This is week 152 of the COVID Apocalypse, and it appears to be fading into the rearview mirror. Perhaps the SARS CoV-2 virus is destined to be an annual visitor not unlike Influenza and for similar reasons – antigenic shifts as the virus mutates among human and zoonotic hosts. Here is Dr. Paul Klotman’s weekly COVID update for week 152.
The quick take on Dr. Klotman’s address includes:
- The prevalence of the virus is declining all across the USA. There are still a few hot spots.
- In the USA, we are still losing about 3,000 lives to the disease each week.
- The dominant virus variant continues to be XBB.1.5 accounting for ~70% of new cases.
- COVID vaccine continues to decrease the risk of serious COVID infection by a factor of 12 times. Boosters confer another 2.5 times protection against severe disease.
- Chemists are approaching the development of new therapeutics that might use small molecules to change the way that the spike protein presents itself. This seems to work in vitro. We will see how this research evolves.
- Phase III trials of pegylated Interferon Lambda (aka Interleukin 29) apppear to decrease COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations by 50% or more. (see below re: pegylation)
In other COVID news this week, a study of COVID patients who took Paxlovid shows that people who took this agent were no more likely to experience a COVID relapse than those who did not. Although the mechanism of COVD relapse has not been pinned down, relapse in other kinds of illness – infectious and cancerous, seems to occur when the targeted therapy cannot reach some hideout where the infection or cancer persists. That would be my bet as to the mechanism of COVID relapse, but further research will probably give us the answer.
About Pegylation
PEG is an abbreviation for Polyethylene Glycol. If you ever drank Golytely or Miralax or a similar bowel prep product for a colonoscopy, you know what PEG is. This polymer glycol is indigestible; injected into the blood stream, it is excreted slowly.
Some drugs that are short-lived in the blood stream can be modified by adding PEG side chains to them making them slower to be excreted in the urine – effectively increasing their duration of action in the body after a single dose. There are companies that actually specialize in adding PEG side chains to various therapeutic agents.
So, Interferon lambda, a natural anti-viral produced by the human immune system, can be synthesized in a pharma factory and then pegylated so that a single injection can last long enough to treat COVID and prevent severe COVID infection. Pretty cool, if you ask me. It is still a therapeutic in development, of course.