Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

ricky_v · Post by **ricky_v** » 25 Mar 2020 05:50

http://i.4cdn.org/pol/1585092822422.webm

ricky_v · Post by **ricky_v** » 25 Mar 2020 06:08

saip · Post by **saip** » 25 Mar 2020 06:18

^^^These are from Feb 11,12. Why now?
Are you saying that congregation for Chinese New Year caused the spread of the virus?

sanjaykumar · Post by **sanjaykumar** » 25 Mar 2020 06:24

I think the Brazilians are being affectionate and calling him put derived from putra. In Portuguese it may be Laputa.

ricky_v · Post by **ricky_v** » 25 Mar 2020 06:32

Of course, the decision to not look "racist" will hit these places double time. Also with regards to the lunar year, chinese from all over the world travel to china, it is a big event. I am merely pointing out why places like new york are so badly hit that they have surpassed germany, it was the same in italy with hug a chinese, dont be racist slogan. I really hope that being anti-racist gives them some small comfort when they or their loved ones are coughing their lungs out.

ricky_v · Post by **ricky_v** » 25 Mar 2020 06:34

sanjaykumar wrote:I think the Brazilians are being affectionate and calling him put derived from putra. In Portuguese it may be Laputa.

google translate states that the words in english to the left are the ones in portuguese to the right.

saip · Post by **saip** » 25 Mar 2020 06:35

^^ I got it. If they banned the Chinese New Year celebration.....

sanjaykumar · Post by **sanjaykumar** » 25 Mar 2020 06:38

ricky_v wrote:
sanjaykumar wrote:I think the Brazilians are being affectionate and calling him put derived from putra. In Portuguese it may be Laputa.
google translate states that the words in english to the left are the ones in portuguese to the right.

Hehehe Jonathan Swift (Gulliver's Travels) also plays with the word Laputa.

saip · Post by **saip** » 25 Mar 2020 06:42

FIlho da Puta means Son of a Bitch in Portuguese.

vera_k · Post by **vera_k** » 25 Mar 2020 07:01

saip wrote:that congregation for Chinese New Year caused the spread of the virus?

That's possible, and more analysis will probably come out in time. This virus is very contagious. This is a fairly detailed account of Seattle's patient zero.

Seattle’s Patient Zero Spread Coronavirus Despite Ebola-Style Lockdown

The man who would become Patient Zero for the new coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. appeared to do everything right.

On Jan. 15, when the traveler to Wuhan who became the first known U.S. case returned to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, he took group transportation from the airport with other passengers, county officials have said.

At the time, 41 people in Wuhan had been diagnosed with the novel coronavirus

He arrived Jan. 19 at an urgent-care clinic in a suburb north of Seattle with a slightly elevated temperature

The test came back positive that afternoon, Jan. 20

County health officials located more than 60 people who’d come in contact with him, and none developed the virus in the following weeks.

Somehow, someone was missed.

vishvak · Post by **vishvak** » 25 Mar 2020 07:02

Let's just follow common sense and not get carried away by hug a Chinese or anti something behaviour. Perhaps history will be written about how Chinese didn't really deserve WMDs of any kind and keep this thread sane.

I think one or two lines of clear statements ie avoid mobs and avoid places with any more than zero chance of spread could be fine.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 25 Mar 2020 07:09

vishvak wrote:Let's just follow common sense and not get carried away by hug a Chinese or anti something behaviour. Perhaps history will be written about how Chinese didn't really deserve WMDs of any kind and keep this thread sane.

I think one or two lines of clear statements ie avoid mobs and avoid places with any more than zero chance of spread could be fine.

This would have been largely avoided had the Chinese not have this bizzare desire to eat bats, pangolins and exotic mammals. We got SARS, bird flu, H1N1 and now COVID-19 Kung Flu.

vishvak · Post by **vishvak** » 25 Mar 2020 07:16

Maybe wrong thread but idea of democracy (and such) aren't there staying sharp in minds of some groups perhaps which is why some things don't occur quickly. My last on this.

