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“If we had it in place in 2019, then when this virus hit the United States, we would have had immediate access to the data that would have allowed us to see it circulating in New York, for example, without doing anything. different, ”said Dr Dit Mina.
While the observatory was reportedly unable to identify the new coronavirus, it reportedly revealed an unusually high number of infections from the coronavirus family, which includes those that cause the common cold. It could also have shown that the new coronavirus interacted with patients’ immune systems in unexpected ways, leading to telltale markers in the blood. This would have been a signal to begin genetic sequencing of patient samples, to identify the culprit, and may have provided reasons for shutting down the city earlier, Dr Mina said. (Likewise, serology would not be able to detect the urgency of a new variant of the virus, such as contagious coronavirus variants that were discovered in South Africa and England before spreading elsewhere. researchers should rely on standard genomic sequencing of virus test samples.)
A powerful investment
The observatory would require agreements with hospitals, blood banks and other sources of blood, as well as a system for obtaining consent from patients and donors. She also faces the problem of funding, noted Alex Greninger, a virologist at the University of Washington. Health insurance companies probably wouldn’t foot the bill, because serologic testing is not typically used by doctors to treat people.
Dr Mina estimated that the observatory would cost around $ 100 million to start. He pointed out that, according to his calculations, the federal government has allocated more than double that amount to diagnostic firm Ellume to produce enough rapid Covid tests to cover US demand for just a few days. A pathogen observatory, he said, is like a weather forecasting system that relies on a large number of buoys and sensors around the world, passively reporting events where and when they occur. These systems have been funded by government grants and are widely appreciated.
The predictive power of serology is worth the investment, said Jessica Metcalf, epidemiologist at Princeton and one of the observatory team members. A few years ago, she and her collaborators discovered in a small investigation that immunity against measles was worrying in Madagascar. Indeed, in 2018, an epidemic set in, killing more than 10,000 children.
Now, the half-million plasma samples in Dr Mina’s freezers, collected by plasma donation company Octopharma from sites across the country last year, are starting to undergo serological testing focused on the new coronavirus, funded by a $ 2 million grant from Open Philanthropy. The tests had to wait for the researchers to set up a new robotic testing facility and process the samples, but they are now working on their first batches.
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