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SARS-CoV-2 spike D614G variant confers enhanced replication and transmissibility

biorxiv.org

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Re: SARS-CoV-2 spike D614G variant confers enhanced replication and transmissibility

#41

Post by rimliu »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #20
cephaslr wrote: post #8

Something I have been wondering about, wouldn't a virus naturally evolve to be less deadly and more contagious over time? I.e. virus's tend to achieve a steady state like the cold and flu in the long run. If you are too deadly it hinders spread so I would expect Covid to get less deadly and more contagious over time, which kind of fits the data?

Look for counter examples. Have we seen this in HIV? Smallpox? It's a plausibility. It's far from a guarantee. And the opposite, /could/ happen, too. The virus could mutate to have a longer incubation period, or be more deadly, or both.

I have seen a statemen somewhere tha for viruses it goes "transimissability, mortality, stealthiness: pick two". Not sure how true it is, but looks plausible.

Re: SARS-CoV-2 spike D614G variant confers enhanced replication and transmissibility

#42

Post by rimliu »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #39
2f3f23f32 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The COVID-19 mortality rates are dropping all the time and are at 0.2% now (barely higher than normal flu). I see no reason to prevent the virus from spreading now because it is not dangerous anymore.

What about the crippled survivors?

What about them? Any sources on how many are crippled for life? When we are not even a year into this? There are some articles poping there and there about some lingering health issues after covid. Not much talk about how they compare to lingering health issues after flu or other viral infections. And not high quality either (self-reported, etc.)

Re: SARS-CoV-2 spike D614G variant confers enhanced replication and transmissibility

#43

Post by m101010 »

herodotus wrote: post #36
major505 wrote: post #29

Is a shit thing when a virus got a firmware update in 2020, but not my android phone.

Thanks for the laugh. So needed for this crappy year of hell.

for me it helps to know that this pandemic (including all the lockdowns) would be way worse without all of the digital innovations from the last 10-20 years.

Re: SARS-CoV-2 spike D614G variant confers enhanced replication and transmissibility

#44

Post by libertine »

baxtr wrote: post #34

AFAIK this is the variant that formed in northern Italy back in February and is since ruling the world

That's why it's not good to have a new virus going around in among us. That's why the whole response should have been - isolate and eliminate the virus.

Not, "hey, lets live with this guy until we can make a vaccine that works"...

Re: SARS-CoV-2 spike D614G variant confers enhanced replication and transmissibility

#45

Post by neuronic »

backtoyoujim wrote: post #30
cephaslr wrote: post #8

Something I have been wondering about, wouldn't a virus naturally evolve to be less deadly and more contagious over time? I.e. virus's tend to achieve a steady state like the cold and flu in the long run. If you are too deadly it hinders spread so I would expect Covid to get less deadly and more contagious over time, which kind of fits the data?

I can imagine that a single nucleotide polymorphism doesn't care about what seems natural.

No, but its effect on the virus population kind of does.

Re: SARS-CoV-2 spike D614G variant confers enhanced replication and transmissibility

#46

Post by JamesBarney »

jfoster wrote: post #33
feanaro wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Reproducing more efficiently is a win for natural selection and will normally result in a dominant strain: whether that strain is more deadly or not is going to be random. The conventional wisdom is such because a virus that is swiftly fatal and/or has more dramatic health consequences would have less chance to propagate to other hosts. For instance, because the original host will be unable to move or will look thr…

Taken to extremes, it's easy to see how a virus that is 50% fatal within 24 hours will not last long itself. Is there really very much selection pressure between 1% and 2% fatality rates over 4 week timespans, though? Especially if immunity is conveyed by infection, I don't see any reason why a virus like that would evolve to be less fatal within the timescales that humans care about.

Generally if it's twice as fatal it'll probably makes people twice as sick so they're more likely to go out less, stay home more, and less likely to infect other people.

However if it did damage in a way that doesn't manifest for a long time this wouldn't necessarily be the case. But that would be the exception more than the rule.

Re: SARS-CoV-2 spike D614G variant confers enhanced replication and transmissibility

#47

Post by ismail »

remote_phone wrote: post #24
omginternets wrote: post #3

One thing isn't clear to me, for lack of background knowledge: have there been several strains since the beginning of the pandemic, or is this study based on evidence of mutation in the wild? It sounds like the former, but since it wasn't explicitly addressed in the abstract, I thought I'd ask.

There have been variants but none so dissimilar that they are considered a new strain. The terminology is very precise here but the media have been mixing it up, causing confusion. https://medium.com/swlh/variants-lineages-and-strains-of-cor...

Thanks for this link. From the article she states:

“Mutations that alter any of the following can lead to a new strain:

pathogenicity virulence immunogenicity.”

And

“ Another way that the term strain is used is when a particular variant of the virus (the virus with a specific set of mutations) ”

This sounds like the mutation referenced in the paper could be considered a “new strain” given the above?

“ Until there is clear evidence supporting functional or immunogenic differences among the variants, it is appropriate to consider all of these lineages of the same virus.”

Re: SARS-CoV-2 spike D614G variant confers enhanced replication and transmissibility

#48

Post by jaypeg25 »

hamaluik wrote: post #11
cephaslr wrote: post #8

Something I have been wondering about, wouldn't a virus naturally evolve to be less deadly and more contagious over time? I.e. virus's tend to achieve a steady state like the cold and flu in the long run. If you are too deadly it hinders spread so I would expect Covid to get less deadly and more contagious over time, which kind of fits the data?

Generally, yes. But also we’re a bit unlucky that it isn’t very deadly: SARS was way deadlier To start with but as a result spread several orders of magnitude less (both naturally and because humans had a stronger reaction to “shut it down at all costs“). The H1N1 virus from the 1918 pandemic grew less deadly over time, and essentially evolved into a seasonal flu that is still affecting people around the world today.…

It's already clear that the vaccine, when it gets released, won't be a one time thing and we'll need more in the future to counter the mutations. Unfortunately, just in anecdotally talking to friends about it, it doesn't seem that this is widely known. It will be interesting to see how things play out as more people start to realize this. I suspect a lot of anti-vaxxers will be even more emboldened by it.

Re: SARS-CoV-2 spike D614G variant confers enhanced replication and transmissibility

#50

Post by peter422 »

jaypeg25 wrote: post #48
hamaluik wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally, yes. But also we’re a bit unlucky that it isn’t very deadly: SARS was way deadlier To start with but as a result spread several orders of magnitude less (both naturally and because humans had a stronger reaction to “shut it down at all costs“). The H1N1 virus from the 1918 pandemic grew less deadly over time, and essentially evolved into a seasonal flu that is still affecting people around the world today.…

It's already clear that the vaccine, when it gets released, won't be a one time thing and we'll need more in the future to counter the mutations. Unfortunately, just in anecdotally talking to friends about it, it doesn't seem that this is widely known. It will be interesting to see how things play out as more people start to realize this. I suspect a lot of anti-vaxxers will be even more emboldened by it.

I do not think mutations are the main problem, just the fading of immune system memory.

But it does seem very likely the vaccine will not be a one time shot and you’re good forever.

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