COVID Transmissions for 1-22-2021

Good morning and welcome to COVID Transmissions.

It has been 431 days since the first documented human case of COVID-19.

A bunch of headlines today to take you into the weekend. Have a good weekend everyone!

As usual, bolded terms are linked to the running newsletter glossary.

Keep the newsletter growing by sharing it! I love talking about science and explaining important concepts in human health, but I rely on all of you to grow the audience for this:

Now, let’s talk COVID.

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Fire at a vaccine production facility in India

There was a massive—and deadly—fire at at a vaccine production facility in India which is currently responsible for making doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.

The fire was in a building that is still under construction, but I wonder if it is going to impact future supply. The company, Serum Institute, says it will not affect the planned expansion of their manufacturing, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some small impact.

Reported on here: https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/535242-massive-fire-rages-at-worlds-largest-covid-19

US President Biden unveils COVID-19 response plan

While we have heard preliminary reporting on the COVID-19 response plan from before the inauguration, yesterday President Biden unveiled a 200-page pandemic response plan.

Much of it is implementation of things we have already talked about here—mobilizing FEMA for vaccinations, for instance. Some it is new and specific, though. The Defense Production Act is being invoked for a variety of pandemic essentials, including but not limited to vaccine manufacturing and distribution essentials, virus testing supplies, and personal protective equipment.

Also, President Biden has committed (previously) to distributing 100 million vaccine doses in his first 100 days as President. We have the supply to do it, I understand. Let’s get it done. I’m starting to feel hopeful about the direction we are headed.

You can read the full plan here: https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/national-strategy-for-the-covid-19-response/c7bd8ecb9308d669/full.pdf

European countries begin *medical* mask mandates

Germany, among other European countries, is mandating that citizens begin to wear medical-grade masks instead of simple cloth masks: https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2021/01/20/germany-mandates-medical-grade-masks/

This is, on some level, a response to the apparent increased transmission of new variants of the virus. However I think it is also a recognition of the reality that medical-grade masks (such as N95s) are not as scarce as they were early on in the pandemic.

This is probably a good move. I don’t think most people know how to actually wear an N95 properly, though. Thankfully, the Internet has this information, so you, dear reader, can become somehow who knows how to properly don—and then doff—an N95 mask:

This video is intended for nurses, but I think it can be adapted for use by the general public. If you’re going to be wearing an N95, please do your best to do it right. You might not have access to a fit testing opportunity, but you can at least try to use this procedure and also attempt to find a “good enough” size of mask for you. That will help ensure you are getting the best outcome from using a mask of this type.

Combinations of monoclonal antibodies work better than single monoclonal antibodies

Yesterday, I mentioned that some of the mutations in new variants appear to help them escape monoclonal antibodies. I then mentioned that using more than one antibody, which targets more than one site on the virus, could help mitigate the escape caused by mutations.

As it turns out, a recent study looked at antibody combination vs single monoclonal antibodies. In this trial, the antibodies tested were bamlanivimab and etesivimab. These names are ridiculous, let’s be clear. Drug naming is an arcane process. However, I’ll let you in on a secret—monoclonal antibodies always have drug names ending in “mab.” This stands for Monoclonal AntiBody.

Anyway, the researchers were interested in the efficacy of bamlanivimab, both alone and in combination with etesivimab as treatments for COVID-19. They compared bamlanivimab alone to placebo and to the combination of the two antibodies.

Interestingly, the combination therapy was more effective than the single antibody therapy. In fact, the single antibody therapy was not significantly more effective than placebo, while the combination therapy was. This is not a huge surprise. We have seen this effect before with other antiviral treatments; drug combinations tend to be more effective than single drugs against viruses. This may be because it is harder for viruses to evolve escape mutations to two drugs that attack at different sites, though in this case, the study does not provide data for a specific explanation of the efficacy increase.

You can read the full study here: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2775647

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What am I doing to cope with the pandemic? This:

Thinking about copy editing style choices for the newsletter

This one might take some audience participation. It might seem silly, but I think a lot about the “style” that I use for this newsletter. One decision that I made early on was that links would be fully written-out like this: http://news.google.com, rather than being done as inline links that direct you to an interesting site where you can read the news.

One of the reasons I did this was to be transparent about where you would be sent if you clicked a link. However, having spoken with a friend who’s more informed about proper web styling, apparently I am not doing “the done thing,” because sometimes people who write out the full link actually send you somewhere else, and writing out the full link is used to mislead audiences. So, it is apparently favored to do inline links, and expect audiences to double-check where they are being sent.

I do find inline links a little cleaner. So I’m curious what you, dear reader, may think. Do you prefer it fully written out, or would you like the inline link approach? Feel free to email me or comment directly.

This thought has been enough to keep me distracted from despair for today! Sometimes, it’s the little things that matter.

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I know I owe some of you private email responses. I haven’t forgotten you! I will get to it. It has been a very busy week for me.

You might have some questions or comments! Send them in. As several folks have figured out, you can also email me if you have a comment that you don’t want to share with the whole group.

Join the conversation, and what you say will impact what I talk about in the next issue.

Also, let me know any other thoughts you might have about the newsletter. I’d like to make sure you’re getting what you want out of this.

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Part of science is identifying and correcting errors. If you find a mistake, please tell me about it.

Though I can’t correct the emailed version after it has been sent, I do update the online post of the newsletter every time a mistake is brought to my attention.

No corrections since last issue.

See you all next time.

Always,

JS