Facebook started marking some posts linking to information and articles about the coronavirus and COVID-19 as spam, as observed by one Verge reporter and many users on Twitter on Tuesday evening.
The issue was due to a bug in an anti-spam system, according to Guy Rosen, Facebooks vice president of integrity. Rosen said the company began working on a fix as soon as discovering the issue.
Here are a few examples of affected Facebook posts:
Following publication of The Verges report, Rosen said Facebook had resolved the issue and restored the affected posts. Weve restored all the posts that were incorrectly removed, which included posts on all topics not just those related to COVID-19, Rosen explained. According to Facebook, the issue was with an automated moderation tool and was not related to any changes to its moderator workforce.
The company previously announced that it would remove false claims and conspiracy theories about coronavirus in January. Facebook also joined Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Reddit, Twitter, and YouTube in publishing a joint statement yesterday committing to fighting coronavirus-related fraud and misinformation.
A new report published by Ranking Digital Rights argued on Tuesday that Facebooks current approach to moderation may not be able to address the issue of coronavirus-related misinformation on its platform.
Update March 17th, 8:07PM ET: Added context from Facebook.
Update March 17th, 9:52PM ET: Added additional context from Facebook and clarification that the company has resolved the issue. The headline has been updated to reflect this.
They each spoke to CNN Tuesday about why they chose to take part in the trial.
Speaking with CNN's Brooke Baldwin, Browning said he's doing it to "make this end as quickly as possible for the rest of the world," adding, "If I'm healthy enough to be able to contribute research and hoping you find a vaccine sooner than later, why wouldn't I?"
The hope is that we will have a coronavirus vaccine in 12-18 months, but for that to happen we may have to rely on untested techniques - and that comes with its own risks.
By Carrie Arnold
POTTERING around her kitchen on the morning of 31 December, Kate Broderick scrolled through the headlines while shewaited for her tea to brew. One story caught her eye: a mysterious outbreak of severe pneumonia in Wuhan, China. Nearly overnight, the number of cases seemed to explode. Iknew we didnt have time to wait, she says.
A molecular geneticist at Inovio Pharmaceuticals in California, Broderick was poised for what came next. When Chinese officials published the genetic sequence of thenew SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus causing the illness just two weeks after the first cases were reported to the World Health Organization, Broderick got to work. Within 3hours, her teamhad a prototype vaccine ready for initial testing. It was an unprecedented turnaround, but a moment Broderick and many others hadlong seen coming.
Making vaccines usually takes a decade or more between development, safety testing andmanufacturing, says Seth Berkley, head ofGavi, an international group that promotes vaccine use around the world. With global confirmed cases of the new disease, covid-19, surging past 180,000 at the time of writing, time is of the essence.
To speed things up, scientists are turning tountested classes of vaccines, and rethinking every part of how they are designed, evaluated and manufactured. If the approach works, we will, for the first time, have identified a new disease and developed a vaccine against it while the initial outbreak is still ongoing.But speed can come with downsides. Wecould have a vaccine in three weeks, butwecant guarantee its safety or efficacy, saysGaryKobinger, a virologist at LavalUniversity in Canada.
Inside a busy microbiology lab on Colorado State Universitys foothills campus, the quest for a coronavirus vaccine has already begun. Ever since a sample of the coronavirus arrived mid-February, researchers have worked eight-hour days in full white protective gear, sometimes wearing respirators.
For our lab thats what we live for, said postdoctoral virologist Izabela Ragan. I know a lot of labs are excited for the opportunity.
Ragan and other researchers at Colorado State University have focused attention on using a Mirasol machine, a white box the size of a printer to render the virus inactive. Thats the first step toward creating a vaccine. Over the next six to eight months, theyll turn to tests of the potential vaccine on small rodents.
Heres what it takes to be a virologist: Ragan and others wear head-to-toe white protective gear when theyre in the lab working with the virus. After leaving the lab, they have to shower head to toe if they need to leave it in a small utilitarian stall before walking into a public hallway. The lab itself has filtered air so the exhaust from the lab doesnt release viruses outside the room. Even animals tested in the lab live in heavily filtered cages.
Nothing goes out of this filter, said CSU Biosafety Director Bob Ellis pointing to the ceiling of a mock lab at the university used for training. So it protects the environment around you, too.
CSU wont allow reporters into the actual lab where the coronavirus is, but they did allow reporters into a duplicate training facility.
