Anna Jinxia Zhang, Andrew Chak-Yiu Lee, Jasper Fuk-Woo Chan, Feifei Liu, Can Li, Yanxia Chen, Hin Chu, Siu-Ying Lau, Pui Wang, Chris Chung-Sing Chan, Vincent Kwok-Man Poon, Shuofeng Yuan, Kelvin Kai-Wang To, Honglin Chen, Kwok-Yung Yuen

Highlights:

• Established a golden Syrian hamster model co-infected by SARS-CoV-2 and mouse-adapted A(H1N1)pdm09 simultaneously or sequentially.
• Co-infected hamsters had more weight loss, more severe lung inflammatory damage and tissue cytokine/chemokine expression.
• Simultaneous co-infection was associated with delay in resolution of lung damages, lower serum SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibody and longer SARS-CoV-2 shedding in oral swabs compared to that of SARS-CoV-2 infection alone.
• Whole-population influenza vaccination for prevention of co-infection, and multiplex molecular diagnostics for both viruses to achieve early initiation of antiviral treatment for improvement of clinical outcome should be considered.

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Shuofeng Yuan, Runming Wang, Jasper Fuk-Woo Chan, Anna Jinxia Zhang, Tianfan Cheng, Kenn Ka-Heng Chik, Zi-Wei Ye, Suyu Wang, Andrew Chak-Yiu Lee, Lijian Jin, Hongyan Li, Dong-Yan Jin, Kwok-Yung Yuen & Hongzhe Sun

Highlights:

• Identify ranitidine bismuth citrate(RBC), a commonly used drug for the treatment of Helicobacter pylori infection, as a potent anti-SARS-CoV-2 agent, both in vitro and in vivo.
• RBC suppressed SARS-CoV-2 replication, leading to decreased viral loads in both upper and lower respiratory tracts, and relieved virus-associated pneumonia in a golden Syrian hamster model.
• RBC exhibited low cytotoxicity and protected SARS-CoV-2-infected cells with a high selectivity index of 975.

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The post [Nature Microbiology] Metallodrug ranitidine bismuth citrate suppresses SARS-CoV-2 replication and relieves virus-associated pneumonia in Syrian hamsters appeared first on Fight Covid-19.

Andrew Chak-Yiu Lee, Anna Jinxia Zhang, Jasper Fuk-Woo Chan, Can Li, Zhimeng Fan, Feifei Liu, Yanxia Chen, Ronghui Liang, Siddharth Sridhar, Jian-Piao Cai, Vincent Kwok-Man Poon, Chris Chung-Sing Chan, Kelvin Kai-Wang To, Shuofeng Yuan, Jie Zhou, Hin Chu, Kwok-Yung Yuen

Highlights

The post [Cell Reports Medicine] Oral SARS-CoV-2 inoculation establishes subclinical respiratory infection with virus shedding in golden Syrian hamsters appeared first on Fight Covid-19.

Paul Bastard, Lindsey B. Rosen, Qian Zhang, Eleftherios Michailidis, Hans-Heinrich Hoffmann, Yu Zhang, et al.

• Reported that at least 101 of 987 patients with life-threatening COVID-19 pneumonia had neutralizing IgG auto-Abs against IFN-ω (13 patients), the 13 types of IFN-α (36), or both (52), at the onset of critical disease; a few also had auto-Abs against the other three type I IFNs.
• The auto-Abs neutralize the ability of the corresponding type I IFNs to block SARS-CoV-2 infection in vitro.
• These auto-Abs were not found in 663 individuals with asymptomatic or mild SARS-CoV-2 infection and were present in only 4 of 1,227 healthy individuals.
• A B cell auto-immune phenocopy of inborn errors of type I IFN immunity underlies life-threatening COVID-19 pneumonia in at least 2.6% of women and 12.5% of men.

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Qian Zhang, Paul Bastard, Zhiyong Liu, Jérémie Le Pen, Marcela Moncada-Velez, Jie Chen, et al.

