Following are some of the lessons learned from the COVID response. If we take these on board and prepare for contingencies accordingly, hopefully the world will be better prepared to respond decisively if and when a contagion of this nature ever starts to spread again.

Pandemic Response

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of timely, decisive action in response to emerging public health threats. Countries that acted quickly and effectively were able to limit the spread of the virus and minimize its impact on healthcare systems. These included measures such as lockdowns, mask mandates, contact tracing, and mass testing. We have also learned that effective communication and coordination between different levels of government and the public health sector are essential for a successful pandemic response. However, we must also acknowledge that global cooperation is necessary to address pandemics, as they have no respect for borders.

Healthcare Mobilization

As incredible as are the individuals working within the healcare space, the pandemic exposed vulnerabilities of healthcare systems across the globe. Hospitals and healthcare workers were overwhelmed with the number of patients needing care, highlighting the need for more investment in public health infrastructure and the importance of having a robust and resilient healthcare workforce. The pandemic also demonstrated the importance of leveraging technology to support remote and virtual care. We have learned that preparedness for pandemics is essential, including the availability of personal protective equipment (PPE) and ventilators, which fell into alarmingly short supply just weeks into the pandemic.

Vaccine Deployment

The rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines was a remarkable achievement. However, the vaccine rollout has highlighted the challenges of ensuring equitable access to vaccines, especially for low- and middle-income countries. The pandemic has shown that we need to invest in vaccine development, production, and distribution infrastructure to be able to respond more quickly to future pandemics. The pandemic has also underscored the importance of vaccine hesitancy education, with the need to engage the public in the scientific process.

Personal Hygiene

We’ve known since the promotion of Germ Theory about the links between personal hygiene (particularly around hand washing, hand shaking, and coughing and sneezing in public) and the spread of microbial disease, but COVID’s emergence brought a renewed focus to personal hygiene. Campaigns were launched to promote thorough handwashing, mask-wearing, and physical distancing. We have learned that simple actions such as these can have a significant impact on reducing the spread of infectious diseases. The pandemic has also highlighted the importance of healthy lifestyle choices in maintaining good health, including regular exercise, a healthy diet, stress management and actively supporting mental wellbeing.

Social Interaction

The pandemic has forced us to rethink our social norms, with physical distancing and remote work becoming a new normal. We have learned that social interaction is essential for our mental health and well-being, and that we need to find ways to stay connected while maintaining physical distance. We have also learned that the pandemic has highlighted the disparities in access to technology and the digital divide that prevents some communities from participating in remote work and education.

Workplace Practices

The pandemic has caused a significant disruption to the way we work. Remote work has become ever-more popular, with some companies struggling even now to encourage their workers back into busy office environments, and we’ve learned to be flexible and adaptable in response to changing circumstances. The pandemic has also highlighted the importance of creating safe work environments, including the provision of PPE, hand sanitizer, air purification and social distancing measures. We have learned that workplaces need to be more resilient, and that we need to invest in technology and infrastructure to support remote work and collaboration.

In Summary

All-in-all, the COVID-19 pandemic has served as a massive test of humanity, ranging in scale from global action to the smaller and more personal changes that have impacted many aspects our lives. While the virus is not eradicated and will need to be managed as ongoing practice, the pandemic so far has taught us many lessons about how to respond to an emergency of this scale, including aspects of healthcare mobilization, vaccine deployment, personal hygiene, social interaction, and workplace practices. We have learned that we need to invest in public health infrastructure, the healthcare workforce, and research and development to prepare for future pandemics. The pandemic has also taught us the importance of global cooperation, equitable vaccine access, and community engagement in scientific processes.

The pandemic has forced us to rethink our social norms and the way we work, with a renewed focus on personal hygiene, mental health, and work-life balance. We have learned that we need to be flexible and adaptable to respond to changing circumstances and to invest in technology and infrastructure to support remote work and collaboration.

As the world continues to recover from the pandemic, it is essential that we build on the lessons we have learned and take action to create a more resilient, equitable, and sustainable future. We must use this experience as a catalyst to bring about change, recognizing the need for global cooperation and investment in science and public health, so that we are better prepared to respond to future pandemics and crises. While the COVID-19 pandemic has been a global challenge, it has also been a catalyst for positive change, highlighting the power of human ingenuity and collaboration. We have learned many lessons from this event, and it’s now up to us to take the necessary steps to create a better future for ourselves and future generations.

The post Lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic response appeared first on IQscience.

The novel SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that emerged in the city of Wuhan, China, last year and has since caused a large scale COVID-19 epidemic and spread to more than 70 other countries is the product of natural evolution, according to findings published today in the journal Nature Medicine.

The analysis of public genome sequence data from SARS-CoV-2 and related viruses found no evidence that the virus was made in a laboratory or otherwise engineered.

“By comparing the available genome sequence data for known coronavirus strains, we can firmly determine that SARS-CoV-2 originated through natural processes,” said Kristian Andersen, PhD, an associate professor of immunology and microbiology at Scripps Research and corresponding author on the paper.

In addition to Andersen, authors on the paper, “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2,” include Robert F. Garry, of Tulane University; Edward Holmes, of the University of Sydney; Andrew Rambaut, of University of Edinburgh; W. Ian Lipkin, of Columbia University.

Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that can cause illnesses ranging widely in severity. The first known severe illness caused by a coronavirus emerged with the 2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) epidemic in China. A second outbreak of severe illness began in 2012 in Saudi Arabia with the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS).

On December 31 of last year, Chinese authorities alerted the World Health Organization of an outbreak of a novel strain of coronavirus causing severe illness, which was subsequently named SARS-CoV-2. As of March 16, 2020, nearly 167,500 COVID-19 cases have been documented, although many more mild cases have likely gone undiagnosed. The virus has killed over 6,600 people.

Shortly after the epidemic began, Chinese scientists sequenced the genome of SARS-CoV-2 and made the data available to researchers worldwide. The resulting genomic sequence data has shown that Chinese authorities rapidly detected the epidemic and that the number of COVID-19 cases have been increasing because of human to human transmission after a single introduction into the human population. Andersen and collaborators at several other research institutions used this sequencing data to explore the origins and evolution of SARS-CoV-2 by focusing in on several tell-tale features of the virus.

The scientists analyzed the genetic template for spike proteins, armatures on the outside of the virus that it uses to grab and penetrate the outer walls of human and animal cells. More specifically, they focused on two important features of the spike protein: the receptor-binding domain (RBD), a kind of grappling hook that grips onto host cells, and the cleavage site, a molecular can opener that allows the virus to crack open and enter host cells.

Evidence for natural evolution

The scientists found that the RBD portion of the SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins had evolved to effectively target a molecular feature on the outside of human cells called ACE2, a receptor involved in regulating blood pressure. While their analysis suggested that SARS-CoV-2 may bind human ACE2 with high affinity, computational analyses predict that the interaction is not ideal and that the RBD sequence is different from those shown in SARS-CoV to be optimal for receptor binding. This suggests that SARS-CoV-2 was the result of natural selection.

This evidence for natural evolution was supported by data on SARS-CoV-2’s backbone – its overall molecular structure. If someone were seeking to engineer a new coronavirus as a pathogen, they would have constructed it from the backbone of a virus known to cause illness. But the scientists found that the SARS-CoV-2 backbone differed substantially from those of already known coronaviruses and mostly resembled related viruses found in bats and pangolins.

“These two features of the virus, the mutations in the RBD portion of the spike protein and its distinct backbone, rules out laboratory manipulation as a potential origin for SARS-CoV-2” said Andersen.

Josie Golding, PhD, epidemics lead at UK-based Wellcome Trust, said the findings by Andersen and his colleagues are “crucially important to bring an evidence-based view to the rumors that have been circulating about the origins of the virus (SARS-CoV-2) causing COVID-19.”

“They conclude that the virus is the product of natural evolution,” Golding adds, “ending any speculation about deliberate genetic engineering.”

Possible origins of the virus

Based on their genomic sequencing analysis, Andersen and his collaborators concluded that the most likely origins for SARS-CoV-2 followed one of two possible scenarios.

In one scenario, the virus evolved to its current pathogenic state through natural selection in a non-human host and then jumped to humans. This is how previous coronavirus outbreaks have emerged, with humans contracting the virus after direct exposure to civets (SARS) and camels (MERS). The researchers proposed bats as the most likely reservoir for SARS-CoV-2 as it is very similar to a bat coronavirus. There are no documented cases of direct bat-human transmission, however, suggesting that an intermediate host was likely involved between bats and humans.

In this scenario, both of the distinctive features of SARS-CoV-2’s spike protein—the RBD portion that binds to cells and the cleavage site that opens the virus up—would have evolved to their current state prior to entering humans. In this case, the current epidemic would probably have emerged rapidly as soon as humans were infected, as the virus would have already evolved the features that make it pathogenic and able to spread between people.

In the other proposed scenario, a non-pathogenic version of the virus jumped from an animal host into humans and then evolved to its current pathogenic state within the human population. For instance, some coronaviruses from pangolins, armadillo-like mammals found in Asia and Africa, have an RBD structure very similar to that of SARS-CoV-2. A coronavirus from a pangolin could possibly have been transmitted to a human, either directly or through an intermediary host such as civets or ferrets.

Then the other distinct spike protein characteristic of SARS-CoV-2, the cleavage site, could have evolved within a human host, possibly via limited undetected circulation in the human population prior to the beginning of the epidemic. The researchers found that the SARS-CoV-2 cleavage site, appears similar to the cleavage sites of strains of bird flu that has been shown to transmit easily between people. SARS-CoV-2 could have evolved such a virulent cleavage site in human cells and soon kicked off the current epidemic, as the coronavirus would possibly have become far more capable of spreading between people.

Study co-author Andrew Rambaut cautioned that it is difficult if not impossible to know at this point which of the scenarios is most likely. If the SARS-CoV-2 entered humans in its current pathogenic form from an animal source, it raises the probability of future outbreaks, as the illness-causing strain of the virus could still be circulating in the animal population and might once again jump into humans. The chances are lower of a non-pathogenic coronavirus entering the human population and then evolving properties similar to SARS-CoV-2.

Funding for the research was provided by the US National Institutes of Health, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Wellcome Trust, the European Research Council, and an ARC Australian Laureate Fellowship.

The post The new coronavirus was not created in a lab, study says appeared first on IQscience.