Patterico's Pontifications

5/5/2020

Israel’s Defense Minister Claims Scientists Have Developed Virus Antibody

Filed under: General — Dana @ 1:16 pm



[guest post by Dana]

Hoping for the best:

Israel has isolated a key coronavirus antibody at its main biological research laboratory, the Israeli defence minister said on Monday, calling the step a “significant breakthrough” toward a possible treatment for the COVID-19 pandemic.

The “monoclonal neutralising antibody” developed at the Israel Institute for Biological Research (IIBR) “can neutralise it (the disease-causing coronavirus) inside carriers’ bodies,” Defence Minister Naftali Bennett said in a statement.

The statement added that Bennett visited the IIBR on Monday where he was briefed “on a significant breakthrough in finding an antidote for the coronavirus”.

It quoted IIBR Director Shmuel Shapira as saying that the antibody formula was being patented, after which an international manufacturer would be sought to mass-produce it.

Note:

The antibody reported as having been isolated at the IIBR is monoclonal, meaning it was derived from a single recovered cell and is thus potentially of more potent value in yielding a treatment.

Elsewhere, there have been coronavirus treatments developed from antibodies that are polyclonal, or derived from two or more cells of different ancestry, the magazine Science Direct reported in its May issue.

It is unknown whether human trials have been conducted.

–Dana

36 Responses to “Israel’s Defense Minister Claims Scientists Have Developed Virus Antibody”

  1. Hello.

    Dana (0feb77)

  2. If true… this is pretty big and promising as the application of this is enormous.

    whembly (fd57f6)

  3. This is good. But I can just see the conspiracy theories that might start running around.

    Since I technically ignorant here, can anyone explain why monoclonal is better than polyclonal?

    Kishnevi (8c03ee)

  4. Pediatric Multi-System Inflammatory Syndrome Potentially Associated with COVID-19
    A pediatric multi-system inflammatory syndrome, recently reported by authorities in the United Kingdom, is also being observed among children and young adults in New York City and elsewhere in the United States. Clinical features vary, depending on the affected organ system, but have been noted to include features of Kawasaki disease or features of shock; however, the full spectrum of disease is not yet known. Persistent fever and elevated inflammatory markers (CRP, troponin, etc.) have been seen among affected patients. Patients with this syndrome who have been admitted to pediatric intensive care units (PICUs) have required cardiac and/or respiratory support. Only severe cases may have been recognized at this time.

    The NYC Health Department contacted PICUs in NYC during April 29-May 3, 2020 and identified 15 patients aged 2-15 years who had been hospitalized from April 17- May 1, 2020 with illnesses compatible with this syndrome (i.e., typical Kawasaki disease, incomplete Kawasaki disease, and/or shock). All patients had subjective or measured fever and more than half reported rash, abdominal pain, vomiting, or diarrhea. Respiratory symptoms were reported in less than half of these patients. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing for SARS-CoV-2 has been positive (4), negative (10), and initially indeterminate and then negative (1). Six patients with negative testing by PCR were positive by serology. More than half of the reported patients required blood pressure support and five required mechanical ventilation. No fatalities have been reported among these cases.
    …….

    RipMurdock (d2a2a8)

  5. kishnevi,

    You can read about the differences between polyclonal and monoclonal antibodies here. One of the advantages of monoclonal antibodies is that there is the “possibility to produce large quantities of identical antibody (an advantage for diagnostic manufacturing and therapeutic drug development)”. Perhaps this development by Israel would lead to a drug rather than a vaccine?

    The report also sums up the difference as:

    Polyclonal antibodies are made using several different immune cells. They will have the affinity for the same antigen but different epitopes, while monoclonal antibodies are made using identical immune cells that are all clones of a specific parent cell (Figure 1).

    For applications such as therapeutic drug development that require large volumes of identical antibody specific to a single epitope, monoclonal antibodies are a better solution. For general research applications, however, the advantages of polyclonal antibodies typically outweigh the few advantages that monoclonal antibodies provide. With affinity purification of serum against small antigen targets, the advantages of polyclonal antibodies are further extended.

    On a side note, the link above notes their company’s (ironic) milestone: they opened their first Chinese office opened in Wuhan in 2004…

    Dana (0feb77)

  6. Nothing special here.

    The same thing has been done in maybe a dozen other places.

    The question is, will anybody use it?

    That is probably a political decision.

    Now you see that is why Trump talking about cures, is a good thing, whether the cures are good or bad. He should not be scared off from this.

