何大一談COVID-19： The Tip of the Iceberg: Virologist David Ho Speaks About COVID-19

何大一- 维基百科，自由的百科全书 - 維基百科
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David Da-i Ho. 通曉語言: 英語，國語. 公民权, 美國. 教育程度, 加州理工學院 · 哈佛醫學院. 知名于, 愛滋病雞尾酒療法. 伴侣, 黃文. 儿女, 4. 父母, 何步基江雙如. 奖项, 恩斯特·姜格獎（1991年） 總統公民獎章（2001年）. 科学生涯. 何大一（1952年11月3日－），華裔美國人，祖籍江西省新餘市；中華民國及美國雙重國籍，科学家，於台灣台中出生及渡過童年，12歲時隨家人移民 ...





冰山一角：病毒學家David Ho（BS '74）談到COVID-19

2020年3月20日



截至3月20日，全球已有8700多人死於COVID-19，COVID-19是由嚴重的急性呼吸綜合徵冠狀病毒2（SARS-CoV-2）引起的。哥倫比亞大學亞倫鑽石艾滋病研究中心的加州理工學院受託人大衛·霍（David'BS）'74（BS '74）說，這只是冰山一角。何是病毒流行病專家，他花了數十年的時間研究艾滋病毒/艾滋病，他的職業生涯始於1980年代初期在洛杉磯的職業生涯，這是首次爆發的“零地面”。3月18日，何俊仁與加州理工學院的社區成員坐下來，討論了這種新型冠狀病毒和鑑於全球流行病的未來。
引導我們了解病毒在美國的傳播。這個國家現在看起來像什麼？

讓我給你一張我在紐約看到的照片。大約兩週前，我們收到了第一例病例，現在在紐約市，每兩天就有三例新確診病例。在我們的紐約長老會醫院，大約有25％的棉籤樣本呈陽性。在紐約州以外的郊區社區，大約10％的棉籤呈陽性。因此，病毒無處不在。在紐約，我們知道我們正處於這種流行的指數增長階段。

回顧世界各地發生的一切，我們看到了第一波衝擊中國。第二波襲擊了韓國，意大利和伊朗。然後，法國，德國，西班牙和美國緊隨其後僅一周左右，我們都知道中國經歷了一場巨大的災難。它有超過80,000個案件。意大利正在迅速追趕，案件數量超過31,000。我們懷疑在美國，這將迅速從沿海地區席捲而來，並將衝擊中美洲。它已經存在了，但是我們很快就會看到指數級增長。然後，我們當然都擔心這種流行病席捲非洲和印度等衛生保健系統不發達的地方會發生什麼。
您能告訴我們這種疾病的病理嗎？

COVID-19通常會引起發燒和乾咳。一個人的身體可能會感到疼痛，即肌肉酸痛，如果足夠嚴重的話，就會因肺炎而導致呼吸短促。

可能出現胃腸道症狀，這是更嚴重疾病的跡象。流鼻涕或鼻涕不是很常見，喉嚨痛也不常見。

從接觸到症狀發作的潛伏期為4至6天；如果您想覆蓋95％到98％的案例，則需要3到10天。超出此範圍的潛伏期很少見。
是什麼使該病毒如此危險？

令人不安的是，在口腔或鼻子中檢測到的病毒脫落非常非常普遍，並且可能在症狀發作之前就已出現。這就是為什麼可能從無症狀的個體發生傳播。一個人康復後，病毒的脫落可能會持續數天，最多持續三週。這對該病毒的傳播極為令人擔憂。此外，該病毒的穩定性也令人擔憂。如果將其以氣霧劑形式保存並保持在空氣中，則半衰期為數小時。如果將其放在銅或紙板的表面上，則可以存活大約一天。但是，即使是在鋼或塑料表面上，儘管感染性會隨著時間而降低，但您仍可以在72小時後檢測到傳染性病毒。
我們對病毒的生物學了解多少？

該病毒與另一種稱為SARS冠狀病毒的冠狀病毒高度相關。那是另一次爆發，發生在17-18年前的全球範圍，主要發生在中國和亞洲。

這兩種病毒約有80％相同。我們知道，SARS的起源是通過蝙蝠通過一種稱為麝貓的中間動物而產生的。

另一種稱為中東呼吸道病毒的病毒（MERS）也起源於蝙蝠和受感染的駱駝，然後駱駝將其傳播給人類。對於COVID-19，我們認為原始宿主必須是蝙蝠物種，因為該動物攜帶的病毒與我們現在看到的病毒具有97％的同一性。