Highlights:

• Found an enrichment in rare variants predicted to be loss-of-function (LOF) at the 13 human loci known to govern TLR3- and IRF7-dependent type I interferon (IFN) immunity to influenza virus, in 659 patients with life-threatening COVID-19 pneumonia, relative to 534 subjects with asymptomatic or benign infection.
• Experimentally define LOF variants in 23 patients (3.5%), aged 17 to 77 years, underlying autosomal recessive or dominant deficiencies.
• Human fibroblasts with mutations affecting this pathway are vulnerable to SARS-CoV-2.
• Inborn errors of TLR3- and IRF7-dependent type I IFN immunity can underlie life-threatening COVID-19 pneumonia in patients with no prior severe infection.

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Edward M. Choi, Daniel K.W. Chu, Peter K.C. Cheng, Dominic N.C. Tsang, Malik Peiris, Daniel G. Bausch, Leo L.M. Poon, Deborah Watson-Jones

Highlights:

• Examined public records for 1,110 persons with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 in Hong Kong, China, recorded from January 23 through June 13, 2020.
• Four persons with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection had traveled on the same flight from Boston, Massachusetts, USA, to Hong Kong, China.
• Their virus genetic sequences are identical, unique, and belong to a clade not previously identified in Hong Kong, which strongly suggests that the virus can be transmitted during air travel.

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Ming-Yen Ng, Eric Yuk Fai Wan, Ho Yuen Frank Wong, Siu Ting Leung, Jonan Chun Yin Lee, Thomas Wing-Yan Chin, Christine Shing Yen Lo, Macy Mei-Sze Lui, Edward Hung Tat Chan, Ambrose Ho-Tung Fong, Fung Sau Yung, On Hang Ching, Keith Wan-Hang Chiu et al.

Highlights:

The post [International Journal of Infectious Diseases] Development and Validation of Risk Prediction Models for COVID-19 Positivity in a Hospital Setting appeared first on Fight Covid-19.

Li, X., Chan, J.F., Li, K.K. et al.

Highlights:

• A total of 158 conjunctival swabs were obtained from 49 laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 patients. The median duration of illness when the first conjunctival swab was obtained was 10 days (range 2–27 days).
• Four conjunctival swabs from four different patients (4/49, 8.2%) were positive for SARS-CoV-2 RNA by RT-PCR. The Ct values ranged from 32.7 to 37.7 (mean 35.4).
• Conjunctival secretions of a minority of COVID-19 patients without ocular symptoms may contain relatively low levels of SARS-CoV-2 RNA, but their infectiousness remains undetermined.

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Sheng Zhi Zhao, Janet Yuen Ha Wong, Tzu Tsun Luk, Abraham Ka Chung Wai, Tai Hing Lam, Man Ping Wang

Highlights:

• Compared with 2016 and 2017, the population stress level, prevalence of anxiety and the depression symptoms drastically increased during the COVID-19 outbreak.
• Older and less educated respondents tended to have deteriorated mental health outcomes.
• Public mental health interventions are urgently needed particularly for the vulnerable groups.

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Dillon C. Adam, Peng Wu, Jessica Y. Wong, Eric H. Y. Lau, Tim K. Tsang, Simon Cauchemez, Gabriel M. Leung & Benjamin J. Cowling

Highlights:

• Using contact tracing data from 1,038 SARS-CoV-2 cases confirmed between 23 January and 28 April 2020 in Hong Kong, the team identified and characterized all local clusters of infection.
• Identified 4–7 Superspreading events (SSEs) across 51 clusters (n = 309 cases) and estimated that 19% (95% confidence interval, 15–24%) of cases seeded 80% of all local transmission.
• Transmission in social settings was associated with more secondary cases than households when controlling for age.

The code used for analysis and all anonymized data collected are publicly available at https://github.com/dcadam/covid-19-sse.

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