TOUCHING
TOMORROW
TODAY
→→→ SPECIAL COVID-19 RESEARCH NEWS BULLETIN, ISSUE 2, APRIL 8, 2020
INTERNATIONAL
ADVISORY BOARD
DR. HASAN SOHAIB MURAD
(1959-2018)
Founding Patron
ALVIN TOFFLER
(1928-2016)
Honorary Patron
DR. AHMED UMER MURAD
IBRAHIM HASAN MURAD
DR. MUHAMMAD ASLAM
Patrons
DR. MUNAWAR A. ANEES
Founding Director
Members
Howard Bloom, USA
Anne Boysen, USA
Dr. Ron Cole-Turner, USA
Dr. James Allen Dator, USA
Nathan Gardels, USA
Matthew Griffin, UK
Dr. Gulzar Haider, Canada
Dr. Hazel Henderson, USA
Dr. S. Inayatullah, Taiwan
Dr. Ilya Kasavin, Russia
Dr. Maher Khedher, UAE
Dr. Michael Marien, USA
Dr. Ivana Milojevic, Serbia
Victor Vahidi Motti, Iran
Dr. Anwar Nasim, Canada
Dr. Roberto Poli, Italy
Paul Graham Raven, UK
Dr. Sajjad Shami, Pakistan
Dr. Steven Umbrello, USA
Dr. David Weinberger, USA
Dr. Andrzej P. Wierzbicki, Poland
h p://www.umt.edu.pk
<dranees@knowsys.org>
DR. HASAN MURAD INSTITUTE FOR
KNOWLEDGE FUTURES
The Ins$tute, founded at the University of
Management and Technology (UMT), has much to
celebrate. Thanks to extraordinary patronage of (the Late) Dr. Hasan Sohaib Murad
(Chairperson, ILM Trust and Board of Governors, UMT), the Ins$tute was born with
the dis$nc$on of being PAKISTAN’S FIRST ACADEMIC RESEARCH AND PUBLISHING
FORUM DEVOTED TO FUTURES STUDIES.
The Ins$tute’s vision calls for the crea$on of a worldwide scholas$c network
focused upon the study of fron$er knowledge emerging across disciplines. The
Ins$tute is interested in monitoring and assessing major research trends in natural
and social sciences to establish - what it names as “epistemic profile” - where
disciplinary evolu$on and the possible genesis of new and hybrid disciplines is
highlighted. This profile, over a period of $me, would serve as a springboard for
mul$disciplinary research and innova$on, par$cularly for young scholars. The
Ins$tute accomplishes one element of its mission through the publica$on of
Knowledge Futures: Interdisciplinary Journal of Futures Studies, a world-class peer-
reviewed hybrid open access journal.
CURRENT AWARENESS SERVICE
Current awareness is indispensable for progress in scholas$c research. Those familiar
with the exponen$al growth of academic literature in the last 4-5 decades would recall how
the weekly Current Contents pioneered this service for natural and social sciences - and won
global acclaim. This led to such innova$ve products as Science Cita"on Index, Web of Science
and, ul$mately, the much-debated genre: journal impact factor. Following this esteemed
tradi$on, we take pride in presen$ng this magazine as a current awareness service for the
vast body of literature related to the futures of knowledge. Beginning with Volume 2,
Number 3, 2018, we are also offering an Urdu version of the magazine.
TOUCHING TOMORROW TODAY is a magazine published by the Dr. Hasan Murad Ins$tute for
Knowledge Futures, University of Management and Technology (UMT), Lahore, Pakistan. It reports
on the Ins$tute’s ongoing ac$vi$es such as public seminars under the Academic Futures Series and
its flagship publica$on: Knowledge Futures – a peer-reviewed hybrid open access interna$onal
journal of Futures Studies. The magazine also publishes short ar$cles of general nature, book
no$ces and reviews, Internet reference pointers, and news briefs. Exclusively designed, edited, and
published by Dr. Munawar A. Anees. Its electronic and print versions are distributed free of charge.
Thanks to Farukh Kamal, Ali Kamran, Syed M Mustafa, and Rawal Varraich for their help.
Design, literature monitoring, and edi$ng by Dr. Munawar A. Anees, Editor-in-Chief
 COVID-19 CORONAVIRUS
SPECIAL RESEARCH BULLETIN
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Issue 2, April 8, 2020
University of Management and Technology (UMT) is a research university. For any
research institution, it is imperative to initiate and maintain a robust system of research
communication – as mandated by the science of science communication.1
Thanks to the vision of Dr. Hasan Sohaib Murad (Shaheed) whose consent and
unmitigated support led to the establishment of Pakistan’s first academic institution for
research dissemination in Futures Studies. The Institute, named now after him, continues to
fulfil its mission by publishing a world-class scholarly journal, Knowledge Futures, a monthly
current awareness magazine, Touching Tomorrow Today, and through public lectures under
its Academic Futures Series.
The world is facing an unprecedented pandemic with its global impact upon economic,
social, psychological, financial, political, educational, industrial, military, and public health
structures and systems. No domain of human activity across 200 countries remains
unscathed by this viral onslaught. It is no less than a paradigm shift for human civilization.
There has never been a more urgent need for a sustained discourse on the future of
human civilization. Rising to the occasion, the Institute has taken a humble initiative by way
of publishing this Bulletin to keep the wider academic community abreast of research in this
area where the very human survival is under grave threats. The Bulletin is published in an
email edition on a weekly basis, unless a greater frequency is warranted by events.
---Dr. Munawar A. Anees, Editor-in-Chief
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1
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (2016). Communicating Science Effectively: A Research Agenda. Washington,
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DC: The National Academies Press. ISBN 978-0-309-45102-4 http://dx.doi.org/10.17226/23674