由於SARS爆發和MERS爆發，以及對這兩種病原體的研究，我們實際上對冠狀病毒了解很多。
暴發始於中國。他們如何處理該病毒？

這種流行病最初是在2019年12月的幾例肺炎病例中發現的。回想起來，根據中國官員的說法，11月有零星的病例。我要說的是，起初存在失誤和缺乏透明度，這導致了中部湖北省武漢市的爆發性爆發。中部地區的這一流行病佔中國確診病例的85％。它導致北京官員隔離了整個5000萬人口的省。該病在2月初達到高峰，每天有4,000例新診斷出的病例。但是自從採取封鎖措施和採取各種嚴厲措施以來，每天新發病例的數量每週減少一半，而現在已降至每天約20個。中國其他地區

我們知道他們所做的事情是不可持續的，問題是：如果中國放寬感染控制措施，中國現在將做什麼？一些康復的病人仍在散發病毒，現在中國被生病的鄰居所包圍。當然，如果他們放開邊界，感染也將以進入美國的方式來。世界正在等待看看中國將要做什麼。

現在就美國而言，我們顯然正在經歷指數級增長。10,400例確診病例總被低估了。缺乏測試令人尷尬。這是領導力的徹底失敗。
我們需要什麼檢測冠狀病毒感染的檢測？

每個人都在談論測試，實際上是在指PCR（聚合酶鏈反應）測試，尋找病毒RNA來確定一個人是否被感染。但是，仍然沒有關於進行抗體檢測來確定哪些人已經免疫並具有免疫力的談論，這是我們應對這種流行病的另一個重要工具。全國各地的許多研究實驗室（我也肯定在加州理工學院也可以）正在進行抗體測試以調查人群，並告訴我們這種病原體在我們社區中的真正滲透力是什麼。我們正在研究的基礎上，以了解紐約市和紐約市以外地區的感染程度。
美國會在多長時間之前看到與韓國實施的測試類似的測試？

PCR測試已獲批准，目前正在州和地方實驗室以及學術醫學中心和商業領域非常迅速地進行擴增。他們的產量將大大增長。羅氏的機器可以一次運行1,000個樣品。如果您去商業實驗室，他們會拿著棉籤，將其包裝，然後經常將其發送到其他地方的另一家工廠。周轉時間通常為72小時。在那個時期，管理患者及其聯繫非常非常困難。這是醫護人員的噩夢。

我們需要即時檢驗。這些類型的測試可用於艾滋病毒和許多其他疾病。您使用手指棒，將血液滴在小型設備上，並在15分鐘內讀數。這些測試可測量抗體對病毒的反應，非常有用。但是，在美國，中國，韓國和歐洲，我們沒有在美國授權使用的單個測試。此快速測試的製造商每天生產一百萬。在那。但是以保護公眾的名義，FDA行動非常緩慢。我認為，這種拖延造成的弊大於利。
您能詳細說明即時檢驗嗎？

這幾乎就像是家庭懷孕測試或家庭HIV測試。這些測試已經存在很長時間了。我專門指的是來自中國，韓國和歐洲的測試，它是一種抗體測試。您在塑料載玻片上滴一滴血，再添加一滴測試附帶的緩衝液，然後靜置15分鐘。然後，您查看樂隊。如果只有一個頻段，則為負；如果有多個頻段，則為正。該測試還會告訴您抗體的類型。有一種類型的抗體稱為IgG [免疫球蛋白G]，另一種類型稱為IgM [免疫球蛋白M]。通常，當感染一個人時，IgM反應較早，而IgG反應較晚。這兩個條帶指示感染的過程。

全世界的艾滋病毒都可以進行這種檢查。技術就在那裡，測試就在那裡。但它們未經FDA批准。雖然我認為他們已經接近批准，但我們已經過了好幾個星期，對我來說這是悲慘的。
這種冠狀病毒會是季節性的嗎？

每個人都在問這種病毒是否會保留下來。最初，僅基於中國在很久以前對SARS所做的工作，就有希望的是，溫暖的天氣和更多的陽光將有助於在我們的環境中殺死該病毒，從而降低傳播的可能性。

但是現在，這種病毒已經在人口中佔據瞭如此強大的地位。它已經是SARS的25倍，並且已經嵌入南半球。如果您查看澳大利亞，南非，阿根廷，巴西，已經有病例了，社區傳播正在發生。隨著天氣的變化，也許北半球將獲得優勢。但是南半球的流行病將會加速。

