Heavily mutated coronavirus variant puts scientists on alert
nature.com
nature.com
Many aren't aware but interestingly these variants are identified and designated in the open on GitHub, here is the GitHub issue for this B.1.1.529 designation https://github.com/cov-lineages/pango-designation/issues/343. I've recently started watching this repo as it's quite interesting reading about the different variants popping up across the world.
This GitHub repo is just about registering the Pango lineage, based on data already collected and published at other locations.
1. Viruses are constantly mutating, its kind of their thing.
2. Most mutations do absolutely nothing or are actually harmful to the virus.
3. When a new mutation is noted to be spreading fast its usually because of the nature of super spreader events and not because the new mutation is more or less transmissible.
4. Scientist and health officials should absolutely be keeping an eye on these things.
[0] Vincent Racaniello - SARS-CoV-2 UK variant: Does it matter https://youtu.be/wC8ObD2W4Rk
For this new variant it could still plausibly be a founder effect. But that's because the circumstances are different this time (the variant became dominant while cases were surging from almost nothing, not when the cases were already at a high level). Not because that checklist is actually correct.
Claiming Vince was wrong in the video also means the researchers that discovered the variant were wrong. After all he was just parroting their findings in the video.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/dec/21/calls-for-n...
Yeah, that's a virology point of view all right. That something has to have a proven biological mechanism before it can be taken as fact, or even considered as a risk. That's bad public policy though. With his reasoning there would have been no reason to increase restrictions in the UK in Dec/Jan, but in fact the restrictions were extremely necessary and the variant caused tens of thousands of extra deaths.
Is there any evidence besides an appeal to authority?
The parts of the video where he literally quotes the original findings.
It's a bit unfair that the GP calls him Vince from Youtube. He's a professor of virology so not just some nobody giving his opinion on Youtube. This doesn't mean he can't be wrong of course.
But all good. I used to listen to his podcast at the beginning of the crisis but after a while I stopped because I felt they were ignoring reality while waiting for science. Which felt like a strange way of working when reality was what we had to base decisions off of.
because the science matters. This new SA variant could be more transmissible or it could not be. Lets stick to the actual data and go from there.
https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/5-things-to-know-delta-var...
Delta’s quick growth rate has been especially dramatic, says F. Perry Wilson, MD, a Yale Medicine epidemiologist. Delta was spreading 50% faster than Alpha, which was 50% more contagious than the original strain of SARS-CoV-2, he says. “In a completely unmitigated environment—where no one is vaccinated or wearing masks—it’s estimated that the average person infected with the original coronavirus strain will infect 2.5 other people,” Dr. Wilson says. “In the same environment, Delta would spread from one person to maybe 3.5 or 4 other people.”
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34369565/
“ We found a mean R0 of 5.08, which is much higher than the R0 of the ancestral strain of 2.79.”
Please stop spreading misinformation.
This claim is wildly false, and you've already been refuted by someone else.
Remove your false post.
Mostly true but in some very major cases it was because the variant did spread faster in general. Such as Delta and the British variant before hand.
Basically superspreader events can artificially boost a variant for a bit -- it is basically noise. You need to look at a longer time frame to be sure.
I think the process that you’re describing is the process of genetically evolving-by-mutation life forms in general. So not specific to viruses.
Human bodies are the vehicles for our genes to survive and reproduce :-)
Viruses don't have goals. If a virus successfully makes more virus, then there is more of the virus. For viruses that don't do that, there are less of them. That's all there is to it.
It so happens that making more virus often requires resources that were previously in use by other organisms. But that's incidental, not by design.
You only see viruses that are good at making more virus because the other ones died out.
If they're too successful at what they do their host dies before they can be passed on, if they're not successful enough then the infection wave loses momentum and dies out. Effectively we have been helping them for the last year and a half do do this, without our help this particular virus would die out within a couple of weeks. It needs us for transportation and to be brought in contact with new viable hosts. On its own it can't do much of anything.
Native copper ore got largely picked up and used by humans rendering such deposits "extinct" from early civilizations and lead to the practice of mining after the low hanging fruit was used up.
