The COVID Hot Potato 6
This week: Healthcare professionals question why the evidence that shapes clinical guidance is not routinely shared with them. They highlight the challenge of adapting to frequent changes, express worries regarding the lack of transparency about the drivers behind high-level decision-making, and want to be better informed.

Posted on: 29/05/2020

Andrea Collins of HPRU EZI on BBC Radio Merseyside
Due to the expertise of LSTM’s Respiratory Clinical Research Group, and working in collaboration with the National Institute of Health Research, the Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and the Well-Travelled Clinic, LSTM has been selected as one of the UK sites for Phase III of the University of Oxford’s COVID-19 vaccine clinical trial.

Posted on: 22/05/2020

The COVID Hot Potato 5
This week: General practitioners (GPs) describe the challenge of managing patient referrals to hospital services after the initial suspension of non-urgent and routine referrals during the peak of COVID-19. Despite NHS England guidance advising that referrals should resume, ongoing difficulties and inability to refer patients has produced extra work, and challenges in identifying who is responsible for patients’ care.

Posted on: 21/05/2020

Characterisation of the transcriptome and proteome of SARS-CoV-2 using direct RNA sequencing and tandem mass spectrometry reveals evidence for a cell passage induced in-frame deletion in the spike glycoprotein that removes the furin-like cleavage site
Andrew D. Davidson, Maia Kavanagh Williamson, Sebastian Lewis, Deborah Shoemark, Miles W. Carroll, Kate Heesom, Maria Zambon, Joanna Ellis, Phillip A. Lewis, Julian A. Hiscox,  View ORCID ProfileDavid A. Matthews
bioRxiv, 

Amplicon based MinION sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 and metagenomic characterisation of nasopharyngeal swabs from patients with COVID-19
Shona C Moore, Rebekah Penrice-Randal, Muhannad Alruwaili, Xiaofeng Dong, Steven T Pullan, Daniel Carter, Kevin Bewley, Qin Zhao, Yani Sun, Catherine Hartley, En-min Zhou, Tom Solomon, Michael B. J. Beadsworth, James Cruise, Debby Bogaert, Derrick W T Crook, View ORCID ProfileDavid A Matthews, Andrew D. Davidson, Zana Mahmood, Waleed Aljabr, Julian Druce, Richard T Vipond, Lisa Ng, Laurent Renia, Peter Openshaw, View ORCID ProfileJ Kenneth Baillie, Miles W Carroll, Calum Semple, Lance Turtle, Julian Alexander Hiscox
medRxiv, 

What is the risk of tick-borne diseases to UK pets?
Tulloch, JSP
Veterinary Record,