Virology / Vaccine Information Resources

Virology/Vaccine Information and Resources

Dr. Peter Ramirez, a virologist in the CSULB Department of Biological Sciences has compiled a list of vetted links for understanding COVID-19.

Vaccines: technology/types/myths

• Definition and types of Vaccines

• Why we can't compare vaccines

• Vaccine myths: debunked

• The history of mRNA vaccine technology

• The COVID “infodemic” and 8 ways to spot misinformation

SARS-CoV-2: virus + variants

• Difference between virus isolates, variants and strains
• SARS-COV-2 Variant Classifications and Definitions  (CDC)
• Can we ever get rid of COVID-19?
• What are COVID variants and why are they showing up?

News

• This Week in Virology (TWIV): Up to date scientific information on viruses, including SARS-CoV-2. Discuss both basic (TWIV team) and clinical (Dr. Dan Griffin) aspects of virology.

Data Bases

• COVID Data Tracker: Monitor USA variant proportions in real-time (CDC)
• COVID-19 Dashboard: Monitor global COVID pandemic in real-time (Johns Hopkins University)
• Our World in Data: COVID-19 Pandemic
• NextStrain: Real-time tracking of pathogen evolution. Open-source software to visualize pathogen genome data. Aid epidemiological understanding to improve outbreak responses.
• CoVariants: Open-source software to provide overview of SARS-CoV-2 variants and mutations of interest. Assess where variants are found, how they are named and the potential impact of mutation