Killing your host is an awful strategy for continued existence if you don't have your own lipid bilayer.
The virus does not decide a strategy, it is random mutation and selection and even if it is less likely it might be that we could have a variant that is super transmissible and super deadly. This effect could be obtain in the delay between transmission and visible effects on human body. Example: virus is transmissible with N days before we can see signs of infection.
Of course we can fight back by testing everyone weekly even if they show no signs.
Help me understand how a virus can replicate without being detected but can also increase its lethality.
We already have an asymptomatic and infectious incubation period. If that kept stretching longer then you are delaying the lytic cycle even longer? Or does propogation and ultimately viral load also happen as a slower burn? Eventually you will have damaged too many cells.
I am not up to date with latest research but it seemed to be that SARS-CoV-2 is a virus that can be transmitted before symptoms onset.
Regarding replication without being detected but also increased lethality this you might be right that doing the math maybe the hypothesis I present seems far fetched.
Still I guess that a slight bump in mortality will create a lot of deaths due to its transmission.
Of course like I said I am just expressing an opinion that might be very wrong.
No virus has ever done this.
https://www.uabmedicine.org/-/flu-strains-explained-and-how-...
This is why Flu shots are seasonal
People are developing mRNA vaccines for 'flu now. Moderna, Pfizer and Sanofi all have mRNA 'flu vaccines in clinical trials, and there are a bunch more in the pre-clinical stages.
It's designed to make a statement, rather than elicit information. (Ref Oxford Languages).
The point of vaccines is not perfection but more like a war of attrition. A vaccine has several potential purposes, some of them are these:
* Reduce the possibility of infection
* Reduce the effects of an infection
* Reduce the infectiousness of an individual to other people
Each of those items above have various probabilities associated with them and rather a lot of external factors and so on. A vaccine's stated effectiveness in each area will obviously be some sort of average across a population.
That's the thing: Vaccines inoculate societies as a whole and not just individuals when you look at statistics. The phrase "anecdotes are not data" is particularly true here.
Even a "lol sad" 40% effective (whatever that means) vaccine will slow the spread of the thing across a population and reduce the possibility of individual deaths or other non optimal outcomes. When you start to look at the population as a whole you see huge numbers of people living instead of dying.
With luck, one of those survivors might be you or me one day. This is the only time I will advocate a sort of communist approach to things. By "risking" inoculation, you reduce the possibility that someone else might catch the disease. You also get some additional abilities to fight off the bloody thing too - nice!
Definitely a better outcome than not getting a flu shot.
> something that doesn't bother me
Yeah you've never been unlucky enough to get a bad flu.
I'll absolutely choose the "constant hassle" of getting a flu shot (i.e. a 5 minute pit stop at the drug store once per year).
The flu sucks.
How Flu Viruses Can Change: “Drift” and “Shift”
Influenza (flu) viruses are constantly changing. They can change in two different ways.
Antigenic Drift
One way flu viruses change is called “antigenic drift.” Drift consists of small changes (or mutations) in the genes of influenza viruses that can lead to changes in the surface proteins of the virus, HA (hemagglutinin) and NA (neuraminidase). The HA and NA surface proteins of influenza viruses are “antigens,” which means they are recognized by the immune system and are capable of triggering an immune response, including production of antibodies that can block infection. The changes associated with antigenic drift happen continually over time as flu viruses replicate (i.e., infect a host and make copies of themselves). Most flu shots are designed to target the HA surface proteins/antigens of flu viruses. The nasal spray flu vaccine (LAIV) may target both the HA and NA of a flu virus.
The small changes that occur from antigenic drift usually produce viruses that are closely related to one another, which can be illustrated by their location close together on a phylogenetic tree. Flu viruses that are closely related to each other usually have similar antigenic properties. This means that antibodies your immune system creates against one flu virus will likely recognize and respond to antigenically similar flu viruses (this is called “cross-protection”).
