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CONTENTS Coronavirus - COVID 19 3 Trinity Long Room Hub 10 year celebrations 4 Celebrating International Women’s Day 5 Myths of Trinity 6 Brexit - One Month On 8 Seanad Éireann Elections 9 New Trees on Library Square 10 World Athletics Indoor Championships 11 HIST250 celebrations 12 Alumni Special Offers 13 Icarus magazine 14 Mentoring 14 Dates for Diary 15 2
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COVID-19 Derek G. Doherty, Professor in Immunology, Trinity College Dublin shares his insights into COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is here. Confirmed cases in Ireland and deaths in Europe offer the grim forecast that we are almost certain to experience a coronavirus epidemic and the lifestyle changes that will accompany it. Being a new virus to affect humans, we don’t know the magnitude of the problem or how long will it last. Will it be a seasonal epidemic that wanes in the summer months? Will we acquire immunity against the virus and can this immunity be exploited to develop a protective or therapeutic vaccine? COVID-19 is the disease caused by the novel 2019 coronavirus (2019-nCoV), the seventh member of the coronavirus family that infects humans. Other members include four prevalent strains that typically cause common cold symptoms, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), the latter two which caused respiratory disease outbreaks in 2002 and 2012. Because 2019-nCoV has only been known for 3 months, our knowledge of the biology and pathology of this virus is mostly based on research on SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV. In the three months since COVID-19 emerged in China, causing fever, coughing and pneumonia, it has swept into 72 countries, infecting nearly 93,000 people and killing more than 3,000. The majority (about 80%) of hospitalised COVID-19 cases were asymptomatic or with mild symptoms, but the current fatality rate is estimated to be about 3.4% globally, which is lower than those of SARS and MERS, but higher than that of flu. 2019nCoV is very contagious. It is spreading with an Ro of more than 2.2, meaning that each individual has the potential to spread the infection to an average of 2.2 other people. This number must be reduced to less than 1 before the epidemic can be halted. This can only be achieved by the implementation of public health measures involving travel restrictions, public lockdowns and isolation of confirmed cases. Indeed, China’s aggressive measures have slowed the spread of 2019-nCoV, showing us that this is possible. Can we make a vaccine that protects us against 2019nCoV? Most likely. Coronaviruses induce immediate and long-lasting immune responses in most people. However, the virus can dampen these anti-viral responses in some people resulting in uncontrolled viral replication. They can also cause the immune system to over-react, resulting in inflammation in the lungs and pneumonia. An effective vaccine against 2019-nCoV will have to stimulate the antiviral immunity while avoiding unwanted inflammation. Within two months of the 2019-nCoV outbreak, over 37 biopharmaceutical companies or academic sectors had joined the race to develop this vaccine. However, the development and testing of this vaccine is likely to take at least 1.5 years. Meanwhile, we must focus on avoiding exposure to the virus and bring the Ro for 2019-nCoV down to less than 1, through continued social restrictions and surveillance. Click here for more information 3
