Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

New coronavirus variant: What do we know?

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 280 posts

Re: New coronavirus variant: What do we know?

#101

Post by numpad0 »

gns24 wrote: post #43

I think most people seem to be underestimating just how bad this is. During the recent 4-week lockdown it was already clear that something odd was going on in Kent; whilst case counts were dropping in the rest of the country, they continued to rise significantly there. Something was clearly different. Now high case counts are spreading from the South East into the rest of the country. We don't know whether we can eve…

I think what most people has is issues with resolving double binds; there’s only one way out and it’s hard lockdown with rationing, which kind of require willful sacrifices, of jobs to say super least.

The general public anywhere isn’t ready for trolley problems even if told to optimize for least body counts. Basically the whole free world is in disbelief of the story that there are people on tracks(except TW/AU/NZ?).

Re: New coronavirus variant: What do we know?

#102

Post by LatteLazy »

detritus wrote: post #100
LatteLazy wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting that no one seems to give a shit about real freedoms like free speech or democracy, detention without trial or access to lawyers. But when you close the pubs (or the artisnal pasta makers), suddenly we're on a dictatorship.

Hence my enclosing Freedoms in single quotes. I tend to communicate quite drily - that's often hard to put across online.

I think you're exactly correct.

It drives me nuts when people talk about freedom, they have no actual idea what freedom is or takes and their actions undermine it. Freedom doesn't mean "I can do whatever I like with no consequences", but that's what people really want.

Freedom is just a better sounding word than selfishness these days :(

Re: New coronavirus variant: What do we know?

#103

Post by lbeltrame »

gns24 wrote: post #43

I think most people seem to be underestimating just how bad this is. During the recent 4-week lockdown it was already clear that something odd was going on in Kent; whilst case counts were dropping in the rest of the country, they continued to rise significantly there. Something was clearly different. Now high case counts are spreading from the South East into the rest of the country. We don't know whether we can eve…

> I think most people seem to be underestimating just how bad this is.

No, there is no reason to panic yet. Concern, perhaps, but not panic.

There are a truckload of confounding factors in the middle, including potential "founder effects" (when a variant becomes dominant because it is the first to take hold, and just outruns the others out of larger starting numbers).

There is not yet solid proof of "70% more transmissible" given that all the data there are is the SAGE meeting minutes. We don't know from where the data came from, and how the estimations were made. There are huge uncertainties.

Until the biological analyses are done, one needs to keep their cool. Sadly, that wasn't what the UK government did.

Re: New coronavirus variant: What do we know?

#104

Post by lbeltrame »

gewa wrote: post #54
sradman wrote: post #45

VUI – 202012/01 on Wikipedia [1]: > The first Variant Under Investigation in December 2020 (VUI – 202012/01), also known as lineage B.1.1.7, is a variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The variant was first detected in the United Kingdom in October 2020 from a sample taken the previous month, and it quickly began to spread by mid-December. It is correlated with a significant increase in the rate of CO…

In this case, the B.1.1.7 variant has shown to be highly abundant in recent COVID-19 cases in the UK. Much higher compared to other mutations which are tracked too. This is pretty clear evidence of an increased infection rate or evolutionary advantage as there has to be some driving force for this process. Take a look at this Report from the COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium. The B.1.1.7 mutations N501Y + Δ69-70 and N5…

That doesn't rule out a combination of slightly increased infectiousness and a founder effect, which is equally possible at this stage.

Re: New coronavirus variant: What do we know?

#105

Post by lbeltrame »

jsnell wrote: post #41
raphaelj wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could it still be that this variant is as infectious as others, but just happens to be the dominant one in the regions where the virus circulates the most, for reasons that have nothing to do with the genetics of the virus? London and the South East are some of the densest populated areas in the UK, and one could expect exponential growth of infections there while other less populated areas could manage to keep their…

Look at the prevalence graph in the article, you can see that the new variant has been gradually taking over the turf from the other ones. This cannot be explained by just the founder effect unlike most other cases, since the prevalence was high to start with. It cannot be explained away by a single super-spreader event, since a single event will just cause a single step-change. This has been a continuous process. It…

Is this also taking out potential confounders out of the equation? I believe the currently available data (as opposed to the SAGE minutes, which has the conclusions) is not sufficient to rule that out.

Re: New coronavirus variant: What do we know?

#106

Post by lbeltrame »

SifJar wrote: post #49
lucideer wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No answers on most of those Qs, but the messaging on (2) "Will the vaccines basically be voided by this?" is that no, vaccines should still be effective. I'm not sure how they can no that without restarting extensive trials, but as a sibling commenter points out, viruses mutate constantly so I guess dealing with variants is pretty common when it comes to vaccination.