However, the small changes associated with antigenic drift can accumulate over time and result in viruses that are antigenically different (further away on the phylogenetic tree). It also is possible for a single change in a particularly important location on the HA to result in antigenic drift. When antigenic drift occurs, the body’s immune system may not recognize and prevent sickness caused by the newer flu viruses. As a result, a person becomes susceptible to flu infection again, as antigenic drift has changed the virus’ antigenic properties enough that a person’s existing antibodies won’t recognize and neutralize the newer flu viruses.
Antigenic drift is an important reason why people can get flu more than one time. Drift is also a primary reason why the composition of flu vaccines for use in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres is reviewed annually and updated as needed to keep up with evolving flu viruses.
Antigenic Shift
Another type of change is called “antigenic shift.” Shift is an abrupt, major change in a flu A virus, resulting in new HA and/or new HA and NA proteins in flu viruses that infect humans. Antigenic shift can result in a new flu A subtype. Shift can happen if a flu virus from an animal population gains the ability to infect humans. Such animal-origin viruses can contain HA or HA/NA combinations that are different enough from human viruses that most people do not have immunity to the new (e.g., novel) virus. Such a “shift” occurred in the spring of 2009, when an H1N1 virus with genes from North American Swine, Eurasian Swine, humans and birds emerged to infect people and quickly spread, causing a pandemic. When shift happens, most people have little or no immunity against the new virus.
While flu viruses change all the time due to antigenic drift, antigenic shift happens less frequently. Flu pandemics occur rarely; there have been four flu pandemics in the past 100 years. For more information, see pandemic flu. Type A viruses undergo both antigenic drift and shift and are the only flu viruses known to cause pandemics, while flu type B viruses change only by the more gradual process of antigenic drift.
Meanwhile rest of the world hasn't got their first dose of a reliable vaccine.
https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/exclusive-south-africa-...
If rest of the world don't want it, I'll take it (and did).
The only way to keep cases to a low enough level to be successfully 'processed' by the health system is to maintain fairly severe social restrictions - and maintain them forever.
I believe that all of our successful vaccination campaigns (against highly contagious viruses) have by necessity resulted in (near) eradication. E.g. Polio, Smallpox, Measles, Rabies (in animals)
The slogan "Gotta catch 'em all!" makes that idea even less viable than it first seems.
I think most Americans have at this point enough exposure to news about China that they'd pronounce it "she", as if it were pinyin. In the fraternity/sorority system, I think most people pronounce it "zai", but my understanding is "k'see" or "ke-see" is closer to classical (and perhaps modern) Greek pronunciation.
I had an analogue control systems professor with a very strong accent (his catch phrase was "Quitch dewice wuh you choose?") who pronounced Xi close to correctly. I presume a huge chunk of the class (about half of the men, and many women at MIT were in fraternities/sororities/independent living groups at the time) probably dismissed his pronunciation of the Greek due to his accent in English and their prior exposure to the Greek alphabet in the "Greek" living system.
Naming a disease after private intellectual property is a terrible idea. Im not sure what that would accomplish.
Look here then:
https://www.cmaj.ca/content/193/42/E1619
Increased risk [compared to non-variant-of-concern SARS-COV-2] with the Delta variant was more pronounced at 108% (95% CI 78%–140%) for hospitalization, 235% (95% CI 160%–331%) for ICU admission and 133% (95% CI 54%–231%) for death.
Compared with non-VOC SARS-CoV-2 strains, the adjusted elevation in risk associated with N501Y-positive variants was 52% (95% confidence interval [CI] 42%–63%) for hospitalization, 89% (95% CI 67%–117%) for ICU admission and 51% (95% CI 30%–78%) for death.
N501Y is alpha
Immunity is always the goal if you can get it. It's not how you judge success though, you're right.
Thankfully the vaccines do drastically reduce severe illnesses though, so that's something.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FFECnaLXEAMtWdc?format=png&name=...
https://github.com/cov-lineages/pango-designation/issues/343...
The worst case with a new covid strain would be if people who were vaccinated by a previous vaccine or infected by an older strain experience antibody-dependent enhancement after being infected with the new strain. This is where the body recognized the new strain as the old and starts producing anti-bodies. These anti-bodies actually assist the new strain in infecting your cells, making the disease worse.