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 25 Mar 2020 07:20

Pakistan goes AWOL from Saarc’s list of contributors for Covid-19 fund

Pakistan is the only member of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) that hasn’t contributed to the Covid-19 Emergency Fund for the grouping that has already received commitments worth $18.8 million.

disha · Post by **disha** » 25 Mar 2020 07:39

https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-ne ... j7SEI.html

In simple terms, without any intervention in the Indian conditions the R0 will be four that is one will lead to 4 which will lead to 16 ... If unchecked it will lead to 4^n series or in 2 weeks we are looking at >26,84,35,456 or in 2-3 weeks it will be half the population of India.

Hence GOI wants to bring down the R0 to below 2. If it is 2, it is still bad and will lead to 20 lakhs infected. But not as dire as four above. And anything below 2, say 1.5, it will be approx 5000 cases. Manageable.

Hence the goal is to bring R0 below 2. All Indians need to understand this. Just stay at home if you can. Think of it as a long vacation with movies.

We can monitor the R0 now in simple terms.

Take the number of cases at 500 now. If it grows at R0 of 4, then in 5 days we will have 1500+ cases. However if R0 is 1.5, the number of cases will remain static. And at R0 at 3, it will be approx. 800. At R0 2, it will be 532.

Given the number calculating R0 is simple. Let us say that after 5 days the number of positive cases identified is 728. Then R0 will be 728-600=128 and 5th root of 128 will be 2.6.

That is, just take the number and do the day'th root of that number (minus initial 500). So if the number of days is 'n', do 'n the root of a number of positive cases'.

So let's pray and monitor the cases and ensure that the entire effort of the nation comes through and we will be able to bring down the R0 to 2 and below.

IT IS DOABLE

SandeepA · Post by **SandeepA** » 25 Mar 2020 07:48

I will go on a limb and say this. The awe-inspiring 21-day lockdown in India may be the single most significant action that will trigger the retreat and eventual defeat of this Chinese virus worldwide. Its that time in history. India as always..Jagadguru.

vimal · Post by **vimal** » 25 Mar 2020 07:59

Ok now, India must absolutely stop bringing these idiots home. WTF were they doing in Iran for so long? Most will happily take the help and then indulge in Shaheen Bagh.

Special flight to bring back more than 270 Indians from Iran

I dont trust the iranian buggers one bit about the testing.

ricky_v · Post by **ricky_v** » 25 Mar 2020 08:06

http://theredelephants.com/chinese-inte ... k-benches/

shanth · Post by **shanth** » 25 Mar 2020 08:16

Something interesting on how the virus is evolving to be less harmful
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... 1.full.pdf

disscussion here https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/co ... /?sort=top

Here’s an ELI5: The researchers sequenced the genome of a number of COVID19 viruses from a series of infected patients from Singapore. They found that the viral genome had a large deletion that was also witnessed in past epidemics of related viruses (MERS, SARS), especially later in the epidemic. The form with the deletion was less infective, and has been attributed to the dying out of these past epidemics. In other words, COVID19 seems to be following the same evolutionary trajectory.

Well why is that? Why would a virus evolve to be less infective? Seems kind of counterintuitive, right? The authors hypothesize that it has to do with the selective pressure from the human adaptive immune system. In other words, that region that is deleted happens to have a high level of antigenicity (human antibodies like to target it), which means its presence leads to lower levels of survival of the virus. So the removal allows the virus to be less detectible at the expense of a lower infectivity/replication rate. So in the evolutionary arms race between the human adaptive immune system and the virus, the immune system is basically driving the virus into a corner. This is really good news as it suggests that as this pandemic proceeds, the virus will (likely?) tend to evolve into a less virulent strain, and so fizzle our eventually.

sudarshan · Post by **sudarshan** » 25 Mar 2020 08:20

disha wrote:...
Given the number calculating R0 is simple. Let us say that after 5 days the number of positive cases identified is 728. Then R0 will be 728-600=128 and 5th root of 128 will be 2.6.

That is, just take the number and do the day'th root of that number (minus initial 500). So if the number of days is 'n', do 'n the root of a number of positive cases'.

