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The mutation that helps Delta spread

nature.com

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Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#251

Post by jmfldn »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #212
mynameishere wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a bit more A bit more until the virus decides to go away? Or a bit more until they invent a non-leaky vaccine? Or a bit more like when the cows come home? Because that's what you are talking about. A bit more forever.

A bit more until, by combination of the virus mutating to less dangerous forms and everyone's immune system being primed against it, it settles somewhere between common cold and the flu.

Yes someone thing like this. Exactly where we draw the line now is the hard question. I don't think we're massively off the mark but I feel we could be proceeding a bit more slowly is all. I'm not advocating the reverse gear or massively changing course. We're not quite out of the woods is the point.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#252

Post by johnchristopher »

code_duck wrote: post #203
jmfldn wrote: post #151

Purely anecdotal but I'm double vaccinated (Astra Zeneca) and I caught Covid recently. It was probably Delta as 99% of cases in UK are. I know of quite a few vaccinated friends who've caught it recently too. Mainly AZ I think but one was Pfizer (single jabbed). Anyway, none of us had severe illness although I felt pretty rough for a few days like I had a really bad cold and smell went for a week completely. I was bas…

> it does seem like this virus is bucking the trend and not necessarily becoming less potent despite increased tranmissability in some variants I would think causing more severe symptoms is a disadvantage for a Covid strain in terms of selection, because people affected by such an illness are more likely to go into quarantine or a hospital, reducing transmission.

From what I understand: Not if symptoms appear many days after the infection. Covid easily transmits when it's still in the upper parts of the body. Once it gets into the chest/pulmonary system and you start manifesting symptoms and it start inflicting long lasting damages it has already contaminated others. What happens then and after that doesn't apply pressure to the virus to be less virulent or lethal.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#253

Post by criticaltinker »

belter wrote: post #224
jmfldn wrote: post #151

Purely anecdotal but I'm double vaccinated (Astra Zeneca) and I caught Covid recently. It was probably Delta as 99% of cases in UK are. I know of quite a few vaccinated friends who've caught it recently too. Mainly AZ I think but one was Pfizer (single jabbed). Anyway, none of us had severe illness although I felt pretty rough for a few days like I had a really bad cold and smell went for a week completely. I was bas…

Thanks for sharing your experience. >"... Of course the thing to emphasise is that, whilst it might break through, the vaccine still stops serious illness to a high degree...." Important to note, vaccines do not protect you, its the immune response they trigger and the level of antibodies that will protect you. What really should be happening should be a mass vaccination program and a mass antibodies level testing pr…

> What really should be happening should be a mass vaccination program

Compulsory mass vaccination using the current vaccines poses a serious public health risk [1][2][3]. See my other comments here for more explanation and citations. For these reasons, vaccination strategies should be highly targeted towards vulnerable populations, and should be heavily supplemented by additional therapeutic modalities.

> and a mass antibodies level testing program at the same time

Antibody levels are used as proxy for protection [4], but higher levels of antibodies do not necessarily always translate to higher levels of protection. In fact, individuals with undetectable levels of antibodies can still have robust and durable immunity [5][6][7]. There is plenty of literature on antibody levels reducing with time [8][9], but again, antibody levels are only one aspect of a complex immune response.

[1] Risk of rapid evolutionary escape from biomedical interventions targeting SARS-CoV-2 spike protein https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33909660/

[2] Can we predict the limits of SARS-CoV-2 variants and their phenotypic consequences? https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/long-term-evoluti...

[3] Why does drug resistance readily evolve but vaccine resistance does not? https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspb.2016...

[4] SARS-CoV-2 antibody-positivity protects against reinfection for at least seven months with 95% efficacy https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33937733/

[5] SARS-CoV-2 infection induces long-lived bone marrow plasma cells in humans https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03647-4.pdf

[6] Longitudinal analysis shows durable and broad immune memory after SARS-CoV-2 infection with persisting antibody responses and memory B and T cells https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-medicine/fulltext/S2666-37...

[7] Rapid induction of antigen-specific CD4+ T cells is associated with coordinated humoral and cellular immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination https://www.cell.com/immunity/fulltext/S1074-7613(21)00308-3

[8] Antibody Responses 8 Months after Asymptomatic or Mild SARS-CoV-2 Infection https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7920668/

[9] Naturally enhanced neutralizing breadth against SARS-CoV-2 one year after infection https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03696-9

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#254

Post by BugsJustFindMe »

MatteoFrigo wrote: post #213
pacerwpg wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you been actually following how things have gone? Sweden has 1708% more deaths to covid vs Norway, but only 84% higher population. That doesn't sound that great to me.

