7/20/21 Summary Corona Virus Update by H. Robert Silverstein, MD, FACC for the Preventive Medicine Center
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7/20/21 Summary Corona Virus Update by H. Robert Silverstein, MD, FACC for the Preventive Medicine Center Clyde W. Yancy, MD, Vice Dean for Diversity and Inclusion Chief of Cardiology in the Department of Medicine, Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago Clyde W. Yancy, MD: “I’m exhausted by the stress; disheartened by the toll on human life; concerned deeply about the exposure to healthcare workers- BUT, I am emboldened by the display of courage, selflessness, compassion, and sacrifice that I see in physicians, nurses and health care workers across the country.” “It is not a case of ‘don’t confuse me with the facts’, but the best clinical insights exceed so called knowledge by at least one step.” “Early 2020 saw the world break into what has been described as a "war-like situation": A pandemic, caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the likes of which majority of the living generations across most of the planet have not ever seen. This pandemic has downed economies and resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths.” Tokyo University of Science 7/1/21 1 History, precedents, similarities, virus structure and invasion, pathology, physiology, lethality vs safety in perspective, China, geography, EU vs USA comparison, time-line, media, politics, pandemic modelling, symptoms, lockdown, economics, joblessness, vascular-platelet-glycocalyx clotting, testing, ventilators, medications, vaccines, supplements, diet: This 2019 corona virus CoV2-19 is an entirely new RNA virus with 30 proteins. Corona viruses have the largest known viral genome. The RNA of a corona virus is single-stranded. The word “VIRUS” means “poison.” A human cell has 20,000 different proteins. Being an RNA virus, it is similar to hepatitis C; it is not a DNA virus like hepatitis B. There are 200 viruses that can cause the common cold and several of these are corona viruses. “Corona” is Latin for “crown” which is how the virus looks in the microscope as if it has an encircling crown. The specific CoV2-19 genetic RNA fact and its “SPIKE” projections will affect anti-viral treatment design and decisions. That virus spike binds to and fuses with host cells. “The SARS-CoV-2 spike protein trimer is only ~10nm in size (1/100,000 of a millimeter) and there are approximately 100 of these on the surface of a single viral particle, which itself is about 100 nm in diameter.” CoV2-19 was detected by it having a new genetic sequence as recognized by GenBank—it may have been around for a thousand years, but it is just now discovered. The Chinese symbol for it is pronounced “wayGee” and means both “crisis” and “opportunity”: two sides of the same coin. The first known novel and important coronavirus was called SARS = Severe Acute Respiratory syndrome. There are only 2 known previous serious corona virus outbreaks: SARS and Middle East respiratory syndrome = MERS, the latter epidemic was smaller, but with a 1/3 (33%!) death rate! A REMARKABLY lucid and up-to-date VIDEO explanation of of corona virus variants, there genetic make-up, infectivity, and epidemiology. BASIC RESEARCH by Jeremy Kamil of Louisiana State University as of 3/34/21. In case the link does not work, go to VuMedi to view this: https://www.vumedi.com/video/convergent-evolution-in-sars-cov-2-what-do-7-of-the-emerging- variants-have-in-common-is-the-virus-ru/?token=64cc855f-7b31-4533-bfeb- bdf40e2f7c7f&utm_source=COVID%20Interests %20Criteria_79170&utm_medium=Video&utm_campaign=%2803/29%20covid %29%20Convergent%20Evolution%20in%20SARS-CoV-2%3A%20What%20Do%207%20of %20the%20Emerging%20Variants%20Have%20in%20Common%3F%20Is%20the%20Virus %20Running%20Out%20of%20New%20Major%20Adaptions%3F&utm_content=Convergent %20Evolution%20in%20SARS-CoV-2%3A%20What%20Do%207%20of%20the%20Emerging %20Variants%20Have%20in%20Common%3F%20Is%20the%20Virus%20Running%20Out %20of%20New%20Major%20Adaptations%3F&utm_term=COVID- 19%20Prevention&link_data=eyJidWxrX21haWxfYWN0aW9uIjoiYyIsInJlY2lwaWVudF9pZC I6MTE4MzMwNTA3OSwibWFpbF9pZCI6NzkxNzB9%3A1lQte7%3AUmkEMNQUCzMTwB 3o3t9K1bhcuQo&mail_id=79170 2 Here is SUPERB reporting from ‘Vanity Fair’ 5/27/21 by Kartherine Eban regarding the possibility of a lab-leak of the Corona Virus resulting in the CoV2-19 pandemic. A small amount of politics is therein. Here is the profound and entire Wall Street Journal 6/6/21 editorial by the heavily credentialled Quay and Muller regarding the origin of the Wuhan Corona Virus CoV2-19 The Science Suggests a Wuhan Lab Leak The Covid-19 pathogen has a genetic footprint that has never been observed in a natural coronavirus. By Steven Quay and Richard Muller June 6, 2021 The possibility that the pandemic began with an escape from the Wuhan Institute of Virology is attracting fresh attention. President