Don't you have to account for the initial number of cases?

Meaning - if you had 600 initial cases and after 5 days, it becomes 728, that's an increase of 128 in 5 days. If you had 10 initial cases and it becomes 138 in 5 days, that is also an increase of 128 in 5 days. Is the R0 the same in both cases?

Yugandhar · Post by **Yugandhar** » 25 Mar 2020 08:53

ramana wrote:Dr Uday, Sanjay and other hakims,
Please read this and decode it.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... 1.full.pdf

Ramana,
The paper bases its analysis on a single isolated strain of Indian SARS-CoV2 (NCBI-ID : MT050493.1). We don`t even know how many prevalent strains are there in India. Have not seen any systematic sequencing effort to analyse from different parts of the country. Maybe this is happening as we speak, but no data out there. There is a total of 2 isolates, whose full genomes are sequenced and deposited in NCBI. The last sequence deposited was on 10th March. Both these were collected from Kerala on 27th Jan and 31st Jan. So they may be students returned from Wuhan. Is this a pan-India prevalent strain? probably not.

secondly the hsa-miR-27b that they are excited about was down regulated in a HIV infection and upregulating it suppressed HIV replication. We don`t know if miR-27b is expressed during SARS infection and what role it plays. What if SARS too downregulates it during infection? in which case this is if not much value. Also, miR-27b is predicted to have a 100 or more targets and it is not clear what the outcome will be.

All in all, I am not too hopeful that this will make a big difference to understanding SARS epidemic or its control. The whole premise of "Symptoms in Indians less severe" is hugely debatable.

a_bharat · Post by **a_bharat** » 25 Mar 2020 09:22

Mollick.R wrote: Currently, no company manufactures 100 percent indigenous ventilators in India. Most companies either import, assemble or partially produce it with components sourced from Europe, US and China.

But this supply has been hampered with the countries restricting critical exports owing to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Other companies like Vadodara-based Max Ventilators and Air Liquide manufacture partially. The rest either import or assemble ventilators in India.

GE Healthcare and Philips import ventilators and other critical care equipment from their global manufacturing hubs.

The government is in talks with all manufacturers to ramp up capacities and collaborate on design elements that can be locally produced.

Skanray makes compressor-based ventilators, which the company says will be optimum for use for care for critical COVID-19 patients. The cost ranges from Rs 5 lakh to 12 lakh.

I read about usage of splitters to make a single ventilator machine support multiple patients. There is plenty of old literature about 1-to-4 splitters. Recently, I read about 1-to-9 splitter used at some place for treating corona virus patients.

These are quick, inexpensive and easy to make. We should take this route, while in parallel also try to to make indigenous ventilator machines.