ADE has not been detected with any covid strains/vaccines so its not something to worry about for now but who knows what may happen in the future. I've been keeping my eye out for any news of ADE with any of these new strains.
Certain viruses like dengue fever can be much worse if you had previously caught a different strain due to ADE.
https://www.chop.edu/centers-programs/vaccine-education-cent...
Now I’m getting some bad February 2020 déjà-vu reading this current thread about flights from Gauteng:
https://twitter.com/AdamJSchwarz/status/1464150235714932742?...
Perhaps my understanding here is too cursory but this claim is pretty extraordinary for what I know.
I suspect this is part of the reason why we never saw an "update" for the delta variant.
Does anyone know how the need to detect mutations is balanced against the need for the tests to be precise to a specific type of virus?
If the GOP had been smart they'd have been hammering Biden for that instead of doing whatever the hell they are doing. This was a prime opportunity to go "see? Government regulation is bad."
How can someone know what's in it if no one is testing medicines or enforcing some set of standards?
Errors exist on both sides. In a time critical scenario like a pandemic, the cost of retarding availability of a vaccine could be enormous.
I don't see the problem with making vaccines (or drugs) that have not received FDA approval available, as long as they are clearly marked as such and informed consent is received.
this is danger porn. pay it no mind and have happy holidays.
To that end, we should consider the amount and directionality of errors made by individuals as we consider what weight to give their current predictions.
Maybe he was just listening to the experts.
Those scientists, by and large, have walked back their statements and admit that the hypothesis that this was a lab leak that occurred in Wuhan is not impossible and that stating it is not necessarily racist. Also, those folks aren't considered "experts" any more (everybody else lowered their priors about those expert's beliefs).
We were already dying before February 2020. America is fat and we'll never get universal healthcare because people can't take responsibility for their actions. 80% of people who died from this thing were obese. If it hit 40 years ago it would have been nothing or similar to Hong Kong Flu
I am not happy that the people announced this did so with scare tactics (specific wording) rather than emotionless facts.
People evolved to respond to the flu over millenia before there was widespread travel. I think that explains much of the dynamics of covid.
That's precisely what made it abnormal. The population isn't naive to normal seasonal viruses.
https://twitter.com/miamalan/status/1463846528578109444?s=21
I don’t have a background to properly analyse this but to me it looks legit.
* SA has a <50% vaccination rate, so its not quite clear whether its spread could be circumvent vaccine-induced antibodies * SA is past its delta-wave, so this variant has made relatively huge gain over delta, but absolute numbers are still fairly moderate.
I'm all in for taking necessary precautions for slowing down the arrival of the new variant in other countries, but it seems it isn't clear yet that the effect we see in South Africa will replicate elsewhere.
it's closer to 25% countrywide, according to https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations?country=ZAF
But this source says 35%: https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/exclusive-south-africa-...
It will be higher in urban areas, and lower outside of them.
A similar thing happened in some South American countries with a cholera outbreak. Strains that made people more sick forced them to stay inside whereas the more harmless strains allowed people to socialize more and the harmless ones ended up spreading faster
What are the ethics in engineering a new virus and deliberately infecting people? What happens if some of those people die? What happens if your variant that has been engineered to spread extremely effectively mutates into something more lethal? How do you test your engineered virus? Large-scale tests on people? How would that be faster or more effective than producing a new vaccine and testing that instead? What happens if your tests show that the engineered virus is not as benevolent as you hoped, and is actually rather horrific? Can you put the genie back in the bottle?
Well, if you're a policymaker then suspending travel to prevent it from spreading internationally. If it's the worst case (more infectious than delta + immune evading) then buying a little time to adapt vaccines or produce the recently announced antivirals could save a lot of lives.
This was effectively the approach New Zealand took but it wasn't sustainable. Maybe it would be more effective when implemented by an authoritarian regime (although difficult to measure given issues with transparency) but even then it won't last. China's going to have to start learning to live with Covid like every other country has had to.
