英米　２年
Recently the number of infected people has increased, and I have heard that the occupancy of sickbeds has become full considerably. However, many people do not know what COVID-19 is and how it affects us. I sometimes see unreliable information and comments on the Internet. In a situation that nobody has experienced before so it seems that many people are confused by the media. To ward off this pandemic and protect ourselves, I think that we need to know the accurate information and behave adequately. Through this lesson, I learned how COVID-19 works, what our bodies do, and how the population gets infected. This information and data should be broadcasted, and we should learn them before going to travel with the Go Japan campaign We have to consider whether the individual perspective or the populational one should be considered and not to misunderstand the news.

英米　２年
After today’s lesson, I again realized that general preventions are so important not to be infected by COVID-19. I learned a lot of things related to the virus. For example, the process of becoming infected, and how the virus generates. In this pandemic, people have to wear masks at all times, socially distance, and stay home. Most people feel uncomfortable about these things, but these are very effective ways not to spread the virus. Recently, the number of infected people are increasing in Japan. In addition, winter which is a best season to spread virus and it will be coming soon. Some people don’t think this pandemic is so serious and tend not to take preventive actions. If they know what Maria said today, they will care about it more. After this class, I want to tell some people what I learned today.

英米　２年
Thank you for your presentation. I could solve my personal question after today’s class. I wondered why it takes about two weeks for symptoms to appear. I learned that reproducing a lot means success for the virus. If people do not notice the symptoms, the viruses can grow well. But I think the viruses should not harm us if they want to reproduce more! In addition to that, I was interested in the fact that symptoms of COVID-19 are triggered by our immune system, not the virus itself. I learned the symptoms from many news programs, but I believed that the viruses plagued the people directly. Although we get a lot of information every day, I found there are many things that I did not know about COVID-19.

英米　２年
Professor Maria Vassileva, thank you very much for a very interesting presentation today. Recently, coronavirus infection has been spreading in Japan again. I thought it is very important for us to understand the process of how the virus invades our bodies, as we are in this situation now. We are getting used to this infection situation and it doesn't surprise us too much. So, I think we need to think deeply about coronaviruses again. There are really a lot of studies on coronaviruses and I have no idea which one is correct, but we need to learn to make the proper decisions and not be misled by them. I've been experiencing one problem lately. It is the way the news is being reported about the coronavirus. Every time the news seems to focus on just the number of people infected with the coronavirus. I think it is necessary to report on the number of serious cases in order to get a clear picture of the danger. The number of infected people is not directly linked to the risk of coronavirus because most of them are asymptomatic. We cannot predict at all how the coronavirus situation will develop in the future, but we must take appropriate action to continue fighting this situation.

英米　３年
Thank you very much for your time today. This presentation has addressed many of the questions and worries I have been having ever since we all entered this pandemic world. Although I have studied a lot about biology during my time in high school, I have found myself astonished by how much it can be applied into understanding this current chaos we are now living in. For instance, I always found it weird that it took around two weeks since infection for coronavirus to spread but I really did not know why that happened. But thanks to this presentation I have got to know that viruses cannot get into cells from day to night and reproduce themselves as they need an incubation period to do so. Thanks to this and my other further information with the topic of biology, my way of thinking towards this topic has become a bit less emotional and more scientific, which is a good thing to keep calm in this time of mental breakdowns.

英米　４年
Thank you for your impressive presentation, Maria. I learned a lot of things, and realized again the importance that each person should take measure against COVID-19. These days, in Japan the number of cases is rapidly increasing again, which is called the third wave. In spite of the situation, however, because of promoting the "Go to Travel Campaign" now, many more people move around Japan than before. As you said, the virus needs a host to exist, and any person can be a host of COVID-19. I'm afraid that the virus will find more and more hosts (people), and the infection spreads after the campaign. In addition, the Japanese government has recently taken economic policies and measures against COVID-19 at the same time, and people are starting to become less strict about going outside. Thus, we, each individual need again to seriously consider infection measure such as masking, social distancing and staying away from crowded spaces.

フランス　２年
Can you predict the future of Japan? Will the Tokyo Olympics be held next year? I have a lot of things that I am concerned about. Especially, everyone may want to know about COVID-19. First, about the route of an infection. Although many of people put masks when they go out, this virus has still been spreading throughout the world. As winter approaches, the number of the infected people is increasing. Moreover, a lack of understanding of the route an infection is a grave problem. Even if we can’t prevent ourselves from catching this virus by these means, what should we do? Is there an only solution other that we stop leaving home? If Japan bans us from going out, the circulation of economy will stop. It is difficult to decide the correct the policy for citizens. Second, about Japanese medical institutions. As we learned from today’s class, the structure of the virus and human body are complex. It takes time to get expert knowledge. Therefore, we rely on workers in the medical field. However, the burden on them is a serious problem, too. If the number of new infections increased, would Japanese medical institutions be able work normally? At the moment, it is said that we don’t have enough beds. The infection rate beyond the current rate will cause the situation will be exhausted When we think it over, we can find some problems and check our behavior. Consequently, we should pay attention to the COVID-19 more carefully. I hope that our former lives come back as soon as possible.

