🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃
we're going to be dealing with this for the rest of our lives. climate change isn't going to get to kill capitalism because covid beat it to the punch.
Well, you know what they say, third time is the charm!
-7DeadlyFetishes
There are countless COVID strains as they are constantly mutating from host to host. What matters is whether the mutations:
- Are more infectious (Britain)
- Are more deadly
- Change the spike protein such that current immunity and vaccines stop working
for now there is not need to panic/be doomer:
do not have evidence to indicate that the P681H variant is contributing to increased transmission of the virus in Nigeria. However, the relative difference in scale of genomic surveillance in Nigeria vs the UK may imply a reduced power to detect such changes
but there is no way to predict the likelihood of a more potent mutation will appear in the future
the South African strain seems to be the most alarming strain for sure. it appears to check all three boxes (we don't know yet if it evades the vaccine but the mutation is in the spike protein)
The UK strain is actually the real fucker, because 50% more deadly is still only a ~1.5% death rate, but 70% more infectious means the 1% death is now hitting tens of millions of more people.
Not to mention the much larger number of people who will survive it but then have lifelong health problems.
the south african strain appears to be highly transmissible (similarly to the UK strain) and more lethal and has a mutation in the spike protein, potentially impacting the vaccine.
Would this affect only the mRNA vaccines? That is, would china's whole inactivated virus vaccine likely still be effective?
Well, yes, I guess i meant - does the whole virus vaccine depend entirely on the spike protein ? Does the mRNA vaccine?
Edit: here's a good paper https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2798-3
Overall, it states that coronavac likely has widespread effect against a number of proteins, while the mRNA vaccines seem to be specifically targeting the spike protein (either all of it or just part of the protein)
Additionally, it lists "adverse events" caused by the vaccines in trials and the mRNA vaccines seem to elicit headaches and fever in 50% or higher of all people who got the vaccine at higher doses (in the range of what is in the actual vaccine), while coronavac reported no adverse events from the full, inactivated virus vaccine they have.
the mRNA vaccines only produce the spike protein so yes, they're dependent on it. I don't know enough about coronavac to say.
Most probably not, as the vaccine "trains" your body to recognise the spike protein. If that doesn't significantly change, the body should still be able to combat it.
(however I'm not an expert, but this is what I've heard from other more knowledgeable people)
While they’re all awful, the third one I think is the most concerning since we’re seeing the light at the end of the tunnel otherwise with vaccine. I have heard that the spread claims for the UK variant are hypotheses that haven’t really been properly tested (how can you?) and that the spread can be explained by poor pandemic responses as well.
That there are so many strains being identified now makes me think there is a real possibility of vaccine escape occurring, particular as these pressures become more common- i.e. in immunized populations.
Viruses like this mutate at a rate of about one base pair per day (if I'm not mistaken).
With all the people out there like "whew 2020 what a crazy year huh glad it's finally over", it would be kinda 'funny' to get on with some new strain that the vaccine doesn't work on like 2 days into the new year....
It's almost like when you let a virus propagate unmitigated, it mutates regionally. This is great, can't wait for Covid 2021 - US Edition.
this was quietly reported a week ago and there's been virtually no news of it. it was detected in samples collected in as early as August so it's definitely been spreading for some time.
well, covid is most certainly going to become a yearly thing. the yearly flu strains we get these days all stem from the 1920 spanish flu. most likely covid will gradually become less lethal though
Check this out:
https://thebulletin.org/2014/03/threatened-pandemics-and-laboratory-escapes-self-fulfilling-prophecies/
Human H1N1 influenza virus appeared with the 1918 global pandemic, and persisted, slowly accumulating small genetic changes, until 1957, when it appeared to go extinct after the H2N2 pandemic virus appeared. In 1976, H1N1 swine influenza virus struck Fort Dix, causing 13 hospitalizations and one death. The specter of a reprise of the deadly 1918 pandemic triggered an unprecedented effort to immunize all Americans. No swine H1N1 pandemic materialized, however, and complications of immunization truncated the program after 48 million immunizations, which eventually caused 25 deaths.
Human H1N1 virus reappeared in 1977, in the Soviet Union and China. Virologists, using serologic and early genetic tests soon began to suggest the cause of the reappearance was a laboratory escape of a 1949-1950 virus, and as genomic techniques advanced, it became clear that this was true. By 2010, researchers published it as fact: “The most famous case of a released laboratory strain is the re-emergent H1N1 influenza-A virus which was first observed in China in May of 1977 and in Russia shortly thereafter.” The virus may have escaped from a lab attempting to prepare an attenuated H1N1 vaccine in response to the US swine flu pandemic alert.
The 1977 pandemic spread rapidly worldwide but was limited to those under 20 years of age: Older persons were immune from exposures before 1957. Its attack rate was high (20 to 70 percent) in schools and military camps, but mercifully it caused mild disease, and fatalities were few. It continued to circulate until 2009, when the pH1N1 virus replaced it. There has been virtually no public awareness of the 1977 H1N1 pandemic and its laboratory origins, despite the clear analogy to current concern about a potential H5N1 or H7N9 avian influenza pandemic and “gain of function” experiments. The consequences of escape of a highly lethal avian virus with enhanced transmissibility would almost certainly be much graver than the 1977 escape of a “seasonal,” possibly attenuated strain to a population with substantial existing immunity.
The fact that the "accidental" laboratory release of H1N1 appeared in the Soviet Union and China (America's greatest enemies) makes my Epstein brain suspicious of a CIA black op. 🤨🤔
yeah, covid isn't going away any time soon, if ever.
:covid-cool:
This is our monkey paw huh, China is successful but because the rest of the world got ratfucked to death by our own incompetence.
this was always how it was gonna be though. eventually the places invested in by the economic core get stronger and replace it. and then nothing changes.
we need a covid joker emoji. we should also probably make a covid-please emoji since it's more likely to kill us all than nukes.
Let’s gooooo baby. Y’all wanted to be doomers before, what about when doom stares back?
For real. A hard one month, no leaving your house, lockdown would have been infinity less painful and infinity more effective. Oh but it would make the stock market number go down so no way we could do that
It's also just not possible anymore.
Not after they have fucked up this much.
COVID is gonna destroy America.
I'm pretty sure this is the moment historians will cite as when china officially surpassed the US.
Without a doubt. The US would be in better condition if instead of Covid, a meteorite simply demolished New York City.
What's great is that China's economy is booming compared to everyone else's. They'd just have to take a hit for a couple months and then take in the profits after...they can't even do that because they're fucking baby brained idiots.
As it should be, heavily controlled capitalist production during the transition from feudalism to socialism.
I'm going to eat that line if it's mentioned to me one more time.
COVID will not be the future. It will be the next zoonotic plague caused by economic conditions having disastrous effects for everyone’s health. SARS, swine flu, bird flue, even AIDS to an extent, were all signs of things to come.
It was only a matter of time before one of these really went hot and caused a pandemic. It’s only a matter of time before another one does.
