Viruses live in a twilight zone, somewhere between life
And its ingredients.
With a potential
Their growth is exponential
Are viruses alive?
Are viruses the fourth domain of life?
Where do viruses fit on this “tree” of life?
Residing in separate domain of life
However, viruses can infect all other forms of life
Virus genes are everywhere, merged into the genomes of all organisms
With with correct mechanisms
Viruses cannot generate their own energy
They can put host in jeopardy
They cannot grow or propagate
They evolve and mutate
Depending on cells they have the key to infect
As they detect
To survive use their mechanism
Have power to bring cataclysm
Teetering on the boundaries of what is considered life
Containing the key elements that make up all living organisms: the nucleic acids, DNA or RNA
What defines life?
Viruses face constant pressure from immune systems,
With multiple tactics resist them
To block their entrance
The trusted troops disarm and kill them when they manage to get In and stop them to enhance
Transmission from host to host is such a basic need
Deepest deathless need
For infectious agents that some take it a step further.
To increase their number
Contemplating the origins of life fascinate
Studies to understand how life originated
Understanding the evolutionary history of viruses Confusing fateViruses may shed light
Wise men at their end know studying them is right
Viruslike elements spurred several of the most important stages in the emergence of life:
The evolution of DNA, the formation of the first cells,
and life's split into three domains
No clear explanation for the origin of viruses exist
Viruses may have arisen from mobile genetic elements
Gaining the ability to move between cells.
Hence adapted a parasitic replication strategy.
Twisted into a tragedy
Viruses existed before, and led to the evolution of, cellular life.
Continuing studies may provide clearer answers.
Or future studies may reveal that the answer
Is even murkier than it now appears.
Wuhan Institute of Virology was upgraded to the National Highest Biosafety Laboratory
Lab was involved in the research of coronaviruses
The causative agents of the severe acute respiratory syndrome: SARS outbreak
So be wise of the on your take
South China University pointed out that the intermediate host
Enhancing at most
The horseshoe bat was not available in the wet market
And did not live in the Wuhan territory
The only place the bats existed in the locality was the research facility
Which is just about 100 yards from the Wuhan wet market.
The horseshoe bats are found only in Yunnan district.
However, they are neither consumed as food in the city, nor are they ever traded in the market.
Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention located 280 m from the market,
The extraction and sequencing of the DNA and RNA from caged animals could have been a potential source of the pathogen.
The world was to see death of many people due to the antigen
Points out the genetic diversity of the viruses in bats,
Connecting the dots you can get the fact
Highlighting the possibility
Of infecting the humans.
As the pools of CoVs in bats were limited,
Likelihood of a future emergence of this viral outbreak was never anticipated
Chimeric virus containing the SHC014 spike in a SARS-CoV backbone causes robust infections in both human airway cultures and mice
Think twice!
A warning was issued that the starting materials required
SARS-like emergent strains were already going around
In animal reservoirs.
A research team in China that spent 5 years in the Shitou caves of Yunnan
Sampling from the bats issued a similar warning and raised alerts for a potential disease outbreak
Causing lots of heartache
By December 2019, the first cluster of cases of infection with a novel CoV was reported in China.
The origins of the epidemic were investigated.
The WIV published reports stating that s new strain of CoV had bats as the “probable” source estimated
All the studies of Shi Zheng Li, the lead WIV virologist
On bat-related CoVs were centered in Yunnan.
However, the outbreak occurred in Wuhan,
Which is almost 900 km from Yunnan
Samples of infected patients compared with those from the bats,
None of them matched
If not from bats, where did this novel strain of CoV come from?
The Government of China conducted an investigation
Reported a wildlife market, 10 miles away from the virology institution
as the epicenter.
The theory of lab origin gains credibility
From unrelated, but nevertheless solid and tangible facts seemingly
South China University pointed out
Intermediate host, the horseshoe bat
Not available in the wet market
Not living in the Wuhan district.
The only place the bats existed in the locality
Existing in the research facility,
Just about 100 yards from the Wuhan wet market.
In the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention located 280 m from the market
The extraction and sequencing of the DNA and RNA
From caged animals could have been a potential source
Human mind is very coarse
This center is also adjacent to the Union Hospital, where the first groups of doctors were infected during this epidemic.
Retracted novel CoV similar to the genetic sequences of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and Ebola.
A stunning cocktail like Coca cola
Unlikely for a virus to have acquired such unique insertion
Naturally in a short duration.
These artificially engineered modification
Were thought to increase the range of host cells
So it can infect and put the world in frustration
Now the virus in the stormy world dwells
Variation is intimately linked to their disease-causing potential.
We've got everything essential.
Paramount to the understanding of RNA viruses is the concept of quasispecies
This is nothing sham nothing quasi
Viral quasispecies is a population structure of viruses
With a large number of variant genomes.
Can sink humanity in their venom
Quasispecies result from high mutation probability
as mutants arise continually
Changing in relative frequency as viral replication and selection production.
