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Interesting choice to pick "Omicron" instead of "Nu," which news outlets had been expecting them to use. Perhaps this allows them to avoid having to use "Xi" as the name of a Covid variant, which would have been...inconvenient for the WHO.
Have you heard about the nu variant? No, what’s it called? The nu variant Yeah, does it have a name? It’s nu Yeah I know it’s new but what do they call it? What does who call it? That’s what I’m asking you! What does WHO call it?
Here's the link on CoVariants (aka 21K): https://covariants.org/variants/21K Gives a better breakdown of what we're actually talking about.
Also known as B.1.1.529 Variant21K appears to have arisen in November 2021, possibly in South Africa. Early sequences are predominantly from South Africa, though also detected in Botswana and Hong Kong. 21K is primarily of concern due to the large number of mutations it has in the Spike gene. Many of these variants are in the receptor binding domain and N-terminal domain, and thus may play key roles in ACE2 binding a…
I find it incredibly fascinating how fast this virus can mutate in order to throw curveballs around our natural and engineered defenses and become more efficient at killing us.
How is this even possible in such a short amount of time? I thought evolution takes tens of thousands of years. It's not like viruses have giant brains with massive IQs to come up with all this so fast.
Would be cool if someone could ELI5.
A lot of speculation still, but it's not all bad so far.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Strikes me as unnecessarily early to make such a claim.
Testing of vaccines against this new variant is already starting.[1] First results in 2 weeks. Pfizer says that if they have to generate a new vaccine for this variant, it will take about 100 days.[2] That's the great thing about this mRNA vaccine technology - given the gene sequence of a virus, a vaccine can be designed. The original Moderna vaccine was designed in two days. [1] https://www.newsweek.com/omicron-vari…
Will people ever get over sensationalism and learn to live with it? It will continue to mutate and spread for years to come. Putting life on pause should've never been an option because of the toxic precedent it created.
Imagine there was a fire near where you live, constantly spreading and endangering lives in your community. Would you say people can just "learn to live it"?
Will people ever get over sensationalism and learn to live with it? It will continue to mutate and spread for years to come. Putting life on pause should've never been an option because of the toxic precedent it created.
> Will people ever get over sensationalism and learn to live it? You see, that's the crux of the matter: Not everyone can live with it. Literally. So far, it killed more than 5 million people globally. There is also the issue with possibly lasting brain damage (even occuring in cases that weren't severe enough for hospitalization) and life-wrecking long covid. Compassionate people have a problem ignoring all that.
Twitter thread from a vaccine developer: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1464222680731820043.html A lot of speculation still, but it's not all bad so far.
https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/146422268073182004...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Imagine there was a fire near where you live, constantly spreading and endangering lives in your community. Would you say people can just "learn to live it"?
You mean like we learned to live with the far more deadly (at least initially) influenza? As your body increasingly comes in contact with it you’ll build a solid immunity. Similar to the other mRNA viruses such as RSV (dangerous to babies, but almost no one else).
The cost was millions of lives, because it was the only option- there were no vaccines or antivirals. But we have both of those now. The steady-state for COVID-19 will hopefully look something like seasonal flu, but it will take time.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also known as B.1.1.529 Variant21K appears to have arisen in November 2021, possibly in South Africa. Early sequences are predominantly from South Africa, though also detected in Botswana and Hong Kong. 21K is primarily of concern due to the large number of mutations it has in the Spike gene. Many of these variants are in the receptor binding domain and N-terminal domain, and thus may play key roles in ACE2 binding a…
>This literally reads like post apocalyptic fan fiction. I find it incredibly fascinating how fast this virus can mutate in order to throw curveballs around our natural and engineered defenses and become more efficient at killing us. How is this even possible in such a short amount of time? I thought evolution takes tens of thousands of years. It's not like viruses have giant brains with massive IQs to come up with a…
Edit: fixed bit about error correction, thanks somewhereoutth!