TWiV reviews the new nomenclature for SARS-CoV-2 variants, effectiveness of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine against variants, modified Moderna vaccine against variants, impact of COVID-19 interventions on influenza in China and the US, and binding of RaTG13 spike protein to ACE2 of multiple species.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Dickson Despommier, Alan Dove, Rich Condit, and Brianne Barker

Subscribe (free): iTunes, Google Podcasts, RSS, email

Become a patron of TWiV!

Links for this episode

• Updated nomenclature of SARS-CoV-2 variants (WHO)
• Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine effective against alpha variants (Lancet)
• Novavax vaccine effective against beta variants (NEJM)
• Moderna updated vaccine against beta and gamma variants (medRxiv)
• Impact of COVID-19 interventions against influenza (Nat Comm)
• RaTG13 spike binding to various ACE2 proteins (Cell)
• Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Weekly Picks

Dickson – NASA’s Juno to Get a Close Look at Jupiter’s Moon Ganymede Brianne – Send in the Bugs. The Michelangelos Need Cleaning. Rich – All landers and rovers on Mars  animated in video with human scale Alan – Weird case cluster reported in MMWR 40 years ago; update on disease Vincent – Virus isolates, strains, variants – what are they?

Intro music is by Ronald Jenkees Send your virology questions and comments to [email protected]