Outbreak of SARS-Cov-2 Infections, Including COVID-19 Vaccine
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Inside the Ebola Wars the New Yorker
4/13/2017 Inside the Ebola Wars The New Yorker A REPORTER AT LARGE OCTOBER 27, 2014 I﹙UE THE EBOLA WARS How genomics research can help contain the outbreak. By Richard Preston Pardis Sabeti and Stephen Gire in the Genomics Platform of the Broad Institute of M.I.T. and Harvard, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They have been working to sequence Ebola’s genome and track its mutations. he most dangerous outbreak of an emerging infectious disease since the appearance of H.I.V., in the early nineteen-eighties, seems to have begun on DTecember 6, 2013, in the village of Meliandou, in Guinea, in West Africa, with the death of a two-year-old boy who was suffering from diarrhea and a fever. We now know that he was infected with Ebola virus. The virus is a parasite that lives, normally, in some as yet unidentified creature in the ecosystems of equatorial Africa. This creature is the natural host of Ebola; it could be a type of fruit bat, or some small animal that lives on the body of a bat—possibly a bloodsucking insect, a tick, or a mite. Before now, Ebola had caused a number of small, vicious outbreaks in central and eastern Africa. Doctors and other health workers were able to control the outbreaks quickly, and a belief developed in the medical and scientific communities that Ebola was not much of a threat. The virus is spread only through direct contact with blood and bodily fluids, and it didn’t seem to be mutating in any significant way. -
COVID-19 Natural Immunity
COVID-19 natural immunity Scientific brief 10 May 2021 Key Messages: • Within 4 weeks following infection, 90-99% of individuals infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus develop detectable neutralizing antibodies. • The strength and duration of the immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 are not completely understood and currently available data suggests that it varies by age and the severity of symptoms. Available scientific data suggests that in most people immune responses remain robust and protective against reinfection for at least 6-8 months after infection (the longest follow up with strong scientific evidence is currently approximately 8 months). • Some variant SARS-CoV-2 viruses with key changes in the spike protein have a reduced susceptibility to neutralization by antibodies in the blood. While neutralizing antibodies mainly target the spike protein, cellular immunity elicited by natural infection also target other viral proteins, which tend to be more conserved across variants than the spike protein. The ability of emerging virus variants (variants of interest and variants of concern) to evade immune responses is under investigation by researchers around the world. • There are many available serologic assays that measure the antibody response to SARS-CoV-2 infection, but at the present time, the correlates of protection are not well understood. Objective of the scientific brief This scientific brief replaces the WHO Scientific Brief entitled “’Immunity passports’ in the context of COVID-19”, published 24 April 2020.1 This update is focused on what is currently understood about SARS-CoV-2 immunity from natural infection. More information about considerations on vaccine certificates or “passports”will be covered in an update of WHO interim guidance, as requested by the COVID-19 emergency committee.2 Methods A rapid review on the subject was undertaken and scientific journals were regularly screened for articles on COVID-19 immunity to ensure to include all large and robust studies available in the literature at the time of writing. -
National Rappel Operations Guide
National Rappel Operations Guide 2019 NATIONAL RAPPEL OPERATIONS GUIDE USDA FOREST SERVICE National Rappel Operations Guide i Page Intentionally Left Blank National Rappel Operations Guide ii Table of Contents Table of Contents ..........................................................................................................................ii USDA Forest Service - National Rappel Operations Guide Approval .............................................. iv USDA Forest Service - National Rappel Operations Guide Overview ............................................... vi USDA Forest Service Helicopter Rappel Mission Statement ........................................................ viii NROG Revision Summary ............................................................................................................... x Introduction ...................................................................................................... 1—1 Administration .................................................................................................. 2—1 Rappel Position Standards ................................................................................. 2—6 Rappel and Cargo Letdown Equipment .............................................................. 4—1 Rappel and Cargo Letdown Operations .............................................................. 5—1 Rappel and Cargo Operations Emergency Procedures ........................................ 6—1 Documentation ................................................................................................ -
