SARS-CoV-2 501Y.V2 escapes neutralization by South African COVID-19 donor plasma • Hacker News Board

Re: SARS-CoV-2 501Y.V2 escapes neutralization by South African COVID-19 donor plasma

#91

Post by Loughla » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 7:29 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #67

Loughla wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The local economy is the global economy. Things I make here get shipped there, unless my business is shut down because of local mandates. Then nothing gets shipped over there. I think you're oversimplifying and I can't figure out how to explain myself.

Let’s say you produce wine in France. France has a new variant. We shut France down. You’re French and live there. You’re affected. I’m in Mauritania, I keep on working unaffected by your shutdown. You’re saying it’s preferable to have your economy, my economy and everyone else’s economy because... it’s better for you if we all get shut down?

No, I'm saying a local shut down in the economy may/does have impacts further reaching than the local economy, and that your statement is flawed.

Shutting down local economies is exactly what shuts down global supply chains/economies. It's not like you can carve France out of the global economy and act like they don't exist for three months.

It's not as simple as you're saying, is what my point is.

Re: SARS-CoV-2 501Y.V2 escapes neutralization by South African COVID-19 donor plasma

#92

Post by knowaveragejoe » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 7:33 PM UTC

discardedrefuse wrote: post #83

zibbity-rw wrote: post #3

This is the one headline I’m constantly afraid of reading... do any HN biotech experts have any comments or feedback? Is this a serious cause for concern?

I found this on Wikipedia. "On 7 January 2021 it was reported that Pfizer researchers had found the Pfizer and BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in tests involving 20 blood assays to be capable of affording protection against one of the 501.V2 variant mutations (N501Y, shared with variant B1.1.7). Further investigation was to be undertaken to ascertain the level of protection involved." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/501.V2_v…

The next section in the article is what's important here:

E484K mutation The E484K amino acid change, a receptor-binding-domain (RBD) mutation, was reported to be "associated with escape from neutralising antibodies" which could adversely affect the efficacy of spike protein-dependent COVID vaccines.[50][51] The E484K spike mutation was linked to a case of reinfection with the 501.V2 variant of SARS-CoV-2 in Brazil, believed by researchers to be the first such case of reinfection involving this mutation.[29] The possibility of an alteration in antigenicity was referred to as an "escape mutation" from a monoclonal antibody with the capability of neutralising the spike protein variants of SARS-CoV-2.[52][53]

Re: SARS-CoV-2 501Y.V2 escapes neutralization by South African COVID-19 donor plasma

#93

Post by randcraw » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 7:33 PM UTC

CWuestefeld wrote: post #56

This is how the FDA's refusal to balance up-side risk is going to damage all of us. They're only interested in minimizing the risk from a treatment itself, and pay little to no attention to the risk from not having any treatment. It's been a full year since the first vaccines were formulated, and it took the FDA 11 months to give the OK. That was a large streamlining of their normal processes, but not a meaningful ba…

You seem to be arguing that if FDA had begun widespread inoculation earlier with the current vaccines, variant COVID strains would not have arisen.

But that's wrong on several levels. Even if we had started producing vaccine en-masse in March, it would still take many more months (several years) to inoculate everyone on the planet. These novel strains would still have arisen within that time frame.

We would also have introduced additional problems that undertested therapies often suffer from and that the Chinese vaccine appears to have -- low efficacy. If quickly approved vaccines were no more than 50% efficacious on large fraction of the planet's peoples, herd immunity would take longer to accumulate and novel strains would still emerge.

Of course, toxicity is another likelier outcome from undertesting a new vaccine. Others can assess that risk better than I. In short, when it comes to combating pestilence, there's no free lunch.

Re: SARS-CoV-2 501Y.V2 escapes neutralization by South African COVID-19 donor plasma

#94

Post by mikeymz » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 7:36 PM UTC

binaryblitz wrote: post #48

beamatronic wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you could just wear a mask and social distance and not congregate indoors with random strangers for long periods of time

For your entire life? IDK about you but I'm ok with getting a common cold or the flu once every few years to live a normal life.