Touching Tomorrow Today (Special Research Bulletin COVID-19), Issue 2, April 8, 2020
 Coronavirus Research done Too Fast is
Testing Publishing Safeguards,
Bad Science is Getting Through
Dr. Irving Steinberg
It has been barely a few weeks since the coronavirus was declared a pandemic.
The pace at which the SARS-CoV-2 virus has spread across the globe is jolting,
but equally impressive is the speed at which scientists and clinicians have been
fighting back.

I am a pharmacotherapy specialist and have consulted on infectious disease

treatments for decades. I am both exhilarated and worried as I watch the
unprecedented pace and implementation of medical research currently being
done. Speed is, of course, important when a crisis such as COVID-19 is at hand.
But speed – in research, the interpretation and the implementation of science –
is a risky endeavour.

The faster science is published and implemented, the greater the chances it is
unsound. Mix in the panic and stress of the current pandemic and it becomes
harder to make sure the right information is communicated and adopted
correctly. Finally, governing bodies such as the World Health Organization,
politicians and the media act as sources of trustworthy messaging and policy
making. Each step – research, interpretation, policy – has safeguards in place to
make sure the right information is acquired, interpreted and implemented. But
pace and panic are testing these safety measures like never before.

Unprecedented pace

The process of taking an idea from theory through testing and eventually toward
implementation has been refined in modern times to make sure medical studies
and publications are truthful and accurate.

Once research is completed, investigators analyse their results and write a

manuscript. They then submit it to a journal, where it is reviewed by experts in
that field who assess whether the methods, analysis and conclusions are sound.
If the paper is accepted, it is then further edited and published in a journal.
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Touching Tomorrow Today (Special Research Bulletin COVID-19), Issue 2, April 8, 2020
From there, groups like the WHO, medical societies and government agencies
evaluate this and other evidence-based information to decide whether to
establish new recommendations or change previous ones. It normally takes
from several months to more than a year to go from submission to publication.
But the rush to publish during this pandemic has shortened the time from
submission to online publication to one to two weeks in numerous cases.

There has also been a huge increase in preprint publication – publishing studies
online before they are adequately peer-reviewed – and these are a good
example of the risk that comes with the rapid release of data.

