As the covid-19 pandemic continues to do laps around the globe, the issue of re-infections grows in prominence. As it stands, there are still many unknowns. a paper in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases studied two groups of people known to have been reinfected. “We identified a small cluster of patients in Brazil who experienced 2 episodes of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in March and late May 2020. In the first episode, patients manifested an enhanced innate response compared with healthy persons, but neutralizing humoral immunity was not fully achieved. The second episode was associated with different SARS-CoV-2 strains, higher viral loads, and clinical symptoms. Our finding that persons with mild COVID-19 may have controlled SARS-CoV-2 replication without developing detectable humoral immunity suggests that reinfection is more frequent than supposed, but this hypothesis is not well documented.” https://bit.ly/3trazh9

Anyone who believes scientific research is not a contact sport should pay close attention to how they React to controversy. A full-on brawl broke out a few months ago when a team of researchers suggested that SARS-CoV-2 was able to integrate their genetic material into human DNA. A recently published paper by that same group Shows that they are not going to back down. according to the journal Science, “A team of prominent scientists has doubled down on its controversial hypothesis that genetic bits of the pandemic coronavirus can integrate into our chromosomes and stick around long after the infection is over. If they are right—skeptics have argued that their results are likely lab artifacts—the insertions could explain the rare finding that people can recover from COVID-19 but then test positive for SARS-CoV-2 again months later.” If you want front row seats, just sign into Twitter. https://bit.ly/3xV4WLW

With portions of the world beginning to exit lockdowns, Lingering mental health problems are becoming a growing concern. According to STAT, “For some people, the feelings of anxiety and depression that emerged during the pandemic will resolve as routines resume — people go back to the office, social connections are reformed, the seeming danger of activities dissipates. But others will face new or worse mental health issues that persist or even appear down the road, a number that could be quite large given the magnitude of despair and disruption. That burden, however big, stands to put an even greater strain on an already stretched mental health system.” The problems will extend from adults down to children. https://bit.ly/3xO5P8O

The Chinese covid-19 vaccine made by Sinopharm has been approved by the World Health Organization for emergency use. That is great news. According to the Associated Press, “The World Health Organization gave emergency use authorization Friday to a COVID-19 vaccine manufactured by China’s Sinopharm, potentially paving the way for millions of the doses to reach needy countries through a U.N.-backed program rolling out coronavirus vaccines. The decision by a WHO technical advisory group — a first for a Chinese vaccine — opens the possibility that Sinopharm’s offering could be included in the U.N.-backed COVAX program in coming weeks or months and distributed through UNICEF and the WHO’s Americas regional office.” More vaccine is what this world needs. Too many people have suffered and died. https://bit.ly/3tCbiMV

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