Covid-19 cases are on the rise despite a record vaccination. here’s why

Research published in the “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Journal” said the comparison showed that SARS-CoV which caused SARS in 2003 was more effective than SARS-CoV-2 at so-called cell-free transmission when freely floating viral particles infected target cells by binding to a receptor on their surface, but also remained vulnerable to antibodies produced by infection and previous vaccines.

SARS-CoV-2, on the other hand, is more efficient at cell-to-cell transmission, making it more difficult to neutralize with antibodies, the study added.

The study also indicated that SARS-CoV-2 hid from the immune system by spreading from cell to cell. “It’s basically a form of transmission underground,” said senior author Shan-Lu Liu, professor of virology in the Department of Veterinary Biosciences at Ohio State University and a researcher at the Center for Retrovirus Research at the Ohio State University. university.

“SARS-CoV-2 can spread efficiently from cell to cell because there is essentially no blocker of the host’s immunity. Target cells become donor cells, and it just becomes a wave of spread, because the virus may not come out of the cells, “Liu added.

Revealing more details, Liu and his colleagues said, “The spike protein on its surface alone enabled cell-to-cell transmission, and yet the main virus receptor on target cells – to which the spike is bound – is not a necessary part of the cell-to-cell transmission operation. In addition, they found that neutralizing antibodies are less effective against the virus when it spreads through cells. “

A major point of this study was to compare SARS-CoV-2 with the coronavirus that caused the 2003 SARS epidemic, known as SARS-CoV. The results helped explain why, while the first outbreak resulted in much higher death rates and lasted only eight months, we are on the verge of breaking past the two-year mark of the current pandemic, the majority cases being asymptomatic.