Drizzle. My wife said it was raining. I ran to the corner. The others were gone, everyone but one individual.
This time I did not see or hear the bus. I checked my phone and the 11 wouldn't arrive for another 8 or the 49 for 12. So I would walk.
My fellow rider waved, another soul amidst the darkness, I yelled how long he would have to wait and he followed in my direction.
I opened my umbrella but realized that wouldn't be enough to protect my mask from the breeze-driven drizzle.
Dec 1, 2021 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
My Commute
(1/n) My wife and I are both vaccinated, but we know we have comorbidities. So when I got on one car of the Sounder train and noticed a passenger without a mask, I stepped out and walked to the next car.
There I heard someone cough a bit and I looked.
(2/n) They were maskless but at the door between cars in the direction I needed to go, so I stepped out again. Next car I went up to the second level, rinse, repeat. Fourth car everyone was wearing a mask, at least at that stop.
Oct 8, 2021 • 27 tweets • 22 min read
@lalani_safina@HealthcareGlob1@medical_xpress (1/p) One issue with this is when I start responding to someone within one of my threads and send up creating another thread. The solution, it would seem, is to begin the first with (1/n) and end (10/n=10), then the second with (1/p) and end with (10/p=10). This way the reader...
@lalani_safina@HealthcareGlob1@medical_xpress (2/p) knows which thread they are in. But when something seems like it will be just two or three tweets I tend to get lazy. Anyway, at the moment I am trying to get back into a couple of different hobbies, one of which requires a fair amount of focus and have had to...
Oct 2, 2021 • 12 tweets • 10 min read
@lalani_safina@HealthcareGlob1@medical_xpress Another article that may be of interest, this time involving nanobodies originally derived from llamas, but very effective against all current variants of concern, alpha through Delta and capable of mass production, with a link to the technical paper:
scitechdaily.com/highly-potent-…@lalani_safina@HealthcareGlob1@medical_xpress (1/2) A nasal spray (as mentioned in your paper may be especially important since the upper respiratory system (particularly the nasal passage) is where the virus usually first establishes itself. this is the main beachead for the invasion. Naturally, there are few antibodies...
Aug 9, 2021 • 30 tweets • 11 min read
@lalani_safina (1/n) They actually*replicate* in a host, but transmission, at least by droplets or aerosols tends to work better at lower temperatures because the air is dryer (the humidity of saturation roughly doubles with every 10°C, droplets tend to lose moisture, virus particles...
@lalani_safina (2/n) and remain aloft longer. Or at least that is how it works with the flu. But if everyone is immunologically naive to the pathogen then transmission can remain high even in warm weather. This is, is I remember correctly, with the "Spanish" flu that started in Kansas...
(1/n) Under Walensky the CDC stopped tracking breakthrough infections back in May if they didn't require hospitalization. It helps keep down the numbers since hospitalization is rare among the fully vaccinated.
newsweek.com/why-did-cdc-st…
(2/n) Keeping numbers low this way may have seemed reasonable at the time since they wanted people to get vaccinated and since infection with Alphav rarely resulted in infectious fully vaccinated individuals.
@lalani_safina (1/p) No, I've just been tied up in other things. But I'm not sure how relevant it is to the paper, which by the way I thought was very interesting, the presence of an unidentified conformational state, the existence of a statistically mixed population of states that...
@lalani_safina (2/p) changes the statistical mix of closed/open-but-unbound according to environmental variables, particularly temperature, the existence of additional epitopes that antibodies might bind to in the new state, preventing the spike from closing or attaching.
Jul 13, 2021 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
@lalani_safina (1/n) I think science literate non-specialists like myself tend to view the spike as a largely static trimeric structure - but for the harpoon-transformation that takes place when binding to the receptor. This structure and strategy, by the way, is widespread among viruses, ...
@lalani_safina (2/n) RNA, DNA, single and double stranded alike. See for example,
"When viruses infect cells, they employ molecular 'harpoons' to snare their intended target...."
@lalani_safina@maudi_ahmed@AntibioticDoc (1/n) There is going to be done variation in immune response among people who are fully vaccinated. Some people will have a stronger, more effective response than others, older people will tend to see their protection wane more quickly.
@lalani_safina@maudi_ahmed@AntibioticDoc (2/n) Although the numbers are small, breakthrough infections in Israel are happening more often among those first vaccinated, at the six month mark, but is this because the vaccines are wearing off due to it being six months or that older people were vaccinated first - or both?
Jun 28, 2021 • 6 tweets • 4 min read
@lalani_safina@macroliter Lambda first found in Peru had the Pango lineage name of C.37. The deletion you are looking for is likely what the following paper refers to as the novel deletion Δ246-252 .
@lalani_safina@giorgilab (1/n) Actually the T478K mutation is found in "Delta" B.1.617.2. as you can tell was the substitution from T to k we are looking at a neutrally charged amino acid being replaced by a positively charged amino acid which means that it will be more difficult...
@lalani_safina@giorgilab (2/n) for the immune system to create antibodies that will counteract it. However at least with the variant discovered in Mexico we found that this mutation has an especially high free binding energy to the ACE2 receptor. As such it binds much more tightly to the receptor and...
May 25, 2021 • 21 tweets • 6 min read
(1/n) #B1617#variants (dropping the dots for the hashtag) "... the B.1.617.2 variant has mutations called 452R and 478K, which Tang says are both linked to increased transmissibility. Both mutations alter the spike protein...." nature.com/articles/d4158…
(2/n) [L]452R is believed to result in the spike binding more closely to the ACE2 receptor and may simultaneously result in a degree of Immune escape. From analysis of B.1.429 which has the same mutation...
Mar 28, 2021 • 16 tweets • 12 min read
@beuchelt@GYamey@rjar1980 (1/n) At least in the relevant physics communities among members publishing in the peer reviewed literature, the acceptance of Einstein's special theory of relativity was rapid. A matter of a few years.
@beuchelt@GYamey@rjar1980 (2/n) This was in part thanks to the efforts of individuals such as a Lorentz and Planck. And despite the complexity of his theory of gravity, it's acceptance in the peer reviewed literature was even more rapid.
