SARS-CoV-2 uses the SARS-CoV receptor ACE2 for host cell entry.
The spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 is primed by TMPRSS2.
Antibodies against SARS-CoV spike may offer some protection against SARS-CoV-2.
The emerging SARS-coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) threatens public health. Hoffmann and coworkers show that SARS-CoV-2 infection depends on the host cell factors ACE2 and TMPRSS2 and can be blocked by a clinically proven protease inhibitor. These findings might help to establish options for prevention and treatment.
The White House and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are asking Facebook, Google and other tech giants to give them greater access to Americans’ smartphone location data in order to help them combat the spread of the coronavirus, according to four people at companies involved in the discussions who are not authorized to speak about them publicly.
Federal health officials say they could use anonymous, aggregated user data collected by the tech companies to map the spread of the virus — a practice known as “syndromic surveillance” — and prevent further infections. They could also use the data to see whether people were practicing “social distancing.”
Some sources stressed that the effort would be anonymized and that government would not have access to specific individuals’ locations. They noted that users would be required to opt-in to the effort.
By Bill D’Zio March 24, 2020 (Originally posted on www.westeastspace.com)
WestEastSpace mapped out NASA locations on a map of COVID19 impacted areas of USA from www.usafacts.org as of March 23rd, 2020With the launch window for NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover opening in a little less than four months, there are nearly daily pre-launch milestones to complete the rover pre flight activities at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Tight schedules on complex missions usually do not mix well. Now NASA has to contend with another challenge. COVID19.
NASA Leadership Assessing Mission Impacts of Coronavirus
The world has come to a standstill and is in the grasps of the COVID-19. The world stock markets have come crashing down 30% as supply chains and companies attempt to deal with government response and public fear. Airlines and hotels have had to contend with decreased travel and lodging requirements. Logistics is impacted as factories in various countries deal with increased difficulty and requirements to obtain goods. Factories are closed leading to shortages for truckers, material movers, cargo agents, and other occupations directly involved in moving goods. Companies shift to working remotely in an attempt to comply with government guidance in attempts to minimize the impact of the virus. One Mars mission has already been sidelined because of COVID19. NASA also needs to contend with these challenges.
NASA has made several statements regarding the recent coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Like many American companies, NASA leadership has stated employees will work from home.
“We are going to take care of our people. That’s our first priority,” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine.
NASA has implemented what they call NASA Response Framework. The framework starts at Stage 1(least severe) and increases to Stage 4(most severe). Although most of the NASA remains under a Stage 3 status, with mandatory telework for all employees with limited exceptions for on-site work. Ames, Michoud, and Stennis are at Stage 4 with personnel on-site to protect life and critical infrastructure only. As a result, much of NASA is working from home. Contract employees in many cases will be also working from home when their activities are non-essential but are being coordinated with their contracting officer’s representative. NASA Facilities are closed, except to protect life and critical infrastructure.
“NASA leadership is determined to make the health and safety of its workforce its top priority as we navigate the coronavirus (COVID-19) situation. To that end, the agency’s Michoud Assembly Facility and Stennis Space Center are moving to Stage 4 of the NASA Response Framework, effective Friday, March 20.
The closure of these facilities to has a major impact on NASA missions. NASA leadership is reviewing options to keep work underway across all missions, projects, and programs. NASA’s goal is to identify tasks into groups:
Can be done remotely by employees at home
Mission-essential work that must be performed on-site
On-site work that will be paused
The agency has defined mission-essential work as that which must be performed to maintain critical mission operations to ensure the schedule of time-sensitive mission-critical launches, or work to protect life and critical infrastructure.What Kills Space Projects — a quick history review
With over fifty years of experience in space missions, NASA has seen what works and what doesn’t work. For example, there is a long list of missions to Mars that have failed completely or partially. Some missions have failed from what would seem like issues that could have been predicted or stopped easily. Usually, those types of failures are predictable and preventable.
The relationship between complexity, risk and cost for space missions has been well documented with the lessons learned from past spaceflight successes and failures. A good book that touches on these risks is Douglas Hubbard and his book The Failure of Risk Management. In the book covers an evaluation of the NASA risk framework was completed and showed some very interesting relationships.
