Thank you ,Charlie Nunn, for this wonderful evolutionary medicine community building initiative!

The host can't raise hands

We can show thumb up or clap. I cannot raise hand

www.tricem.org

@TriCEM_NC on Twitter

you can click participants and then raise hand

If anyone has trouble with the “raise hand,” you can send a message here in the chat box. I’ll be keeping an eye on it.

Everyone calls it “social distancing,” it should actually be rather called “physical distancing”…

YES!

Very true!

Meredith, when I click on the link I get the following warning message: This site is not secureThis might mean that someone’s trying to fool you or steal any info you send to the server. You should close this site immediately.. If I go to details and then proceed anyway to the site, I can get there. Something needs to be fixed viz a viz to security.

True!

Thanks for letting me know, Jay. I’ll do some digging into why you’re getting that message.

physical distancing and social solidarity! GE workers taking the lead---fighting for safety on the job, return of laid-off workers to produce ventilators in their normally military bomber plant.

anyone know how to paste a question here, or do you have to type it in?

I've heard a lot of laymen talking/worried about Coronavirus evolving; I think because everyone was already aware that flu evolves. Agree this is a good opportunity to push evolutionary medicine into the mainstream!

https://covidtracking.com/data

this one is also good https://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/

You might be interested in this too https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

wow yesterday it was 800.000

Size ratio of blue to yellow is equal/more in michigan

Just to remind- usually it is not only one peak, the chances of a second (even bigger) wave are real (see 1918 et al.), independent of how we deal with the first one

I like the medscape one

The Michigan picture is more reader-friendly for the general public

There is also the minor misconception that the health care capacities are stable over time (which they are not) …

How does mutation rate compare to seasonal flu? I ask because I’m interested in how likely it is that any potential vaccine ‘lasts’ vs. has to be redeveloped annually?

I agree, Frank, consider that only in Italy for now 63 doctors have died because of Coronavirus infection

I’ll interject with these points in a moment!

Dan: I've heard other coronaviruses don't mutate as quickly as flu; not sure if this is baseline mutation rate or just mutations which prevent vaccination

i.e. one vaccination should hopefully do it

thanks Adam!

To Frank's point; in the UK we are currently creating a completely new 4000 bed hospital (Nightingale Hospital) in London specifically for COVID, the biggest of its kind in the world

So obviously that puts the line up a lot

Another benefit of flattening the curve and reducing transmission is that it should drive the evolution of reduced virulence, right?

SIR models underpin the predictions on TV including flattening the curve. But real epidemics and ecosystems are complex and have a level of chaos in them. Are there messages around uncertainty of outcomes that should be better known? Weather forecasts come to mind.

Byron - that is something I've been thinking about for a while. Extreme isolation seems like it should theoretically set up a stronger pressure for lower virulence (if that variation exists). It seems like asymptomatic spread and general epidemiological patterns outweigh that pressure (at least in the short term), though

I think flattening the curve via social distancing could also encourage strains which are even more virulent? The only strains which survive are those which can replicate during social distancing?

Can environmental changes explain the variation in the strains we have observed, for example there are different mutations in Italy, as compared to China?

The main problem is that we still do know so little, even not the exact ecological niche / time origin (China…) as well as basics of its epidemiological characteristics (differences in clinical features, different mortality, immunity, Ro factor, Nr of people currently affected in different countries etc etc)…

I have to go to work but I thank you for this useful information on how to teach to students with Covid!

Thanks for joining us, Laura!

Thanks Jeff and David and Meredith et al. for organizing this! Off to the next meeting…

David mentioned variable responses in humans. What are the implications of sexual selection? It is reported that women get more autoimmune diseases than men and that men are more susceptible to covid 19. Apparently the ACE2 gene is on the X chromosome so some women get a better immune response than men. Any thoughts?

Is the higher male mortality (factor 1.7) really corrected for co-morbidities /co-infections etc? What do we know about ACE polymorphism?

Sabra Klein has some nice reviews on sex differences in immune responses.

Some of the higher male mortality will be related to more male smokers I assume

I am off to social non-distancing - kids were the reason why I preferred to comment via chat rather than via mic THANKS for a great session

Thanks for joining!

See you Frank

It sounds like these teaching recommendations are geared more toward upper-division courses such as Evolutionary Medicine and Molecular Genetics. What suggestions do you folks have for core ideas to teach lower-division Evolution, Genetics, or even Introductory Biology courses?

Mark - the videos that Vaughn Cooper has been posting fit the bill.

Is anyone taking a cultural evolution approach? How would we have handled with without already pervasive use of electronic communication?

“Handled this”

Is it possible to gain immunity if someone is serially exposed to viral loads that are not enough in each individual case to cause infection?

I think it is unknown how immunity works yet--and even more so about the low viral load immunity questions

To help convey these ideas to HS classes---AP Bio, Physio-anatomy... Getting more on Ask-A-Biologist, LA Unified School and EvMed website, other school districts. Who can also work on a PPT (reduced version of today's) or video on this? Or have information on Interferon Alpha 2B and the campaign to get it into the US--especially now NY, Michigan, CA.. please connect with me. MarkLewisFriedman@gmail.com

Jay referred to ISEMPH… ISEMPH is International Society for Evolution, Medicine and Public Health

Thank you to the organizers for putting this together! Great session. I need to get on another call now, but I look forward to the next session.

I agree with Jay---big opening now to promote EvMed to a much wider audience. Thru collaboration with nurses organizations who are out there in the forefront demanding medical equipment, protection and more help

Thank you all for your insight and for gathering us here today!

Thank you Dr. Charles for this great course I have to leave to

thank you all!

Great session, and thanks to Charlie and Meredith for organizing. I’m looking forward to future sessions and the development of covid-specific materials and resources for teaching ev med.

Thank you for holding this discussion. It has been very illustrative and educative

Thanks!