Vaccine research can take years to develop a successful dose. CSU Vice President for Research Alan Rudolph said the soonest a vaccine can be developed for coronavirus is 18 months. That includes about 6-8 months of animal testing followed by trials with humans, heavily regulated by the Federal Drug Administration.
Rudolph and his colleagues are trying to better develop vaccines in the future. Theyre asking questions like, What if researchers could one day develop a vaccine that covers multiple strains of influenza instead of just one? Or, what about manufacturing a vaccine not from a giant facility, but from a bunch of small 3D printers across the country?
Thats really what we need so were not waiting a year and a half for the next vaccine, Rudolph said.
Stopping the spread of a deadly virus is one research prong at CSU. Understanding why some viruses, like coronavirus, make the jump from animals to humans is another. The hunt is on right now to understand where the coronavirus emerged.
Read more: What does a quarantine look like?
Microbiology professor Richard Bowen has looked extensively at how animals spread viruses to humans. He studied how camels shed the Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome. He also set up an artificial barnyard in the lab to replicate how birds spread the avian flu. That translated into ducks and chickens and rats running around happy in a small lab to replicate conditions where the virus emerged.
And well do more of that--trying to see, do the animals in the cages below become infected more readily than the cages above and that kind of thing, Bowen said.
He knows the virus originated from Wuhan China, possibly from a so-called wet market where live animals are sold. Now that the virus is inside a CSU lab, Bowen is keen to study which animals are susceptible to the coronavirus. That could lead to understanding how the virus jumped between animals and eventually became contagious to humans.
Based on the genetic sequence of the coronavirus, Bowen said it appears to have possibly come from bats.
Whether it came from bats in that market, or whether there were two or three animal reservoirs in between, who knows?
Thats where coronavirus research questions lead to answers, which eventually create more questions on campus.
Ultimately, CSU Vice President for Research Alan Rudolph wants to supercharge research in some of the university's labs with the help of federal dollars. CSU is one of many institutions that submitted grant proposals seeking a piece of the $8 billion federal coronavirus bill. An answer is expected in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, researchers like Izabela Ragan will continue diligently working in the lab to find a vaccine.
Its evolving every day of how we can do better with the testing, diagnosing people, understanding how quickly the virus spreads. Every day were getting better technology, were getting more successful, we have to be better for the next one as well, she said.
Canine coronavirus infection is highly contagious among dogs, with common symptoms such as fever, vomiting, and loss of appetite. In most cases, the virus runs its course ... and then the patient is fine. A vaccine against canine coronavirus is available, but its not part of the routinely recommended vaccines for most dogs.
Coronavirus infection is a highly contagious infection of puppies and older dogs that primarily attacks the intestinal tract. The disease is spread from dog to dog through contact with feces.
A vaccine is available to prevent canine coronavirus infection. This vaccine may be included in combination vaccines that also protect dogs from canine distemper virus (CDV), canine parvovirus (CPV-2), and canine adenovirus type 2 (CAV-2).
The American Animal Hospital Association has grouped vaccines for dogs into three general categories core, (all dogs should receive the vaccine), non-core (recommendation is based on risk for exposure to the disease), and not recommended. The canine coronavirus vaccine has been included in this third category. Categorization as not recommended does not mean the vaccine is bad or dangerous it simply means that widespread use is not generally recommended among pet dogs. However, your veterinarian is always the best guide for making vaccination decisions.
This vaccine is administered by subcutaneous injection.
Administering a vaccine is a medical procedure, and there are times when a vaccine may not be recommended. For example, your veterinarian may advise against vaccinating an animal that is currently sick, pregnant, or may not have adequate immune system functioning to respond to a vaccination. For pets with a previous history of vaccine reactions, the potential risk of a future vaccine reaction should be weighed against the potential benefits of vaccination. These and other issues are evaluated when deciding what is best for your pet.
Coronavirus is spread through contact with fecal material from infected dogs, so separating sick dogs from healthy ones can help reduce disease spread. Coronavirus can be killed by many types of household disinfectants (including diluted bleach solution), so cleaning contaminated areas and bedding is also recommended.
If a dog becomes infected with coronavirus, clinical signs of disease tend to be mild and self-limiting.
AAHA vaccine guidelines
This article was reviewed by a Veterinarian.
Coronavirus has spread from Wuhan, China, to countries across the world. But how do you know you have it? Here are some signs to watch out for. USA TODAY
Drugmakers are hustling to make a vaccine to counter the rapidly spreading respiratory virus that has sickened at least 1,975 people in China andfivein the United States.