g.sarkar · Post by **g.sarkar** » 25 Mar 2020 09:24

https://www.indiatoday.in/india-today-i ... source=rss
Covid-19: The bitter truth about using hydroxychloroquine as a preventive drug
Did the Indian Council for Medical Research factor in the extreme side effects and easy availability of this antimalarial drug before recommending it for those who face a high risk of coronavirus infection?
Sonali Acharjee, New Delhi, March 24, 2020
When the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) released a statement on March 23 recommending use of the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine as a preventive medicine for those who face a high risk of coronavirus infection, C. Banerjee, a 69-year-old resident of Delhi’s Kalkaji, says the news gave him the shivers. In the 1980s, as cases of malaria began to increase in India, chloroquine (which is closely related to hydroxychloroquine) was widely prescribed. "It is like swallowing death," recounts Banerjee. Reported side effects of chloroquine include nausea, headache, mood swings, skin irritation, swelling, cramps, pale skin, muscle weakness, bleeding from nose and hearing problems. An overdose can result in death. Hydroxychloroquine too can lead to headaches, nausea, lowering of blood glucose, drowsiness, reduced appetite, depression, irreversible blindness, cramps and heart failure (if overdosed). "It leaves a horrible bitter taste in the mouth. I remember taking it and feeling faint, nauseous and terribly unwell. I hope the drug is different now," adds Banerjee.
Hydroxychloroquine is slightly more tolerable, but is equally dangerous in its side effects if taken without supervision, as is an entire class of anti-malarial drugs. It also bears similarities in its mode of action against malaria to the world’s first anti-malarial drug--quinine. In Peru, the Inca civilisation used the bark of the Cinchona plant to treat shivering (which many say could have been caused by malaria or low-grade fever). In 1633, this herbal medicine was introduced in Europe to reduce fever, but the compound quinine was first extracted from the bark in 1820. In 1944, it was synthesised in a laboratory and began to be used to treat malaria. There has never been a synthesis that can compete with the extraction from the bark. But in 1934, chloroquine was synthesised as a quinine alternative and eventually began to be used more popularly for malaria treatment, especially in areas where quinine resistance might have developed. Hydroxychloroquine came along in the 1950s, and is said to be slightly less extreme in side effects than both its predecessors. It is on the World Health Organization’s Model List of Essential Medicines, the safest and most effective drugs needed in a health system. Quinine itself is no longer on it.
There has been widespread uproar over the ICMR recommending the drug for protection against COVID-19. Doctors say the medical evidence is still too limited to be sure of hydroxychloroquine’s antiviral properties. The antiviral effects of chloroquine were described in a research paper published in The Lancet in 2003. Chloroquine exerts direct antiviral effects, inhibiting pH-dependent steps of the replication of several viruses, including members of the flaviviruses, retroviruses and coronaviruses,’ it noted. Both chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine were shown to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 in a lab setting, but a further study concluded that hydroxychloroquine was more potent than chloroquine, with a more tolerable safety profile. It has been used to study several viral infections, including Ebola, influenza and dengue. But several studies noted that meaningful action requires a large dose of the drug inside the cells, and it can increase toxicity, which is a key concern when using both the drugs.
.....
Gautam

Cain Marko · Post by **Cain Marko** » 25 Mar 2020 09:32

Arun.prabhu wrote:I'll show you all those farmers who have been committing suicide because of most of livelihood and rest my case on economic loss leads to loss of life front.

You know this is not an apples to apples comparison. Do you really want to compare how many people died from the Spanish Flu vs the Great Depression? Farmer suicides as a regular occurence btw were mostly a post 90s phenomenon continuing when the economy was constantly growing at a rather robust pace. So please don't obfuscate the issue and desist from such red herrings and strawman arguments

As for farmers being infected in lower numbers being acceptable - which I the implication of your logic - but not those in cubicles, why are those in cubicles more worthy than farmers, one wonders. The farmers work in villages with little access to good medical care and if they get infected, a disproportionate number of them who develop the serious forms of the disease will die because of lack of said care. Farmers whose lives could have been saved if they had access to city hospitals and city doctors and city care or if they had stayed home and let you and I die.

Look at the situation in the face of existing facts - the density of population matters! Areas and occupations with greater density are where the virus is most dangerous. That was the point.

BTW, cain, I never argued against isolation. I argued against locking down cities and states and countries en masse. Target specifically and not everyone in the general population.

THen why argue for the sake of it? Which country is not locking down selectively?

Shutting down everything is pure laziness and sheer bloodymindedness. Do the calculations. Shutting down the society delays the disease by two weeks. Assume that thirty percent of the population will get the disease and that it will run its course not in three years but in three or four months.

Too many assumptions here and therefore numerous unanswered questions:
Why would everything be shutdown? That is not what any country is doing - not Italy, not Soko, not the US and not Bharat.
Why exactly will the disease stop at 30%? Are you suggesting that herd immunity will be achieved by then by the entire population? Studies show that we need about 60%+ to be infected to achieve immunity.
What makes you think that we can only buy 2 weeks from lockdowns? Why not 6 weeks or 6 months? Why not extended lockdowns?

Does India have the beds? For that matter, does the world have that many beds? How many do you think we'll save with those two extra weeks bought?

The entire point of isolation and lockdowns is to make the spread manageable under existing infrastructure with a little help.