    Sammy Finkelman (ea6ca0)

  7. Dana, thanks.

    Kishnevi (8c03ee)

  8. 4.

    The NYC Health Department contacted PICUs in NYC during April 29-May 3, 2020 and identified 15 patients aged 2-15 years who had been hospitalized from April 17- May 1, 2020 with illnesses compatible with this syndrome (i.e., typical Kawasaki disease, incomplete Kawasaki disease, and/or shock)

    At his morning briefing. Mayor Bill de Blasio said 4 of the 15 children had tested positive for COVID-19 and 6 more had antibodies.

    What about the remaining 5?

    This has been mentioned in newspapers before.

    As they all say, this is an uncommon complication and sometimes the only symptom of infection by this virus. And they don’t understand why the virus causes this, but it ow undeniable that it does..

    Sammy Finkelman (ea6ca0)

  9. US infection rate rising outside New York as states open up
    Take the New York metropolitan area’s progress against the coronavirus out of the equation and the numbers show the rest of the U.S. is moving in the wrong direction, with the known infection rate rising even as states move to lift their lockdowns, an Associated Press analysis found Tuesday.

    New confirmed infections per day in the U.S. exceed 20,000, and deaths per day are well over 1,000, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University. And public health officials warn that the failure to flatten the curve and drive down the infection rate in places could lead to many more deaths — perhaps tens of thousands — as people are allowed to venture out and businesses reopen.
    …..
    “Make no mistakes: This virus is still circulating in our community, perhaps even more now than in previous weeks” said Linda Ochs, director of the Health Department in hard-hit Shawnee County, Kansas.
    …..
    ….[S]ubtracting the New York metropolitan area from the analysis changes the story. Without it, the rate of new cases in the U.S. increased over the same period from 6.2 per 100,000 people to 7.5.
    …..
    On Monday, one widely cited model from the University of Washington nearly doubled its projection of deaths in the U.S. from the coronavirus to around 134,000 through early August, with a range of 95,000 to nearly 243,000.

    Dr. Christopher Murray, director of the institute that created the projections, said the increase is largely because most states are expected to ease restrictions by next week.

    Without stay-at-home orders and similar measures, Murray said, “we would have had exponential growth, much larger epidemics and deaths in staggering numbers.”
    ……

    I am tired of hearing from the President and others (including posters here) complain about the economy and alleged Constitutional violations by state and local health orders. I am pretty much in favor of letting states open up, and abandon face mask wearing and social distancing. Since they think that’s the correct path, more power to them. I will be cooking up a batch of schadenfreude real soon.

    RipMurdock (d2a2a8)

  10. Kishnevi, I teach about this every year. The immune system is all the recognition of 3D shape. What antibodies do (well, the Fab portion of them) is recognize that 3D shape. That in and of itself can block some proteins from doing what they normally do. The “handle” of the antibody molecule (called the Fc portion) is recognized by the very rapid innate immune system, and the immune system reacts quickly.

    Each B cell your body makes synthesizes ONE antibody with ONE recognition portion. Specific. They can create memory cells to grow quickly when needed.

    Since “antigens” can be large and have complex shapes, more than antibody could recognize and bind to it. Monoclonal antibodies only recognize ONE specific shape to the antigen in question, called the epitope.

    Monoclonal antibodies have revolutionized many aspects of medicine. Here is hoping that this one works well at neutralizing SARS-CoV2 (the actual name of the virus).

    Best wishes.

    Simon Jester (19dec8)

  11. RipMurdock — I feel sorry for those who will be infected through no fault of their own under such a scenario, and for the businesses which will go under because demand isn’t high enough to justify payroll due to thin operating margins combined with sane people staying home.

    aphrael (7962af)

  12. Trump says Fauci will testify before Senate, blasts House ‘setup’
    President Donald Trump on Tuesday confirmed Dr. Anthony Fauci would testify before the Senate in the coming days and defended his decision to block America’s top infectious disease expert from appearing before what he called the “Trump haters” in the House.

    “The House is a setup. The House is a bunch of Trump haters. They put every Trump hater on the committee. The same old stuff,” the president told reporters outside the White House, adding that Fauci “will be testifying in front of the Senate, and he looks forward to doing that.”

    Trump went on to accuse congressional Democrats of hoping for his administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic to falter…..
    …….

    I don’t think anyone has to hope that the administration’s response to the pandemic would falter, it’s been clear from the beginning that it never got off the ground.