The National Institutes of Health has partnered with a Boston-area company, Moderna, on a vaccine targeting the novel coronavirus. A Pennsylvania biotechnology company, Inovio, also secured a $9 million grant from Norway-based Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations to develop a vaccine. The company already is developing a vaccine for Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, another type of coronavirus.
Officials with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases say they can quickly develop a vaccinebecause Chinese scientists rapidly sequenced the viruss genome.
The agency has the funding and technology, said Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Barring any bureaucratic or regulatory holdups, which I dont think will happen, we can almost certainly getinto phase one in three months.
'Everything now is experimental.'Here's how doctors are treating coronavirus
Even if the vaccine is tested rapidly, it might not come in time to slow the outbreak. Public health efforts to limit the spread of the virus and treat those who are infected will have a more immediate benefit.
The virus, which originated in the central city of Wuhan, has spread to surrounding regions in China andSouth Korea,Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Macao,Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.
The first U.S. case, a Washington state man in his 30s, was diagnosed Tuesday. A second case, a woman in her 60s,was reported Friday in Chicago. Threemore cases were confirmed Saturday and Sundayin California.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is coordinatingefforts to limit the virus's spread, limiting flights from the region to five U.S. airports and screening 2,000 returning travelers as of Friday.At least 63 potential cases are under investigation in 22 states, and 11 hadbeen confirmed negative, officials said.
TheU.S. State Department advised travelers to avoid the central Chinese province of Hubei, home to Wuhan.
Autoplay
Show Thumbnails
Show Captions
As public health officials work to limit the spread and get medical care to those in hard-hit regions, scientists, government and drugmakers are racing to develop new vaccines and other drugs.
Faucisaid scientists need to secure samples of the coronavirus from China so they can begin testing. He is optimistic Chinese authorities will soon allow release of the crucial samples, which also can be used to develop other drugs such as monoclonal antibodies.
Once the agency obtains samples, scientists can test the vaccinein animals, then in humans. An initialphase one study of about 20 patients would evaluate whether the vaccine is safe. Officials would then need to decide whether to pursue a larger study to test the vaccines effectiveness.
Getting the vaccine candidate in the laboratory is the shorter and easier part, said William Schaffner, a Vanderbilt University School of Medicine professor of preventive medicine. It is testing it in people to make sure its safe and its likely to work that takes much more time and much more money.
Outbreak: Chinese leader warns of 'grave' coronavirus crisis as US diplomats prepare to leave Wuhan
Researchers have a head start from work on vaccines for other coronaviruses responsible for past outbreaks ofsevere acute respiratory syndrome, orSARS,and MERS.
Researchers know the similarities shared by the family of viruses, but"the parts that are different from virus to virus are those critical parts that are important for protection, Fauci said.
His agency will develop the vaccine using a technology called messenger RNA platform, which instruct cells to make proteins. The newer technology will allow the agency to develop one more quickly. During the SARS outbreak in 2002-2003, it took about 20 months to prepare a vaccine for clinical trial, Fauci said.
The SARS vaccine has not been needed because the virus has not returned, but it is available if it does.
Another possibility, Fauci said, is to developa universal vaccine to attack all types of coronaviruses, a sort of insurance policy when the next one is transmitted from an animal to a human.
For now, the agencyhas prioritized development of a universal flu vaccine, which gets less attention even thoughthe more common illness is far more lethal than the coronavirus.Today, flu vaccines are made each year and tailored to match strains scientists project will circulate before the seasonal flu season begins.
CDC estimates the flu this seasonhas sickenedat least 15 million and caused 8,200 deaths, an illness that dwarfs the harm from coronavirus.
"In comparison to flu, the impact on the new coronavirus in the United States will be trivial," Schaffner said. "Its new, its novel, its mysterious. It started in an exotic place. We are all energized. So it is no great surprise the general public is interested."
Consider this: Something far deadlier than the Wuhan coronavirus lurks near you, right here in America
Coronavirus outbreak: Bogus coronavirus conspiracy theory about patents, vaccine spreads on social media
Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/01/24/national-institutes-health-has-partnered-boston-area-company-moderna-vaccine-targeting-novel-coronav/4568266002/
An Americanbiotech company says it created a coronavirus vaccine three hours after getting access to the virus' genetic sequence on Jan. 9, and now scientists are racing to get the vaccine on the market in record time.
Inovio Pharmaceuticals is based in Pennsylvania, but scientistsin its laboratory in San Diego made the discovery.
