Important Questions About COVID-19

1.    How many asymptomatic cases are out there?

2.    What is the actual fatality rate of the virus?

3.    Other than age, and possibly gender, what are the factors that make an individual more or less prone to severe COVID19 disease?

4.    What makes children significantly less susceptible to COVID-19?

5.    Are there any genetic factors that make individuals resistant to SARS-CoV-2?

6.    Are individuals who recovered from SARS-CoV-2 immune to repeat infections with the same virus?

7.    Does a significant percentage of the population have neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2?

8.    Is COVID-19 less pathogenic in individuals who have contracted seasonal coronaviruses (betacoronaviruses or alphacoronavirus)?

9.    Is there any clinical information from human studies about the therapeutic effect of small molecules known to block SARS-CoV-2 in vitro, including remdesivir, favipiravir (Avigan), lopinavir-ritonavir, chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine?

10. Are any of the therapeutic antibodies developed against other coronaviruses like SARS or MERS efficient in vivo against SARS-CoV-2?

11. How efficient is the treatment of infected patients with passive immunization with plasma or hyperactive immunoglobulins?

12. How stable is the virus and which conditions affect its stability?

13. Is transmission of SARS-CoV-2 less efficient in warm or humid environments?

14. Are there any forms of transmission of COVID-19 that we are not aware of?

15. Can a person with another viral respiratory infection (influenza, rhinovirus, enterovirus, adenovirus, respiratory syncytial virus, etc) be co-infected with SARS-CoV-2

16. Are any known animals (and in particular pets and domestic animals) reservoirs of the current SARS-CoV-2 virus?

17. What virus genetic factors make it more pathogenic than seasonal coronavirus?

18. Is SARS-CoV-2 evolving into a more transmissible or pathogenic virus?

19. Can infections with other viruses (mildly pathogenic) boost the immune responses against SARS-CoV-2?

20. Can antibody-based diagnostic tests be made sensitive enough to detect the virus at early stages?

21. Will fatality rates increase significantly when estimated by correcting when infections occurred? There is a delay period of 2 or more weeks from infection to death, and the number of cases can be much smaller at the time of infection, especially at times when the virus spreads fast.

22. Do we know the period during which infected patients shed viruses and can transmit the disease to others?

23. Will a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 induce antibody-dependent enhancement of infectivity?

24. Will COVID-19 become seasonal and stay in the human population for years to come?

25. Will there be a second wave of COVID-19 next winter, as it happened with the 1918 Spanish flu, which killed more people than in the first wave?

26. How long will last the (protective) immune response against SARS-CoV-2?

27. Can children with mild or no symptoms efficiently transmit COVID-19?