    RipMurdock (d2a2a8)

  13. Simon Jester,

    As always, your input is invaluable. I was so hoping you’d pop in for this. With that, can you explain how this might lead to the development of a vaccine? Or would it be more likely to lead to the development of a drug to be used to combat ongoing cases?

    Dana (0feb77)

  14. I feel sorry for those who will be infected through no fault of their own under such a scenario, and for the businesses which will go under because demand isn’t high enough to justify payroll due to thin operating margins combined with sane people staying home.
    I do to, but I have no sympathy for those who want to open when it is clearly not safe to do so, and others who go outside, unprotected, and expose others without being tested just to make a political point.

    RipMurdock (d2a2a8)

  15. I have to ask again…WTH COULD be a justification for stiff-arming Congress, especially in light of the Orange Raccoon green-lighting senate testimony?

    I don’t see any provision in our history for, “They don’t like me over there”.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  16. 13. This is passive immunity, like convalescent plasma. Every time someone got infected, they’d have to to take it (at this point in the development of this kind of thing probably have it injected, although you could probably also have a specially designed patch to press on the skin.)

    I have no idea why they are so set on a vaccine and this is mostly ignored.

    There’s a lot in the pipeline.

    https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/04/27/monoclonal-antibodies-for-the-coronavirus

    Let’s have a look at what is (in my opinion) probably our best shot at a reasonably short-term targeted therapy against the COVID-19 epidemic: the possibility of using monoclonal antibodies. These can be developed more quickly than vaccines, and a lot more quickly than a new targeted small-molecule antiviral.

    This could be ready by the fall, if President Trump pushes it. He;s being discouraged from advocating cures.

    That is a bad thing. Let him talk, and talk, and talk. What’s wrong will be fall by the wayside; what’s right will get attention and priority (and some things that aren;t right, lke ventilators)

    Sammy Finkelman (375edc)

  17. This could be ready by the fall, if President Trump pushes it. He;s being discouraged from advocating cures.

    It has little to do with Trump actually getting involved and a lot to do with Trump not picking dumb fights about this or that detail, producer, researcher. Trump advocating one cure would politicize it. Trump fighting to ‘push’ something probably wouldn’t help the so-pushed.

    Granted, any other US president could get involved and push something in a professional way, but at this point, Trump has picked so many fights, with so many of his supporters grabbing rifles and running out the door to ‘liberate’ that it’s unproductive.

    He’s a bad president. The worst.

    I am fascinated with the many efforts to treat this disease and grateful that people are doing the good work. I doubt they want their work to be a campaign poster with MAGA on it. That would be unfair and stupid.

    Dustin (e5f6c3)

  18. And the FDA has given emergency clearance for an antibody test from Roche that is 99.8% accurate. From what I’ve learned, you shouldn’t trust a test that is less than 99%. Along those lines, I don’t know what antibody tests they’ve used in NY and CA; they could easily be overstating the infection spread.

    Paul Montagu (b3f51b)

  19. Dana #13: if the epitope for the monoclonal antibody is for the spike protein, it should directly block infection. The trouble is that the virus will evolutionarily try to counter that move over time. Just as the antibody recognizes the shape, the spike will try to change its shape (via mutational changes in the gene). It’s the Red Queen.

    One thing that *I* am hopeful about… SARS-CoV2 uses an RNA-directed RNA polymerase. We do not have that enzyme; it’s completely viral. And superconserved. So I am hopeful that the gene jockeys can find small molecule inhibitors of that enzyme. That shouldn’t impact us.

    I think the major worry is “week two.” That is when the body stirs up the famous “cytokine storm” that has been such a problem with many diseases over the years. There are certainly possible drugs—inhibitors of interleukin 8, for example—but it’s tough to get the research done carefully and quickly.

    Like my late father used to say: “Good. Fast. Cheap. Pick any two.”

    That’s why I want to support this organization:

    https://readdi.org/

    We need to be looking for the NEXT one.

    Simon Jester (19dec8)

  20. The trouble is that the virus will evolutionarily try to counter that move over time. Just as the antibody recognizes the shape, the spike will try to change its shape (via mutational changes in the gene).

    So are you talking about a gene mutation occurring, thus rendering whatever ability the antibody had to impact it becoming ineffective? If so, what is a typical time frame for the mutational changes in the gene to take place? I’m just not clear if you’re assessing that this specific find is not as notable (or hopeful) as the report would have us believe.