On March 17, French investigators posted a prepublication clinical paper online

touting the successful use of hydroxychloroquine in COVID-19 patients. Despite
the media and government attention, the study was described by director of the
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci as
“anecdotal” due to the poor study design.

On April 3, the International Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, the

sponsoring organization of the very journal posting this prepublished article,
agreed and stated “….the article does not meet the Society’s expected
standard,” and “Although ISAC recognises it is important to help the scientific
community by publishing new data fast, this cannot be at the cost of reducing
scientific scrutiny and best practices.” The debate over the usefulness of
hydroxychloroquine will likely continue until well-designed trials are completed.

The deliberate steps of scientific investigation, followed by editorial scrutiny, are

guardrails. When these are disrupted there is a real risk that policy organizations
may make consequential mistakes in spite of good intent.

Almost daily, research is put out to the public on drugs to take or avoid because
of the coronavirus. Much of it is very preliminary. Mint Images/Mint Images RF
via Getty Images
When pace meets with panic

Nothing better illustrates how trusted institutions can make misinformed

recommendations than the recent fiasco over ibuprofen.

The most common early symptom of COVID-19 is fever, and ibuprofen is one of
the most widely used drugs in the world to treat fever. In a letter published in
The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, European researchers raised concerns that
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ibuprofen use could worsen COVID-19 symptoms. The idea is that since

Touching Tomorrow Today (Special Research Bulletin COVID-19), Issue 2, April 8, 2020
ibuprofen increases the quantity of ACE2 in human cells – the protein that the
coronavirus uses to enter lung cells – the virus could infect lung cells more easily
if a person was on ibuprofen. This was not a study nor did it present sufficient
experimental evidence; it was simply a theoretical concern based on a
mechanism.

Three days after the letter was published, the French health minister tweeted a
message urging people to avoid ibuprofen for coronavirus associated fever
based on four “cited” cases of people getting sicker after taking ibuprofen. These
cases were never published in a journal. The French Health Ministry followed
this with a broad ban on treating COVID-19 fever with nonsteroidal anti-
inflammatory drugs like ibuprofen. The WHO tweeted an essentially similar
warning. The media followed with more case anecdotes, dubiously relating
worsening early symptoms with ibuprofen use and referring to the letter as a
“study,” adding to the confusion and fear.

The Lancet letter also hypothesized that two other drugs commonly used to
treat hypertension and diabetes – ACE-inhibitors (ACE-I) and angiotensin
receptor blockers (ARBs) – could be problematic in people with COVID-19.
However, the mechanism they put forward was incompletely described and
neglected that a protein these drugs promote can be helpful in reducing
inflammation and tissue damage in the lungs and heart.

The response

This letter to The Lancet slipped past the safeguards in research and institutional
and media interpretation, but one of science’s oldest pastimes – definitively
calling out the errors of others – reestablished patience and perspective.

Clinicians and scientists pushed back swiftly, supporting the use of ibuprofen in
COVID-19 patients. The support was outlined in a published literature review. In
response, the WHO quickly reversed its position on ibuprofen.

There was a similar rapid response to the statements about ARBs. Within days,
three prominent cardiology groups, including the American Heart Association,
released a joint statement urging practitioners not to discontinue ACE-I and
ARBs in their patients.

The risk-benefit ratio is always a clinical factor for the use of any drug in any
patient. But the risk must be more than theory for the use of a drug to be
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discontinued or any major policy change to be implemented.

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Touching Tomorrow Today (Special Research Bulletin COVID-19), Issue 2, April 8, 2020
Some perspective

As the coronavirus rampages across the U.S., it is incredibly important to know

whether commonly used drugs like ibuprofen or ARBs are risky, neutral or of
therapeutic potential. There are ways to find out quickly. Researchers can look
for correlations between the use of ibuprofen or ARBs and more severe
infections or deaths, for example. And standard clinical trials can, should and are
being done. There are several studies currently underway testing the effect and
risk of ARBs for COVID-19 patients. But until the science is finished, it is foolish
and potentially dangerous to flee from tested clinically important drugs.

