Physics website reports that some body cells protect sea sponges against the SARS-CoV-2 virus

This summary of scientific findings also reports that the newly discovered anti-viral effects will also protect against SARS-CoV-2 virus variants:

phys.org...

The source for this news article is the academic journal titled Antiviral Research.

Anybody got a good recipe for sea sponges? Maybe a nice quiche or souffle' ? Sponge cake? Anybody?

a reply to: nugget1 -- we actually have one of those 3 foot long bath sponges in our shower, all natural they say.

a reply to: Uphill

Why do we care if sea sponges get covid?

originally posted by: watchitburn
a reply to: Uphill

Why do we care if sea sponges get covid?

So, we can maybe find something to turn into a drug to sell. If that is done, get ready for real sea sponges to disappear from the store shelves.

Anyone need a Sponge? I’m here to CURE you!!


👽

a reply to: Uphill

Why Some People Might Never Get COVID

a reply to: infolurker --- well, *that* was a cram course in human immune responses, very interesting. Thanks for posting the link.

This MedCram class on YouTube did not refer to the worldwide problem of so-called Long COVID infections that can also follow an asymptomatic COVID-19 human infection ... those infections often span years and can involve a great degree of disability. Long COVID is thus a separate and complex issue that has only recently begun to be clinically studied. Time will tell.

There's a book by Nicholas Christakis, MD, published in the USA in 2020, which includes important clues on the eventual duration of the COVID-19 pandemic. Title: Apollo's Arrow: the profound and enduring impact of coronavirus on the way we live. Look for the 2021 paperback edition, which contains a new preface and afterword. Publisher is Little, Brown; NY,NY.

Christakis refers to himself as a "hospice doctor," + has a degree in sociology ... he teaches at Yale University + lives in Vermont. Anyway, on page 323, he has a graph of pandemic duration estimates for Earth's known pandemics; some are viral in cause, some are bacterial. From the historical data in that book (and from Wikipedia, believe it or not), I collected 3 examples of probable viral pandemics in Earth's past:

Antonine plague ---- 15 yrs
Plague of Cyprian ---- 21 yrs minimum
Spanish flu ---- 3 yrs (H1N1 virus, a novel virus at that time)

Actually, these 3 may have all been novel viruses in their eras. These pandemics occurred many years before any vaccinations or other potential counter-measures were known, although the residents of Greeley, Colorado did manage to escape infection by walling themselves off from outside visitors. I think of these 3 examples as worst-case scenarios for a viral pandemic duration. Adding up each of those duration numbers gives us 39 years total. Divide that number by 3 to give a result of 13 years average (worst-case) duration. I then "assume" that with COVID-19 in the 21st century, we are looking at a minimum total duration of 10 years -- even with a variety of vaccines now available -- simply because so many mistakes and gaps in government, medical, and public health planning were made. (Example: As of 2023, there are still worldwide intra- and inter- governmental arguments going on about the implications of aerosol transmission of COVID-19.) Etcetera!

Since I made the above calculation, I started thinking of the minimum duration of COVID-19 as five years overall *if* we are lucky, 10 years otherwise. If so, there's a long time yet to go. Be careful out there.

originally posted by: watchitburn
a reply to: Uphill

Why do we care if sea sponges get covid?

BEST answer!