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Audio Interview

Comparison of COVID-19 and seasonal HCoV pathologies and transfer to endemic state

Published on March 20, 2021   7 min

Other Talks in the Series: Interviews on Covid-19

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Interviewer: Professor Rustom Antia, thank you very much for taking the time to do this interview with us today to discuss the similarities and differences in the pathology of SARS-CoV-2 and other coronaviruses, and discuss the subsequent transfer of COVID-19 from pandemic to endemic disease. First of all, could you provide us with some background to the research you recently published in the journal 'Science', where you applied immunological dynamics and epidemiological data of endemic coronaviruses to model the possible future evolution of the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic? What was the initial question that you were attempting to answer? Prof. Antia: Thank you. Our research integrates the immunological characteristics of virus infections, such as the duration of immune memory and how much previous infection reduces pathology following subsequent infections, to better understand the transmission of the virus in the population. We proposed to apply this approach to better understand the dynamics of the endemic human coronaviruses and in particular SARS-CoV-2. Interviewer: What does your analysis show about the ways in which endemic coronaviruses infect human populations? Prof. Antia: There are four strains of endemic human coronaviruses, serological data show that individuals get infected early in childhood and these infections are generally mild. We know this because they develop antibodies typically by the time they are about four years old. We also looked at the data and found that it appears that individuals get infected
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Comparison of COVID-19 and seasonal HCoV pathologies and transfer to endemic state

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