ journals.plos.org/plosone/articl…

Thorough study finds aerosol particle emission increases moderately up to an moderate exercise intensity, exponentially at higher intensities. On average emission increases 132-fold from 580 particles/min at rest to 76,200 particles/min during max exercise pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pn… "these data might partly explain superspreader events especially during high-intensity group exercise indoors and suggest that strong infection prevention measures are needed especially during exercise at an intensity that exceeds ∼2 W/kg." 2/

Meta-analysis and systematic review of 21 studies including a total of 80,071 children & adolescents found a prevalence of long COVID of 25.2%. Of these kids, 16.5% experienced mood symptoms, 10% fatigue, and 8% sleep disorders. Not fun for a child nature.com/articles/s4159… The studies found >40 different symptoms from several organ systems in these children, neuropsychiatric symptoms being the most prevalent.

I sense a lot of kids not being seen in this…

For all those who still believe herd immunity as a concept applies to SARS-CoV-2: It doesn't. We'll be infected again and again, and the data now tell us that the risk of serious long-term effects increases with each infection. Govts need to re-think & find a new & better plan 1/ "the risks were evident in those who were unvaccinated, had 1 shot, or 2 or more shots prior to the second infection"
This figure shows clearly that we cannot rely on vaccines to protect us from serious sequelae from COVID. 2/

‼️Read this⬇️
One of the most important🧵through this pandemic.
Try to read all of it. Try to understand. Share it. Make sure those in positions sees it.
The concept of herd immunity to this evolving virus seems completely out of reach.

https://twitter.com/dgurdasani1/status/1536991226095886337

https://twitter.com/dgurdasani1/status/1536991274800238592?s=20&t=NCvKqEH7pu43xy9r9pkaoA

Nå må @Folkehelseinst, @Helsedir og @Regjeringen følge med: Omikron gir nesten ikke beskyttelse mot omikron - heller ikke på B- og T-cellenivå.

https://twitter.com/sciencemagazine/status/1536711334804561922

Og immuniteten mot BA.4 og BA.5 er enda dårligere. news-medical.net/amp/news/20220…

So it's clear:
SARS-CoV-2 infects T lymphocytes, preferably activated CD4+ cells in vitro, independently of the ACE2 receptor and induces pronounced programmed cell death potentially contributing to the lymphopenia seen in ~80% of hospitalized C19 patients nature.com/articles/s4139… Among those tested in this study, after SARS-CoV-2 infection "CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes almost declined to zero in some patients", while B and NK cells were unaffected. Technically: Both Jurkat and M4 cell lines were infected in vitro.

Important study out in Nature: From this, the mRNA vaccines seem far superior to infection in subsequent protection. IMO, this explains what has been seen on the ground.
See the striking difference. You want to be at zero here. 1/
@Folkehelseinst @jonasgahrstore @ingvildkjerkol @Folkehelseinst @jonasgahrstore @ingvildkjerkol Link⬆️
"the samples from mRNA vaccinated individuals had a median of 17 times higher RBD antibody levels and a similar degree of increased neutralization activities against RBD-ACE2 binding than those from natural infections."
nature.com/articles/s4159…

Major work on orphanhood as result of the pandemic by joint forces from Imperial College, U of Oxford, @WHO, CDC, U of Cape Town & others: cdc.gov/coronavirus/20… Here, they used mortality + fertility data to model min. estimates & rates of COVID19-associated deaths of primary or sec. caregivers for children<18 years in 21 countries.
Globally, up to Apr 21, est. 1134 000 kids experienced death of primary caregivers
thelancet.com/journals/lance…

@zweinebelkerzen @F_Lund_Johansen Covid actually has few similarities to flu aside from transmission via air. Covid is a systemic disease that damages blood vessels and organs around the body, including lungs and brain, and often leads to the creation of autoantibodies; immunological changes may be long lasting1/ @zweinebelkerzen @F_Lund_Johansen Infection from earlier variants gives immunity lasting 5-12(-17) months on average from studies. Omicron gives less severe acute disease than delta on average, it is still not clear if it actually is milder than other variants as so many at risk are now vaccinated. 2/

New pre-print that found a very limited immune response after infection with omicron. The desired herd immunity effect may according to this be a far dream still: from this, seems you can be re-infected more or less directly after your last infection medrxiv.org/content/10.110… "Delta breakthrough infections (n=39) had 57-fold and 3.1-fold titers whereas Omicron breakthrough infections (n=14) had 5.8-fold and 0.32-fold titers compared to uninfected non-boosted and boosted individuals, respectively"

Norway is seeing the world’s first omicron superspreader event after a party downtown Oslo last Friday. Of 120 healthy non-symptomatic fully vaccinated individuals with a negative test, two had recently returned from South Africa and turned out to be positive, omicron. 1/ Now some 80-90 of the 120 are PCR pos, 13 of these confirmed omicron, the rest waiting for sequencing results. Some of those infected w omicron were not at the party but present at the same restaurant that evening. Not looking good re transmissibility. reuters.com/world/europe/o…

VIKTIG: Nye data fra Sør-Afrika viser raskt økende positivitetsrate og rask økning i nye tilfeller, antall sykehusinnleggelser og antall døde -fra dag til dag @Folkehelseinst @Helsedir @jonasgahrstore @ingvildkjerkol @Oslounivsykehus @helse_og_omsorg @Oslokommune @RaymondJohansen

https://twitter.com/miamalan/status/1466455210465894402

Studie på 2,8 mill innbyggere i Sør-Afrika finner at tidligere infeksjon gir vesentlig lavere beskyttelse mot Omikron enn man har sett ved tidligere varianter. Det vil si at Omikron i stor grad unnslipper immuniteten til de som har gjennomgått sykdom medrxiv.org/content/10.110…

Hvorfor brer smitten seg så raskt i skolene?
1.Myndighetene har ment barn ikke sprer smitte i særlig grad. Det er feil. Nå er det vist at barn sprer viruset like mye som voksne
2,Man har ikke tatt forholdsregler mot luftsmitte, selv om forskning viser d er viktigste smittemåte 1/ 3. Man har grovt undervurdert smittsomheten til Delta, (est. R0 7-9), like smittsomt som vannkopper
4. Man har undervurdert hvor høy vaksinasjonsgrad man må ha for å nå flokkimmunitet ved så smittsomme virus. Beregninger viser at vi må langt opp på 90-tallet, om oppnåelig. 2/