As for containment, the testing we've been doing is only those who have travelled internationally and those we can ascertain are close contacts with them. What about all those who slipped through our net? The ones who aren't in either of these watch lists. Keep telling yourself I'm heartless and keep telling yourself the lockdown will be short and that you and I can stay at home while others go out to ensure both of us get water and power and food and medicine. The difference between us is that I don't think my life is worth any more than that of the farmer. If he can go out and put himself at risk to serve me and my family, why shouldn't I be out of the street keeping the economy running so that he can put food in his.

This is a pointless tangent, and I won't extend it any further. I'm not judging you, at all. Just the entire argument of letting it ravage the population like " a knife through butter" as you put it!

Cain Marko · Post by **Cain Marko** » 25 Mar 2020 09:39

ricky_v wrote:
http://theredelephants.com/chinese-inte ... k-benches/

Ricky, is this for real? Or just twitterganda? I didn't go through the whole article but saw the first video and it seemed like the Chinese woman just sneezed (and couldn't really control that). NOt like she deliberate hackthooed on it!

Stuff like this needs to be verified or we'll start seeing folks attacking innocents.

ritesh · Post by **ritesh** » 25 Mar 2020 09:51

Gerard wrote:Pakistan goes AWOL from Saarc’s list of contributors for Covid-19 fund
Pakistan is the only member of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) that hasn’t contributed to the Covid-19 Emergency Fund for the grouping that has already received commitments worth $18.8 million.

Sirjee bhikari chada lene ke liye hote hai. Dene ke liye nahi!! Begairat mulk aur quam hai ye porkis.

ricky_v · Post by **ricky_v** » 25 Mar 2020 10:01

Cain Marko wrote: Ricky, is this for real? Or just twitterganda? I didn't go through the whole article but saw the first video and it seemed like the Chinese woman just sneezed (and couldn't really control that). NOt like she deliberate hackthooed on it!

Stuff like this needs to be verified or we'll start seeing folks attacking innocents.

Watch this one sir, more informative, 3rd or 4th in the article.
https://twitter.com/PagliacciDorati/sta ... 9726195713

Deans · Post by **Deans** » 25 Mar 2020 10:02

Suraj wrote:
Karan M wrote: Genius. Just plain genius. I didn't think of this at all.
Depends on wash sale rules. In the US the rule prevents selling at a loss and buying back 'substantially the same security' within the next 30 days and reporting that loss for tax purposes. However, given the circumstances, the US may suspend wash sale rules this year. I don't know if India has such rules. I assume not, in which case booking a loss for tax purposes is a smart tactic.

India does not have these rules, its a loophole but one that can be exploited in time like this. You can't carry forward long term capital losses (only short term) and short term losses can be set off against both long (which I have) and short term capital gains.

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 25 Mar 2020 10:14

evm wrote:I am not emphasizing any negative attributes of Indians. Just of media. In every country. This hype of creating a cure of the virus has been going on in every country and is getting proved wrong. Indian doctors have not claimed they found a cure. The media did. Many of my physician friends are part of these trials in US and UK and i have first hand info. So wanted to share. These reports of cures are giving a sense of false hope to people. Donot expect any drug or vaccine in next few months. Social distancing is the only way.

From the nation's pov, what is the end game then?

If there is no cure or vaccine forthcoming in the next few months, social distancing will only delay the inevitable. It is not practical to extend national curfew beyond a few weeks at best. What happens after it is lifted ?
COVID goes on another merry round of infecting people ?

We don't even know if surviving the COVID infection once makes people immune to a second infection !

wig · Post by **wig** » 25 Mar 2020 10:30

meanwhile
https://twitter.com/MarcinKurpios/statu ... 7298724866

Marcin Kurpios
@MarcinKurpios
Poziom błędów testów, których 150 000 Czesi otrzymali z Chin sięga 80%. Czesi wracają do testów klasycznych, których robią 900 dziennie.
Translated from Polish by
The error rate of tests that 150,000 Czechs received from China reaches 80%. The Czechs return to the classic tests, which they do 900 per day.

