
Cambridge Fighting Covid
Can social distancing improve the trade-off between health and the economy?”
Update #10 August 6 2020
Professor Giancarlo Corsetti
Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge
Latest news
Huge thanks to the team involved @CovidGenomicsUK @CUH_NHS @igoodfel @RealMcCoyLab @CambridgeBRC @cam_fight_covid @Cambridge_Uni https://twitter.com/GuptaR_lab/status/1337373686874198016
The first evidence of in vivo SARS-CoV-2 escape from antibodies: emergent Spike deletion H69/V70 and D796H mutation in a convalescent plasma (CP) treated patient. These mutations conferred reduced susceptibility to the CP and sera from multiple donors. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.05.20241927v1
This point is vital. These vaccines were possible due to investment in science. https://twitter.com/maxgabgut/status/1336402246955905024
Can we all scientists use this day to make sure everyone understands how important is long-term basic research funding? Government-funded science laid the groundwork for this vaccine. Loud and clear please. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55227325
Cautious but good news on the first efficacy data for a COVID-19 vaccine. Can expect more news on other COVID vaccines shortly. It will then be about how they are used but a safe 90% efficacious vaccine is a game changer.
Best wishes to my clinical PhD student Ben Warne who has taken a short secondment to establish the Cambridge student testing scheme. Look forward to getting you back soon. https://twitter.com/OKaneCahir/status/1325046254771073025
P.S. If @Cambridge_Uni asymptomatic testing hadn’t shown relatively low & stable/declining infection rate among students, I’d have cancelled this class. Lesson: the lower we keep infections, the better we can do our daily business. @bealelab https://twitter.com/OKaneCahir/status/1324856275977592834
We find that many seriously ill Covid patients are coinfected with AMR pathogens so keep these in focus. This is where we work. https://twitter.com/takanocraig/status/1318830749030678529
This was one of the last @Cambridge_Uni institutes I visited before lockdown and the first I entered as we started to emerge. In the meantime, they had refocused almost all of their research on fighting #COVID19.
@CamBioCampus @Shorthand
https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/citiid
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2020 - Congratulations: A Year for Virologists @NobelPrize

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2020
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2020 was awarded jointly to Harvey J. Alter, Michael Houghton and Charle...
www.nobelprize.org
In 1984 at the dawn of HIV/AIDS, the Reagan administration claimed an effective vaccine would be available within 2 years. We are hearing similar claims for SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19. Virus escape mutations are inevitable and look at how fast D614G spread. Antiviral drugs = essential.
See the link below to my Blog on Manaus and herd immunity @ConversationUK. Also links into my previous essay on 'How we lost our collective memory of pandemics'
A plea to all: given seasonal cold viruses circulating please check PHE guidance before isolating and requesting COVID-19 testing.
* a new continuous cough
* a high temperature (38C or above)
* a loss of, or change in, your normal sense of taste or smell (anosmia).
Great news and a well deserved achievement. Looking forward to develop an exciting collaboration on Alpha-1 Antitrypsin deficiency. https://twitter.com/je_chambers/status/1305825012465664000

Thrilled to receive the ALTA award for basic research into Alpha-1-Antitrypsin deficiency from #Grifols. This will fund a collaboration between @TheCIMR ’s @MarciniakLab
and @SCICambridge’s @VallierLab, continuing our work on ER-biology in this disease. Can’t wait to get started!
Vaccine expert @GordonDougan1 guides us through the potential challenges of developing and delivering a #COVID19 vaccine.
https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/covid19vaccine
@CamInfectDis @cam_fight_covid
A Cambridge hospital has piloted the use of combined PCR and antibody testing, after research by @GuptaR_lab from @cam_fight_covid showed that this approach was superior to virus detection alone for diagnosing #COVID19:
@CambridgeBRC @wellcome @CUH_NHS
Pleased to share this work on accuracy of combined POC nucleic acid and antibody testing for COVID-19. Importantly POC serology tests are able to detect antibody responses to D614G
@CUH_NHS @PHE_uk @wellcometrust @AHRI_News @CMO_England @CovidGenomicsUK
Our latest paper could help explain why age is major risk factor for dying from COVID-19, with people over 70 years at greatest risk, and why the disease can cause heart complications in severe cases. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022282820302571 @Cambridge_Uni @Catz_Cambridge
Please share. We are looking for a computational biologist to join us: https://www.mrc-tox.cam.ac.uk/research/thaventhiran-project. They will be studying the most relevant system for world health concerns, working with unique datasets, bringing clonal definition to immuno- pathology and protection. https://twitter.com/MRC_TU/status/1293914181150707714

New vacancy at MRC Toxicology Unit: Research Assistant/Associate: Computational Immunology to develop novel methods for the categorisation of single-cell transcriptomic data at the level of the individual T or B lymphocyte clone. http://www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/26614/ #jobs #immunology
Talking about Covid-19: tracking the spread of the virus in real time – Guardian Science podcast

Covid-19: tracking the spread of a virus in real time â podcast
Nicola Davis speaks to Dr Estée Török about detecting viral genetic mutations in Covid-19 patient samples...
www.theguardian.com
“Can social distancing improve the trade-off between health and the economy?”
Professor Giancarlo Corsetti
Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge
Weekly COVID-19 Update - Covid 19 Comms Dev
covid19.medschl.cam.ac.uk
My COVID interview is now on the Cambridge University web site. They cropped the lemur out of my photo! Just see its body!