Scientists and policymakers must take quick steps and avoid missteps. Proper
scientific method and conduct of studies, carefully reviewed publications and
cogent post-release interpretations are necessary safeguards that ensure the
best and safest medicines are prescribed and provided. The pressure and
desperation of the moment are forcing researchers and policymakers to be
innovative and act quickly, but what is done should stay within the guiding
concepts of medical research.

About the author

Dr. Irving Steinberg: Dean of Faculty, USC School of
Pharmacy; Associate Professor of Clinical Pharmacy and
Paediatrics, School of Pharmacy and Keck School of Medicine
of USC; Director, Division of Paediatric Pharmacotherapy,
Department of Paediatrics, LAC+USC Medical Center,
University of Southern California.

Published under the Creative Commons License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/

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Touching Tomorrow Today (Special Research Bulletin COVID-19), Issue 2, April 8, 2020
Masks Could Cut Spread of COVID-19 Virus
Surgical face masks effectively block the spread of seasonal coronaviruses in
respiratory droplets, suggesting that masks could prevent transmission of SARS-
CoV-2. Seasonal coronaviruses are one cause of the common cold. Benjamin
Cowling at the University of Hong Kong and his colleagues had ill volunteers who
were infected with seasonal coronaviruses sit in an enclosed booth and place
their faces in a sampling device, called the Gesundheit-II, that captures airborne
particles. The scientists detected coronavirus RNA in both coarse droplets and
finer ‘aerosol’ droplets emitted by volunteers who were not wearing masks.
Mask reduced detection of viral DNA in both types of droplet. Larger particles
are carried by sneezes and coughs, whereas exhaled breath can spread aerosol
droplets, which have a diameter of five micrometres or less. The authors say
that surgical masks reduce transmission of not only seasonal coronaviruses, but
also influenza. Nat. Med. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-020-0843-2; 2020.

Particles (blue) of the virus that causes COVID-19. Image credit: National Infection
Service/SPL
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Touching Tomorrow Today (Special Research Bulletin COVID-19), Issue 2, April 8, 2020
Antibodies from llamas Help to Foil the COVID-19 Virus
Antibodies from llamas (Lama glama) could help in the fight against several
coronaviruses that infect humans. A team has isolated two llama antibodies that
bind the ‘spike’ proteins that coronaviruses use to enter cells. One antibody
neutralized the coronavirus responsible for Middle East respiratory syndrome
(MERS); the second mopped up the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)
coronavirus. Fusing the SARS antibody from a llama with an antibody from a
human yielded a hybrid that neutralized the virus responsible for COVID-19. The
data suggest that such antibodies could be useful in combating coronavirus
epidemics. bioRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.26.010165; 2020

How Blood from Coronavirus Survivors Might Save Lives

People seriously ill with COVID-19 experienced striking improvement after
receiving infusions of blood from disease survivors, according to two separate
research teams. Both teams extracted antibody-laden plasma — a component
of blood — from people who’d recovered from COVID-19. Xiaoming Yang at the
National Engineering Technology Research Center for Combined Vaccines in
Wuhan, China, and his colleagues gave the plasma to ten severely ill people. By
the sixth day after the treatment, the virus that causes COVID-19 was
undetectable in seven of the ten. The recipients experienced no significant side
effects. Preprint at medRxiv http://doi.org/dqrs; 2020. A group led by Lei Liu at
Shenzhen Third People’s Hospital in China gave survivors’ plasma to five
“critically ill” people. Symptoms dwindled in all five; within ten days of receiving
the plasma, three recipients no longer needed ventilators. J. Am. Med. Assoc.
http://doi.org/dqn7; 2020.

