当前位置：
X-MOL 学术
›
Lifestyle Genom.
›
论文详情
Our official English website, www.x-mol.net, welcomes your
feedback! (Note: you will need to create a separate account there.)
The Covid-19 Global Pandemic: A Natural Experiment in the Making
Lifestyle Genomics ( IF 2.0 ) Pub Date : 2020-01-01 , DOI: 10.1159/000510217 David M Mutch 1
Lifestyle Genomics ( IF 2.0 ) Pub Date : 2020-01-01 , DOI: 10.1159/000510217 David M Mutch 1
Affiliation
As news began to emerge from China in late 2019 of a new infectious respiratory disease, nobody realized that we were about to be enrolled into a global natural experiment. To paraphrase Craig et al. [1], a natural experiment describes an event or intervention not under the control of a researcher, where individuals in a population can be divided into exposed and unexposed groups. Unlike clinical trials and classic research studies, the intervention associated with a natural experiment is not constrained by ethics, public perception, or granting agencies. In fact, these natural experiments happen whether people want them to or not! This is exemplified by the Dutch Hunger Winter study, which relates the severe food rationing experienced in the Western part of The Netherlands during the winter of 1944–1945 with the programming of adult disease [2]. While the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), more commonly known as COVID-19, has been devastating for people worldwide, the timeline of events spanning from closures and restrictions to phased reopenings is well documented. And when antibody testing becomes more widespread, it will be clearer who has, and who has not, been infected. With this information in hand, scientists will be able to advance our understanding of the modifiable and nonmodifiable risk factors underlying the severity of SARSCoV-2 infections as well as study the long-term health consequences associated with the significant life changes caused by the pandemic. The likely outcomes of this research will be far reaching and hopefully lead to new public health directives and fewer disparities in healthcare between people. But, in the short-term, research that elucidates how the virus spreads, how it infects a person, and what factors can modify the severity of infection will all aid in the development of effective vaccines. At the time of writing, over half a million people had succumbed to this virus and more than 12 million people had been infected worldwide. Jobs have been lost, businesses have gone bankrupt, and global economies have been battered, leaving very few people untouched by this pandemic. Throughout all of this, researchers worldwide are working together to advance our understanding of SARS-CoV-2 at an unprecedented speed. Genomic sequencing of viral samples isolated from infected individuals have allowed researchers to better understand not only its origins but also how SARS-CoV-2 is spreading around the world, which has helped public health agencies and governments to make informed decisions to curb the spread of this virus. Due to the rapid rate of mutation in RNA viruses such as SARS-CoV-2, viral genome sequencing will help to determine the origin of these outbreaks and their subsequent spread within a country [3]. Indeed, sequencing viral samples collected from patients in New York City during the early stages of the outbreak suggest that that majority of these cases were related to viral samples isolated from cases in Europe [4]. Even after strict travel restrictions were implemented, the virus spread rapidly across the USA and phylogenetic analyses have proved useful to clarify the importance of domestic transmission [5]. Moreover, recent bioinformatic analyses of complete viral genomes suggest increasing diversi-
更新日期：2020-01-01
京公网安备 11010802027423号