Gentle People:

 I am waiting for the third dose of vaccine to help keep me protected against the Covid 19 virus but this brings up an interesting question...will the third dose be effective against the Covid 19 Omicron variant?  

 I've read how a third dose of vaccine protects up to 80% of people already vaccinated but is this third dose aimed at the original virus or at the new and mutated Omicron virus?

 I have also read that Phizer and Moderna are already creating a vaccine aimed specifically at the Omicron variant but will that be included in the Third dose or will that be a Fourth dose?

 The game of catch-up to the mutating virus leads me back to Leor Weinberger and his colleagues at the U.S. Gladstone Institute. Years ago, Leor talked about playing catch-up with mutating viruses.

In 1917 Leor claimed to have developed an anti-virus virus that worked against HIV.  On Ted.com, Leor claimed that he was going to try his vaccine first in Africa to see if it worked. HIV is a Corona type virus and if his anti-virus virus works against HIV in Africa, maybe it will work to help eradicate the other Corona viruses in North America and the rest of the world.  I am hoping that Leor and his gang not only catch up but beat the crap out of deadly viruses once and for all!                          N J R

=================================

IF IT WORKS AGAINST THE H.I.V. VIRUS, WHY CAN'T "ADAPTIVE TRANSMISSIBLE THERAPIES" BE ADOPTED AND ACTIVATED BY WORLD GOVERNMENTS AND THEIR GIANT PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES, TO STOP THE SPREAD OF THE COVID-19 VARIANT PANDEMIC?

======================

ADAPTIVE TRANSMISSIBLE THERAPIES: A NEW CONCEPT FOR DISEASE CONTROL

Existing measures for infectious disease control face three ‘universal’ barriers:

(i)  Deployment (e.g. reaching the highest-risk, infectious ‘superspreaders’ who drive disease circulation)

(ii)  Pathogen persistence & behavioral barriers (e.g. adherence)

(iii)  Evolution (e.g. resistance and escape)

These barriers exist because pathogens are dynamic—they mutate and transmit—while existing therapies are static, neither mutating nor transmitting.  To surmount these barriers, we have proposed a radical shift in therapeutic paradigm toward developing adaptive, dynamic therapies (Metzger et al. 2011).  Building off data-driven epidemiological models, we show that engineered molecular parasites, designed to piggyback on HIV-1, could circumvent each barrier and dramatically lower HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa as compared to established interventions. 

Above: A representative model for how a small 'core groups' of high-risk 'superspreaders' (e.g. commercial sex workers and their clients) drove the HIV-1