This comparison between two datapoints is not too useful. The graphs at https://euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/ provide a more nuanced picture, with the caveat that those are graphs of excess mortality and not necessarily covid-specific.

Useful or not, I think it's more representative within that region than you let on and matches basically the activity causing this moment in the timeline from your link: https://imgur.com/a/G3D7AZ2

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#255

Post by chefkoch »

criticaltinker wrote: post #227
jdavis703 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, as long as COVID-19 fills up hospitals we should do this. Not having hospitals seriously compromises quality of life. I had untreated kidney stones for about a week at the peak of the pandemic. When I was in the middle of an attack I could not work, the pain was too severe. I was missing several hours of work everyday just dealing with pain. I finally got to the emergency room which did basic imaging and gave m…

First off, I'm sorry you had to suffer like that - and I don't want anyone to be denied healthcare. > I’d rather vaccinate and mask up then be denied healthcare You've presented a false dichotomy here - mass vaccination and masking will not necessarily prevent overwhelmed hospitals. Israel is a prime example - with one of the highest vaccination rates in the world - their hospitals are being overwhelmed right now due…

> Israel is a prime example - with the highest vaccination rate in the world

Israel has 60% of the population fully vacced, compared to iceland with 71%

>Israel's ICUs overflow as unvaccinated patients fall severely ill

https://www.ynetnews.com/health_science/article/sj1lzflgk

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#256

Post by tux1968 »

volfied wrote: post #146
johnbaker92 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to "science": - Lockdowns should have stopped covid. - Masks should have stopped covid. - Vaccines should have stopped covid. - "Health" passports and those ridiculous mandates should have stopped covid. The fact is, we're two years down the road and we're still talking about this virus - so "true" science (that advocated by governments / media I imagine?) is obviously not working. Time to take a step back…

You're acting in bad faith and you know it. You can't just say "lockdowns/masks/vaccines should have stopped covid, but they didn't", when you know that a lot of people out there refused to mask up, refused to quarantine and refused to get the vaccine. People with your thinking are the reason we're still in this pandemic.

Edit: removed because it wasn't a germane comment.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#257

Post by johnchristopher »

tasogare wrote: post #246
jmfldn wrote: post #151

Purely anecdotal but I'm double vaccinated (Astra Zeneca) and I caught Covid recently. It was probably Delta as 99% of cases in UK are. I know of quite a few vaccinated friends who've caught it recently too. Mainly AZ I think but one was Pfizer (single jabbed). Anyway, none of us had severe illness although I felt pretty rough for a few days like I had a really bad cold and smell went for a week completely. I was bas…

> The point is that it does seem like this Delta variant breaks through regularly and it does seem (again, purely anecdotal) like it's v infectious. Of course the thing to emphasise is that, whilst it might break through, the vaccine still stops serious illness to a high degree. If numbers from IHU Méditerranée are to be believed, the Indian variant is about 6 times less dangerous than the English one. Way more infec…

> IHU Méditerranée

I'd wait a bit for someone else to provide a second opinion considering Raoult track records regarding covid.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#258

Post by CheezeIt »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #212
mynameishere wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a bit more A bit more until the virus decides to go away? Or a bit more until they invent a non-leaky vaccine? Or a bit more like when the cows come home? Because that's what you are talking about. A bit more forever.

A bit more until, by combination of the virus mutating to less dangerous forms and everyone's immune system being primed against it, it settles somewhere between common cold and the flu.

It’s already well outside the top causes of death among the vaccinated.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#259

Post by laurent92 »

zzt123 wrote: post #218
jmfldn wrote: post #151

Purely anecdotal but I'm double vaccinated (Astra Zeneca) and I caught Covid recently. It was probably Delta as 99% of cases in UK are. I know of quite a few vaccinated friends who've caught it recently too. Mainly AZ I think but one was Pfizer (single jabbed). Anyway, none of us had severe illness although I felt pretty rough for a few days like I had a really bad cold and smell went for a week completely. I was bas…

Same. My breakthrough infection lasted over a week. Nothing serious, but definitely very infectious, so I self quarantined. I’ve had minimal social contact and just about avoided COVID the original, so it was surprising how quickly I caught Delta after it became dominant.

Since more people are vaccinated, they don’t always know that they carry. It adds a lot to the contagiousness. They may also be less careful, due to the insurance paradox (insured people have more accidents).

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#260

Post by [deleted] »

walterbell wrote: post #241
schmichael wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I already get vaccinated every 12 months for the flu, so that seems like a fine plan to me.

We have many years of data on flu vaccine safety. Should the flu vaccine be combined with newer vaccines which have numerically less safety data?

[deleted]
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