Questions:
1. Is this worrisome?
2. If Denmark is catching this, should we be concerned that the virus has mutated in other animals and has thus far gone undetected?
2. No. Minks are kept in small cages with a very high density of biomass. This makes it a perfect incubator. Also ferrets have some similarities with humans in the upper respiratory system, making this more of a concern.
Edit: source for the claim about the vaccine's ineffectiveness against the mutated strains in german TAZ from two weeks ago:
If I remember correctly, ferrets were held under similiar conditions for "gain for function" experiments [0]. "Gain of function" means here how the virus can develop the ability (function) of spreading through the air when it e.g. initially required direct contact to be transmitted. An animal would be intentionally infected with the disease and a random mutation would allow the virus to jump to a separate cage to infect an animal there.
Pretty horrible and dangerous, imo. Research on this was banned in the US for a few years, see also [0].
Edit: a small bonus comment I just thought about: here is a time lapse of development of resistance to antibiotics on a large petri dish [1]. Observe how they used increasing concentrations of antibiotics to allow stepwise improvement of resistance instead of confronting the bacterium with an unsurmountable effect all at once.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation#By_effect_on_function
“Gain of Function” is often a dog whistle for bioweapons research.
Here is a good lecture by a harvard professor on risks of gain of function research:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5fe7KEkwQM
-- Risks and Benefits of Gain-of-Function Experiments in Potentially Pandemic Pathogens
--- The Centre for the Study of Existential Risk's January 2015 Seminar, with Professor Marc Lipsitch (Harvard) and Professor Derek Smith (Cambridge).
A growing trend in experimental virology has been the modification of influenza viruses that are antigenically novel to, and virulent in humans, such that these variant viruses are readily transmissible in mammals, including ferrets which are thought to be the best animal model for influenza infection. Novel, contagious, virulent viruses are potential pandemic pathogens in that their accidental or malevolent release into the human population could cause a pandemic.
Professor Marc Lipsitch (Harvard) describes the purported benefits of such studies, arguing that these are overstated; estimates the magnitude of the risk they create, argues for the superiority of alternative scientific approaches on both safety and scientific grounds, and proposes an ethical framework in which such experiments should be evaluated. The talk also explore recent developments following the pause in funding for this research announced by the United States Government in October, and steps towards the risk-benefit analysis called for by the announcement.
Professor Lipsitch is a professor of epidemiology and the Director of the Centre for Communicable Disease Dynamics at Harvard University. He is one of the founders of the Cambridge Working group, which calls for a “quantitative, objective and credible assessment of the risks, potential benefits, and opportunities for risk mitigation” of gain of function experiments in potentially pandemic pathogen strains.
A response is given by Professor Derek Smith, Professor of Infectious Disease Informatics at Cambridge University. --
I am convinced that bacterial resistance is a trait, but am unconvinced of it's permanence if the utility of maintaining it is removed from the environment.
Only on the vaccination / immunity front - the biggest problem was that there initially were no tests or lab capacities for tests, plus a total collapse of PPE stockpiles and supply. That's ... at least decently solved.
We had issues in the election yesterday of poll workers not wearing masks. People just don't get it, and this behavior clearly isn't "fixed" as the winter surge is well under way.
Yes, it's just a couple milion people & antigen tests are not 100% precize, but it demonstrates something like this can be done.
https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/coronavirus#coronavirus-te...
1 or 2? Probably no big deal. 10 or 20? Worrying. 207? Yeah, the new strain is probably everywhere, or will be shortly.
This is that worst case.
This is why we had a “bird flu” or “pig flu”, and so on.
Coronaviruses cross between mammals all the time, mutate, and create new strains. This is why there is no cold vaccine (and why the flu vaccine changes each year, and is usually only 60-80% effective).
So, to answer your questions: (1) It is not any more worrisome than the news we had back in March. (2) It certainly has already and will continue to mutate in other animals. Should we be concerned? I guess. I made peace with this inevitable outcome months ago.
I feel sorry for the minks. I hope they don’t start testing other types of mammals and then decide to pursue wholesale eradication of local ecosystems and livestock.
Doing that is clearly a non-starter (the food chain would collapse). However, it is necessary-but-not-sufficient to prevent new coronavirus strains from popping up.
It's necessary for the world to realize breeding livestock like we do now is unsustainable. Either we go vegan, lab meat or hybrid agriculture. But the current industry is the dead end.
If you kill all the mammals, then the birds of prey will go extinct, and stuff the mammals eat will overrun what’s left.
If you don’t, then the mammals will keep spreading all sorts of pandemics.
For example, if you live in Silicon Valley, start feeding the squirrels in the woods near you. Eventually, they’ll give you the Bubonic Plague.
The plague is not a big deal these days, thanks to antibiotics, but this is an entire hemisphere away from where it hit, and hundreds of years later.
It wouldn’t surprise me if you could already catch covid from a squirrel if you tried hard enough.
Apparently people catch it from bats fairly regularly, and on average, they don’t get nearly as close to humans as an average rodent would.
Birds of prey eat a lot more than just mammals, e.g. fish, reptiles, other birds etc. So no, if there magically weren't any mammals tomorrow most species of birds of prey would survive.
Yes it's costlier than beef from the developing world raised on cut-down rainforest land, but growing lab is a lot more expensive.
You can argue that it's inefficient, sure, but so is a vegan eating an avacado instead of white rice. Things can be relatively inefficient and still be sustainable.
Delightful news, a case of H1N2 (swine flu) was reported in Canada today... 2020 ain't done yet
I can’t remember if H1N2 is better or worse than it.