Viral Proteins Point to Potential Treatments

A list of the human proteins affected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus offers a guide to
potential treatments for infected people. A team led by Nevan Krogan at the
University of California, San Francisco, engineered human cells to produce one
of 26 proteins made by the coronavirus. This allowed the researchers to identify
human proteins that physically interact with coronavirus proteins. Out of 332
interactions between human and viral proteins, the authors identified 67 that
existing or candidate drugs could potentially disrupt. The researchers and their
collaborators are now testing some of these compounds for antiviral activity —
and urge others to do the same. bioRxiv
https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.22.002386; 2020
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Touching Tomorrow Today (Special Research Bulletin COVID-19), Issue 2, April 8, 2020
You Can Spread the Coronavirus Just by Talking
A prestigious scientific panel told White House officials during a briefing that the
coronavirus can be spread not just through uncovered coughs and sneezes, but
through talking and even just breathing as well. “While the current specific
research is limited, the results of available studies are consistent with
aerosolization of virus from normal breathing,” a letter by Harvey Fineberg,
chairman of the National Academy of Sciences Standing Committee, reads. The
letter was in response to a question raised by Kelvin Droegemeier with the Office
of Science and Technology Policy at the White House. “Currently available
research supports the possibility that [the coronavirus] could be spread via
bioaerosols generated directly by patients’ exhalation,” the letter reads.
https://futurism.com/neoscope/experts-warning-spread-coronavirus-talking

Google to Publish User Location Data to Help Tackle Virus

Google says it will publish users' location data around the world to allow
governments to gauge the effectiveness of social distancing measures, brought
in to stem the COVID-19 pandemic. The reports on users' movements in 131
countries will be made available on a special website and will "chart movement
trends over time by geography", according to a post on one of Google's blogs.
Trends will display "a percentage point increase or decrease in visits" to
locations like parks, shops, homes and places of work, not "the absolute number
of visits," said the post, signed by Jen Fitzpatrick, who leads Google Maps, and
the company's chief health officer Karen DeSalvo. For example, in France, visits
to restaurants, cafes, shopping centres, museums or theme parks have plunged
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by 88 percent from their normal levels, the data showed. Local shops initially
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Touching Tomorrow Today (Special Research Bulletin COVID-19), Issue 2, April 8, 2020
saw a jump of 40 percent when confinement measures were announced, before
suffering a drop of 72 percent. Office use is possibly stronger than suspected
meanwhile, as the decline in that area is a more modest 56 percent. "We hope
these reports will help support decisions about how to manage the COVID-19
pandemic," the Google execs said.
https://techxplore.com/news/2020-04-google-publish-user-govts-tackle.html

Experimental Drug Blocks Growth of SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus

A trial drug called APN01 or human recombinant soluble ACE2 (hrsACE2) can
significantly block early stages of SARS-CoV-2 infections. ACE2, a protein on the
surface of the cell membrane, is the key receptor for the spike glycoprotein of
SARS-CoV-2. In cell cultures analyzed in the current study, APN01 inhibited the
SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus load by a factor of 1,000-5,000. In engineered replicas
of human blood vessel and kidneys — organoids grown from human stem cells
— the researchers demonstrated that SARS-CoV-2 can directly infect and
duplicate itself in these tissues. This provides important information on the
development of the disease and the fact that severe cases of COVID-19 present
with multi-organ failure and evidence of cardiovascular damage. Clinical grade
APN01 also reduced the SARS-CoV-2 infection in these engineered human
tissues. Cell, in press; DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2020.04.004