Mars (1998) Polar Lander was planed to set down on the frigid terrain near the edge of Mars’ south polar cap and dig for water ice with a robotic arm. Piggybacking on the lander were two small probes called Deep Space 2 designed to impact the Martian surface to test new technologies. The Mars (1998) Polar Lander and Deep Space 2 were both lost at arrival December 3, 1999. CREDIT NASA
A plot of mission complexity against schedule distribution showed that all of the partial or complete failures occur in the bottom third of the distribution indicating a strong correlation. (a partial failure means that the mission was able to continue or complete some of the original objectives)
Establishment of a ‘‘no-fly zone’’ can be done defining criteria where based on the complexity of the project the sufficient time or money to develop a system was not allocated. In short, when NASA… (Click here to read full article)
Covid-19 lasted for 17 days in the cabins of cruise ships:
Cruise ships are often settings for outbreaks of infectious diseases because of their closed environment and contact between travelers from many countries.
What is added by this report?
More than 800 cases of laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases occurred during outbreaks on three cruise ship voyages, and cases linked to several additional cruises have been reported across the United States. Transmission occurred across multiple voyages from ship to ship by crew members; both crew members and passengers were affected; 10 deaths associated with cruise ships have been reported to date.
The emergence of the novel coronavirus and its associated disease, COVID-19, has led to a global pandemic and a call for individuals, in the name of overall public health and an attempt to prevent national medical systems from being overwhelmed with too many patients at once, to self-isolate, self-quarantine, and practice social distancing. Many of us are confronted, for perhaps the only time in our lives, with an uncertain span of time in solitude.
Although this is the first time we’ve seen this particular phenomenon, social distancing isn’t a new invention. Humans have always had good reasons to withdraw from society, often for the greater good. Among the champions of isolation and social distancing are astronauts and cosmonauts—including the late Al Worden—whose time in space has often been spent in extended periods of cramped loneliness, away from family and friends. They can serve as inspiration in these difficult times.
As a cultural anthropologist, my research focuses on human behavior, particularly types of behavior shared by groups, and it is clear that social distancing is unusual. Human beings are gregarious creatures and we do tend to be found in “corporate bodies,” ranging from small bands of 30 to 50 people all the way up to huge cities filled with millions. In band societies, everyone knows everyone else and there’s generally shared work, shared play, and lots of shared gossip. In larger societies, where we may be surrounded by virtual strangers, celebrities seem to fill in as the people everyone knows, giving us membership in a community where celebrities are “shared points of reference” (Hermes and Kooijmann 2016). I may not know you well, but we can probably talk to each other about Sigourney Weaver and Tom Hanks.
As the COVID-19 cases continue to rise globally, the National Medical Products Administration of China has approved the first-ever antiviral medicine called Favilavir. This medicine is said to possibly treat the now-declared pandemic illness.
Over the weekend, Taizhou’s city government announced that Favilavir, which was initially formulated by a Chinese-owned pharmaceutical firm, is the first medicine authorized to stop the widespread of this fatal illness. At present, this drug is being promoted with the label, Avigan.
According to the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, the Favilavir of Hisun Pharmaceutical is among the three drugs that have presented results for hindering COVID-19 (in initial trials) from spreading and further damaging the health of the people worldwide.
Engineers have created a tiny device that can rapidly detect harmful bacteria in blood, allowing health care professionals to pinpoint the cause of potentially deadly infections and fight them with drugs.
The Rutgers coauthored study, led by researchers at Rochester Institute of Technology, is published in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.
“The rapid identification of drug-resistant bacteria allows health care providers to prescribe the right drugs, boosting the chances of survival,” said coauthor Ruo-Qian (Roger) Wang, an assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in the School of Engineering at Rutgers University-New Brunswick.
A Covid-19 test can deliver results in less than an hour has been approved under an FDA emergency authorization, marking the first test that clinicians can use at the bedside.
Testing shortages have been an ongoing challenge in the U.S. response to curb the pandemic. The White House has promised testing will ramp up as more private companies come on board.
Public health and clinical labs have run more than 195,000 tests to date, but that doesn’t include hospital laboratories running their own test, Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said during a White House briefing Saturday.
World health officials say the respiratory disease spreads through human-to-human contact, droplets carried through sneezing and coughing as well as germs left on inanimate objects. The coronavirus can go airborne, staying suspended in the air depending on factors such as heat and humidity, they said.
Kerkhove said health officials are aware of several studies in a number of countries looking at the different environmental conditions that COVID-19 can persist. Scientists are specifically looking at how humidity, temperature and ultraviolet lighting affects the disease as well as how long it lives on different surfaces, including steel, she said.
Health officials use the information to make sure WHO’s guidance is appropriate, and “so far … we are confident that the guidance that we have is appropriate,” she added. Health officials recommend medical staff wear so-called N95 masks because they filter out about 95% of all liquid or airborne particles.