Biden has asked the national intelligence community to redouble efforts to investigate. Much of the public discussion has focused on circumstantial evidence: mysterious illnesses in late 2019; the lab’s work intentionally supercharging viruses to increase lethality (known as “gain of function” research). The Chinese Communist Party has been reluctant to release relevant information. Reports based on U.S. intelligence have suggested the lab collaborated on projects with the Chinese military. But the most compelling reason to favor the lab leak hypothesis is firmly based in science. In particular, consider the genetic fingerprint of CoV-2, the novel coronavirus responsible for the disease Covid-19. In gain-of-function research, a microbiologist can increase the lethality of a coronavirus enormously by splicing a special sequence into its 3 genome at a prime location. Doing this leaves no trace of manipulation. But it alters the virus spike protein, rendering it easier for the virus to inject genetic material into the victim cell. Since 1992 there have been at least 11 separate experiments adding a special sequence to the same location. The end result has always been supercharged viruses. A genome is a blueprint for the factory of a cell to make proteins. The language is made up of three-letter “words,” 64 in total, that represent the 20 different amino acids. For example, there are six different words for the amino acid arginine, the one that is often used in supercharging viruses. Every cell has a different preference for which word it likes to use most. In the case of the gain-of-function supercharge, other sequences could have been spliced into this same site. Instead of a CGG-CGG (known as “double CGG”) that tells the protein factory to make two arginine amino acids in a row, you’ll obtain equal lethality by splicing any one of 35 of the other two-word combinations for double arginine. If the insertion takes place naturally, say through recombination, then one of those 35 other sequences is far more likely to appear; CGG is rarely used in the class of coronaviruses that can recombine with CoV-2. In fact, in the entire class of coronaviruses that includes CoV-2, the CGG-CGG combination has never been found naturally. That means the common method of viruses picking up new skills, called recombination, cannot operate here. A virus simply cannot pick up a sequence from another virus if that sequence isn’t present in any other virus. Although the double CGG is suppressed naturally, the opposite is true in laboratory work. The insertion sequence of choice is the double CGG. That’s because it is readily available and convenient, and scientists have a great deal of experience inserting it. An additional advantage of the double CGG sequence compared with the other 35 possible 4 choices: It creates a useful beacon that permits the scientists to track the insertion in the laboratory. Now the damning fact. It was this exact sequence that appears in CoV- 2. Proponents of zoonotic origin must explain why the novel coronavirus, when it mutated or recombined, happened to pick its least favorite combination, the double CGG. Why did it replicate the choice the lab’s gain-of-function researchers would have made? Yes, it could have happened randomly, through mutations. But do you believe that? At the minimum, this fact—that the coronavirus, with all its random possibilities, took the rare and unnatural combination used by human researchers—implies that the leading theory for the origin of the coronavirus must be laboratory escape. When the lab’s Shi Zhengli and colleagues published a paper in February 2020 with the virus’s partial genome, they omitted any mention of the special sequence that supercharges the virus or the rare double CGG section. Yet the fingerprint is easily identified in the data that accompanied the paper. Was it omitted in the hope that nobody would notice this evidence of the gain-of-function origin? But in a matter of weeks virologists Bruno Coutard and colleagues published their discovery of the sequence in CoV-2 and its novel supercharged site. Double CGG is there; you only have to look. They comment in their paper that the protein that held it “may provide a gain-of-function” capability to the virus, “for efficient spreading” to humans. There is additional scientific evidence that points to CoV-2’s gain-of- function origin. The most compelling is the dramatic differences in the genetic diversity of CoV-2, compared with the coronaviruses responsible for SARS and MERS. Both of those were confirmed to have a natural origin; the viruses evolved rapidly as they spread through the human population, until the 5 most contagious forms dominated. Covid-19 didn’t work that way. It appeared in humans already adapted into an extremely contagious version. No serious viral “improvement” took place until a minor variation occurred many months later in England.