A critical analysis of some recent medical research in science on COVID-19

The highly infectious and rapidly mutating SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes the COVID-19 disease is confronting the international community with few palatable options. The research output on COVID-19 has been revolutionary, especially in the medical and biomedical sciences, where the search for a vaccine is essential for the world to have a semblance of normality in a COVID-19 normal world. Much of the advanced research has been distributed in the leading medical journals, where the latest medical research is distributed on a daily basis. The Science journals also have a new section on "Coronavirus: Research, Commentary, and News" that strives "to provide the best and most timely research, analysis, and news coverage of COVID-19 and the coronavirus that causes it. All content is free to access." The purpose of this paper is to provide a critique of 43 interesting and highly topical research papers that have been published on general medicine, translational medicine, and immunology in Science. The diverse topics include the effectiveness of vaccines against mutations, establishing trust is hard work, distrust is easy, transmission of COVID-19 between mink and humans, the war against COVID-19 deniers, SARS-CoV-2 is already endemic, COVID-19 efficacy, safety is essential for any vaccine for SARS-CoV-2, aerosol transmission of SARS-CoV-2, pre-existing immunity to COVID-19 de novo mutations, and frequency and duration of COVID-19 reinfection, SARS-CoV-2 transmission between mink and humans, further known unknowns about T cell immunity to COVID-19, modeling confusion to clarity in a COVID-19 world, determining serological correlates of COVID-19 severity, what came first, effective COVID-19 vaccines or trial ethics?, safety et al. requirements for COVID-19 vaccines, controlling transmission heterogeneities and controllability of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19, transmission dynamics for a seemingly never ending COVID-19 pandemic, susceptibility to and long hauler effects from severe COVID-19, attack rates of COVID-19 in the Brazilian Amazon, humoral immunity to severe COVID-19, phylogenetic analysis of COVID-19 superspreading events, seasonal flu versus seasonal COVID-19, controlling the spread of COVID- 19, antibody responses to severe COVID-19, direct and indirect COVID-19 effects on the heart, government interventions against COVID-19, COVID-19 vaccines should be celebrated with, by and for all, countering the division on COVID-19 and mutated strains, encompassing tests for COVID-19, positive messages give hope, even in a COVID-19 world, how safe, effective, durable, and affordable are warp speed COVID-19 vaccines?, correlations of severe COVID-19 viral responses, known and unknown long haul effects from COVID-19, how should approved COVID- 19 vaccines be distributed globally?, anaphylactic reactions to Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine, open access is excellent, but who should pay, especially during COVID-19?, fast spreading COVID-19 mutations, the reality of COVID-19 in Africa, how does COVID-19 affect cancer and its treatment in Africa?, duration of immune memory to COVID-19, COVID-19 spillovers between species, and comovements in science and policy during COVID-19. As numerous mutations of the original wild-type SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus are still being detected, eternal vigilance is essential as the increasingly higher waves show no evidence of slowing down.

• View at Publisher
• View at Scopus