NEW CORONAVIRUS CASES SOAR, DEATHS RISE
"We have an algorithm which we designed, and we put the DNA sequence into our algorithm and came up with the vaccine in that short amount of time," Inovio's research and development director Dr. Trevor Smith told KVUE.
Chinahas reported 254 new daily deaths and a spike innew daily virus casesof 15,152, after new methodology was applied in the hardest-hit province of Hubei as to how cases are categorized.
CORONAVIRUS TREATMENT MAY COME FROM AN UNEXPECTED PLACE
Inovio's vaccine for COVID-19, as health officials have named the virus,could be ready as early as this summer. Inovio's stock jumped to $5.32 a share a few days after the companyannounced it was selected to work on a coronavirus vaccine. Shares are now at $3.34, back to where they were a month ago.
The American company is partnering with Beijing Advaccine, a Chinese company, to work on the vaccine.
CORONAVIRUS LIKELY TO HIT US GROWTH
"Inovio's participation in this developing effort is based on the ideal suitability of its DNA medicine platform to rapidly develop vaccines against emerging viruses with pandemic potential, proven vaccine development capabilities, and a strong track record of rapidly generating promising countermeasures against previous pandemic threats," the company said in a statement on Jan. 30. "Inovio was the first to advance its vaccine (INO-4700) against MERS-CoV, a related coronavirus, into evaluation in humans."
Another U.S. company,Maryland-based Novavax, is aiming to make acoronavirusvaccinein as little as three months, although such vaccines can take years to develop.The company made an Ebola vaccine in 90 days.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ON FOX BUSINESS
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Related Articles
A medical officer prepares to take samples from a visitor at a drive-throughtesting center atYeungnam University Medical Center.
By Dennis NormileMar. 17, 2020 , 8:00 AM
Europe is now the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic. Case counts and deaths are soaring in Italy, Spain, France, and Germany, and many countries have imposed lockdowns and closed borders. Meanwhile, the United States, hampered by a fiasco with delayed and faulty test kits, is just guessing at its COVID-19 burden, though experts believe it is on the same trajectory as countries in Europe.
Amid these dire trends, South Korea has emerged as a sign of hope and a model to emulate. The country of 50 million appears to have greatly slowed its epidemic; it reported only 74 new cases today, down from 909 at its peak on 29 February. And it has done so without locking down entire cities or taking some of the other authoritarian measures that helped China bring its epidemic under control. South Korea is a democratic republic, we feel a lockdown is not a reasonable choice, says Kim Woo-Joo, an infectious disease specialist at Korea University. South Koreas success may hold lessons for other countriesand also a warning: Even after driving case numbers down, the country is braced for a resurgence.
Behind its success so far has been the most expansive and well-organized testing program in the world, combined with extensive efforts to isolate infected people and trace and quarantine their contacts. South Korea has tested more than 270,000 people, which amounts to more than 5200 tests per million inhabitantsmore than any other country except tiny Bahrain, according to the Worldometer website. The United States has so far carried out 74 tests per 1 million inhabitants, data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show.
South Koreas experience shows that diagnostic capacity at scale is key to epidemic control, says Raina MacIntyre, an emerging infectious disease scholar at the University of New South Wales, Sydney. Contact tracing is also very influential in epidemic control, as is case isolation, she says.
Yet whether the success will hold is unclear. New case numbers are declining largely because the herculean effort to investigate a massive cluster of more than 5000 cases60% of the nations totallinked to the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, a secretive, messianic megachurch, is winding down. But because of that effort, We have not looked hard in other parts of Korea, says Oh Myoung-Don, an infectious disease specialist at Seoul National University.
New clusters are now appearing. Since last week, authorities have reported 129 new infections, most linked to a Seoul call center. This could be the initiation of community spread, through Seoul and its surrounding Gyeonggi province, Kim says. The region is home to 23 million people.
South Korea learned the importance of preparedness the hard way. In 2015, a South Korean businessman came down with Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) after returning from a visit to three Middle Eastern countries. He was treated at three South Korean health facilities before he was diagnosed with MERS and isolated. By then, he had set off a chain of transmission that infected 186 and killed 36, including many patients hospitalized for other ailments, visitors, and hospital staff. Tracing, testing, and quarantining nearly 17,000 people quashed the outbreak after 2 months. The specter of a runaway epidemic alarmed the nation and dented the economy.