長期結果可能類似於流感，因此我們會季節性發作，病毒會在南北半球之間來回彈跳。當然，這只是猜測，但這就是我們對流感的看法。
為什麼COVID-19對兒童的影響較小，而對老年人的影響較大？

好吧，後面的部分很容易。老年人通常對各種呼吸道感染（包括流感和SARS）的治療效果較差。因此，這只是我們看到的典型情況。然而，孩子們是個謎。如您所知，孩子通常會很快感染流感或其他呼吸道病毒，並將其帶回家感染父母。但是在這種特殊情況下，經過廣泛研究，中國感染的兒童數量似乎並未表明這種冠狀病毒就是這種情況。
有些人似乎表現出輕微症狀，而另一些人則表現得更為嚴重。病毒已經變異了嗎？

RNA病毒均以低保真度複製。突變的發生率非常相似，這些病毒通常不具有校對功能。相反，我們以高保真度複製DNA，並具有校對功能來修復錯誤。因此，每次復制時，突變率都是固定的。該病毒正在變異，但到目前為止變異很少。雖然存在差異，但可能在功能上並不重要，因此這並不是為什麼您在感染者中看到不同疾病進程的原因。

對於艾滋病病毒來說，這是一回事：同一株病毒可能會感染10個人，但結果卻截然不同。在艾滋病毒中，遺傳和環境因素起作用。一些遺傳學已經得到解決。我們知道，某些類型的組織會受到保護，而另一些則會造成傷害。我懷疑這裡是一樣的。
一旦感染了該病毒，就可以再次獲得它嗎？

來自中國的一些有關再感染的軼事，但是，如果仔細查看這些報告，它們的文獻記錄不充分。人們可能只是繼續從最初的感染中清除病毒。正式進行的一項研究不是一項人類研究。這是獼猴的研究。他們用這種病毒感染了獼猴，然後等到猴子恢復健康並試圖再次感染它們。他們不能。這是過去幾天才出現的。這預示著人類的免疫力。

現在我們已經研究了許多來自恢復期個體的血清，這些血清樣品具有針對病毒所謂的刺突蛋白的抗體。那就是位於病毒顆粒表面的蛋白質。通過緊密結合，抗體可以中和病毒。一旦被感染的人產生抗體，應該在相當長的一段時間內具有保護性免疫力。這就是為什麼我們需要爭取時間來增強人們的免疫力。
一個人從病毒中恢復後，他們還能傳染多久？

這是一個非常重要的問題。我們不確定；事實證明，中國有一個人的病毒持續脫落超過一個月。但通常情況下，我們需要從症狀發作開始的三個星期內。
我們應該怎麼做以限制這種流行病的蔓延？

例如，在韓國已成功地採用了與社會隔離和保持良好衛生習慣的策略，以降低其流行程度。它們是唯一使曲線趨於平坦的國家-降低了新的感染數量，以至於不壓倒醫療體系-並逐漸控制了這一流行病。台灣和香港等許多地方在防止疫情爆發方面做得很好。在17年前，這些地方在抗擊SARS方面具有相當的經驗。
您是否樂觀地認為將這些措施與研究結合起來足以對抗冠狀病毒？

我個人認為我們會遏制這種流行病，但我認為我們浪費了四到六個星期的時間，主要是因為缺乏測試和缺乏一定的準備。但是我認為我們仍然可以有所作為，並採取非常嚴厲的措施加以控制。

但是，這些措施是否可持續？我們必須期望企業必須重新開放，學校必須再次授課。無論是旅行，體育還是現場娛樂，我們都將不得不恢復正常狀態。但是有效和可持續的措施是什麼？這是我們社會必須解決的問題。我們需要爭取時間，以便逐漸使人們有一定程度的免疫力。

最重要的是，我們需要花時間讓科學提供解決方案。我們將不得不開發藥物，抗體和疫苗。從我的角度來看，我認為科學界的動員是驚人的。許多人已經動員起來，並為此做出了貢獻，從發現可以阻斷該病毒各種酶的小分子藥物到提出可以中和該病毒的抗體，他們都在做出貢獻。研究人員已經提出了一些有前途的化學物質，它們可能是藥物開發的良好開端。從感染者中分離出一些中和抗體。我自己的團隊正在做所有這些事情。

