The review of 54 studies found that antibody tests carried one week after a patient first developed symptoms detected only 30% of people who had covid-19. Accuracy increased in to 72% at two weeks and to 94% in the third week.

“If you use them at the wrong time they don’t work,” said Jon Deeks, professor of biostatistics at the University of Birmingham and the review’s lead author.

The duration of rises in antibodies is also currently unknown, and the researchers found very little data beyond 35 days after the start of symptoms. Another problem is that the data mainly came from hospital patients, so it is unclear whether the tests are able to detect the lower antibody concentrations likely seen with milder and asymptomatic covid-19.

It has been presumed that weather indicators seem to be significant and integral in predicting and preventing COVID-19 transmission. Colder regions in the world should take far more restrictive measures to prevent coronavirus from becoming widespread, and seasonality of the virus has been mooted. In Western Europe we have seen a decline in the numbers of infections from Covid-19 during the Summer, leading one to suspect that rising temperature is a major factor in this fall. Contradicting this, however, is the steep rise in some of the States in the south of the USA, where temperatures are in excess of 30C.

As the visceral fat possesses an intense immune activity, is involved in metabolic syndrome and is at the crossroad between the intestines, the systemic circulation and the lung, it has been hypothesized that it plays a major role in severe forms of SARS-CoV-2 infection.

SARS-CoV2 presents the ability to infect epithelial cells of the respiratory tract as well as the intestinal tract. Several factors may increase intestinal permeability including direct enterocyte damage by SARS-CoV2, systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) and epithelial ischemia secondary to SARS-CoV2- associated endothelial dysfunction. Of course, increased intestinal permeability may already be present due to poor mucosal integrity caused by a number of lifestyle or environmental factors. It may be worth, in cases of obesity, taking supplementation to decrease intestinal hyper permeability, such as Glutamine or Colostrum.

This increased permeability further leads to translocation of microbial components such as MAMPs (microbial-associated molecular pattern), triggering an inflammatory immune response by TLR-expressing cells of the mesentery fat (mostly macrophages and adipocytes).

The pro-inflammatory cytokines produced by the mesentery fat mediates systemic inflammation and aggravate acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) through the mesenteric lymph drainage.

The efficacy of face masks in reducing SARS-CoV-2 transmission has been contentious. A highly publicized study in Annals of Internal Medicine questioning the utility of surgical or cotton masks has recently been retracted. Derek Chu (McMaster University, Canada) and colleagues, writing in The Lancet, have performed a systematic literature review and meta-analysis of 172 observational and 44 comparative studies to evaluate the efficacy of personal protective equipment in COVID-19 prevention. I have been advocating the use of face masks for several months now, and here is why:

Face masks were associated with protection in both healthcare and community transmission settings, with N95 respirators showing the greatest degree of protection and multilayer masks also showing significant protection. The paper also examines the importance of eye protection (associated with a 78% reduction in risk of infection) and physical distancing (82% reduction in risk at 1 meter).