That experience showed that laboratory testing is essential to control an emerging infectious disease, Kim says. In addition, Oh says, The MERS experience certainly helped us to improve hospital infection prevention and control. So far, there are no reports of infections of COVID-19 among South Korean health care workers, he says.
Legislation enacted since then gave the government authority to collect mobile phone, credit card, and other data from those who test positive to reconstruct their recent whereabouts. That information, stripped of personal identifiers, is shared on social media apps that allow others to determine whether they may have crossed paths with an infected person.
After the novel coronavirus emerged in China, Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) raced to develop its tests and cooperated with diagnostic manufacturers to develop commercial test kits. The first test was approved on 7 February, when the country had just a few cases, and distributed to regional health centers. Just 11 days later, a 61-year-old woman, known as Case 31, tested positive. She had attended 9 and 16 February services at the Shincheonji megachurch in Daegu, about 240 kilometers southeast of Seoul, already feeling slightly ill. Upward of 500 attendees sit shoulder to shoulder on the floor of thechurch during 2-hour services, according to local news reports.
The country identified more than 2900 new cases just in the next 12 days, the vast majority Shincheonji members. On 29 February alone, KCDC reported more than 900 new cases, bringing the cumulative total to 3150 and making the outbreak the largest by far outside mainland China. The surge initially overwhelmed testing capabilities and KCDCs 130 disease detectives couldnt keep up, Kim says. Contact tracing efforts were concentrated on the Shincheonji cluster, in which 80% of those reporting respiratory symptoms proved positive, compared with only 10% in other clusters.
High-risk patients with underlying illnesses get priority for hospitalization, Chun says. Those with moderate symptoms are sent to repurposed corporate training facilities and spaces provided by public institutions, where they get basic medical support and observation. Those who recover and test negative twice are released. Close contacts and those with minimal symptoms whose family members are free of chronic diseases and who can measure their own temperatures are ordered to self-quarantine for 2 weeks. A local monitoring team calls twice daily to make sure the quarantined stay put and to ask about symptoms. Quarantine violators face up to 3 million won ($2500) fines. If a recent bill becomes law, the fine will go up to 10 million won and as much as a year in jail.
In spite of the efforts, the Daegu-Gyeongbuk region ran out of space for the seriously ill. Four people isolated at home, waiting for hospital beds, were rushed to emergency rooms when their conditions deteriorated, only to die there, according to local media.
Still, the numbers of new cases have dropped the past 2 weeks, aided by voluntary social distancing, both in the Daegu-Gyeongbuk region and nationwide. The government advised people to wear masks, wash their hands, avoid crowds and meetings, work remotely, and to join online religious services instead of going to churches. Those with fevers or respiratory illnesses are urged to stay home and watch their symptoms for 3 to 4 days. People were shocked by the Shincheonji cluster, Chun says, which boosted compliance. Less than 1 month after Case 31 emerged, The cluster is coming under control, Oh says.
Yet new clusters are emerging, and for 20% of confirmed cases, its unclear how they became infected, suggesting there is still undetected community spread. As long as this uncertainty remains, we cannot say that the outbreak has peaked, Chun says.
The government hopes to control new clusters in the same way it confronted the one in Shincheonji. The national testing capacity has reached a staggering 15,000 tests per day. There are 43 drive-through testing stations nationwide, a concept now copied in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. In the first week of March, the Ministry of the Interior also rolled out a smartphone app that can track the quarantined and collect data on symptoms.
Chun Byung-Chul, an epidemiologist at Korea University, says scientists are eager to see more epidemiological data. We are literally stamping our feet, Chun says. KCDC releases the basic counts of patients, their age and gender, and how many are linked to clusters. That is not enough, Chun says. He and others would like to study detailed individual patient data, which would enable epidemiologists to model the outbreak and determine the number of new infections triggered by each case, also known as the basic reproductive number or R0; the time from infection to the onset of symptoms; and whether early diagnosis improved patients outcomes. (South Korea has had 75 deaths so far, an unusually low mortality rate, although the fact that Shincheonji church members are mostly young may have contributed.) Chun says a group of epidemiologists and scientists has proposed partnering with KCDC to gather and share such information, and we are waiting for their response.
Kim says medical doctors are also planning to share details of the clinical features of COVID-19 cases in the country in forthcoming publications. We hope our experience will help other countries control this COVID-19 outbreak.
With reporting by Ahn Mi-Young in Seoul.
Working at a breakneck pace, a team of hundreds of scientists has identified 50 drugs that may be effective treatments for people infected with the coronavirus.