News Harvard University
THE CENTER FOR MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES, NEWS HARVARD UNIVERSITY SPRING 2015 1 LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR A message from William Granara 2 SHIFTING TOWARDS THE ARABIAN PENINSULA Announcing a new lecture series 3 NEWS AND NOTES Updates from faculty, students and visiting researchers 12 EVENT HIGHLIGHTS Spring lectures, workshops, and conferences LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR SPRING 2015 HIGHLIGHTS I’M HAPPY TO REPORT THAT WE ARE DRAWING TO THE CLOSE OF AN ACADEMIC YEAR FULL OF ACTIVITY. CMES was honored to host a considerable number of outstanding lectures this year by eminent scholars from throughout the U.S. as well as from the Middle East and Europe. I mention only a few highlights below. Our new Middle Eastern Literatures initiative was advanced by several events: campus visits by Arab novelists Mai Nakib (Kuwait), Ahmed Khaled Towfik (Egypt), and Ali Bader (Iraq); academic lectures by a range of literary scholars including Hannan Hever (Yale) on Zionist literature and Sheida Dayani (NYU) on contemporary Persian theater; and a highly successful seminar on intersections between Arabic and Turkish literatures held at Bilgi University in Istanbul, which included our own Professor Cemal Kafadar, several of our graduate students, and myself. In early April, CMES along with two Harvard Iranian student groups hosted the first Harvard Iranian Gala, which featured a lecture by Professor Abbas Milani of Stanford University and was attended by over one hundred guests from the broader Boston Iranian community. Also in April, CMES co-sponsored an international multilingual conference on The Thousand and One Nights with INALCO, Paris. Our new Arabian Peninsula Studies Lecture Series was inaugurated with a lecture by Professor David Commins of Dickinson College, and we are happy to report that this series will continue in both the fall and spring semesters of next year thanks to the generous support of CMES alumni. -
Michael S. Brown, MD
DISTINGUISHED PHYSICIANS AND Michael S. Brown, M.D. Sir Richard Roberts, Ph.D. Winner, 1985 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine Winner, 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine MEDICAL SCIENTISTS MENTORING Winner, 1988 Presidential National Medal of Science A globally prominent biochemist and molecular biologist, DELEGATES HAVE INCLUDED... Dr. Brown received the world’s most prestigious medical Dr. Roberts was awarded the Nobel Prize for his prize for his work describing the regulation of the groundbreaking contribution to discovering RNA splicing. cholesterol metabolism. His work laid the foundation for Dr. Roberts is dedicating his future research to GMO crops the class of drugs now called statins taken daily by more than 20 million and food sources, and demonstrating the effect they have on humanity. — GRANDg MASTERS — people worldwide. Ferid Murad, M.D., Ph.D. Mario Capecchi, Ph.D. Boris D. Lushniak, M.D., M.P.H Winner, 1998 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine Academy Science Director The Surgeon General of the United States (acting, 2013-2014) Winner, 2007 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine A world-renowned pioneer in biochemistry, Dr. Murad’s Winner, 2001 National Medal of Science Rear Admiral Lushniak, M.D., M.P.H., was the United award-winning research demonstrated that nitroglycerin Winner, 2001 Lasker Award States’ leading spokesperson on matters of public health, and related drugs help patients with heart conditions by Winner, 2003 Wolf Prize in Medicine overseeing the operations of the U.S. Public Health Service releasing nitric oxide into the body, thus relaxing smooth Mario Capecchi, Ph.D., a biophysicist, is a Distinguished Commissioned Corps, which consists of approximately muscles by elevating intracellular cyclic GMP, leading to vasodilation and Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Utah School of Medicine. -
Alphabets, Letters and Diacritics in European Languages (As They Appear in Geography)
1 Vigleik Leira (Norway): [email protected] Alphabets, Letters and Diacritics in European Languages (as they appear in Geography) To the best of my knowledge English seems to be the only language which makes use of a "clean" Latin alphabet, i.d. there is no use of diacritics or special letters of any kind. All the other languages based on Latin letters employ, to a larger or lesser degree, some diacritics and/or some special letters. The survey below is purely literal. It has nothing to say on the pronunciation of the different letters. Information on the phonetic/phonemic values of the graphic entities must be sought elsewhere, in language specific descriptions. The 26 letters a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z may be considered the standard European alphabet. In this article the word diacritic is used with this meaning: any sign placed above, through or below a standard letter (among the 26 given above); disregarding the cases where the resulting letter (e.g. å in Norwegian) is considered an ordinary letter in the alphabet of the language where it is used. Albanian The alphabet (36 letters): a, b, c, ç, d, dh, e, ë, f, g, gj, h, i, j, k, l, ll, m, n, nj, o, p, q, r, rr, s, sh, t, th, u, v, x, xh, y, z, zh. Missing standard letter: w. Letters with diacritics: ç, ë. Sequences treated as one letter: dh, gj, ll, rr, sh, th, xh, zh. -
