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Spread of Delta variant driven by both immune escape and increased infectivity

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Re: Spread of Delta variant driven by both immune escape and increased infectivity

#71

Post by spuz »

echelon wrote: post #31
spuz wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's really interesting, thanks.

The problem is that the immune system is an incredibly complex and dynamical system that almost nobody with only a general biology understanding is equipped to understand. It's even worse if you have no familiarity with biology. Your general bio classes in college gloss over immunology to a point that it's practically a misshapen lie. (Not unlike undergraduate general chemistry.) You have to read and study a lot more…

In this case, I don't think it's necessary to go into too much detail about how the immune system works. The issue is that if you are going to _some_ level of detail, then you need to include all the relevant context. In this case, the number of antibodies that the immune system can produce goes along way to explain the points made in the rest of the article.

PS I am aware how damn complex the immune system is and how complicated it can be to explain to people at the right level of detail. I once attempted to watch a lecture on how the spike protein and antibodies work which went into detail on all the chemical reactions that occur at each step and it is just insane how much complexity there is to it. And that was presumably a simplification of what actually happens.

Re: Spread of Delta variant driven by both immune escape and increased infectivity

#72

Post by nanis »

alex_c wrote: post #61
TheBlight wrote: post #2

I was told this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated.

OK, I'll bite. Ontario had 554 new reported cases of COVID yesterday. Of these cases: - 319 were not vaccinated (213 of these were 12+ and therefore eligible to be vaccinated) - 56 were partially vaccinated - 136 were fully vaccinated - 44 unknown In other words, roughly 16% of the population (eligible but not vaccinated) is driving close to 40% of reported cases. OK, but reported cases are blah blah, who cares, righ…

> Ontario had 554 new reported cases of COVID yesterday.

> - 319 were not vaccinated (213 of these were 12+ and therefore eligible to be vaccinated)

> 16% of the population (eligible but not vaccinated) is driving close to 50% of reported cases.

Your overall point would remain valid even without exaggerating by 28%.

Re: Spread of Delta variant driven by both immune escape and increased infectivity

#73

Post by Lammy »

achenatx wrote: post #56
Lammy wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Dumb people How did we get to the point where we have to act like other humans are mentally inferior/incapable just for experiencing reality in their own unique way if it differs from our own? e: me irl https://i.imgur.com/is5pp8k.gif

in the olden days dumb people just died and didnt reproduce. We have overcome a lot of natural selection so there are likely many more dumb people than in the past. We all share the same reality that you have a .5% chance of dying from covid. If you choose not to take lifesaving vaccinations then you are dumb, especially if you are in a high risk category where the risk of death is 1-5% Im not at all in favor of mand…

Why do we have to be so mean about it though? All the ableist language we throw around really saddens me https://campbellmgold.co.uk/archive_esoteric/morons_imbecile...

Re: Spread of Delta variant driven by both immune escape and increased infectivity

#74

Post by achenatx »

nostromo wrote: post #36
listless wrote: post #17

> “The team found that the Delta variant virus was 5.7-fold less sensitive to the sera from previously-infected individuals, and as much as eight-fold less sensitive to vaccine sera” I read this as “natural immunity is better”. Unless I’m reading that wrong, why don’t we hear more about this? I’m vaccinated AND got a breakthrough infection and I’m worried that my immunity is weaker than that of my wife who was unvacc…

Natural immunity is 13 times stronger than what we get from the vaccines, according to data from Israel. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v... We probably didn’t even need to waste vaccines on people who had already recovered.

I agree with your last statement, but that is 20/20 hindsight.

The media played up reinfections tremendously last year and even though there was no data, I think it impacted politicians/public health policy makers to err on the side of caution.

The interesting thing is the vaccine was never tested in previously infected individuals and that could have been a contraindication for vaccination.

Re: Spread of Delta variant driven by both immune escape and increased infectivity

#75

Post by cartoonworld »

achenatx wrote: post #29
cartoonworld wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, every time Sars-CoV-2 spreads and increases its infection tally, mutation can occur which has a chance to beneficially influence selection in the next infection cycle. Unlike how bacterial infections could gain or incrementally increase some of its antibiotic immunity or other attributes thanks to the conditions in a single host, for example incomplete or unnecessary antibiotic regimens, viral infectio…

this isnt the case. The virus spreads within your body and the mutations will spread within the body as well. A virus can mutate and improve within the host. What doesnt necessarily get selected for within the host is improved survival rates outside the body, ability to penetrate the body in the first place, etc. But bacteria are under the same evolutionary pressures.

>The virus spreads within your body and the mutations will spread within the body as well. A virus can mutate and improve within the host.

Agreed.

