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The mutation that helps Delta spread

nature.com

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Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#561

Post by [deleted] »

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #162
johnbaker92 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have we perhaps forgotten about Sweden which: - Did not force lockdown / masks onto anybody - Has one of the least vaccinated population in Europe (around 40% afaik) - Has had 0 covid deaths in the last couple weeks. - Has not had it worse than countries with stricter mandates. Are we also forgetting about Iceland / Israel which are among the most vaccinated countries in the world (on top of having stringent mandates…

> so called experts do not seem to have all the answers You are drinking misinformation from the firehose. That quote is a clear symptom of it.

[deleted]

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#562

Post by SergeAx »

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 was infected 3 times in last 9 months, according to my IgG level. First time I was one day away of hospitalization, 20% lungs damaged. Second time it was 37.1C temperature for 3 days (for those from imperial system, norm in 36.9) and no other symptoms. Third time I didn't notice at all.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#563

Post by sleavey »

Aeolun wrote: post #554
zpeti wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sceptical. This study measures aerosols going into a funnel centimeters away. It is also done with 10 people. This is a highly artificial situation. They even admit that they didn’t measure aerosol escapes at the top and side of masks. What happens when you spend 15 minutes in a small room with a COVID infected person with a mask? When all side escaped aerosols spread in the room? Or in a shopping center with 10…

I agree with you, and think it’s kind of obvious, which is why nobody is testing for that I think. If you spend long enough in a small room, even with someone wearing a mask the mask is not going to do much to prevent transmission. I think that’s why the first rule of COVID is to not stay together in small rooms. The important part is if you’ll be instantly infected by someone talking with you over the counter for a…

> The only way would be to wear N95+ masks yourself.

And properly. Almost no one wears one properly, because it requires training, correct sizing and e.g. to be shaved. Mandating that everyone wears masks without training people is lunacy. When they inevitably don't work people lose faith is science because they were told there was scientific evidence that they will help, when in fact scientific studies were made only in specific, limited conditions.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#564

Post by michaelmrose »

phkahler wrote: post #220
loosescrews wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that it appears that it is still unknown how likely breakthrough infections are to result in long Covid. The very limited data that does exist indicates that the likelyhood is rather high (~20%). https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/16/well/live/vaccine-long-co...

Isn't long Covid caused by damage from the spike proteins? In that case, repeatedly giving people the vaccine might do damage as well since it gets you to produce those spike proteins right?

To be clear mRNA vaccination introduces a small finite amount of mRNA that the body turns into spike proteins whereas infection with covid results in the body being used as a factory to manufacture virus which manufacturers more virus and so on.

This source suggests that a single person may be at peak infection host to between 1 billion to 100 billion virions.This is peak load at one time not an account of the total virions produces over course of infection.

Vaccination involves a vastly smaller number of proteins that are not damaging in the same fashion.

https://www.factcheck.org/2021/07/scicheck-covid-19-vaccine-...

> That’s because the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein is a shape-shifter. To fuse its viral membrane with the host cell membrane it substantially changes its shape from an unstable pre-fusion state to a stable post-fusion state. While previously working on a vaccine for MERS, a disease caused by another coronavirus, McLellan and others discovered that by adding two proline molecules to the spike protein, they could lock it into its pre-fusion state, triggering a more effective immune response and preventing cell entry. The same harmless mutation, called 2P, as in two proline molecules, is used in the SARS-CoV-2 vaccines.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#565

Post by MaxBarraclough »

dehrmann wrote: post #442
MaxBarraclough wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slightly off-topic: shouldn't the 'new normal' be to wear N95/N99 masks? We know they're far more effective, and there's been plenty of time to ramp up production. I don't see why the 'normal' option is to wear a non-medical mask. It's also surprising that societies are entirely incapable of doing a hard lockdown for 3 weeks with mandatory testing at the end. I imagine that would be enough to reduce the case count to…

It's just hygiene theater to make people feel better. 95% of time when I see masks in a situation that isn't particularly risky (outdoors), it's not an N95. People do it because it makes them feel safer and to virtue signal. What's bizarre is that it's rare for public health officials to care, either. It makes me think they're actually very effective (which I doubt with delta), they want to people to feel safe to kee…

> It's just hygiene theater to make people feel better.

With the disclaimer that I'm not an expert: this is wrong. Cloth masks are moderately effective in preventing the wearer from infecting others. N95/N99 masks do this job much better, as well as significantly protecting the wearer, unlike cloth masks. We've known this for some time.

As far as I know there's no reason to believe the new variants have changed things, other than making it even more beneficial to switch to N95/N99.

