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

The mutation that helps Delta spread

nature.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 641 posts

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#111

Post by chefkoch »

polynomial wrote: post #72
chefkoch wrote: post #45

Can someone eli5 why some variants are substrains like Delta AY3 and what or how much has to change to have it declared as a new strain?

This is a really great question. Technically speaking, any single mutation defines a new strain. But that's not how we tend to talk about it either to the general public or amongst clinicians. Rather we use a more informal notion of a significant functional change. We do this because there is, somewhat surprisingly, no real term that reflects the category of "new strain with significant or interesting functional effe…

Thank you for the explanation.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#112

Post by raphlinus »

sfink wrote: post #101
tomrod wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It comes from the same family as SARS and MERS. Worst case, IMHO, would be that level of mortality combined with its current R0 of 6 to 9.

Do absolute R0 numbers have meaning without a specified environment? As in, shouldn't there be various values for R0 within a fully vaccinated community, R0 within an age group, R0 relative to the prevalence of active infection in a community, etc.? I'm just wondering what complexity is concealed within an R0 figure. After all, if every infected person really infected 6 other people every 2 weeks or so, it would infe…

It's best to think of R0 as a summary.

For a detailed discussion, see TWiV [792] with epidemiologist Jeff Shaman. First link in this show notes is "A guide to R"[2].

[792]: https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-792/

[2]: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02009-w

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#113

Post by tunesmith »

sreque wrote: post #99
hutzlibu wrote: post #61

I see the sentiment here expressed, that Covid is far from over. To be honest, I stopped following news since being fully vaccinated some time ago, so I am kind of ignorant here. Is the main problem, the unvaccinated, or that the Delta (and co.) variants are still, too dangerous for vaccinated people? Or is it the fear, that they will get more dangerous?

The main problem is that the U.S. federal government in particular has been pretending for a while that we can get to zero COVID, then blaming the unvaccinated when it doesn't happen. First, they said we need 50% vaccination to achieve, herd immunity. Then 60%. Then 70%. Then 80%. When things don't work out, they vilify and blame the unvaccinated. In reality, unvaccinated with natural immunity are likely more protect…

That first paragraph really isn't fair because R0 has changed. So of course scientific opinion has changed. That's not same thing as pretending and then vilifying.

Your second paragraph is eliding a lousy "therefore" - obviously, the cost of shooting for natural immunity versus vaccination is that you have to experience the actual disease and all its risks. Survivorship bias.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#114

Post by tomrod »

sfink wrote: post #101
tomrod wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It comes from the same family as SARS and MERS. Worst case, IMHO, would be that level of mortality combined with its current R0 of 6 to 9.

Do absolute R0 numbers have meaning without a specified environment? As in, shouldn't there be various values for R0 within a fully vaccinated community, R0 within an age group, R0 relative to the prevalence of active infection in a community, etc.? I'm just wondering what complexity is concealed within an R0 figure. After all, if every infected person really infected 6 other people every 2 weeks or so, it would infe…

Consider R0 a rough estimate of how many people each cade infects. It's an imperfect instrument but helps communicate the idea clearly that answers "how infectious is this virus?"

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#115

Post by goodluckchuck »

hncurious wrote: post #70

Covid is going to be endemic like the flu and cold. It's not going to be eradicated, unfortunately, and I don't think we've come to terms with this yet. Now what's our plan exactly? Get vaccinated every 6 - 12 months indefinitely and always wear masks? What's our goal and what's our new normal?

Everything I've heard about how viruses evolve says that they get milder within the host population. The host's resistance keeps increasing as the virus mutates and the population is exposed to the new mutations, and over time this allows the virus to diverge from other populations... where the virus isn't spreading.

E.g. diseases can evolve in Europe then spread to Native American populations. Evolve in bats, or apes, then spread to humans.

Now that this virus has shown that humanity has become one population... and it will spread everywhere if we let it... we should let it.

If we do strict testing, vaccination, etc. and prevent international travel, and otherwise fiercely prevent the virus from spreading across populations, then we'll have just created a situation where the virus could mutate to become harmful.

As long as we do nothing we're safe.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#116

Post by quarterdime »

walterbell wrote: post #13

Since the deadliest virus mutations kill their hosts, weaker virus mutations can spread (without killing their hosts) more quickly. US deaths peaked in January 2021, before Delta became prevalent in the US, before substantial vaccination, https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/#graph-... US daily vaccines peaked in April 2021, https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/us-daily-covid-vaccine-do... India (origin…

"Since the deadliest virus mutations kill their hosts, weaker virus mutations can spread (without killing their hosts) more quickly."

The problem with the SARS-COV2 virus is that infected individuals are infected before they're symptomatic, let alone dead. Thus there is no evolutionary pressure that would make this virus less lethal, as is the case for viruses that kill their hosts early in the course of infection.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#117

Post by johnbaker92 »

tcbawo wrote: post #102
johnbaker92 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's sad that this comment (and probably mine) downvoted despite being a reasonable long-term response to this virus. Instead of mandating this vaccine worldwide, why don't we focus on collectively building a better / stronger health that would prevent the large majority of severe cases?

I haven't seen an evidence that supplements would prevent the majority of severe cases, or the neurological damage done (in even mild cases). Is this something backed up by data?

Health goes beyond taking nutrients (although they might help). Here we're talking about exercise, nutrition, mental health etc:

- None of those were advocated by governments during this pandemic.

- Some measures (lockdowns, etc.) were detrimental to individual health and (imo) contributed to complications we've been seeing.

This is generally backed up by common sense (which - just like the flu - has mysteriously disappeared in the past 2 years)

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#118

Post by tunesmith »

hutzlibu wrote: post #61

I see the sentiment here expressed, that Covid is far from over. To be honest, I stopped following news since being fully vaccinated some time ago, so I am kind of ignorant here. Is the main problem, the unvaccinated, or that the Delta (and co.) variants are still, too dangerous for vaccinated people? Or is it the fear, that they will get more dangerous?

This is the best article I've recently read that describes what is currently going on: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/08/delta-has...

(Pulitzer Prize winner for science communication)

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#119

Post by Trasmatta »

baxtr wrote: post #93
hncurious wrote: post #70

Covid is going to be endemic like the flu and cold. It's not going to be eradicated, unfortunately, and I don't think we've come to terms with this yet. Now what's our plan exactly? Get vaccinated every 6 - 12 months indefinitely and always wear masks? What's our goal and what's our new normal?

Why indefinitely? If that was the case we would need shots for the other cold viruses as well, which we don't. As you say, Sars-2 will turn into an endemic virus and thus we will get used to it over time, death rates will drop and it will turn into a cold. There is absolutely no historic precedent to think it will turn out differently.

We get shots for the flu every year (or at least we should). That's the historical precedent.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#120

Post by pragmaticalien8 »

hncurious wrote: post #70

Covid is going to be endemic like the flu and cold. It's not going to be eradicated, unfortunately, and I don't think we've come to terms with this yet. Now what's our plan exactly? Get vaccinated every 6 - 12 months indefinitely and always wear masks? What's our goal and what's our new normal?

Just like any vaccine, I suppose better generation of vaccine will emerge. https://athometest.com/blog/a-next-generation-sars-cov-2-vac...
Post reply on HN