    Dana (0feb77)

  21. Israel has isolated a key coronavirus antibody at its main biological research laboratory, the Israeli defence minister said on Monday, calling the step a “significant breakthrough” toward a possible treatment for the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Feb. 28th New York Post:

    Amid fears of a looming pandemic, scientists in the US and across the globe are scrambling to develop vaccines – including in Israel, where one group of researchers says it could be ready in just three weeks and available for use within 90 days.

    Still waiting.

    RipMurdock (d2a2a8)

  22. Simon, thanks for the explanations.

    Kishnevi (48b463)

  23. Anyone know how long that puts us from a vaccine?

    nate (5efffe)

  24. A big advantage of monoclonal antibodies is they are made in yeast or bacterial cells. Getting good stuff from yeast cells is a eight thousand year old technology, and large scale production is quite possible.

    Fred (fc56b3)

  25. Good news is certainly welcome, but last I heard there is still no evidence that exposure to the virus gives immunity to future infections.

    There is no vaccine or long-term immunity for the common cold, which AFAIU is a coronavirus…

    Dave (1bb933)

  26. My understanding is that this is a treatment, not a vaccine. Either would be welcome, but a quick production of an effective treatment would be the priority, I would think, followed by a vaccine.

    Bored Lawyer (56c962)

  27. Dave (1bb933) — 5/5/2020 @ 5:15 pm

    There is no vaccine or long-term immunity for the common cold, which AFAIU is a coronavirus…

    There are about 40 or 60 common cold viruses (I don;t know what classifies them as a cold) most of them called rhinoviruses.

    he are 4 ronaviruses that are called cold viruses (and othe coronovirses that infect animals, like chcikckens)

    Besides the 4 common cold coronaviruses, there is SARS and there is MERS.

    This is coronavirus #7 (the 7th one that infects human beings.)

    And to think it all started with one case in October or November.

    Unless many copies of a virus being cultured escaped out of either the Wuhan Institute of Virology (8 miles from the wet market – a young female intern reportedly blamed until they decided not to go with that story – if the rumor about this is true, they probably forced her to confess, not only to an accidental release but to visiting the wet market) or the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention (just about 300 yards from the wet market that was blamed)

    Sammy Finkelman (7d0f6e)

  28. Errata

    * There are 4 coronaviruses that are called cold viruses…

    https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24632800-700-what-four-coronaviruses-from-history-can-tell-us-about-covid-19

    Four coronaviruses cause around a quarter of all common colds, but each was probably deadly when it first made the leap to humans.

    …Besides the 4 common cold coronaviruses, there is SARS and there is MERS.

    This is coronavirus #7

    Sammy Finkelman (7d0f6e)

  29. 10. Simon Jester (19dec8) — 5/5/2020 @ 2:27 pm

    They can create memory cells to grow quickly when needed.

    I am wondering if the WHO and others who talk about how immunity for SARS-CoV-2 might only last for a limited time are disregarding that, and only talking about for how long a period of time antibodies might be detectable in the blood.

    This ignores everything we know about immunity. Now measles, and possibly some other diseases, might erase at least part of that memory. That’s why the measles vaccine (live virus) actually prevents autism.

    Sammy Finkelman (375edc)

  30. Simon Jester @10:

    Q. Did you leave out a word here? I think you mean to say: (boldface word or words added)

    Since “antigens” can be large and have complex shapes, more than [one] antibody could recognize and bind to it. [some place on the antigen] Monoclonal antibodies only recognize ONE specific shape [or spot on] to the antigen in question, called the epitope.

    Definition of epitope I found online:
    “the part of an antigen molecule to which an antibody attaches itself.”
    ================================================================================

    I think what you mean here is that it only matches one spot on the antigen, but many locations (or shapes) are possible targets of antibodies. You can produce multiple different antibodies to the same antigen.

    Ideally, the antibody matches the part that is used to infect cells. I think they’re looking to create a new flu vaccine that would do that. That’s one part of the influenza virus that can’t mutate without no longer being infectious.

    And you don’t want it to match or ccme close to matching something that also appears on the body’s own cells, (at least with an antigen produced internally by the body you don’t) and hopefully, you don’t want the virus to mutate so it no longer has that shape on the outside, (without losing its ability to infect or act in the cell. If it lost that it would be all to the good. But the details of most of the protein coat of a virus are irrelevant to that, so they can mutate without changing anything important.)

    The reason you don’t want it to match something that comes close (in a vaccine or a food) because the body’s immune system may churn out an exact match when it is stimulated by a new antigen and begins trying out various antibodies semi-randomly. * What gets tried first and how much is inherited.