中国　２年
Today's guest speaker taught us some basic biology that was so informative to understand the COVID-19 pandemic. Seeing her speaking emotionally, I suspected that she could go on talking for hours about this topic. Especially related to the part of the immune system's, I got sucked into her explanation and her very own worldview. She described the relationship between ACE2 and the COVID virus as a doorknob and a stranger who has the key. She talked about why our body has such a structure even though no cell membrane wants to be invaded, but I wondered why these viruses are so clever even though they don't have brains. She had an interesting point of view, "if I were a virus." If I were it, I would like to invade as fast as possible, destroy most of the killer t cells, and say to the host of the cell's body, "You are already dead," grinning. While listening to her explanation, I noticed that to have accurate information is one of the vital infection control measures. If we could wash our lungs, could we protect ourselves from pneumonia caused by COVID-19? Also, suppose we are worried without being indifferent, which can become another virus named anxiety. I hope this pandemic will come to an end soon!

留学生
The year 2020 has been a really difficult year since the COVID-19 Pandemic started spreading around the world. It is important for the world’s population to know a bit more about what this virus is. In today’s class we listened to Maria Vassileva talking about what a virus and a bacterium are, what’s the difference between those two, what’s a disease, how they enter our body, and how COVID-19 is a virus that may not be deadly, but it is efficient if we talk about viruses. First of all, not all pathogens such as viruses and bacteria cause a disease. We have some pathogens that are living in our body called microbiome. There are some in our body that are good for use, and that live peacefully inside of us. But then there are some other viruses and bacteria that can cause us harm. Bacteria can reproduce by itself, even if it is on a surface since it is a cell itself. On the other hand, viruses can’t do this; they need a host in order to reproduce and create more viruses. A disease happens when the host starts to feel sick. The functions in our body gets disrupted. For a virus or bacterium to enter the body, it needs to either use a fecal-oral route, airborne route, or direct contact route. At least for bacterium, it is enough by just entering the body, but viruses needs to enter a cell in order to reproduce. COVID-19 virus has a spike protein that attaches perfectly to our cell membranes, making it easy to infect someone. Once we are infected, an incubation period of 2 weeks starts. We may feel fine because the virus hasn’t done any noticeable damage, but once it starts spreading faster through our body, we notice the symptoms. That alert is normal for any virus or bacteria, but COVID-19 can be troublesome because it attacks the lungs, and too much inflammation and liquids in there can cause us respiratory problems, leading to death. For a virus like COVID-19, it is better to spread faster, but not to kill the host, because if it kills the host fast, then the virus would die with it. Many people believe COVID-19 is not a big threat, but looking at how it spread hastily through the world, we know that it is something serious. This one was, as always, an amazing presentation, and I would love to hear more about it and to be in the full presentation if possible. Learning about how viruses and bacteria work was something I never expected to know. COVID-19 is a virus that we have to take seriously, because it may not be deadly as other diseases, but on the long term, it could cause us to be in one of the four scenarios Maria mentioned: host victory, pathogen victory, win-win, or alternative. Let’s hope this ends in a beautiful host victory

特別聴講生　２年
Thank you for giving us a very passionate lecture! The content which Professor Vassileva gave us is actually very difficult, however, she made it very easy for students to understand. In particular, her explanation using the word "keys" is really a keyword to understand what viruses exactly are. A virus is shaped to attach to a cell. I had known the shape of the coronavirus and I had thought to myself, ‘Why is the shape so strange?’ This time I came to know the reason. It's to attach to the hosts. A virus is very smart without our awareness. That sounds invulnerable since a virus has a key without the permission of the host. Of course, the human body tries to defeat the virus by what is called inflammation. I have had inflammation in my body, for example my skin and nose many times. I don't want to imagine how many viruses tried to enter my cell! One of her ways of thinking about disease was to be side on the virus. It helped me understand such a difficult thing. The goal of the virus not to kill the host but to spread it in a lot of places in the long term, so "alternative" is an effective way to do that for viruses. I misunderstood the point. In addition to it, the "airborne route" is another effective way to do that. In short, the virus aims to live and comes to learn how to do it gradually like AI. I guess the corona virus's stage is already there. The thing I wanted to know most was "Is the coronavirus dangerous after all?" since I know some people don't care about the coronavirus at all and they still remain safe. I feel that it's unfair although it's not to blame anyone. The points which decide if a disease is dangerous are "how fast the virus passes" and "how serious the symptoms are", so the coronavirus is not too serious yet since the number of young people who suffer from serious symptoms is not high, in one sense, it's up to you. However, in my opinion, I don't want to spread the coronavirus to my grandparents, so I need to stay at home. It's my way of thinking. I'm really lucky to have professor Vassileva’s lecture. I appreciate it! Let's all stay safe!