而且，當然，人們正在研究疫苗。許多公司正在研發疫苗，而這些疫苗處於不同階段。在進行人工測試後的幾週內，這是非常非常出色的。但是，關於疫苗有一件事情：先前在SARS上進行的一些實驗表明，當動物產生抗體然後被給予病毒時，由於抗體的存在，它們對肺部的傷害更大。科學界必須迅速解決該問題，其解決方案要么停止當前的方法，要么釋放它們以全速前進。我們當然會參與其中。我認為我們很可能COVID-19可能會成為現實，直到科學如過去的流行病一樣流行。

這將需要一些時間。但是，我非常有信心科學將成為任務並提供解決方案。但這不會像我們的總統建議的那樣幾個月。它會比那更長。我會說18個月或24個月。我認為我們所有人都面臨著嚴峻的挑戰。













As of March 20, more than 8,700 people worldwide had died of COVID-19, the disease caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Caltech trustee David Ho (BS '74) of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, Columbia University, says that this is just the tip of the iceberg. Ho, an expert on viral epidemics, has spent decades researching HIV/AIDS, having begun his career in Los Angeles, "ground zero" of the first outbreak, in the early 1980s. On March 18, Ho sat down with members of the Caltech community to discuss the novel coronavirus and the future of our society in the light of this global pandemic.
Walk us through the spread of the virus in the United States. What does the country look like right now?

Let me just give you a picture of what I see here in New York. About two weeks ago, we had our initial case, and now in New York City newly diagnosed confirmed cases are tripling every two days. In our New York Presbyterian Hospital, approximately 25 percent of the swab samples that are submitted for testing are positive. In the suburban communities outside of New York, approximately 10 percent of the swabs submitted are positive. So, the virus is everywhere. And in New York, we know that we are in the exponential growth phase of the epidemic.

Looking back at what has transpired throughout the world, we saw the first wave hit China; the second wave hit South Korea, Italy, and Iran; and then, trailed by only about a week or so, France, Germany, Spain, and the U.S. We all know that China went through a period of great devastation. It has over 80,000 cases. Italy is rapidly catching up, with over 31,000 cases. We suspect that in the U.S. this will rapidly sweep from the coastal regions and it will hit middle America. It is already there, but we will see exponential growth very, very soon. Then of course we are all worried about what would happen when this epidemic strikes places like Africa and India where the health care system is less developed.
Can you tell us about the pathology of the disease?

COVID-19 typically causes fever and a dry cough. One may have aches in the body—the muscles—and if it's severe enough, there would be shortness of breath due to pneumonia.

Gastrointestinal symptoms can occur and are an indication of more severe disease. It's not very common to have a runny nose or the sniffles, and a sore throat is not common either.

The incubation period from exposure to onset of symptoms is between four and six days; and if you want to cover 95–98 percent of the cases it is between three and 10 days. It's pretty rare to have an incubation period outside of that range.
What in particular makes this virus so dangerous?

What is disturbing is that virus shedding, as detected in the mouth or nose, is very, very common and could be there prior to onset of symptoms. That's why transmission could occur from asymptomatic individuals. And virus shedding could continue for days up to three weeks after a person recovers. That is extremely worrisome for the spread of this virus. Furthermore, the stability of this virus is worrisome as well. If you put it in aerosol form and keep it in the air, the half-life is several hours; if you drop it on surfaces of copper or cardboard, it could survive about a day. But if it's on steel or plastic surfaces, you could still detect infectious virus after 72 hours, although the infectivity decreases with time.
What do we know about the biology of the virus?

The virus is highly related to another coronavirus called SARS coronavirus. That was another outbreak that occurred worldwide 17-18 years ago, and largely in China and Asia.

The two viruses are about 80 percent identical. We know the origin of SARS was from a bat through an intermediary animal called the civet cat.

Another virus called Middle Eastern Respiratory Virus, MERS, also originated in bats and infected camels, and camels passed it to humans. For COVID-19, we believe the original host must be a bat species, because that animal carries a virus that's 97 percent identical to what we're seeing now.

Because of the SARS outbreak and the MERS outbreak, and research done on those two pathogens, we actually know quite a bit about coronaviruses.
The outbreak began in China; how have they been dealing with the virus?