Jay · Post by **Jay** » 25 Mar 2020 10:41

Cain Marko wrote: Ricky, is this for real? Or just twitterganda?

Stuff like this needs to be verified or we'll start seeing folks attacking innocents.

Cain ji, its 100% twitterganda. Some of these are old incidents and one of them I remember from 2017. These are also picked from various locations around the world with one commonality being the people look like Asians(Chinese/Japanese/Koreans).

Deans · Post by **Deans** » 25 Mar 2020 10:44

sudarshan wrote:
disha wrote:...
Given the number calculating R0 is simple. Let us say that after 5 days the number of positive cases identified is 728. Then R0 will be 728-600=128 and 5th root of 128 will be 2.6.

That is, just take the number and do the day'th root of that number (minus initial 500). So if the number of days is 'n', do 'n the root of a number of positive cases'.

The fallacy in this logic is that people tend to interact with the same set of other people. A large section of the population (especially India) may never interact with an infected person. Studies (incl. the Israeli guy earlier in the thread) put the max no of people who can be infected at 50% of a population. In more practical terms, on the Diamond Princess, where 3600 people (a large proportion of elderly) were stuck together breathing recirculated air, the infection rate was 17% In Northern Italy and Switzerland, the peak seems to have happened with reported cases at 2000 per million (0.2%). That's consistent with Dr Devi Shetty's number for Karnataka (0.12% minimum with no lock-down).
Also, many who get it will have very mild symptoms and will thereafter develop immunity.

nandakumar · Post by **nandakumar** » 25 Mar 2020 10:46

Shivaji wrote:
nam wrote:

In terms of economic cost. The rest of the world is anyway locked down. Whom will you trade with by staying open?

Also, you either be open & pay for looking after millions of sicks, infected & dying patients or loose money by staying home and helping the medical services cope.

It is a choice one has to make.
This is what I was telling my wifey just now.

Can long pending infrastructure work be carried out in this period?

Many a times bridge needs to be built on tracks but Railways does not give time slot for construction work or time slot given is too small.

I know one bridge that connects Thane with Mumbai was long pending due to permission issues from Railways. This and many such critical works can be completed in this period.

Even construction work has been suspended. It is also understandable as it requires mobilisation of large numbers of people. So no relief on that front.

Deans · Post by **Deans** » 25 Mar 2020 10:57

Rahul M wrote: From the nation's pov, what is the end game then?

If there is no cure or vaccine forthcoming in the next few months, social distancing will only delay the inevitable. It is not practical to extend national curfew beyond a few weeks at best. What happens after it is lifted ?
COVID goes on another merry round of infecting people ?

We don't even know if surviving the COVID infection once makes people immune to a second infection !

Rahul ji, The world had the same fears during SARS & MERS. We still don't have a cure, but the virus vanished with the same rapidity as it appeared.
When it does linger on, it tends to be less malignant, in order to survive - That is the nature of a virus. I'm no expert and perhaps I'm expressing a positive view as there is no alternative in the current situation.

schinnas · Post by **schinnas** » 25 Mar 2020 11:50

Nobel laureate Michael Levitt predicts end of Coronavirus pandemic based on statistical models.

https://www.business-standard.com/artic ... 668_1.html

A positive prediction by someone who got it right on the slowdown of Corona in China. Best news on the day of Ugadi.

SPattath · Post by **SPattath** » 25 Mar 2020 12:06

RSS is helping the economically weaker section with food packets in Bangalore. Please contribute to this cause . Also please share this among well wishers.
https://gifyu.com/image/dEo9

chola · Post by **chola** » 25 Mar 2020 12:21

schinnas wrote:Nobel laureate Michael Levitt predicts end of Coronavirus pandemic based on statistical models.

https://www.business-standard.com/artic ... 668_1.html

A positive prediction by someone who got it right on the slowdown of Corona in China. Best news on the day of Ugadi.