A slight aside: apparently Austria now requires use of FFP2 masks (roughly equivalent to the N95 classification): https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n432

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#566

Post by bertil »

criticaltinker wrote: post #227
jdavis703 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, as long as COVID-19 fills up hospitals we should do this. Not having hospitals seriously compromises quality of life. I had untreated kidney stones for about a week at the peak of the pandemic. When I was in the middle of an attack I could not work, the pain was too severe. I was missing several hours of work everyday just dealing with pain. I finally got to the emergency room which did basic imaging and gave m…

First off, I'm sorry you had to suffer like that - and I don't want anyone to be denied healthcare. > I’d rather vaccinate and mask up then be denied healthcare You've presented a false dichotomy here - mass vaccination and masking will not necessarily prevent overwhelmed hospitals. Israel is a prime example - with one of the highest vaccination rates in the world - their hospitals are being overwhelmed right now due…

> You've presented a false dichotomy here - mass vaccination and masking will not necessarily prevent overwhelmed hospitals.

That’s a very disingenuous way of presenting things: we can’t extinguish the house fire so we might as well leave the kids upstairs. It’s used far too much by people keen to profit from a cultural war that has nothing to do with health policies. It’s a sad news that a simple solution isn’t enough, but in no way it should called “a counter-point”. It’s not. “Vaccines alone are not enough” isn’t a counter point to saying that they are a necessary aspect of getting the pandemic to acceptable levels. It’s just saying they are insufficient.

Vaccines are incredibly effective; if hospitals are overwhelmed there would be far more deaths without the vaccines and you cannot in good conscience argue against widespread vaccination by claiming they are not enough on their own. There are many more things that can be done, and put all together last year, they have helped delay infection, spread the wave of hospitalisation to manageable levels. If we need more efforts now, let’s not throw the most effective tool we have because it’s not a cure-all.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#567

Post by detaro »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #565
dehrmann wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just hygiene theater to make people feel better. 95% of time when I see masks in a situation that isn't particularly risky (outdoors), it's not an N95. People do it because it makes them feel safer and to virtue signal. What's bizarre is that it's rare for public health officials to care, either. It makes me think they're actually very effective (which I doubt with delta), they want to people to feel safe to kee…

> It's just hygiene theater to make people feel better. With the disclaimer that I'm not an expert: this is wrong. Cloth masks are moderately effective in preventing the wearer from infecting others. N95/N99 masks do this job much better, as well as significantly protecting the wearer, unlike cloth masks. We've known this for some time. As far as I know there's no reason to believe the new variants have changed thing…

Germany too: FFP2 or surgical masks, with the majority of people using FFP2, at least around here.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#568

Post by bertil »

walterbell wrote: post #191
jdavis703 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, as long as COVID-19 fills up hospitals we should do this. Not having hospitals seriously compromises quality of life. I had untreated kidney stones for about a week at the peak of the pandemic. When I was in the middle of an attack I could not work, the pain was too severe. I was missing several hours of work everyday just dealing with pain. I finally got to the emergency room which did basic imaging and gave m…

> Not having hospitals seriously compromises quality of life. A non-trivial percentage of healthcare workers were infected in 2020 and recovered with natural immunity to Covid. Some of those feel strongly enough about vaccine mandates that they are prepared to move jurisdictions or retire, which would exacerbate existing staffing shortages in some hospitals. If we don't want more hospital shortages, we should reconsi…

> Some of those feel strongly enough about vaccine mandates

Is it more or less than scientists arguing against man-made climate change?

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#569

Post by bertil »

criticaltinker wrote: post #188
nawitus wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why use vaccines in a highly targeted way instead of giving it to everyone?

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. Excerpts from [1]: - "The spike protein receptor-binding domain (RBD) of SARS-CoV-2 is the molecular target for…

That’s an argument for alternative measures than vaccines (isolation, disinfection) but not against population-wide vaccination. If you can’t identify all cases, you want as many people as possible vaccinated to limit the overall spread.

Re: The mutation that helps Delta spread

#570

Post by avnigo »

jmfldn wrote: post #151

Purely anecdotal but I'm double vaccinated (Astra Zeneca) and I caught Covid recently. It was probably Delta as 99% of cases in UK are. I know of quite a few vaccinated friends who've caught it recently too. Mainly AZ I think but one was Pfizer (single jabbed). Anyway, none of us had severe illness although I felt pretty rough for a few days like I had a really bad cold and smell went for a week completely. I was bas…

From the CDC [0] referring to this preprint [1]:

> Fully vaccinated people with Delta variant breakthrough infections can spread the virus to others. However, vaccinated people appear to be infectious for a shorter period.

It appears that vaccinated people have the same viral load to spread when they're initially infected, but it is significantly diminished shortly thereafter.

[0]: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/variants/delta-var...

[1]: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.28.21261295v...

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