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The mutation that helps Delta spread

nature.com

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Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#131
post #76

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?

Take Vitamin D/C/Zinc/Niacin and build up natural immunity?

There's a social-acceptability phenomenon where people say one thing (e.g. in surveys) and do another (e.g. what they buy).

Relatively early in 2020, some grocery and pharmacy shelves were completely emptied of Vit C/D/Zinc/Quercetin. When they were restocked, they would sell out again, even with per-customer quotas. This took place even with a complete news blackout on early treatments. As with HCQ/Ivermectin, we have decades of data showing very low risk of adverse effects from these early treatments. So the worst case is that people waste money on placebos. But there are studies showing that early treatment helps some (not all) patients to recover more quickly.

Just as we don't know why some people are injured by vaccines, we don't know why some people are not helped by early intervention with supplements. More studies are need for both, including funding for autopsies of those who die and retroactive genomic sequencing of virus/vaccine/supplement samples collected from the most severely affected cases.

India (origin of Delta) provides comparative data because some areas have rejected Ivermectin while other areas have embraced it. This is a ZH (sorry) article, but it uses data from Johns Hopkins, https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/indias-ivermectin-blackou...

> This data shows how Ivermectin knocked their COVID-19 cases and deaths - which we know were Delta Variant - down to almost zero within weeks. A population comparable to the US went from about 35,000 cases and 350 deaths per day to nearly ZERO within weeks of adding Ivermectin to their protocol.

> Let us look at the August 5 numbers from Uttar Pradesh with 2/3 of our population. Uttar Pradesh, using Ivermectin, had a total of 26 new cases and exactly THREE deaths. The US without Ivermectin has precisely 4889 times as many daily cases and 191 times as many deaths as Uttar Pradesh with Ivermectin.

At present, there are billions of dollars of economic incentives for suppression of early treatment, because vaccines are still under EUA that could be questioned by the availability of therapeutics with decades of safety data. If the FDA fully approves one or more vaccines in September 2021, perhaps there will be more economic incentives to perform research and studies of therapeutics.

Merck (original holder of the Ivermectin patent) is developing a new patented therapeutic for early treatment of Covid. Time will tell whether this is a genuinely new treatment or an "evergreen" variant of Ivermectin to obtain patent revenue. Either way, it would mean that at least one Big Pharma company has an economic incentive to promote early therapeutics for Covid, which could provide some balance to the currently polarized treatment landscape.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#132
post #108
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Please share some scientific citations showing natural immunity gives better protection than vaccines. This runs counter to what I'm hearing from my virologist sources.

There is no scientific consensus that naturally acquired immunity gives better protection than vaccines.

Two facts that are trending toward consensus in the scientific literature:

A) Naturally infected individuals who recover will acquire robust and durable immunity [1][2]

B) Natural infection induces an immune response that is mostly similar but slightly different than the immune response induced by vaccination. The primary differences can be summarized as: naturally infected individuals have nucleocapsid protein antibodies whereas vaccinated individuals do not, and vaccinated individuals have an immune response highly targeted toward the spike protein RBD. [3][4][5]

In summary many people hypothesize that natural infection is better because it induces a broader and more balance antibody response, but the literature has not established consensus that this is necessarily "better" in terms of health outcomes for individuals.

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

[2] 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...

[3] 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

[4] Distinct SARS-CoV-2 Antibody Responses Elicited by Natural Infection and mRNA Vaccination https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.15.440089v4

[5] Antibodies elicited by mRNA-1273 vaccination bind more broadly to the receptor binding domain than do those from SARS-CoV-2 infection https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34103407/

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#133

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?

It is downvoted because it's pseudo-science.

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 and think for ourselves perhaps?

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it to the price level (e.g. under $1K) where an individual patient could pay a lab to sequence their own virus sample? How about the cost of sequencing one drop of the vaccine vial they received, as a quality control sample of the distribution supply chain?

> Is it to the price level (e.g. under $1K) where an individual patient could pay a lab to sequence their own virus sample? Sure. It'll run under $50 in bulk. Less, but not that much less, if you're only interested in sequencing the spike. > How about the cost of sequencing one drop of the vaccine vial they received, as a quality control sample of the distribution supply chain? This isn't a useful quality check. A ne…

Thanks for the pricing.

> This isn't a useful quality check. A negative result implicates your field assay rather than manufacturing.

What if there were multiple samples of the same lot number, collected in different geographical regions at different times?

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#135

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?

So here in Ontario where we're @ about 65% of the population totally vaccinated, today's new cases. Source: https://data.ontario.ca/dataset/covid-19-vaccine-data-in-ont... 10.25/100k among people who are unvaccinated. 6.5/100k among people who are partially vaccinated. 1.0/100k among people who are fully vaccinated. For hospitalization: 2.04/100k for unvaccinated, 1.11/100k for partially, 0.21/100k for vaccinated. Fo…

[deleted]

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#136
post #99

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…

Personally I think the real problem with COVID is that it is a disease which kills many people and harms many more, not that some people supposedly vilify unvaccinated people.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#137

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?

Due to COVID not mutating as quickly, I think the end game is everyone getting immune, through a combination of repeated vaccinations and infections.

What evidence do we have that covid "doesn't mutate as quickly"?

There have been at least 3 distinct variants, separate from the original strain, since the virus was detected in late 2019 / early 2020.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some confounding factors to that though, I think? Infectivity post mortem (as seen with plague) and time lag between infectivity and symptoms appearing allowing for longer periods of asymptomatic transmission. Both variables that mean the spread of a mutation and it's lethality need not be linked.

Mass distribution of non-sterilizing vaccines which reduce symptoms (via blood/serum antibodies) but don't prevent infection and transmission (lack of nasal/mucous antibodies) can increase spread of variants that would otherwise cause symptoms and self-isolation of the infected person.

This is not a credible concern.

Vaccination reduces the infection rate. Among vaccinated individuals who suffer breakthrough infection the time at peak viral load is significantly reduced.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#139
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If this is so clear, then my current question is how long would that take?

I would say 3-5 years without vaccines. See for example the 1889 pandemic [1], which might have also been induced by a coronavirus. It's hard to say with a vaccine since there is no real precedent. If I had to guess I'd say 1-3 years?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1889–1890_pandemic

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#140

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?

Due to COVID not mutating as quickly, I think the end game is everyone getting immune, through a combination of repeated vaccinations and infections.

immunization doesn't seem to last long enough for this plan, it will just increase the mutation pressure.
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