Have to get rid of the holiday-calories _somehow_.
(/s for those who were doubting)
Edit: I'm not saying anything about this paper. I know nothing about this. Just a meta comment that, in really hard to get published in journals, there might be a bi-modality of papers. Really important and really wrong :)
I wonder if in the end we're just prolonging the agony. And the measures have a human cost too. Depression, loss of economic welfare which leads to poorer health conditions.
There's more and more talk of letting things slide more ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29337373 for example) and I'm personally wondering if this isn't the right thing too. Corona isn't going away and if we have to keep living with constant lockdowns and masks there isn't much quality of life left. And really eventually we're all catching it anyway. I'm totally happy taking as many vaccines as needed but long-term behavioural changes into directions which are not human nature is a big price to pay.
We can't do this right away (we need more vaccination levels and effective medication) and we have to seriously invest in healthcare but as an end-goal this looks like a much more positive future perspective to me than continuing to fight against every infection.
Personally I'd gladly take a bit higher chance of dying instead of having to struggle with these measures every day.
Not only have happy holiday, but also have happy return to normal. Most adults are vaxxed, if we don't remove restrictions now we will never remove them.
We have evidence that Delta has a much larger viral load and that it has outcompeted the Alpha variant everywhere in the world. You have to be in total denial to pretend the Delta variant might have been no more transmissible than Alpha.
Imagine delta and alpha are both introduced in a naive population at the exact same time. Which one will spread faster? No one has a clue
A large (mostly) unvaccinated and uninfected population has been exposed to both variants and the delta variant won out, what more proof do you want?
Of course, you're right, the unvaccinated are a fertile ground for mutations that eventually evade the vaccine.
Unless you have a study that backs up the claim that this mutation phenomenon only happens in people not vaccinated for Covid-19, you should probably stop singling them out. The phenomenon occurs in both.
The thing is that mutations probably occur all the time, most don't provide any evolutionary advantage and probably never get passed on, the fact that something with this many mutations being viable is a bit worrying - equally I think that the evolutionary pressure that vaccines represent is going to result in mutations that work better in vaccinated people - and as a result we'll make better vaccines - one of the great things about mRNA vaccines is that we can knock out new ones really quickly
We do know:
> A new coronavirus variant has been detected in South Africa that scientists say is a concern because of its high number of mutations and rapid spread among young people in Gauteng, the country’s most populous province. “Over the last four or five days, there has been more of an exponential rise,” he said, adding that the new variant appears to be driving the spike in cases. “We can see that the variant is potentially spreading very fast. We do expect to start seeing pressure in the healthcare system in the next few days and weeks.”
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/south-african-scient...
So two versions which are sequenced as a certain variant may actually have many differences in practice.
I will also add that there are many variants that just havent hit the news cycle. Iirc there was a gamma variant with higher lethality but was much less transmissible.
- has a 100% fatality rate, like rabies
- can keep the host alive long enough to spread and
- cannot be defeated by any prospective vaccine or can evolve fast enough to evade them?
Basically, airborne and human-to-human rabies, with no vaccine. Or vaccine resistant ebola, but even more lethal, infectious, and a longer incubation period.
Put more concisely, could a virus exist with the potential to wipe us out.
It is very stable, so it does not need to keep the host alive for long. A corpse is still infectious like weeks laters
We are lucky that it can only infect swines
I laughed and told them that they should stick to CS, and that biology and medicine don't work like computers. They didn't like it (and have since moved to New Zealand).
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
IMO the basic problem is that we all tend to read our own comments as informed by all the information that's in our own head. You have direct access to your knowledge and experience, so for you it's implicitly included in what you posted. No doubt that that makes your comment very rich and meaningful—but it's not the comment the rest of us get to read. We don't have access to any of that—all we have is the information that you explicitly include in your message. That makes for an enormous difference between how your comments appear to yourself vs. to readers.
But we're at the point now where the zero-covid countries are at a disadvantage because they've had almost no natural exposure so they have to rely entirely on vaccines. The increased travel and the high contagiousness of the new variants now make the zero-covid policy a guarantee for infinite lockdowns. I don't envy then anymore.