This epidemic was first identified in a few cases with pneumonia in December 2019. In retrospect, there were scattered cases in November according to Chinese officials. I would say that initially there were missteps and lack of transparency that contributed to the explosive outbreak in the city of Wuhan in the central province of Hubei. That epidemic in central China accounts for 85 percent of the confirmed cases in China. It led Beijing officials to quarantine the entire province of 50 million people. The epidemic peaked in early February with 4,000 newly diagnosed cases each day. But since the lockdown and the various draconian measures applied, the number of new cases each day has been declining by half every week, and remarkably it's now down to about 20 per day. The rest of China's other provinces also applied very harsh measures and they indeed successfully flattened the curve outside of Hubei province.

We know what they've done is not sustainable and the question is: What is China going to do now if it relaxes the infection control measures? Some of the recovered patients are still shedding virus and now China is surrounded by sick neighbors. Surely if they open up their borders, infection will come in the same way it came into the U.S. The world is waiting to see what China is going to do.

Now in terms of the U.S., we obviously are undergoing exponential growth. The 10,400 confirmed cases is a gross underestimate. The lack of testing is embarrassing. It's an outright failure in leadership.
What are the tests we need to detect coronavirus infection?

Everybody's talking about testing and that's actually referring to PCR [polymerase chain reaction] testing, looking for viral RNA to determine whether a person is infected. But there's still no talk of antibody testing to determine which people have had it and are immune, and that is another crucial tool we need to combat this epidemic. Many research labs throughout the country—I'm sure at Caltech too—could be running antibody tests right now to survey the population and tell us what the real penetrance of this pathogen is in our communities. We are, on a research basis, embarking on that to understand the degree of infection in New York City and outside of New York City.
How long before the U.S. sees test availability similar to what South Korea has implemented?

The PCR testing, which is the one that's approved, is now ramping up very, very rapidly in state and local labs as well as in academic medical centers and in the commercial sector. Their production will grow tremendously. Roche has a machine that will run 1,000 samples at a time. If you go to a commercial lab, they take a swab, they package it, they quite often send it to another facility somewhere else. The turnaround time is typically 72 hours. In that period, it's very, very hard to manage patients and their contacts. It's a nightmare for the healthcare worker.

We need point-of-care tests. Those kinds of tests are available for HIV and for many other diseases; you use a finger stick, drop the blood on a small device, and have a readout in 15 minutes. These tests measure antibody response to the virus and are extremely useful. Yet we don't have a single test licensed in the U.S. In China, in South Korea, and in Europe, those tests are used. The manufacturer for this rapid test is producing a million a day. It's there. But in the name of protecting the public, the FDA has moved very, very slowly. That delay, in my view, has caused more harm than good.
Can you elaborate on point-of-care testing?

It's almost like a home pregnancy test or home HIV test. These tests have been around for a long time. The test that I'm specifically referring to, coming out of China, South Korea, and approved in Europe, is an antibody test. You put a drop of blood on a plastic slide, add another drop of the buffer that comes with the test, and you let it sit for 15 minutes. Then, you look at the bands. You're negative if you have just one band, or you're positive if you have more than one band. The test also tells you type of antibody. There's a type of antibody called IgG [immunoglobulin G] and another type called IgM [immunoglobulin M]. Typically, when a person is infected, the IgM response is earlier and the IgG response is later. The two bands indicate the course of the infection.

This kind of test is available all over the world for HIV. The technology is there, the tests are there. But they're not FDA approved. While I think they are fairly close to being approved, we have let several weeks go by and to me that's tragic.
Will this coronavirus be seasonal?

Everyone is asking whether this virus is here to stay. Initially, just based on what China did with SARS long ago, there was hope that warmer weather and more sunlight would help kill the virus in our environment and therefore lower the probability of transmission.

But now this virus has gained such a strong foothold in the human population. It's already 25 times larger than SARS and it's already embedded in the Southern hemisphere. If you look at Australia, South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, there are cases there already, and community transmission is occurring. As the weather changes, perhaps the Northern hemisphere will gain an advantage. But the epidemic in the Southern hemisphere is going to accelerate.

The long-term outcome may resemble influenza so that we have seasonal bouts, with the virus bouncing back and forth between the Northern and Southern hemispheres. This is of course just speculation, but that's what we see with influenza.
Why does COVID-19 have less impact on children and more impact on the elderly?

Well, the latter part is easy. Older people generally do less well with all sorts of respiratory infections, including influenza and SARS. So that's just the typical scenario we see. The children, however, are a mystery. As you know, children typically get flu or other respiratory viruses very quickly and bring them home to infect the parents. But in this particular case, the number of children infected in China, after extensive studies, don't seem to indicate that this is the case for this coronavirus.
Some people seem to show mild symptoms while others have a more severe experience. Has the virus already mutated?

