by Gertrud U. Rey It is well established that children experience less severe disease after infection with SARS-CoV-2. However, to what extent infected children contribute to transmission of the virus is less clear. This topic is of great interest as we prepare for the start of a new school year. Are children less susceptible to infection …
The role of children in transmission of SARS-CoV-2 Read More »
Most of the 172 SARS-CoV-2 vaccines in development will be administered by intramuscular injection, a traditional route for many effective vaccines. In my opinion the use of needles for immunization will one day be replaced by microneedle patches, which can not only be self-administered but have a variety of other advantages compared with injection. A …
Despite recent proclamations to the contrary by WHO, there is good evidence that individuals who are asymptomatically infected with SARS-CoV-2 can efficiently spread infection to others. The levels of virus and the immune response in asymptomatically infected individuals has not been well studied to understand the infection events taking place. A recent small study provides …
Virus and antibodies during asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections Read More »
SARS-CoV-2 not only infects humans but can also spread occasionally from humans to cats, dogs, and tigers. A recent addition to this menagerie is the farmed mink. In mid-April 2020 mink on two farms in the Netherlands developed signs of respiratory disease which included nasal discharge and respiratory distress. Examination of the lungs revealed interstitial …
by Gertrud U. Rey Does a first infection with SARS-CoV-2 make a person immune to a second infection? This question is one of the prevailing issues in the current pandemic. The relevant immune response is adaptive immunity, which initiates during a first exposure to a pathogen and protects from re-infection and disease upon a second …
Some evidence suggests that cigarette smokers are more likely to develop severe COVID-19 disease than non-smokers. Chronic smoke exposure appears to trigger the expansion of cell types in the respiratory tract that produce ACE2, the receptor for SARS-CoV-2. This observation provides a plausible hypothesis to explain why cigarette smokers might experience more severe COVID-19. A …
