They can be heard at 7 p.m. every evening: ringing bells, clanging pots, honking horns, and blaring sirens sounding out in support of health-care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Among the workers on the frontlines are researchers at Providence Health Care who are trying to understand the virus and how to control and cure it.
“The epidemic grows rapidly and so we need to be in front of it to study patients right from the onset as best we can so that we can get a large sample size” and “understand the full spectrum of COVID-19,” said Dr. Jim Russell, a professor of medicine at UBC and a researcher with the Centre for Heart Lung Innovation at St. Paul’s Hospital.
…
Dr. Jeffrey Joy is another research scientist at St. Paul’s, working at the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS.
Joy and a team also backed by a grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research are studying the genomic evolution of COVID-19. According to a press release, they believe comparing available genomes with the genomes of other coronaviruses will help them find similarities and patterns of spread.
They are working with various Canadian teams and the Chinese Centre for Disease Control headquartered in China.
Another two teams of scientists at the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS are analyzing COVID-19 looking for clues that will lead to better testing and treatment thanks to Genome BC’s Rapid Response Funding for COVID-19 Research Projects.