Every few years? My experience is more like every 6 weeks in the winter. Even with lock down I have caught the second cold of the season. I am guessing you don't have kids

Re: SARS-CoV-2 501Y.V2 escapes neutralization by South African COVID-19 donor plasma

#95

Post by chemeng » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 7:36 PM UTC

timr wrote: post #90

chemeng wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like this was posted again, so I'll post my response here as well: This is correct, but just want to add that many may interpret this as a positive sign, it is not necessarily. In many cases, binding antibodies increase cell infectivity. Also, there is some research that indicates the presence of non-neutralizing antibodies without the corresponding neutralizing antibodies and humoral response may be a factor i…

Everything you've written is speculation or assertion, whereas the OP's comment is a factual statement about the limitation of the work. They're showing that this mutation escapes a few particular antibodies. That's all. At the very least, the current headline "strongly resistant to past immunity" is editorialized and completely misleading, and should be changed to the title of the paper. > In many cases, binding ant…

Was just hoping to point out for those who aren't as close to this space that the fact that non-neutralizing antibodies can bind is neither a positive nor negative signal.

Also, what I wrote is not speculation:

The potential danger of suboptimal antibody responses in COVID-19 (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41577-020-0321-6) (Overview)

COVID-19-neutralizing antibodies predict disease severity and survival (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009286742...)

Re: SARS-CoV-2 501Y.V2 escapes neutralization by South African COVID-19 donor plasma

#96

Post by robrenaud » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 7:38 PM UTC

xeromal wrote: post #76

pickledish wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, they said "fine with me ", so... no?

The idea of making every one wear a mask as the new social norm is "fine with them".

The great grand parent post said voluntary.

In the new future, I might just start wearing masks on the subway in winter by the default. The cost is very low and the benefit is moderate.

Re: SARS-CoV-2 501Y.V2 escapes neutralization by South African COVID-19 donor plasma

#97

Post by dougmwne » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 7:38 PM UTC

drran wrote: post #86

dougmwne wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are necessarily temporary measures. Life cannot go on forever with these restrictions in place. Either medical science will find a way to limit the danger or people will adapt to their new, more dangerous world. I am not an anti-masker, but asking for permanent social distancing is not realistic.

In Asia, some people are doing this for decades.

Asia has absolutely not been social distancing, avoiding indoor gatherings and universally wearing masks for decades. After SARS, the social acceptability of wearing a mask, especially when sick increased. It was by no means the standard for everyone. I know you said "some people". Some people in the west also have germ pobia.

Re: SARS-CoV-2 501Y.V2 escapes neutralization by South African COVID-19 donor plasma

#98

Post by timr » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 7:39 PM UTC

chemeng wrote: post #95

timr wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything you've written is speculation or assertion, whereas the OP's comment is a factual statement about the limitation of the work. They're showing that this mutation escapes a few particular antibodies. That's all. At the very least, the current headline "strongly resistant to past immunity" is editorialized and completely misleading, and should be changed to the title of the paper. > In many cases, binding ant…

Was just hoping to point out for those who aren't as close to this space that the fact that non-neutralizing antibodies can bind is neither a positive nor negative signal. Also, what I wrote is not speculation: The potential danger of suboptimal antibody responses in COVID-19 ( https://www.nature.com/articles/s41577-020-0321-6 ) (Overview) COVID-19-neutralizing antibodies predict disease severity and survival ( https…

Neither of these papers supports the claim you made. The first one explicitly says that antibody-dependent enhancement has not been observed for this virus:

> There is no evidence that ADE facilitates the spread of SARS-CoV in infected hosts. In fact, infection of macrophages through ADE does not result in productive viral replication and shedding

"suboptimal antibody responses" are indeed...suboptimal...but the paper here is not showing that. As the OP noted, the concerning result is limited to a few examples of monoclonal antibodies. The human immune response is much more complicated.

Re: SARS-CoV-2 501Y.V2 escapes neutralization by South African COVID-19 donor plasma

#99

Post by soperj » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 7:40 PM UTC

x3n0ph3n3 wrote: post #74

dionian wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think voluntary mask wearing becoming a new norm is fine with me

Masks are a major hindrance to communication. 1) People's voices become muffled 2) I can not read their lips 3) Emotional-facial cues are much harder to pick up on. This cannot be a permanent state of affairs.

It can, and already is in much of asia. When ever you're sick, you wear a mask.

Re: SARS-CoV-2 501Y.V2 escapes neutralization by South African COVID-19 donor plasma

#100

Post by LatteLazy » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 7:41 PM UTC

Interesting to see what this will mean for the vaccines currently in use. If they generate the spike protein and the spike protein is significantly altered in the new variant, we in the uk are fucked.