Perhaps we could have killed covid like that if we'd all done it like them but that time has passed.
Ps the country is indeed the most beautiful on earth. I hope I get to see it again some day. But I live on the opposite side of the planet between covid and the climate crisis I doubt it'll ever be feasible again.
1. Many high ranking people suddenly started leaving USA and move to other countries and New Zeland is just one of them.
2. High ranking people have been always leaving USA to other countries.
3. High ranking people are moving to New Zeland because of reasons which are not necessarily the same for everyone.
4. High ranking people are moving to New Zeland because of one common reason. The reason being.
Some possibilities.
4.1 Because of quality of life. Is New Zeland experiencing a sudden influx from non high ranking people as well?
4.2 Because of its remote location and if things go wrong in mainland it might be the safest bet and they think things are going to go wrong bad. Very bad.
I doubt it because immigration is extremely tough there. You either have to be under 35 with desirable qualifications or be some VIP at a major corp. Otherwise you can forget about it.
Our productivity and wages are low, and we have some of the least affordable housing in the world - our median house price is around 600usd (and the quality of that housing is very poor).
NZ’s “high ranking” people don’t stick around.
We are all 'in this together', except of course, we aren't.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
Humanity actually could eliminate all human to human pathogens with planet wide coordinated lockdowns. It is simple as that.
Not being able to do this shows maturity of us. It is not really high, I must say when simple stupid automaton can run us over.
> This kind of cowardly
Your behavior is not 'bravery', but selfishness.
https://aaronsiri.substack.com/p/cdc-admits-crushing-rights-...
>> Your behavior is not 'bravery', but selfishness.
I never claimed my behavior was brave, but rather OP cowardly. Not sure how you interpret living life normally, as though the statistics of the disease are what they are is selfish. What do you expect to happen, elimination of Covid? When exactly, would it cease to be 'selfish' to live life normally?
I will say this because it is not talked about enough, taking zinc LOZENGES will help right when you get sick because it stimulates the ADAM17 enzyme to cleave ACE2 off of the cells to make Soluble ACE2. The virus attaches to Soluble ACE2 and cannot enter the cell.
https://www.mdpi.com/viruses/viruses-12-00491/article_deploy...
And it’s not to take it when you were sick, if you take it when you were sick it’s already too late. You have to take it at the very beginning of infection. It stops replication in the nasal pharyngeal passages.
Is the evidence? Yes.
https://www.uchealth.org/today/zinc-could-help-diminish-exte...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8163692/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S120197122...
https://www.oatext.com/zinc-may-have-a-potential-role-in-tas...
If you are not a mental coward then debate me on the logic and the studies that back this up. The vaccines help, just as much as the flu vaccine does, and even vaccinated people (flu and covid) die from the virus.
Vaccines are great but you need to take some responsibility for yourself.
More studies on Soluble ACE2 and COVID that are constantly ignored:
A novel soluble ACE2 protein protects from lethal SARS-CoV-2 infection https://pesquisa.bvsalud.org/global-literature-on-novel-coro...
Bioengineered angiotensin-converting-enzyme-2: a potential therapeutic option against SARS-CoV-2 infection https://www.nature.com/articles/s41371-021-00636-y
Tumor Necrosis Factor-α Convertase (ADAM17) Mediates Regulated Ectodomain Shedding of the Severe-acute Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus (SARS-CoV) Receptor, Angiotensin-converting Enzyme-2 (ACE2) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002192582...
AKI in a mouse model of COVID-19: Therapeutic potential of a novel soluble ACE2 variant https://pesquisa.bvsalud.org/global-literature-on-novel-coro...