There is a bucket of vulnerable ACE-2 receptors in everybody. Once a viral infection occurs in a single person, it undergoes an infection curve within the host bucket, analogous to the infection curve of the general population. The non-linear host cell infection curve can be greatly influenced by early intervention (immunity). It can be expected that some people have a big curve that results in a more complete viral infection than in others, but the number is limited until it can move to a new person, and run a new infection curve. So the mutation can occur in that once person, but it has to replicate in a new host to see the new infection curve of the viral prototype. If one never transmits the prototype, it is moot.

Bacterial resistances like MRSA are most likely when an infection that is able to survive treatment is able to re-establish. With most susceptible bacterial cells having now been eliminated in this case, the new infection is more formidable. There are of course other mutation vectors.

Re: Spread of Delta variant driven by both immune escape and increased infectivity

#76

Post by TheBlight »

alex_c wrote: post #61
TheBlight wrote: post #2

I was told this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated.

OK, I'll bite. Ontario had 554 new reported cases of COVID yesterday. Of these cases: - 319 were not vaccinated (213 of these were 12+ and therefore eligible to be vaccinated) - 56 were partially vaccinated - 136 were fully vaccinated - 44 unknown In other words, roughly 16% of the population (eligible but not vaccinated) is driving close to 40% of reported cases. OK, but reported cases are blah blah, who cares, righ…

Where I live teachers/in-classroom workers who are unvaccinated are tested 4x per month and vaccinated are tested 1x. You can draw your own conclusions.

Re: Spread of Delta variant driven by both immune escape and increased infectivity

#77

Post by sjg007 »

glugc wrote: post #37
clipradiowallet wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Dumb people are going to want to go to covid parties When I was a child, parents would inform other parents when a child had chickenpox; so they could have a sleepover. That was normal practice in the portion of the USA I grew up in. As a result, nearly everyone my age has natural immunity to chickenpox. I share that anecdote to point out that the idea of an "infection party" is a really old idea that was practiced…

Now in 2021 we are going to force kids to interact with their peers with a facemask on to make sure they never get to build a competent immune system.

There's still kids eating and playing in the dirt and there's still outside of school interactions going on. Plenty of kids not washing hands.

Wearing masks in school reduces the severity of an outbreak so that hospitals do not get overwhelmed. After all kids can get vaccinated that will help reduce hospitalizations too.

Re: Spread of Delta variant driven by both immune escape and increased infectivity

#78

Post by achenatx »

nanis wrote: post #67
achenatx wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

chickenpox has a death rate of .001% Covid has a death rate of .5% (higher for older people, lower for younger) flu has a death rate of .1% and you dont see people having flu parties..

> Covid has a death rate of .5% (higher for older people, lower for younger) That is a very bold statement, given that mild cases are less likely to be recorded in official data sets, affecting the denominator much more for younger people than older people. What we do know is that a total of 412 people between the ages 0-17 are known to have died from Covid19 in the U.S. since January 1, 2020. Total deaths from all c…

I agree the death rate for children under 12 is probably very low. It could be as low as .01%.

I specifically wrote the rate is lower for younger people.

We will get a better idea of the death rate in children under 12 this year. As far as I know it is still holding very low.

Re: Spread of Delta variant driven by both immune escape and increased infectivity

#79

Post by [deleted] »

achenatx wrote: post #21
listless wrote: post #17

> “The team found that the Delta variant virus was 5.7-fold less sensitive to the sera from previously-infected individuals, and as much as eight-fold less sensitive to vaccine sera” I read this as “natural immunity is better”. Unless I’m reading that wrong, why don’t we hear more about this? I’m vaccinated AND got a breakthrough infection and I’m worried that my immunity is weaker than that of my wife who was unvacc…

Dumb people are going to want to go to covid parties to get infected naturally because it is better immunity.. Public health messages need to be kept simple. Natural immunity should be better because you are exposed to all the same proteins in the vaccine plus more and also possibly for a longer period of time and at a higher quantity. Now that you had delta, you should be immune to delta and partially immune to what…

[deleted]

Re: Spread of Delta variant driven by both immune escape and increased infectivity

#80

Post by alex_c »

nanis wrote: post #72
alex_c wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, I'll bite. Ontario had 554 new reported cases of COVID yesterday. Of these cases: - 319 were not vaccinated (213 of these were 12+ and therefore eligible to be vaccinated) - 56 were partially vaccinated - 136 were fully vaccinated - 44 unknown In other words, roughly 16% of the population (eligible but not vaccinated) is driving close to 40% of reported cases. OK, but reported cases are blah blah, who cares, righ…

> Ontario had 554 new reported cases of COVID yesterday. > - 319 were not vaccinated (213 of these were 12+ and therefore eligible to be vaccinated) > 16% of the population (eligible but not vaccinated) is driving close to 50% of reported cases. Your overall point would remain valid even without exaggerating by 28%.

You mean the 50%? You're right, my math was lazy. Edited to 40%.
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