My understanding is as long as the variant has the same spike protein, vaccines "should" remain effective. So while trials haven't been done yet to verfiy the vaccines are still effective, I'm assuming the spike protein has been observed to be the same so there's no reason to suggest vaccines wouldn't be effective. EDIT: Actually, sounds like a couple of the mutations are in the spike protein and there is some eviden…

N501Y is properly neutralized by vaccination (there's a paper in Science with these data, but I don't have a link handy right now).

The deletion seems to reduce antibody neutralization, but:

- In the preprint where this was shown, only 4 convalescent sera were tested;

- The same 4 sera had large variation in neutralization activity per se;

- There is no investigation on potential impaired T cell reactivity (cellular immunity): FTR, the "mink mutation", although it exhibited slightly lower antibody neutralization, did not change the reaction of T cells to it.

Re: New coronavirus variant: What do we know?

#107

Post by bealesd »

sgt101 wrote: post #96
simonbarker87 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a decent drop in cases in November from what I can see. You’re right though, the first lock down felt very different. Sadly the rules are laxer than they should be but the government can’t enforce the rules effectively so are putting in enough grey-area that people can sort of decide for themselves. Sadly people are very short term focussed and unable to make the most of the situation and instead complain a…

People are very short term focused on things like; not losing their houses, not losing their businesses, maintaining their families, maintaining their mental health, looking after children. I don't know your situation, but I have lived a very isolated existance for the last 9 months because I am able to. MANY people I know are not in this position.

Couldn't agree more. People who have already isolated in previous lockdowns, and lost income, probably can't afford to play it safe. Expecially if they percieve the risk of Covid to be less than the financial risk of playing it safe.

Re: New coronavirus variant: What do we know?

#108

Post by carlmr »

LatteLazy wrote: post #102
detritus wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hence my enclosing Freedoms in single quotes. I tend to communicate quite drily - that's often hard to put across online.

I think you're exactly correct. It drives me nuts when people talk about freedom, they have no actual idea what freedom is or takes and their actions undermine it. Freedom doesn't mean "I can do whatever I like with no consequences", but that's what people really want. Freedom is just a better sounding word than selfishness these days :(

>Freedom doesn't mean "I can do whatever I like with no consequences"

Depends on your definition of freedom. The issue with this kind of freedom is that your freedom encroaches on other people's freedoms, so most societies agreed that we should have less freedom in favor of fairness.

Exactly where the trade-off is to be made is subjective and cannot be derived from facts alone.

We have a lot of freedoms that encroach on other people's freedoms, it's impossibly to make a clear cut on where fair ends and personal freedom begins.

Allowing people the freedom to sell sugar will inevitably lead to more diabetes and earlier death. It tastes good and it's addictive.

Sugar costs a lot of people some of their freedom to live and move. But if we didn't allow selling sugar we would take away the seller's freedom and the freedom to choose from the consumer.

Re: New coronavirus variant: What do we know?

#109

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

LatteLazy wrote: post #72
lol768 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've posted elsewhere that my cynical view of the UK gov approach is that they are talking tough and doing nothing. So maybe I'm biased? It's felt like this with all of the tiers to be honest. They just don't go far enough and the populace is fed up with taking much heed of the rules too. The November "lockdown" felt very, very different to March when the roads etc were quiet - and it actually felt like people were…

I have to be careful I don't wander into conspiracy theories but... I'm fed up because so many people flout the rules with no consequences. I suspect that the lack of consequences is intentional. If everyone flours the rules, the economic hit will be smaller and Bojo can claim he did something and its not his fault no one listened. The government have created a situation where the only logical action for normal peopl…

> If everyone flours the rules, the economic hit will be smaller

Only assuming that there's no economic hit to a rampant pandemic spreading death, hospitalisation and illness. Which is a barking mad assumption. It never was "illness vs economy" you either have both good, or you have neither good. They can't be separated.

Re: New coronavirus variant: What do we know?

#110

Post by Shorel »

gns24 wrote: post #43

I think most people seem to be underestimating just how bad this is. During the recent 4-week lockdown it was already clear that something odd was going on in Kent; whilst case counts were dropping in the rest of the country, they continued to rise significantly there. Something was clearly different. Now high case counts are spreading from the South East into the rest of the country. We don't know whether we can eve…

>During the last lockdown schools remained open

Honestly, that doesn't sound like a real lockdown at all.

Post reply on HN