Dr Anthony Fauci’s Coronavirus Update for the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), with definitions
/JAMA June 2, 2020
A Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) update on the coronavirus pandemic featuring Dr. Anthony Fauci (video interview below). Get your information straight from the leading medical science association. As I watched the video, I looked up the definitions to the words or acronyms they used, and I’ve listed them here so you can skip that process.
Hopefully you find this helpful. Please leave any comments or suggestions you have for me, and I’ll incorporate them in my future posts.
Definitions:
mRNA - messenger RNA
Comorbidity - having two diseases/health conditions
Efficacious - effective
Monoclonal Antibody - lab created antibodies designed to attach to/neutralize target proteins
Convalescent Plasma - antibody proteins taken from recovered patients’s blood plasma and injected into ill patients to promote immune response
Hyperimmune Globulin - similar to above, antibody proteins taken from plasma and administered as a prophylaxis (preventative treatment) to induce (passive) immune response
Passive Immunity - the introduction of antibodies to defend against infection, like antibodies passed from mother to child in breast milk
Prophylaxis - treatment for preventing disease or infection
Seropositivity - blood serum that contains antibodies, indicating the body has been exposed to and successfully fought an infection
Anecdotal - informal information, usually about a accounts of successful treatment, gathered from stories rather than controlled research
Randomized Clinical Trial - one or more treatments given randomly to participants where data is collected and outcomes are compared to placebo (i.e. sugar pill) treatment
Variability - a measure of the distribution of multiple data points, how they vary from the average, and how the points are spread across the entire data set. Low variability means the data points would be closer together, and high variability means the data points would be further apart.
Immunity Passports - a document a person could obtain to prove they were not at risk of infecting others
Durability of Infection - a measure of how long resistance to a pathogen is expected to persist that is used to estimate how long a disease can be controlled at a population level
Asymptomatic Spread - infection spread by individuals not showing symptoms
PCR Testing - collecting a sample and using a polymerase chain reaction (a way of rapid DNA replication) to find viral presence
Replication Competent Virus - a virus capable of replication, meaning infection can occur
Cycle Threshold - a measure of many cycles it takes (how fast DNA replicates) in a PCR test to reach a certain threshold, used to compare PCR samples over time
Replication Competent - genes with the ability to replicate, and signals the infection ability in a virus
IgG - immunoglobulin G, the most common antibody
IgM - immunoglobulin M, the first antibody the body makes in a new infection
Titer - The concentration of an antibody
Durability of Immunity - a long lasting immune response is a durable immune response