RNA viruses all replicate with low fidelity. Mutations occur at pretty similar rates and these viruses typically don't have proofreading functions. In contrast, we replicate our DNA with high fidelity and we have a proofreading function to fix the errors. So, every time they replicate, there's a fixed rate of mutation. This virus is mutating but it has mutated very little so far. There are differences but probably they are functionally not important, so that's not the explanation for why you see different disease courses among the infected.

For HIV it's the same thing: 10 people could be infected by the same strain but you have very different outcomes. With HIV, genetics and environmental factors play a role. Some of the genetics has been worked out; we know that there are certain tissue types that would protect and others that would harm. I suspect it's the same here.
Once you become infected with the virus, can you get it again?

There are a few anecdotes from China about re-infection but, if you look at those reports carefully, they're not well-documented. It could be that folks just continued to shed virus from the initial infection. Only one study was formally done and it is not a human study. It's a macaque study. They infected macaques with this virus, then waited until the monkeys recovered and tried to re-infect them. They could not. This just came out in the past few days. That bodes well for human immunity.

We have now looked at a lot of serum from convalescent individuals and those serum samples have antibodies against the so-called spike protein of the virus. That's the protein that sits on the surface of the virus particle. By tightly binding, the antibody could neutralize the virus. Once an infected person develops antibodies, there should be protective immunity for quite some time. That's why we need to buy time for immunity to develop in the population.
After a person recovers from the virus, how long are they still contagious?

That's a very important question. We're not sure; one individual in China was shown to have persistent virus shedding for over a month. But typically, we're looking at a three-week period from onset of symptoms.
What should we be doing to limit the spread of this epidemic?

The social distancing and good hygiene strategies have been successfully applied, in South Korea for example, to bring their epidemic down. They're the only other country that has flattened the curve—slowed down the number of new infections to not overwhelm the healthcare system—and gradually brought this epidemic under control. There are many places that have done a pretty good job of not allowing the epidemic to explode, such as Taiwan and Hong Kong. These are places that had quite a bit of experience in fighting SARS, 17 years ago.
Are you optimistic that these measures combined with research will be enough to combat the coronavirus?

I personally believe we will blunt this epidemic, but I think we wasted a good four to six weeks largely because of lack of testing and lack of a certain preparedness. But I think we could still make a difference and bring it under control with very harsh measures.

But again, are these measures sustainable? We've got to expect that businesses must reopen and schools must teach again. Whether it's travel or sports or live entertainment, we're going to have to return to some semblance of normalcy. But what are the measures that are effective and sustainable? That's a question we as a society have to deal with. We need to buy time so that gradually the population will have a degree of immunity.

Most importantly, we need to buy time to allow science to deliver solutions. We're going to have to develop drugs, antibodies, and vaccines. I think the mobilization by the scientific community, from my perspective, is amazing. So many people have mobilized and jumped on this and are contributing, from discovering small-molecule drugs that could block various enzymes of this virus to coming up with antibodies that could neutralize the virus. Researchers have already come up with a few promising chemicals that could be a good start to drug development. There are already a few neutralizing antibodies isolated from infected individuals; my own group is in the midst of doing all that.

And, of course, people are working on vaccines. A lot of companies are working on vaccines and those vaccines are at various stages. A couple are within weeks of entering human testing and that's quite, quite remarkable. There is one thing about vaccines, though: Some of the experiments previously done on SARS suggested that when animals developed antibodies and then were given the virus, they had greater lung injury due to the presence of the antibodies. The scientific community would have to resolve that issue quickly and its resolution would either halt the current approaches or unleash them to move full speed ahead. We certainly will take a part in doing that. I think we have the real possibility that COVID-19 may become a fact of life until science comes through as it has done for past epidemics.

This is going to take some time. But I'm very confident that the science will rise to the task and provide a solution. But it's not going to be a few months as our president suggests. It's going to be much longer than that. I would say 18 months, or 24 months. I think we are all facing tough challenges ahead.
WRITTEN BY
Lori Dajose
CONTACT
Lori Dajose
(626) 395‑1217
ldajose@caltech.edu




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"We suspect that in the U.S. this will rapidly sweep from the coastal regions and it will hit middle America. It is already there, but we will see exponential growth very, very soon."
-David Ho (BS '74), expert virologist and Caltech trustee


CALTECH.EDU

The Tip of the Iceberg: Virologist David Ho (BS '74) Speaks About COVID-19