Not if a second wave takes hold because overseas chinis and expats are rushing back. This can happen to every country that tries to restart its economy. We are in uncharted territory.

https://www.euroweeklynews.com/2020/03/ ... nr42PcpCEc

As Predicted a Second Wave of the Coronavirus Sweeps across China as New cases Double Overnight

Mainland China saw a doubling in new coronavirus cases, driven by a jump in infected travelers arriving from abroad, while more locally transmitted cases crept into its daily tally, including one in the central city of Wuhan.

...

China had 78 new cases on Monday, the National Health Commission said, a two-fold increase from a day earlier, of the new cases, 74 were imported infections, up from 39 a day earlier.

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 25 Mar 2020 12:29

Neela wrote:Can someone translate this for engineers? I did read Abhijit"s translation and didnt get it.

I am an engineer too but will bravely attempt still to translate this. May not be entirely accurate.

A very novel therapeutic method is being attempted. This involves a process known as ‘gene silencing’.

The ultimate purpose of a gene in the DNA is to produce a protein through a two-stage process, transcription and translation. This is known as gene expression. Gene silencing is the technique to interrupt this gene expression. The DNA in the nucleus has the code for making a protein which is copied by the messenger RNA (mRNA) in a process known as transcription. This mRNA exits the nucleus into cytoplasm where copied instructions are used to synthesize the protein in the process known as translation. The cytoplasm (i.e. the portion outside the nucleus but still within the cell) contains basic ingredients that are needed to make these proteins. A virus, like coronavirus, injects its mRNA into the cell and makes copies of its protein, thereby causing infection. The idea in gene silencing is to stop this 'translation' process by targetting the mRNA and destroying it.

We have help at hand for this process within the DNA itself. Now, genes in the DNA have regions within themselves (known as intergenic areas) where there are certain types of micro RNAs (miRNA) which control or regulate the post-transcription process of gene expression, that is after transcription occurs in the nucleus but before translation occurs in cytoplasm. The miRNAs are non-coding RNA molecules (i.e. they cannot copy a gene to make a protein) which are very short in length. They interfere with the mRNA which carries the protein-making copy of the genetic code from the DNA (and therefore this process is known as RNAi or RNA interference).

In order to do this, the miRNA needs to get into cytoplasm and then act. The way it happens is as follows: the miRNA genes are transcribed in the nucleus by the same RNA polymerase enzyme leading to a hairpin-type miRNA (which means there are two strands, but not helical as in a DNA structure); this miRNA, known as pri-miRNA, or primary micro RNA, is further trimmed by other enzymes; the resulting trimmed transcript is known as a pre-miRNA, i.e., precursor miRNA; this is transported out of the nucleus.

In the cytoplasm, an enzyme called dicer removes the hairpin bend of the pre-miRNA making it into two strands, but still attached, that is a double-stranded micro RNA (ds miRNA) molecule. Later, these strands split, with one strand known as passenger miRNA being discarded. The other useful strand known as guide miRNA (or gRNA) attaches itself to a free-floating protein in the cytoplasm known as RISC (RNA Induced Silencing Complex). RISC uses the gRNA as a template for recognizing complementary mRNA. When it finds a complementary strand, it activates the RNase enzyme which cleaves the RNA into bits. This process which is important in gene regulation by microRNAs can be used in defense against viral infections because the virion carries only mRNA when it enters the cytoplasm of the cell. The trick is perhaps to find the correct gRNA that can latch on to the viral mRNA thus allowing RISC to destroy it.

tandav · Post by **tandav** » 25 Mar 2020 12:31

An interesting snippet was posted that the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic killed 5-6% of India's then population. Is there any studies / papers that mention what was the causes and measures taken then. It is shocking that a lot of us were hoping that our hot humid temperatures would protect us, not even knowing that a similar flu with origins in China had devastated India a mere 100 years earlier. I want to know how China managed the crisis then and how the British mismanaged it in India.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu

vera_k · Post by **vera_k** » 25 Mar 2020 12:49

schinnas wrote:Nobel laureate Michael Levitt predicts end of Coronavirus pandemic based on statistical models.

https://www.business-standard.com/artic ... 668_1.html

He's calling for vaccination against the flu. That might be something to do in the Indian context where most people don't get the annual flu shot.