    ==================
    * That’s why feeding a baby cow’s milk before the age of 6 months (after which, IIRC, the cow’s milk proteins don’t get into the bloodstream undigested) can cause juvenile diabetes – not right away but later, when the immune system is kicked up into high gear later for one reason or another.

    Sammy Finkelman (375edc)

  31. 17. Dustin (e5f6c3) — 5/5/2020 @ 3:34 pm

    It has little to do with Trump actually getting involved

    Because of the office, and the inertia ad the stborness of the bureacracy t matters. Trump has pushed a few things, mainly different kinds of testing. And then there’s his Operation Warp Speed for vaccine, which he may think is fast, but it;s acually slower than it was in 1976. Of course that whole vaccine was mistake, but they thought it would kill a lot of people. We already had requirements for effectiveness as well as safety in 1976, but things have become more and more gummed up. Even Warp Speed is slower than it was in 1976. Trump doesm’t understand, of course, his :warp speed” is like 30 miles per hour on a highway.

    and a lot to do with Trump not picking dumb fights about this or that detail, producer, researcher. Trump advocating one cure would politicize it. Trump fighting to ‘push’ something probably wouldn’t help the so-pushed.

    He could push within the bureaucracy.

    I don;t a president to psh one thing. I want him to push a lot of things.

    In Japan we have something similar to what Trump did with hydroxychloroquine. There, the Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, is pushing Avigan, generic name favipiravir, as a cure for cronovirus. This is also something that came off the shelf (not something new and effective, which is what really needs to be pushed) Avigan, like hydroxychloroquine, is something off the shelf that was first used in China.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/business/japan-avigan-coronavirus.html

    Reading about it, it seems to work on the same principle (targeting the same portion of the virus life cycle) as remdesivir – pinterfering with the virus creatng new viruses within an infectd cell. hat is of limited use late in a disease where it was being tried. If done at he right stage, before somebody is near death bt after the disease has progressed pretty far, it can be shown to help (it reduces recovery time to get off a ventilator or something like that) but logically would be most effective as a prophylactic, but you would have difficultly proving that in a clinical trial.

    Granted, any other US president could get involved and push something in a professional way, but at this point, Trump has picked so many fights, with so many of his supporters grabbing rifles and running out the door to ‘liberate’ that it’s unproductive.

    It doesn’t matter. People will adopt good ideas.

    He’s a bad president. The worst.

    You could have worse. Have we had worse? We’ve had people who were more incompetent, like George Bush the Elder.

    Sammy Finkelman (375edc)

  32. He’s a bad president. The worst.
    You could have worse. Have we had worse? We’ve had people who were more incompetent, like George Bush the Elder.

    Sammy Finkelman (375edc) — 5/6/2020 @ 11:38 am

    Nah, Trump’s the worst. He destroyed a lot of our leadership infrastructure. We see it crystal clear with the pandemic and Trump destroying our nation’s disease guys in China, all our emergency procedure folks, and ignoring the lack of equipment for three years, then putting Jared Kushner in charge after wishing the problem away for months. That’s simply the worst leadership the nation ever had. But we may not see it as clearly in the many other areas where Trump has whittled away at our nation’s preparation. How’s things in the middle east, with NATO, with FEMA? How would Trump handle a hurricane?

    You think Bush 41 was less competent than Trump? That’s an interesting theory.

    Dustin (e5f6c3)

  33. I am fascinated with the many efforts to treat this disease and grateful that people are doing the good work. I doubt they want their work to be a campaign poster with MAGA on it. That would be unfair and stupid.

    That an only happen if Trump is the only prominent person to endorse it.

    I can tell you of another thing. ‘

    The instant coronavirus test that can be done on many people at a time…

    Administered by a dog.

    https://www.cbsnews.com/video/dogs-trained-to-sniff-out-coronavirus-cases

    That page may not show you anything – maybe they’ll fix it, so there’s also this:

    https://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2020/04/29/coronavirus-latest-penn-vet-conducting-first-of-its-kind-research-project-to-determine-if-dogs-can-detect-covid-19-through-smell

    And that’s not the only place in the world they are training dogs to do this. It;s also going on in London, for instance.

    I heard about this on the CBS Evening News last night, and it turns out it is not even new – this has been mentioned in various news reports for more than a month. always like it’s the latest thing.

    The are training dogs to recognize if someone is infected. This kind of dog test has been done already for ovarian cancer and to detect low blood sugar in people with “juvenile” or Type I (brittle) diabetes — the kind caused by drinking cows milk before the age of six months.