First developed to describe the early replicons
Replicating from single origin of replication
Components of a primitive RNA world
devoid of DNA or proteins
By all means
Viral RNA load correlates with high levels of viral replication
Patients who developed late respiratory breakdown despite disappearance of nasopharyngeal viral RNA
False representation leads to damnation
Whether viral RNA load in lung tissue,
Or a surrogate sample such as tracheal aspirate, mirrors the decline in nasopharyngeal shedding.
Nevertheless, severe manifestations might be immunologically negotiated
Has obvious implications for the potential to use immune-modulatory therapies for this subset of patients.
This finding is consistent with recent reports
Of course, of course
Corticosteroids were beneficial for acute respiratory distress syndrome, and possibly those with COVID-19.
Why did I get Covid 19 despite voluntary isolation?
Ignorance prevails
“Ignoring isn't ignorance,
Ignorance requires guts, boldness
Experts have also strongly suggested
Solely relying on testing as a safeguard
You can not expect to be a lifeguard
People making ‘lax’ and taking other safety measures
For thoughtless pleasures, taking delight in certain measures
Taking mask-wearing and social distancing lightly
Pass on infections to others harshly
Tests are a preventive measure and only effective
As long as you put in place other security measures
Blood tests at times are a good marker of inflammation
If out of fear and frustration
With knowledge of immunosuppression
Asks me to fall apart I lost heart
In desperate aloneness
The mask lifted
Out came hollowness
She's just a social climber
Spine-chiller
Worrying about death of spouse
Woman working in slaughterhouse
Who came to care for my mother
Who is my caregiver
Told me die now,
From close proximity
"Holy cow!"
I could see the conspiracy,
The human tyranny,
My contemplations are of Time
Pieces of coin can change
Make violent and strange
Pandemics has been the mainstay of global public health for the last one hundred years.
We must do better than just respond to pandemics by scrambling for vaccines, developing drugs, and modifying behaviors.
This traditional approach has proved a failure for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which nearly thirty years after its discovery continues to spread, infecting millions of people.
We still understand surprisingly little about pandemics and the microbes that cause them.
We know even less about how to predict or prevent pandemics
This simply reflects either ignorance about pandemics
And mindset doesn't discern epidemics
Before they spread from small towns to cities and the rest of the world.
Death breaks loose
Consuming half a world.
Pandemics will increase in frequency in the coming years as the connections between human populations and the animals in our world continue to grow.
Death, despair, entanglements of mankind quickly grow,
Deadliness of H5N1 and the potential to spread like H1N1, a resurge
The deadliness new retrovirus like HIV,
Most frighteningly, a completely novel microbe that blindsides us,
Microbial threats will grow in the coming years
In their ability to plague us,
kill people,
Destroy regional economies
Threaten humanity
In ways more severe than the worst imaginable volcanoes, hurricanes, or earthquakes.
What is a pandemic?
Defining them creates some trouble.
The word itself comes from the Greek pan, meaning “all,” and demos, meaning “people.”
Yet, in reality, it is almost impossible
Imagining an infectious agent that infects the entire human population.
In humans or any hosts, different individuals will have different genetic susceptibility,
A few individuals will likely be incapable of sustaining an infection because of some kind of genetic immunity.
Also, the simple logistics of spreading to every single individual in any population makes such a feat nearly impossible.
In attempt to reduce the pathogenicity of other human and animal viruses
Inoculating them into foreign species.
Although we now look back with some disdain
Crudeness of early immunization experiments
The 1938 injections of poliovirus, grown in mouse brains, Into humans, most people, including scientists, are unaware that we still use primary monkey kidney cells to produce live poliovirus vaccines.
Likewise, dog and duck kidney cells were used to make licensed rubella vaccines.
Experimental vaccines, grown in animal tissues and intended for human use, were commonly tested in African monkeys,
Many of these monkeys were released back into the wild.
It's shuddering, too much of a funk to fight
Undoubtedly, many cross-species transfer of viruses have occurred in the process.
What makes vaccines so troublesome is that their production and administration
Allows viral contamination
To breach the two natural barriers
Often restrict cross-species infections:
First is the skin.
Second is the unique and natural viral surface Characteristics that reduce the chance that viruses might jump species
The mixing of vaccine viruses with others found in the cells and tissues used to develop the vaccine can potentially lead to the development of new recombinant mutants
That are more adaptive and have wider host range than either of the original viruses
A new infective microorganism which could differ in certain important aspects from any known disease-causing organisms.
Most important of these is that it might be unruly to the immunological and therapeutic processes
Upon which we depend to maintain our relative freedom from infectious disease.
Many believe such research should not be undertaken lest it lead to yet another method of massive killing of large populations.
In a word, the intentional release of an infectious particle, be it a virus or bacterium, from the confines of the laboratory or of medical practice must be condemned as an irresponsible threat against the whole human community.
Books and websites consulted
EMERGING VIRUSES: AIDS & EBOLA Nature, Accident or Intentional? Tetrahedron, Inc. 1996. Leonard G. Horowitz, D.M.D., M.A., M.P.H. Foreward by W. John Martin, M.D., Ph.D.
THE GREAT INFLUENZA
The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History
JOHN M. BARRY
Viking
The Viral Storm Dawn of a new pandemic age by Nathan Wolfe