Only 6% of Actual COVID-19 Cases Detected Worldwide

According to a report by University of Göttingen, the number of confirmed
COVID-19 cases officially issued by countries dramatically understates the true
number of infections. To test the quality of official case records, the team
analyzed data from a recent study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.
Their data show that countries have only discovered on average about 6% of
coronavirus infections and the true number of infected people worldwide may
already have reached several tens of millions. Insufficient and delayed testing
may explain why some European countries, such as Italy and Spain, are
experiencing much higher casualty numbers (relative to reported confirmed
cases) than Germany, which has detected an estimated 15.6% of infections
compared to only 3.5% in Italy or 1.7% in Spain. Detection rates are even lower
in the United States (1.6%) and the United Kingdom (1.2). In sharp contrast to
this, South Korea appears to have discovered almost half of all its COVID-19
infections. http://www.uni-
goettingen.de/de/document/download/ff656163edb6e674fdbf1642416a3fa1.
pdf/Bommer%20&%20Vollmer%20(2020)%20COVID-
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19%20detection%20April%202nd.pdf
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Touching Tomorrow Today (Special Research Bulletin COVID-19), Issue 2, April 8, 2020
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Touching Tomorrow Today (Special Research Bulletin COVID-19), Issue 2, April 8, 2020
MERS Vaccine in Mice May Hold Promise for COVID-19 Vaccine
Researchers at the University of Iowa and the University of Georgia have
developed a vaccine that fully protects mice against a lethal dose of MERS, a
close cousin of the SARS-CoV2 coronavirus that causes COVID-19. The vaccine
uses a harmless virus to deliver a MERS coronavirus protein into cells to generate
an immune response, and may hold promise for developing vaccines against
other coronaviruses diseases, including COVID-19. The team tested a MERS
vaccine candidate in mice engineered to be susceptible to the MERS
coronavirus. The vaccine is an innocuous parainfluenza virus (PIV5) carrying the
"spike" protein that MERS uses to infect cells. All the vaccinated mice survived a
lethal dose of the MERS coronavirus. mBio (2020). DOI: 10.1128/mBio.00554-20

Image shows a 3D print of a spike protein on the surface of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that
causes COVID-19. University of Iowa and University of Georgia are developing vaccine
candidates based on the PIV5 virus expressing coronavirus spike proteins. Image credit: US
National Institutes of Health

School Closures have Little Impact on Spread of Coronavirus – Study

School closures are likely to have a relatively small impact on the spread of
Covid-19 and should be weighed against their profound economic and social
consequences, particularly for the most vulnerable children, according to a UK
study. The research, led by University College London (UCL), is the first to look
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at evidence behind many governments’ decision to shut schools and keep pupils
at home. According to the UN’s education body, Unesco, more than 90% of the
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Touching Tomorrow Today (Special Research Bulletin COVID-19), Issue 2, April 8, 2020
world’s pupils have been affected by closures. The UCL-led study concludes that
the evidence to support the closure of schools to combat Covid-19 is “very
weak”, and statistics from influenza outbreaks suggest school closures “could
have relatively small effects on a virus with Covid-19’s high transmissibility and
apparent low clinical effect on schoolchildren”.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(20)30095-
X/fulltext

Canada Begins Clinical Trial of Experimental COVID-19 Treatment

A team of blood transfusion experts from across Canada is planning the world’s
largest clinical trial of a potential treatment for COVID-19. The study, which will
involve 1,000 patients from across the country, will include at least 40 Canadian
hospitals, and is being overseen by doctors from the University of Montreal,
University of Ottawa, University of Toronto, McMaster and the University of
British Columbia, among other schools. The experimental treatment involves
injecting antibody-rich plasma from patients who have recovered from the virus
into those who are still infected. This approach has only been tried in small trials
in China, Singapore, South Korea and the U.S. It is part of a global race to find a
treatment for the disease, with researchers also focusing on antivirals and
medications used to treat malaria.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-canada-begins-clinical-trial-
of-experimental-covid-19-treatment-using

DISCLAIMER: The products and/or processes mentioned in this Bulletin are for information and research purposes only.
These reports carry no diagnostic or prescriptive value. In case of any suspected viral infection/illness, please consult your
physician or government-operated Coronavirus Centres across Pakistan. You may call 1166 for further information.

Dr. Hasan Murad Institute for Knowledge Futures

University of Management and Technology, UMT Road, Johar Town, Lahore, Pakistan
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Touching Tomorrow Today (Special Research Bulletin COVID-19), Issue 2, April 8, 2020