Toggle light / dark theme

Via Harvard David Sinclair “You may have seen this chart in my last newsletter, but it’s believed a bats’ ability to keep their inflammatory response down is one of the reasons they are able to harbor many types of viruses. Most coronavirus-related deaths in humans are due to the immune system response in the body going haywire in its response, not damage caused by the virus itself.

Part 2: https://buff.ly/2VuHGTx


You may have seen this chart in my last newsletter, but it’s believed a bats’ ability to keep their inflammatory response down is one of the reasons they are able to harbor many types of viruses. Most coronavirus-related deaths in humans are due to the immune system response in the body going haywire in its response, not damage caused by the virus itself.

You can read the latest newsletter here:

Treating COVID-19 patents with hydroxychloroquine, a derivative of chloroquine generally thought to have less severe side effects, has become standard at many hospitals. The drug is often combined with the antibiotic azithromycin, which some studies suggest also has antiviral effects. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has authorized emergency use of both chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 patients. But no large, randomized trial has proved these drugs—alone or in combination with azithromycin—are effective against the disease.

Cardiologists urge careful monitoring of patients on chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine.

A faster way of testing for coronavirus was implemented at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, which allows for the test results to be retrieved in under 90 minutes, Channel 12reported. “It is an advanced and reliable technology that gives hospitals the opportunity to get the result back from a coronavirus test in fewer than 90 minutes,” Dr. Hanoh Goldschmidt, head of the Laboratory Department in Ichilov Hospital told Channel 12.

The Oxford scientists are extraordinarily confident that their vaccine against the coronavirus will work.

The government’s chief medical officer insists a jab is still 12 to 18 months off and some form of social distancing will be needed until it’s in widespread use.

Their confidence is built on past success. The same vaccine technology has been used on other diseases, including the related coronavirus MERS, as well as Ebola.

ChAdOx1, pronounced “Chaddox-one”, is a version of a common cold virus that has been modified not only so that it doesn’t cause symptoms, but also so it carries some genetic material of the coronavirus.


The Rockefeller Foundation releases an ambitious new proposal to test 30 million people a week, employ up to 300,000 contact tracers, and establish a digital data sharing platform. Rajiv Shah, President and CEO of the Rockefeller Foundation, and Dr. Kavita Patel, former health policy director in the Obama White House, join Andrea Mitchell to discuss this and other plans to reopen the country. April 22, 2020.