Many scientists are seeking drugs that attack the virus itself. But the Quantitative Biosciences Institute Coronavirus Research Group, based at the University of California, San Francisco, is testing an unusual new approach.
The researchers are looking for drugs that shield proteins in our own cells that the coronavirus depends on to thrive and reproduce.
Many of the candidate drugs are already approved to treat diseases, such as cancer, that would seem to have nothing to do with Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus.
Scientists at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York and at the Pasteur Institute in Paris have already begun to test the drugs against the coronavirus growing in their labs. The far-flung research group is preparing to release its findings at the end of the week.
There is no antiviral drug proven to be effective against the virus. When people get infected, the best that doctors can offer is supportive care the patient is getting enough oxygen, managing fever and using a ventilator to push air into the lungs, if needed to give the immune system time to fight the infection.
If the research effort succeeds, it will be a significant scientific achievement: an antiviral identified in just months to treat a virus that no one knew existed until January.
Im really impressed at the speed and the scale at which theyre moving, said John Young, the global head of infectious diseases at Roche Pharma Research and Early Development, which is collaborating on some of the work.
We think this approach has real potential, he said.
Some researchers at the Q.B.I. began studying the coronavirus in January. But last month, the threat became more imminent: A woman in California was found to be infected although she had not recently traveled outside the country.
That finding suggested that the virus was already circulating in the community.
I got to the lab and said weve got to drop everything else, recalled Nevan Krogan, director of the Quantitative Biosciences Institute. Everybody has got to work around the clock on this.
Dr. Krogan and his colleagues set about finding proteins in our cells that the coronavirus uses to grow. Normally, such a project might take two years. But the working group, which includes 22 laboratories, completed it in a few weeks.
You have 30 scientists on a Zoom call its the most exhausting, amazing thing, Dr. Krogan said, referring to a teleconferencing service.
Viruses reproduce by injecting their genes inside a human cell. The cells own gene-reading machinery then manufactures viral proteins, which latch onto cellular proteins to create new viruses. They eventually escape the cell and infect others.
In 2011, Dr. Krogan and his colleagues developed a way to find all the human proteins that viruses use to manipulate our cells a map, as Dr. Krogan calls it. They created their first map for H.I.V.
That virus has 18 genes, each of which encodes a protein. The scientists eventually found that H.I.V. interacts, in one way or another, with 435 proteins in a human cell.
Dr. Krogan and his colleagues went on to make similar maps for viruses such as Ebola and dengue. Each pathogen hijacks its host cell by manipulating a different combination of proteins. Once scientists have a map, they can use it to search for new treatments.
In February, the research group synthesized genes from the coronavirus and injected them into cells. They uncovered over 400 human proteins that the virus seems to rely on.
The flulike symptoms observed in infected people are the result of the coronavirus attacking cells in the respiratory tract. The new map shows that the viruss proteins travel throughout the human cell, engaging even with proteins that do not seem to have anything to do with making new viruses.
One of the viral proteins, for example, latches onto BRD2, a human protein that tends to our DNA, switching genes on and off. Experts on proteins are now using the map to figure out why the coronavirus needs these molecules.
Kevan Shokat, a chemist at U.C.S.F., is poring through 20,000 drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration for signs that they may interact with the proteins on the map created by Dr. Krogans lab.
Dr. Shokat and his colleagues have found 50 promising candidates. The protein BRD2, for example, can be targeted by a drug called JQ1. Researchers originally discovered JQ1 as a potential treatment for several types of cancer.
On Thursday, Dr. Shokat and his colleagues filled a box with the first 10 drugs on the list and shipped them overnight to New York to be tested against the living coronavirus.
The drugs arrived at the lab of Adolfo Garcia-Sastre, director of the Global Health and Emerging Pathogens Institute at Mount Sinai Hospital. Dr. Garcia-Sastre recently began growing the coronavirus in monkey cells.
Over the weekend, the team at the institute began treating infected cells with the drugs to see if any stop the viruses. We have started experiments, but it will take us a week to get the first data here, Dr. Garcia-Sastre said on Tuesday.
The researchers in San Francisco also sent the batch of drugs to the Pasteur Institute in Paris, where investigators also have begun testing them against coronaviruses.
If promising drugs are found, investigators plan to try them in an animal infected with the coronavirus perhaps ferrets, because theyre known to get SARS, an illness closely related to Covid-19.
Even if some of these drugs are effective treatments, scientists will still need to make sure they are safe for treating Covid-19. It may turn out, for example, that the dose needed to clear the virus from the body might also lead to dangerous side effects.
