COVID Transmissions for 6-1-2021
New names for variants; new drug trial data
Greetings from an undisclosed location in my apartment. Welcome to COVID Transmissions.
It has been 562 days since the first documented human case of COVID-19. In 562 the dome of the Hagia Sophia, destroyed in an earthquake, was fully rebuilt.
I’m hearing news that recovery from COVID-19 economic impacts is beginning in many Western countries, which is encouraging news of a similar vein.
Today we’ll discuss a new naming convention for variants, and new Phase 3 data about a drug candidate for treating some COVID-19 cases.
Bolded terms are linked to the running newsletter glossary.
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Now, let’s talk COVID.
New naming convention for SARS-CoV-2 variants
The WHO yesterday released a new naming convention for SARS-CoV-2 variants that was (is?) intended to reduce confusion over what is what. This can be found here: https://www.who.int/en/activities/tracking-SARS-CoV-2-variants/
This is a pretty minor thing, but I think it’s another communications blunder by the WHO. Here, single Greek-letter designations are being used. What happens when they run out of Greek letters? There are already a lot of variants.
Also, was there something wrong with the existing numerical system? Yes, the names don’t exactly roll off the tongue, but at least they’re unique identifiers. I’m confused about what problem this is trying to solve. Overall, I’m confused what the point of this is altogether.
Still, you might see news outlets start to use this system, so I wanted to let you all know about it.
Administration of colchicine modestly reduces eventual COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations
In a study published in Lancet Respiratory Medicine, authors investigated whether the administration of colchicine, an anti-inflammatory drug that has been used in some form since 1500 BCE, could reduce the rate of hospitalization and death in people with “community-treated” COVID-19: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(21)00222-8/fulltext
What they mean by “community-treated” here is that these patients did not have such severe disease at their first presentation that they had to be immediately hospitalized.
In the paper, we see that 4.6% of patients with PCR-confirmed COVID-19 who received colchicine were eventually hospitalized or died, whereas 6.0% of patients who received placebo were hospitalized or died. This is not a huge reduction, but it is interesting to see that a common anti-inflammatory drug can have an impact on these outcomes. This is perhaps a meaningful option for community-treated cases in countries or areas where monoclonal antibody cocktails are not a viable option, or at the very least it could serve to further our understanding of the types of anti-inflammatory agents that can encourage good outcomes during COVID-19 disease.
What am I doing to cope with the pandemic? This:
COVID-safe bachelor party
This weekend I attended a bachelor party (composed of video and tabletop gaming, before anyone gets any elaborate ideas). In the current pandemic situation in the US, the safety of this was not necessarily a foregone conclusion. The group of people who attended had to go to a great deal of trouble to ensure everyone was vaccinated, and even then a couple of us who either were concerned about potentially transmitting unknown infections to others, or acquiring unknown infections from the group, wore masks for a substantial portion of the time.
If there’s anything that I learned from this experience it’s that it’s important not to be shy about asking someone to put a mask on. They’re usually willing to do so and if it makes people safer—as well as feel safer—it’s probably worth it.
The experience overall was a lot of fun, too. It was a pretty small gathering, wasn’t in public, and was all vaccinated people. That’s exactly the kind of thing people should be doing for fun.
I want to mention that I received some feedback from a (former) subscriber regarding my sharing of the interview with Peter Daszak on Friday. This reader felt that Dr. Daszak was compromised by his past collaborations with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and so cannot be seen as a reliable source for information on the unlikely possibility of a “lab-leak” situation.
I’m not going to comment on whether or not Dr. Daszak can be impartial; I do not know him and I don’t think I am likely to ever meet him. What I will comment on is the fact that there were two other people in that interview, and all of them, including Dr. Daszak, came to the conclusion that there is a possibility, albeit a remote one, that the WIV was the source of the virus, and none of them discounted that possibility in the interview. They also discussed and explained other hypotheses that they proposed together as part of the official World Health Organization investigation into the origins of SARS-CoV-2.
It is clear to me that the discussion around these origins has become so politically charged that there are people who are unwilling to even listen to discussions of evidence if they believe that it will disagree with their preconceptions. That is disappointing, since I would like to be able to continue to objectively discuss the origins of this pandemic virus. However, it appears that there are those who would prefer I stop.
I do not intend to stop. I will not service anyone’s specific agenda with regard to any investigation of this virus. I will continue to share things that I believe to be informative, data-driven, and important, regardless of their source.
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.
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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. And don’t forget to share the newsletter if you liked it.
Always,
JS
Hi, John. I suggest that the (or a) reason for the Greek letter designations is to suppress terms like "the Indian variant" and "the Brazilian variant". With what seems to be a worldwide wave of anti-Asian violence irrationally caused by references to the "China virus", I completely support such an effort.