Yesterday brought the news from Dr. Jacob Glanville, a doctor featured on the Netflix series Pandemic: How to Prevent an Outbreak, claimed to have found a cure for the COVID-19 coronavirus. Despite the initial hope that this report brought, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, has no cast some doubt on the validity of this claim, telling Fox News’ John Roberts: “I don’t know this specific individual, what they’re doing, but I can tell you there’s a lot of activity that is centered around a passive transfer of antibodies in the form of convalescent plasma.”
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“This is an old concept,” he continued. “In fact, immunology was born decades and decades ago with the concept of giving passive transfer of serum to an individual to protect them from infection. So I wouldn’t be surprised if he and a number of other people are pursing this.” Fauci concluded that the work being done by Glanville is “the right thing to do.”
As our sister site PopCulture.com reported yesterday, Dr. Glanville revealed that his method, “draws from the series of five antibodies that helped neutralize SARS” and that “they were able to “evolve” those antibodies so they could recognize COVID-19.” Glanville said that they reacted successfully and described this moment as “a pretty powerful tool chest available to us right now to produce a final therapeutic.”
In response to Fauci’s above claim, Glanville tweeted “Old is good! Old is well validated. An amusingly titled but positive article about what we are up to. I better go call Fauci…”
There are now over 1 million confirmed cases of coronavirus worldwide according to Johns Hopkins University with nearly a quarter of those cases in the United States alone. According to the World Health Organization, who officially dubbed the coronavirus outbreak a “pandemic” in early March, there have been over 45,500 deaths around the globe as a result of the virus with 72,839 new cases diagnosed in the last 24 hours. In the United States there have been over 240,000 confirmed cases with over 5,800 deaths as of this writing.
For those who are worried about the spread of the coronavirus, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention offers a litany of tips, including covering coughs and sneezes, avoiding large gatherings or close contact with people who are sick, staying indoors except for necessary supply runs, and washing your hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds.
(Cover photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)