In February, a team of researchers found that remdesivir could eliminate the coronavirus from infected cells. Since then, five clinical trials have begun to see if the drug will be safe and effective against Covid-19 in people.
Other researchers have taken startling new approaches. On Saturday, Stanford University researchers reported using the gene-editing technology Crispr to destroy coronavirus genes in infected cells.
As the Bay Area went into lockdown on Monday, Dr. Krogan and his colleagues were finishing their map. They are now preparing a report to post online by the end of the week, while also submitting it to a journal for publication.
Their paper will include a list of drugs that the researchers consider prime candidates to treat people ill with the coronavirus.
Whoever is capable of trying them, please try them, Dr. Krogan said.
SINGAPORE Two hours. Thats all the time medical teams in Singapore are given to uncover the first details of how patients contracted the coronavirus and which people they might infect.
Did they travel abroad? Do they have a link to one of the five clusters of contagion identified across the city-state? Did they cough on someone in the street? Who are their friends and family, their drinking buddies and partners in prayer?
As Western nations struggle with the wildfire spread of the coronavirus, Singapores strategy, of moving rapidly to track down and test suspected cases, provides a model for keeping the epidemic at bay, even if it cant completely stamp out infections.
With detailed detective work, the governments contact tracers found, among others, a group of avid singers who warbled and expelled respiratory droplets together, spreading the virus to their families and then to a gym and a church forming the largest concentration of cases in Singapore.
We want to stay one or two steps ahead of the virus, said Vernon Lee, the director of the communicable diseases division at Singapores Ministry of Health. If you chase the virus, you will always be behind the curve.
Singapore, along with Taiwan and Hong Kong, offers successful approaches, at least so far, in battling a pandemic that has infected more than 182,000 people and killed at least 7,300 worldwide. Despite being hit months ago by the virus, these three Asian societies have recorded only a handful of deaths and relatively few cases, although they continue to face risks as people from emerging hot spots in the United States, Europe and elsewhere carry the virus with them.
Early intervention is key. So are painstaking tracking, enforced quarantines and meticulous social distancing all coordinated by a leadership willing to act fast and be transparent.
In Singapore, the details of where patients live, work and play are released quickly online, allowing others to protect themselves. Close contacts of patients are quarantined to limit the spread. The government further strengthened its borders this week to protect against a new wave of imported infections.
Some of these lessons are too late for the United States and Europe, where contagion is raging as some governments delay and debate their response.
And the vigilant monitoring systems in Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong were built over years, after their failures to stop another dangerous outbreak SARS 17 years ago. The United States disbanded its pandemic response unit in 2018.
There is also the question of how replicable this model from smaller Asian centers is in large Western countries where people might chafe at the harnessing of C.C.T.V. cameras or immigration records for the health of the nation. Disease control infringes on individual liberties, and places like Singapore, where chewing gum was once banned, are more willing to accept government orders.
Maybe its because of our Asian context, but our community is sort of primed for this, said Lalitha Kurupatham, the deputy director of the communicable diseases division in Singapore. We will keep fighting, because isolation and quarantine work.
Rich and orderly, Singapore has spent years building a public health system that includes designated clinics for epidemics and official messaging urging the public to wash their hands or sneeze into tissues during flu season. The Infectious Diseases Act gives the city-state wide latitude in prioritizing the common good over privacy concerns.
During peacetime, we plan for epidemics like this, Ms. Kurupatham said.
As the leader of Singapores contact tracing program, she has been working 16-hour days for two months, and her depiction of a war against disease is a function of its vulnerability to contagion. A tiny red dot on a world map, Singapore is a densely populated island where every flight is international.
In the early days of the outbreak, Singapore was highly susceptible to a large population of mainland Chinese people arriving during the Lunar New Year holiday.
The dozens of confirmed cases in Singapore in January reflect widespread and freely available testing. Many were mild cases that would otherwise have gone undiagnosed. Nevertheless Singapore was sprinting to stem the possibility of runaway local transmission.
Until Italy, Korea and Iran happened, Singapore was the worst outside China, said Linfa Wang, the director of the emerging infectious diseases program at the Duke-National University of Singapore Medical School. Why didnt we feel that way? Because the government is very transparent and because that number means we are so effective in tracing and isolating every case.
For all the panic erupting elsewhere, most Singaporeans do not wear masks out, because the government has told them its not needed for their safety. Most schools are still running, albeit with staggered lunchtimes to avoid big crowds. There is plenty of toilet paper.
