A very good speaker you can understand with practical examples. Includes timed topics so you can find what you want to learn more about. 2-8-21 Video 36 minutes.
2021 has brought news of emerging SARS-CoV-2 genetic variants that increase transmissibility. Will they diminish vaccine efficacy and lead us to lose pandemic control? University of Michigan’s Adam Lauring, MD, Ph.D., a molecular virologist who uses evolutionary theory to study viral transmission and pathogenesis, joins JAMA’s Q&A series to explain the variants and what they mean for public health. Recorded February 4, 2021.
Related article Genetic Variants of SARS-CoV-2—What Do They Mean? Technical but understandable. Many details. Co-written by Dr. Lauring
Timed topics discussed in this interview:
- 0:00 Introduction
- 1:12 What are RNA viruses?
- 2:50 Is emergence of variants a surprise?
- 3:33 What is a variant?
- 4:48 Why labs identify variants
- 6:18 Sequence and epidemiological data
- 8:12 Virus evolution
- 10:13 Testing for vaccine effectiveness against variants
- 13:26 What blood serum testing misses
- 14:41 Will COVID-19 continue for extended time
- 16:54 Vaccine targets
- 18:22 Universal flu vaccine
- 19:36 Children’s vulnerability to new variants
- 21:16 Viral shedding and variants
- 21:59 Surveillance systems and central repositories
- 23:17 Have variants reached the US
- 25:03 Capacity to test for variants
- 26:37 Different vaccine approaches and variants
- 28:08 Live attenuated virus vaccines
- 29:10 Modeling escape mutations
- 30:22 Coronavirus birthday cake 31:49 Speed of vaccine development