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The mutation that helps Delta spread

nature.com

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Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#321

Post by code_duck »

johnchristopher wrote: post #252
code_duck wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

True. A longer asymptomatic incubation period is also an evolutionary advantage.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#322

Post by vkou »

walterbell wrote: post #273
vkou wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because mass vaccination combined with a vaccine that does not necessarily prevent infection and transmission creates selective pressure that is likely to further enhance the fitness of the virus and will lead to variants that escape the immune response in both vaccinated and naturally infected individuals. And yet, the Delta variant evolved in an 100% unvaccinated population - and is quite happily punching through…

Why should already-immune, recovered people be vaccinated?

Because you don't become immune after surviving COVID, many people have caught it multiple times, now.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#323

Post by undersuit »

walterbell wrote: post #270
eecc wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only 66% of Israelis are fully vaccinated: there's a good 3 million hard-core religious orthodox who won't let science interfere with their deity's will. 3 million of blissfully and deliberately ignorant individuals who won't adapt their social behavior to avoid viral spread is more than enough to overrun any health system.

How many of those were infected and recovered in the last 18 months?

How many were infected multiple times in the last 18 months?

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#324

Post by belter »

fitzroy wrote: post #301
belter wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm curious to know how much the reaction to the second or subsequent jabs correlates to antibody/immunity level. I had no reaction to the first jab and a 12-hour flu-like reaction to the second jab the next day (both Moderna). NOT having a similar reaction to a third booster would be concerning, but I wonder how much the reaction actually correlates with protection for shots beyond the first.

Good question. I think the consensus is that the two things are not related. That is the reason I argued for vaccination and testing for immunity as a single combined action for each individual.

"No, vaccine side effects don’t tell you how well your immune system will protect you from COVID-19"

https://theconversation.com/no-vaccine-side-effects-dont-tel...

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#325

Post by walterbell »

vkou wrote: post #322
walterbell wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should already-immune, recovered people be vaccinated?

Because you don't become immune after surviving COVID, many people have caught it multiple times, now.

The most recent UK data shows 137 confirmed cases of reinfection out of 5.2 million first-positive PCR tests, which works out to 0.003%, see the chart on page 18, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#326

Post by walterbell »

undersuit wrote: post #323
walterbell wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many of those were infected and recovered in the last 18 months?

How many were infected multiple times in the last 18 months?

I don't have the Israel numbers, but UK data shows 137 confirmed cases of reinfection out of 5.2 million first-positive PCR tests, which works out to 0.003%, see charge on page 18, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#327

Post by civilized »

criticaltinker wrote: post #305
civilized wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Compulsory mass vaccination using the current vaccines poses a serious public health risk [1][2][3] None of your references say this or anything remotely implying this. Backing up a provocative claim with a snowblind of irrelevant references is a shameful misinformation tactic and you should stop doing it immediately. Doing it in a public health context is particularly dangerous and frankly disgusting.

My emphasis is on compulsory , but perhaps I should've been more clear. Obviously I've triggered some people here. Vaccines are powerful tools that help save lives and we should use them. But if they are used indiscriminately they can actually further endanger public health. You might be familiar with antibiotic resistance - vaccines are subject to the same potential for unexpected consequences. All of the sources I…

I stand by my post. None of this says anything remotely implying what you claimed, that the mass vaccination programs pose a serious public health risk. That is purely your speculation, vaguely inspired by the content of the papers.

Your contention that it matters whether the campaign is compulsory or not only takes you further from your supposed evidence base. It's not even in the same universe as what the papers are talking about, and is purely your own invention.

I understand that you're worried about vaccine escape, but to go from that to "compulsory mass vaccination is a serious public health risk" is a completely unwarranted leap. Your authors advocate for diversifying our defenses, not eliminating the only one we currently have.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#328

Post by foldr »

singingfish wrote: post #311
undersuit wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The spike proteins allow Covid to enter your cell where its actual RNA coopts the cellular machinery of the cell to reproduce. After enough copies of the virus are assembled the RNA coopted cell is made to kill itself by self-lysis releasing the new viruses. The spike protein itself is not dangerous.

I think it kind of is because it's got a similar binding affinity to heparin. Heparin is a first responder chemical in the immune system. Coopting a low level part of the immune system like that is rather more dangerous than if it were getting entry via some other mechanism. On the other hand I could be wrong about this.

Hundreds of millions of people have received vaccines that (either directly or indirectly) expose them to the spike protein in question, so clearly it can’t be dangerous.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#329

Post by munk-a »

goodluckchuck wrote: post #115
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 ape…

It's absolutely horrific to bring up Native American populations considering the estimates on population loss range from 25% to 90% with most folks erring toward the 90% end of the range. As terrible as COVID has been we're no where near the level where - as a middle aged person with kids and parents[1] - it's expected that you'll be the only one to survive out of your extended family.

Estimates about the fatality of COVID put it way below the small pox epidemic in North America but that's an absolutely terrible example to draw on.

1. Assume your parents had two children - you both married and had two kids - that's ten people so choose one to survive (obviously epidemics don't actually work this way, but I've found it's the clearest way to demonstrate proportional mortality rates.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#330

Post by theonething »

munk-a wrote: post #315
schmichael wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think we are about to face... I feel like this is what most experts were saying from near the beginning: this is not a few months problem. This is an ongoing problem that will require us to adapt just as it adapts. I remember many articles in 2020 projecting what the virus might look like 5 or 8 years out. Lockdowns and other extreme measures were about flattening infection curves to keep from overwhelming health…

> this is not a few months problem I agree that it was never a few months problem - but I think we had a window to stamp it out and low vaccination production and adoption rates have killed that window dead. I don't believe it's impossible that we beat this - but I would not be surprised if mutation rates simply outrun vaccination adaptation.

> I think we had a window to stamp it out

What do you base that on? That seems highly unlikely to me. Even as the virus tapers down in one country, it or a variant surges back in five others and then it spreads to others. I haven't seen any chance of stamping that out.

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