Arxiv:2003.13670V4 [Cs.CY] 3 Apr 2020 IV Program
Anonymous Collocation Discovery: Harnessing Privacy to Tame the Coronavirus∗ Ran Canetti† Ari Trachtenberg‡ Mayank Varia§ Boston University April 7, 2020 Abstract Successful containment of the Coronavirus pandemic rests on the ability to quickly and reliably identify those who have been in close proximity to a contagious individual. Existing tools for doing so rely on the collection of exact location information of individuals over lengthy time periods, and combining this information with other personal information. This unprecedented encroachment on individual privacy at national scales has created an outcry and risks rejection of these tools. We propose an alternative: an extremely simple scheme for providing fine-grained and timely alerts to users who have been in the close vicinity of an infected individual. Crucially, this is done while preserving the anonymity of all individuals, and without collecting or storing any personal information or location history. Our approach is based on using short-range communication mechanisms, like Bluetooth, that are available in all modern cell phones. It can be deployed with very little infrastructure, and incurs a relatively low false-positive rate compared to other collocation methods. We also describe a number of extensions and tradeoffs. We believe that the privacy guarantees provided by the scheme will encourage quick and broad voluntary adoption. When combined with sufficient testing capacity and existing best practices from healthcare professionals, we hope that this may significantly reduce the infection rate. To avoid confusion, we stress that this work does not propose any direct medical treatment. arXiv:2003.13670v4 [cs.CY] 3 Apr 2020 Rather, it proposes a way to pool together information from the community in order to help (a) direct medical personnel in how to best allocate and use testing resources, and (b) direct individuals as to when to get tested and self-quarantine. -
Proposal for Generation Panel for Latin Script Label Generation Ruleset for the Root Zone
Generation Panel for Latin Script Label Generation Ruleset for the Root Zone Proposal for Generation Panel for Latin Script Label Generation Ruleset for the Root Zone Table of Contents 1. General Information 2 1.1 Use of Latin Script characters in domain names 3 1.2 Target Script for the Proposed Generation Panel 4 1.2.1 Diacritics 5 1.3 Countries with significant user communities using Latin script 6 2. Proposed Initial Composition of the Panel and Relationship with Past Work or Working Groups 7 3. Work Plan 13 3.1 Suggested Timeline with Significant Milestones 13 3.2 Sources for funding travel and logistics 16 3.3 Need for ICANN provided advisors 17 4. References 17 1 Generation Panel for Latin Script Label Generation Ruleset for the Root Zone 1. General Information The Latin script1 or Roman script is a major writing system of the world today, and the most widely used in terms of number of languages and number of speakers, with circa 70% of the world’s readers and writers making use of this script2 (Wikipedia). Historically, it is derived from the Greek alphabet, as is the Cyrillic script. The Greek alphabet is in turn derived from the Phoenician alphabet which dates to the mid-11th century BC and is itself based on older scripts. This explains why Latin, Cyrillic and Greek share some letters, which may become relevant to the ruleset in the form of cross-script variants. The Latin alphabet itself originated in Italy in the 7th Century BC. The original alphabet contained 21 upper case only letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, Z, H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, V and X. -
Lexia Lessons Digraph Ch
® LEVEL 6 | Phonics Lexia Lessons Digraph ch Description This lesson is designed to reinforce letter-sound correspondence for the consonant digraph ch, where the two letters, c-h, represent one sound, /ch/. Knowledge of consonant digraphs will improve students’ ability to apply phonic word attack strategies for reading and spelling. TEACHER TIPS The following steps show a lesson in which students identify the sound /ch/ at the beginning of words and match the sound to the letters c-h. For students who have difficulty distinguishing the stop sound /ch/ from the continuant sound /sh/, place emphasis on the stop sound of /ch/ by repeating it while making an abrupt chopping motion with your arm: /ch/ /ch/ /ch/. PREPARATION/MATERIALS • For each student, a card or sticky note • A copy of the ch Keyword Image Card and with the digraph ch printed on it 9 pictures at the end of the lesson • Blank sticky notes Primary Standard: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.1.3a - Know the spelling-sound - Know Standard: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.1.3a Primary correspondences for common consonant digraphs. Warm-up Use a phonemic awareness activity to review how to isolate the initial sound /ch/. ListenasIsayawordintwoparts:/ch/op.Thefirstsoundis/ch/.Theendingsoundsareop.WhenI putthemtogether,Igetthewordchop.Whatisthefirstsoundinchop?(/ch/) Make a single chopping motion with one arm. Thesound/ch/isthesoundwehearatthebeginningofthewordchop.Let’sallsay/ch/together:/ ch//ch//ch/.I’mgoingtosayaword.Ifthewordbeginswith/ch/,chopwithyourhandlikethisand say/ch/.Iftheworddoesnotbeginwith/ch/,keepyourhanddownandmakenosound. Suggested words: chill, chest, time, jump, chain, treasure, gentle, chocolate. Direct Instruction Reading. ® Display the Keyword Image Card of the cheese with the ch on it. -