    I don’t know what the dog is smelling. Maybe the virus coming out of a person’s breath? Or antibodies? They ought to try to find that out. Go into a contaminated place empty of people and see if the dog can tell. Or is it trained not to react unless it ca pinpoint a location?

    The only difficulty I see would be certifying the dogs, and getting enough of them trained.

    But they could be used at airports – in fact it is hard to see how international travel could safely resume without these dogs – temperature checks and asking questions aren’t really good enough.

    And at entrances to hospitals. Maybe eventually, subway entrances and even supermarkets.

    But I don;t have much confidence the dogs will be widely used without somebody giving it a good push. It’s too original.

    The Senate could use a few dogs like that, since they’ve refused to get the Abbott laboratories instant coronavirus test used by the White House – possibly because Nancy Pelosi wants to write legislation all by herself (as Republican members of the House of Representatives are complaining – about her and a few other members writing legislation, not about her refusing to use the test!)

    Heaven forbid that any politician would think he’s essential enough to use a test of limited availability. Essential enough to risk their lives though.

    Mitch McConnell also signed the same letter Nancy Pelosi did. He is afraid of seeming to publicly have special privilege. He would rather risk Senators and staff getting the virus.

    Well, as I said, they could borrow a few dogs and see how they worked. It’s still experimental.
    It needs a field test anyway. And if they don;t use it, nobody will any time soon. They’d find out when the dog detected it and when not.

    Test screenings are not scheduled until July, but I am sure if the Senate sks, tey’ll give them a few dogs, without disrupting their plans./

    Sammy Finkelman (375edc)

  34. 31. Dustin (e5f6c3) — 5/6/2020 @ 11:48 am

    You think Bush 41 was less competent than Trump? That’s an interesting theory.

    Bush 41 didn’t know how to do anything else other than listen to the experts.

    Now sometimes, that worked out, more or less.

    Sammy Finkelman (375edc)

  35. More about dogs; capabilities in general:

    https://can-do-canines.org/our-dogs/ourdogs/diabetes-assist-dogs/

    Another new thing: Testing sewage to see if coronavirus is present in a community.

    Not being ablw to quantify it or perhaps being thrown off by a football game is only a quibble, and if an event was held there, they know it.

    This is used for detecting new outbreaks of polio, which is fecal oral disease. Now about one third of (serious) infections produce gastrointestinal symptoms. Researchers disagree as to whether or not it can passed on this way but there are definitely remnants of the virus present.

    A long time ago (for polio?) researchers had to mix the sewer water with cells and see if new viruses were produced. Later they used genetic tests. Now te tet to see if individual genes can be found in the water.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/01/science/coronavirus-sewage-monitoring-lockdown.html

    After the Netherlands saw its first confirmed case on Feb. 27, Dr. Medema and his colleagues went back out to run more tests. They found the virus in the sewers of cities like Amsterdam and Utrecht.
    The researchers then went to remote towns without any known cases of Covid-19. They discovered the coronavirus up to six days before the first confirmed cases were found there.

    Since then, Dr. Medema and his colleagues have continued to track the viruses in the sewer systems. As the confirmed cases of Covid-19 have gone up in Amsterdam and Utrecht, they have found more virus genes in the wastewater.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/01/science/coronavirus-sewage-monitoring-lockdown.html

    Sammy Finkelman (375edc)

  36. Tee New York Post had an article today on the left bottom corner f page 4 about n atibody “breakthrough” Not by anyone in Israel, but by somebody else.

    https://nypost.com/2020/05/05/scientists-claim-to-discover-antibody-that-neutralizes-coronavirus

    European scientists say they discovered an antibody they say “neutralizes” the coronavirus — hailing it as a potential treatment for the deadly bug, according to their research.

    “This antibody — either alone or in combination— offers the potential to prevent and/or treat COVID-19, and possibly also other future emerging diseases in humans,” claimed the study published in the journal Nature Communications.

    The scientists released their study Monday — as the worldwide death toll from the pandemic reached 252,000.

    “This is groundbreaking research,” said Dr. Jingsong Wang, the founder of Harbour BioMed (HBM), which carried out the study in the Netherlands with researchers at Utrecht University and Erasmus Medical Center.

    Groundbreaking>

    This is poshut

    https://jel.jewish-languages.org/words/440

    ETYMOLOGY

    Heb פשוט pashút, Yiddish פּשוט póshet

    Sammy Finkelman (375edc)


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