How Did It Get Out? 1. The Tongguan Mine Shaft in Mojiang, Yunnan, where, in 2013, fragments of RaTG13, the closest known relative of SARSCoV-2, were recovered and transported to the Wuhan Institute of Virology;
2. The Wuhan Institute of Virology, where Shi Zhengli’s team brought the RaTG13 sample, sequenced its genome, then took it out of the freezer several times in recent years;
3. The Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which first reported signs of the novel coronavirus in hospital patients;
4. The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, an early suspected origin of the pandemic, where the first major outbreak occurred. Illustration: Map by Jason Lee
New COVID-19 Variants May Slash Vaccine Effectiveness newsmax.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from newsmax.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Monoclonal antibodies attaching to coronaviruses.
With green light from the FDA, Rockefeller scientists started human trials this week for a new monoclonal antibody drug as a potential treatment for COVID-19.
Monoclonal antibodies are mass-produced replicas of natural antibodies made by the immune system to fight viruses. Designed to prevent people with early COVID-19 from developing severe disease, the treatment can be life-saving and is urgently needed as hospitals continue to be inundated by repeated surges of infection, and mass vaccinations are still several months away.
“If administered early, monoclonal antibodies could stop the virus in its tracks before the immune system has had enough time to develop its own antibodies,” says Michel C. Nussenzweig, head of the Laboratory of Molecular Immunology, who led the project in collaboration with Paul Bieniasz, Marina Caskey, Theodora Hatziioannou, Charles M. Rice, and others.