As of Tuesday evening, Singapore had 266 confirmed cases. Only a fraction are mysteries, unlinked to recent foreign travel or previously identified local clusters, which include churches and a private dinner.
Nearly 115 patients have been discharged from the hospital. Singapore has recorded no deaths from the coronavirus.
When rumors of a mysterious respiratory virus began circulating in China at the beginning of the year, Singapore moved quickly. It was one of the first countries to ban all travelers from mainland China, starting in late January. Thermal scanners measured the temperatures of all who came into the country.
In a nation of 5.7 million residents, Singapore rapidly developed the capacity to test more than 2,000 people a day for the coronavirus. In Washington State, one of the hardest hit places in the United States, public labs are aiming to process 400 samples a day.
Testing is free in Singapore, as is medical treatment for all locals. Singapore has 140 contact tracers outlining each patients case history, along with the police and security services doing the shoe-leather work.
After weeks of investigation and the use of a new antibody test that can detect people who have recovered, health officials were able to tie two church clusters of 33 people to a Lunar New Year dinner attended by members of both congregations. The people who transmitted the disease between the two churches had never shown serious symptoms.
Close contacts of patients are put into mandatory quarantine to stop further contagion. Nearly 5,000 have been isolated. Those who dodge quarantine orders can face criminal charges.
All pneumonia patients in Singapore are tested for coronavirus. So are people who are seriously ill. Positive cases have been identified at the airport, at government clinics and, most frequently, through contact tracing.
Singapores epidemic regimen was shaped by the 2003 SARS outbreak, when 33 people died out of 238 confirmed cases. As in Hong Kong, medical workers were among the casualties in Singapore.
Hong Kongs heavy death toll from SARS, nearly 300 people, has spurred residents in the semiautonomous Chinese territory to exercise vestigial muscles of disease prevention this time around, even as the local authorities initially dithered on whether to close the border with mainland China. Nearly everyone, it seemed, began squirting hand sanitizer. Malls and offices set up thermal scanners.
The most important thing is that Hong Kong people have deep memories of the SARS outbreak, said Kwok Ka-ki, a lawmaker in Hong Kong who is also a doctor. Every citizen did their part, including wearing masks and washing their hands and taking necessary precautions, such as avoiding crowded places and gatherings.
The Hong Kong government eventually caught up to the publics caution. Borders were tightened. Civil servants were ordered to work from home, prompting more companies to follow suit. Schools were closed in January, until at least the end of April.
Taiwan acted even faster. Like Hong Kong and Singapore, Taiwan was linked by direct flights to Wuhan, the Chinese city where the virus is believed to have originated. Taiwans national health command center, which was set up after SARS killed 37 people, began ordering screenings of passengers from Wuhan in late December even before Beijing admitted that the coronavirus was spreading between humans.
Having learned our lesson before from SARS, as soon as the outbreak began, we adopted a whole-of-government approach, said Joseph Wu, Taiwans foreign minister.
By the end of January, Taiwan had suspended flights from China, despite the World Health Organizations advising against it. The government also embraced big data, integrating its national health insurance database with its immigration and customs information to trace potential cases, said Jason Wang, the director of the Center for Policy, Outcomes and Prevention at Stanford University. When coronavirus cases were discovered on the Diamond Princess cruise ship after a stop in Taiwan, text messages were sent to every mobile phone on the island, listing each restaurant, tourist site and destination that the ships passengers had visited during their shore leave.
As of Tuesday, Taiwan had recorded 77 cases of the coronavirus, although critics worry that testing is not widespread enough. Students returned to school in late February.
With new waves of the virus surging across the world, public health officials in the three locales are gearing up for a longer fight.
On Tuesday, the government of Hong Kong, where only 157 cases have been confirmed, announced a mandatory 14-day quarantine for all travelers from abroad beginning later this week.
Taiwan will require self-quarantine for arrivals from 20 countries and three American states.
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore warned last week that the countrys caseload would increase sharply. Singapore announced 23 new coronavirus patients on Tuesday, the highest single-day tally, with 17 imported cases.
The city-state has restricted its borders further. Arrivals from Southeast Asia and parts of Europe must now undergo a 14-day self-quarantine.
The world is only as good as the weakest link, said Dr. Lee, the head of Singapores communicable diseases division. Diseases do not respect borders.
Chris Horton contributed reporting from Taipei, Taiwan, and Elaine Yu from Hong Kong.
