Viral Evolution Insights Will Help Us Fight COVID-19 Viral Evolution Insights Will Help Us Fight COVID-19
In February 2020, early in the COVID-19 pandemic, the Emergency Operations Center at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shifted from flu surveillance to COVID-19-related tasks, which included clinical management, contact tracing, and communications. To help slow the spread of COVID-19, the CDC and other public health authorities also stepped up genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2. Currently, genomic surveillance is showing an alarming rise in the spread of SARS-CoV-2 variants.
Viral Evolution Insights Will Help Us Fight COVID-19
Pandemics will be more easily managed once we understand the mechanisms of viral evolution and learn to track variants in real time
Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Carlos M. Vazquez II / Joint Chiefs of Staff
Moderna announced today they were making new versions of their vaccine that can be used as boosters against variants seen in South Africa, Brazil, and the U.K. The vaccine should be effective against variants but it seems to create fewer antibodies against the one that has emerged in South Africa. Either way, vaccines alone will not be enough. We talk about mutations and vaccines.
Also this hour: The Biden inauguration was the most Catholic inauguration in history. Is a more liberal Christianity on the rise?
Lastly, a tribute to John McDonough, actor, singer, and a Connecticut native.
By Jim Shelton
January 7, 2021
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At least 14 Yale faculty members and researchers have been included in a list of 1,000 inspiring Black scientists in America appearing in Cell Mentor, an online resource for researchers.
The list was compiled by The Community of Scholars, a group of Persons Excluded because of their Ethnicity or Race (PEER) composed of postdoctoral fellows, early-stage investigators, instructors, and consultants.
“This post is for the present, but it is also a foundation of the future,” The Community of Scholars noted in its introduction to the list. “This is for our brothers and sisters that believed that they were alone in the struggle or did not know that there were others like them. For the Black scientists whose quirkiness was ridiculed not accepted. We hope that this post enables the next generation to fulfill their need to change the world.”