Killing Two Birds with One Stone by Administration of Soluble ACE2: A Promising Strategy to Treat Both Cardiovascular Diseases and SARS-CoV-2 Infection https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/13/11/2243
Potent prophylactic and therapeutic efficacy of recombinant human ACE2-Fc against SARS-CoV-2 infection in vivo https://www.nature.com/articles/s41421-021-00302-0
Soluble ACE2 in SARS-CoV-2 infection https://www.nature.com/articles/s41581-021-00422-6
Zinc supplementation bolsters repurposed antivirals against SARS-CoV-2 https://www.news-medical.net/news/20210202/Zinc-supplementat...
COVID-19: Poor outcomes in patients with zinc deficiency https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S120197122...
Most vaccines based on an inactivated virus throughout history have stimulated such a response.
By contrast, the mRNA vaccines induce a far more limited range of responses — only to a specific protein. So the surface area for the virus needs to mutate escape the immune response is far smaller than from natural immunity or “inactivated virus” vaccines such as the ones which eradicated Smallpox, or Salk’s Polivo vaccine.
Why doesn’t this article or many others delve into a distinction between natural immunity / inactivated virus (J&J) immunity and mRNA vaccine induced immunity? It seems like all the reporting is rigged, with almost everyone including scientific journals like Nature seemingly staying away from criticizingmRNA vaccines, and ready to carry water for them even in the absence of evidence in their favor.
With the LARGEST studies out of Israel and UK showing thatnatural immunity is far more robust while vaccine immunity wanes and is more limited against mutations, most articles IGNORE this in their reporting and often even claim the opposite — that you should get vaccined even if you have been immune for a year.
Homeless people and those constantly exposed to low levels of viruses have more robust immune systems than those who were isolated from everything.
Spike was chosen because it is crucial to the entry of the virus to the cell, and so should be relatively well conserved. Certainly seems to be the case with Delta - but apparently not this new variant.
My understanding is that disease induced immunity can be a bit patchy - if your body develops antibodies to a conserved region, or a wide range, then fine. If to a region that is presented only on the particular virus that infected you, then you may still be vulnerable to further infections.
It has been found that vaccination after infection gives perhaps the best immunity - as if the vaccine focuses the previously too broad immune response somehow.
Antigen binding?
Your statement on future infections by a distinct antigen than you were immunized for is objectively true. A vaccine is not a panacea for all viruses.
If I prepare my home for a flood then I shouldn't expect an earthquake to be stopped.
If we are making the case that a surface protein is too targetted then I would point towards the seasonality of the flu.
The largest studies have shown the opposite — natural immunity is far more robust and long-lasting (but perhaps more variable in the population — which is why they want everyone to be vaccinated, even if they just recovered from a severe case of the virus last week - it’s ridiculous).
and some sources would be nice for your claim.
The J&J vaccine wasn't an inactivated Covid virus. Instead it used an adenovirus vector in combination with the Covid spike protein.
Yes you should get vaccinated even if you tested positive because false positive tests can occur.
There is no verifiable record of anyone having been sick with covid in the same way that there is for vaccination.
"Immune system robustness" is not something quantifiable or comparable in human populations to my knowledge. We can identify immune system weaknesses or compromise but I do not know of a metric to rank individuals relative to each other.
e.g. seen on the "Dashboard" on rki.de, chart "COVID-19 cases by age group and sex".
Stats indicate old people die. Duh. A tragedy in each case, but that's what will happen eventually, right?
And a mutated virus mostly is more contagious but less fatal, isn't it? A virus optimises for spreading, not killing it's taxi. Was like that with delta.
Not necessarily. In fact the better the virus gets at infecting our cells and evading immunity, the more likely it is to also spread to dangerous / lethal levels before our immune systems are able to stop it.
> Was like that with delta
No it wasn't.
Can I ask for some related literature on this topic? This contradicts my understanding.
than what? If age < 60, e.g. car accidents are orders of magnitude more deadly in my county here. There are just no (= 0) fatalities < 40 years here. So even swallowing hammers is equally or more deadly in that group.
Than preceding variants. You're shifting the goalposts by comparing to other causes of death in young people now.
.4% lethal compared to .3% lethal when I last checked.
So thats one goalpost. Another litmus test is that if delta was more lethal it would have been a very popular media talking point. Fear is unfortunately a successful motivator for clicks.