SARS-Cov-2 Vaccine Breakthrough Infections Are Asymptomatic Or Mildly Symptomatic and Are Infrequently Transmitted
medRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.06.29.21259500; this version posted July 3, 2021. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC 4.0 International license . SARS-CoV-2 vaccine breakthrough infections are asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic and are infrequently transmitted. Francesca Rovida1, Irene Cassaniti1, Stefania Paolucci1, Elena Percivalle1, Antonella Sarasini1, Antonio Piralla1, Federica Giardina1, Jose Camilla Sammartino1, Alessandro Ferrari1, Federica Bergami1, Alba Muzzi2, Viola Novelli2, Alessandro Meloni2,6, Anna Maria Grugnetti3, Giuseppina Grugnetti3, Claudia Rona2, Marinella Daglio2, Carlo Marena2, Antonio Triarico4, Daniele Lilleri1*, Fausto Baldanti1,5 1Molecular Virology Unit, Microbiology and Virology Department, Fondazione IRCCS Policlinico San Matteo, Pavia, Italy; 2Medical Direction, Fondazione IRCCS Policlinico San Matteo, Pavia, Italy; 3Health Professions Direction, Fondazione IRCCS Policlinico San Matteo, Pavia, Italy; 4Direzione Sanitaria, Fondazione IRCCS Policlinico San Matteo, Pavia, Italy; 5Department of Clinical, Surgical, Diagnostic and Pediatric Sciences, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy; 6 Department of Public Health, Experimental and Forensic Medicine, Section of Hygiene, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy; *Correspondence to: Daniele Lilleri; [email protected] World count: Abstract: 148 Text: 1900 NOTE: This preprint reports new research that has not been certified by peer review and should not be used to guide clinical practice. medRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.06.29.21259500; this version posted July 3, 2021. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. -
Effect of Vaccination and of Prior Infection on Infectiousness of Vaccine Breakthrough Infections and Reinfections
medRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.07.28.21261086; this version posted July 30, 2021. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission. Effect of vaccination and of prior infection on infectiousness of vaccine breakthrough infections and reinfections Laith J. Abu-Raddad, PhD1,2,3,4*, Hiam Chemaitelly, MSc1,2, Houssein H. Ayoub, PhD5, Patrick Tang, MD PhD6, Peter Coyle, MD7,8,9, Mohammad R. Hasan, PhD6, Hadi M. Yassine, PhD8,10, Fatiha M. Benslimane, PhD8,10, Hebah A. Al Khatib, PhD8,10, Zaina Al Kanaani, PhD7, Einas Al Kuwari, MD7, Andrew Jeremijenko, MD7, Anvar Hassan Kaleeckal, MSc7, Ali Nizar Latif, MD7, Riyazuddin Mohammad Shaik, MSc7, Hanan F. Abdul Rahim, PhD4, Gheyath K. Nasrallah, PhD8,10, Mohamed Ghaith Al Kuwari, MD11, Adeel A. Butt, MBBS MS3,7, Hamad Eid Al Romaihi, MD12, Abdullatif Al Khal, MD7, Mohamed H. Al-Thani, MD12, and Roberto Bertollini, MD MPH12 1Infectious Disease Epidemiology Group, Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar, Cornell University, Doha, Qatar 2World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Disease Epidemiology Analytics on HIV/AIDS, Sexually Transmitted Infections, and Viral Hepatitis, Weill Cornell Medicine–Qatar, Cornell University, Qatar Foundation – Education City, Doha, Qatar 3Department of Population Health Sciences, Weill Cornell Medicine, Cornell University, New York, New York, USA 4Department of Public Health, -
For Young Scientists
THE BLAVATNIK AWARDS For Young Scientists N E R AT I O N O T G E F S C E X I E N N T E I F H I C T G I N I N N V O I V R A D T I O N 2021 The Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists honor exceptional young scientists and engineers by celebrating their extraordinary achievements, recognizing outstanding promise, and accelerating innovation through unrestricted funding. Table of Contents Key Features ..............................................................................................................................................4 Our History ................................................................................................................................................6 Blavatnik Regional Awards ...................................................................................................................8 Blavatnik National Awards .................................................................................................................10 Blavatnik Awards in the United Kingdom ......................................................................................12 Blavatnik Awards in Israel................................................................................................................... 14 Blavatnik Science Scholars ................................................................................................................. 16 In the News ............................................................................................................................................. 18