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Classification of Omicron (B.1.1.529): SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern

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Re: Classification of Omicron (B.1.1.529): SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern

#101

Post by jacquesm »

ouid wrote: post #96

That's a lot more mutations than we would expect to see from a naturally emerging strain, yeah?

No.

10,000,000 times 50,000,000,000 (rough stab at # of virions per infection, range 1 to 100 B), is

500,000,000,000,000,000 opportunities for mutations so far.

You can take it to the bank that the number of mutations is far, far higher than the number that makes it to the press because the strains that end up dominating have already undergone a lot of competitive pressure by the time we notice them, so there will be a lot more strains that we will simply never know about.

Fun fact: the total mass of all virions produced by infected hosts to date is likely less than 10 kg.

Re: Classification of Omicron (B.1.1.529): SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern

#102

Post by tjr225 »

Daishiman wrote: post #89
lettergram wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Influenza didn't kill 5+ million people in two years.

Uhhhh it killed somewhere around 17-50 million people. I guess you’re technically correct lmao.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu

Re: Classification of Omicron (B.1.1.529): SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern

#103

Post by chiefalchemist »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #92
crate_barre wrote: post #90

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…

Well, isn't the common cold the result of an endless stream of "curveballs" and thus why there's no prevention for it? That is, the virus that causes the common cold is actually numerous variants (not the exact same version of the virus).

Re: Classification of Omicron (B.1.1.529): SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern

#104

Post by tastroder »

op00to wrote: post #88
sp332 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This does have quite a few mutations, including several that are pretty rare. https://github.com/cov-lineages/pango-designation/issues/343

Are people getting sicker with it?

We don't know yet, the number of cases this variant has been confirmed in is far too low at this point. You'll likely get a better idea of what that mix of mutations means in terms of clinical aspects and transmissions in a few weeks, most of the current takes are educated guesses based on what this variant has in common with the previous ones.

Re: Classification of Omicron (B.1.1.529): SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern

#105

Post by bedhead »

isodev wrote: post #73
acqbu wrote: post #62

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"?

Can you point to a single policy that has demonstrated (in an intellectually honest way) ANY efficacy in slowing covid? One??

Vax passports, cloth masks, N95 masks, face shields, closing schools, cohorts, WFH, clean/dirty pen jars (my fave), plexiglass, 6 feet, travel bans...

The grim reality is that there hasn't been a single policy that's been shown to have made any difference at all. NONE. There's literally nothing to do other than stay home if sick and get vaxxed if you want, the rest is all theater and much of it has horrible tradeoffs.

Re: Classification of Omicron (B.1.1.529): SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern

#106

Post by foyoyi2613 »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #92
crate_barre wrote: post #90

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…

It has a much shorter lifespan thus in one human lifecycle it has a much more time to evolve. Humans (or other higher animals) are not powerless. They have sex. The random recombination of genes when reproducing can create an environment hostile to parasites/viruses in its offspring. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen_hypothesis for details.

Re: Classification of Omicron (B.1.1.529): SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern

#107

Post by acqbu »

hh3k0 wrote: post #83
acqbu wrote: post #62

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.

Compassionate people should have a problem with being enslaved, mentally and physically, by a disease that, according to your stats has killed 0.06% of the world population - albeit, it's debatable how many people died as a direct result of it.

Re: Classification of Omicron (B.1.1.529): SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern

#108

Post by sdfdf4434r34r »

Daishiman wrote: post #89
lettergram wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Influenza didn't kill 5+ million people in two years.

You're off by a factor of 10, it killed 50 million in 1918-1920, 1-4 million in 1957-1958, 1-4 million again in 1968-1969, 700k in 1977, 100-200k in 2009.

Re: Classification of Omicron (B.1.1.529): SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern

#109

Post by chiefalchemist »

jacquesm wrote: post #100
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Given a population of almost 8 billion and a six months head start you are now looking at a reservoir of many millions of people infected at any given time. Each of these will provide 1 to 100 billion new virions, and each of those is an opportunity for the virus to undergo a mutation, which RNA viruses are particularly receptive to because they lack the same level of error correction that DNA based viruses enjoy. Ed…

With that said, then a one sise fits all vacinne is highly unlikely, correct? That there will be variants and mutations that will out pace (so to speak) the protection a given jab is engineered to offer?

Long to short, if death prevention is the objective then we need to shift to finding solution that are less specific but still effective. For example, anti virals.

Re: Classification of Omicron (B.1.1.529): SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern

#110

Post by malepoon »

sour-taste wrote: post #98
malepoon wrote: post #93

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.

What an atrocious ad filled useless site. Original thread here: https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/146422268073182004...

Thanks. At some point Twitter itself didn't let you read threads without logging in, but it looks like they changed that...
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