Many virology terms are being used these days by people who do not understand their meaning. Included are journalists, medical doctors, scientists, lawyers, and people from all walks of life. In normal times this word mis-usage would be so rare that it would not matter. However, because we are in ...

It is well past the time to stop blaming a laboratory in China for the release of SARS-CoV-2. Such fallacies reflect an ignorance of scientific facts, including the recent finding of closely related coronaviruses in bats in Thailand. The bat CoV RatG13, sampled in 2013 in Yunnan province, shares 96% ...

Vaccine development has far outpaced antiviral discovery for COVID-19. Hydroxychloroquine was a disaster, and the repurposed remdesivir, which must be administered intravenously, has modest effect when given to hospitalized patients. The situation is unfortunate because antiviral drugs may be used to either prevent infection (prophylactic) or treat infection (therapeutic). A ...

by Gertrud U. Rey Antiviral agents are a class of drugs that inhibit the replication of viruses at various stages of their replication cycle. One class of antivirals is small molecules known as "chain terminators," because their addition to the end of a chain of DNA or RNA prevents the ...

In recent months variants of SARS-CoV-2 have been detected that are unusual in that they have many more genome mutations than previously found. These have been called 'variants of concern' (VOC) as it has been suggested that the genome mutations might impact transmission, immune control, and virulence. Below I cover ...