ABSTRACT
The outbreak of the corona virus in December 2019 brought panic not only in China and the European continent where it was most pronounced when it started, but worldwide. In Africa, the cases of the virus increased significantly since February 2020. The evolution of the disease and its economic impact is, however, uncertain, making it difficult for policymakers to formulate an appropriate macroeconomic policy response. The immediate responses that countries adopted were lockdown "stay at home” measures, aiming to avoid movement of people since the virus was believed to spread through contact with infected persons. The lockdowns also had their own economic impacts as they put a halt to most economic activities and operations, with an exception of essential services. In this chapter, we estimated the economic impact of the virus on the Namibian economy. The findings are that an estimated 3-5 billion Namibia dollars has been lost in GDP owing to the impact of the lockdown measures to the various branches in the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors. Due to loss of income, business trading hours and jobs, a loss of private demand of N$6 billion to N$12 billion was estimated for Namibia. This loss returns the country's private consumption to the level it was 4-5 years back. Although the government has already started implementing the fiscal stimulus aimed to cushion the impact of the pandemic, this chapter established that the income-grant designated for the unemployed and lost income is far lower than the lost income due to the lockdown. Among the proposed policy recommendations is the need to allow the informal sector to operate under specified conditions in an effort to ensure that not so much is lost in the informal sector to which the government may need to again issue fiscal stimulus monies in an already limited fiscal space. Another policy proposal is to draw up a post recovery strategy dealing with the most affected sectors of the economy. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.
ABSTRACT
Conventional drug screening methods search for a limited number of small molecules that directly interact with the target protein. This process can be slow, cumbersome and has driven the need for developing new drug screening approaches to counter rapidly emerging diseases such as COVID-19. We propose a pipeline for drug repurposing combining in silico drug candidate identification followed by in vitro characterization of these candidates. We first identified a gene target of interest, the entry receptor for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2). Next, we employed a gene expression profile database, L1000-based Connectivity Map to query gene expression patterns in lung epithelial cells, which act as the primary site of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Using gene expression profiles from 5 different lung epithelial cell lines, we computationally identified 17 small molecules that were predicted to decrease ACE2 expression. We further performed a streamlined validation in the normal human epithelial cell line BEAS-2B to demonstrate that these compounds can indeed decrease ACE2 surface expression and to profile cell health and viability upon drug treatment. This proposed pipeline combining in silico drug compound identification and in vitro expression and viability characterization in relevant cell types can aid in the repurposing of FDA-approved drugs to combat rapidly emerging diseases.
ABSTRACT
According to sequencing data reported by CDC, the highly transmissible B.1.617.2 (Delta) variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has been the predominant lineage circulating in Louisiana since the week of June 20, 2021 (1). In Louisiana, the increased spread of the Delta variant corresponded with the start of the state's fourth and largest increase in average daily COVID-19 incidence to date (1,2). This report describes COVID-19 outbreaks in Louisiana youth summer camps as the Delta variant became the predominant lineage during June-July 2021. This activity was reviewed by the Louisiana Department of Health (LDH) and was conducted consistent with applicable state law and LDH policy.