Background Little is known about the opinion of professional academic immunologists regarding the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic. Methodology In this study, we designed an online survey to determine the opinion of immunologically competent academics on SARS-CoV-2 compared with seasonal flu (the infection fatality rate, infectivity, the challenge to the health system, the importance of vaccine development, and the importance of the virulence of the virus and host factors), in addition to collecting demographic status variables and information sources used. Links to the survey were sent to all German-speaking immunologists, bacteriologists, virologists, and infectiologists in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Results A total of 91 full datasets were returned after three waves of requests. Approximately half of the respondents were male and half were more junior. Slightly more than half of the respondents said that the infection fatality rate and the infectivity were higher compared to flu, and 82% said that the challenge to the health system is higher. Overall, 52% found that the immune system is more important than the virus, and a majority (59%) supported the current practice of vaccination development by telescoping. A majority were of the view that conspiracy theories and non-pharmacological interventions pose a greater danger than the virus. Respondents who were more junior but well-published and mostly informed by public channels were more likely to support a mainstream view. Conclusions German-speaking immunological professionals hold widely diverging opinions regarding SARS-CoV-2. Over half of the surveyed professionals considered SARS-CoV-2 to be more dangerous and infective than the seasonal flu. However, the majority considered the health system to be under higher strain. Interestingly, more than half of them found host factors more important.
Fear of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has spread around the world. National borders are closed, the economy is shut down, and self-quarantining of millions of people have become the “new normal.” Early warnings regarding the readiness of large-scale RT-PCR testing in Europe, the existence of contradicting and ambiguous epidemiological data, and the striking similarities to the H1N1-pandemic scandal in 2009 could not prevent this global response to COVID-19. Vague definitions of “fatal COVID-19 cases”, unreliable RT-PCR tests as well as political, financial, and scientific special interests and often times biased news coverage by the mass media are also important factors. In this manuscript we demonstrate that COVID-19 is at most only equally as dangerous or even less dangerous than the seasonal flu of 2017/2018 or that of 2019/2020 in the US. Considering the degree of negligence of the World Health Organization (WHO) and many countries during the swine flu pandemic in 2009 as well as during past and ongoing public health programs in Europe and Africa in the management of quality-control procedures in the approval of diagnostic tests, vaccines, and other pharmacological agents, skepticism has taken an unusually distant back seat to panic. We encourage the use of critical thinking and rational evaluation of information in reaching informed decisions with respect to the upcoming vaccines and future pharmacological treatments for COVID-19. We propose the use of “Cystus052” as a potential preventive agent, convalescent plasma infusions (CPI) as the most promising treatment currently available for severe COVID-19 cases, and the inhibition of the “Papain-Like-Protease” (PLP) as rational approach for future research projects to the treatment of COVID-19.
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