In COVID-19 clinical update #88, Dr. Griffin covers vaccine protection among US veterans, absence of long COVID in vaccinated who are infected, single dose of REGEN-COV monoclonal antibody cocktail provides long term protection, and Pfizer protease inhibitor Paxlovid is 89% effective in preventing hospitalization or death. Show notes at microbe.tv/twiv

Did you know that the innate immune DNA sensor TLR9 is on the membrane of red blood cells? I didn't know that. To learn about why it's there, listen to Immune episode #50. In that episode we review evidence that toll-like receptor 9 on the surface of red blood cells ...

Multiple vaccines have been developed that have made substantial contributions to controlling the COVID-19 pandemic, but where are the antivirals? Only repurposed drugs have been used and not with much success. That situation seems about to change with the authorization of drugs that target the RNA polymerase (Molnupiravir) and a ...

by Gertrud U. Rey It is currently not clear how long SARS-CoV-2 vaccine-induced immunity lasts. The gold standard for determining the efficacy of a vaccine is the "challenge" study, which involves intentionally infecting immunized subjects with the pathogen against which they were immunized. Such studies are typically done in non-human ...

Influenza B viruses, unlike influenza A viruses, do not cause pandemics. There are many non-human animal reservoirs of influenza A viruses which provide gene segments that go towards making reassortant viruses that can infect humans. Influenza B viruses do not appear to have an animal reservoir other than humans - ...