SARS-CoV-2 spike D614G variant confers enhanced replication and transmissibility
1–10 of 103 posts
Re: SARS-CoV-2 spike D614G variant confers enhanced replication and transmissibility
#2Off-topic:
> ... made available under a CC-BY-ND 4.0 International license.
I'm quite pleased to see more and more academic and scientific papers being licensed as such in recent times!
Re: SARS-CoV-2 spike D614G variant confers enhanced replication and transmissibility
#3One thing isn't clear to me, for lack of background knowledge: have there been several strains since the beginning of the pandemic, or is this study based on evidence of mutation in the wild?
It sounds like the former, but since it wasn't explicitly addressed in the abstract, I thought I'd ask.
Re: SARS-CoV-2 spike D614G variant confers enhanced replication and transmissibility
#4Off-topic: > ... made available under a CC-BY-ND 4.0 International license. I'm quite pleased to see more and more academic and scientific papers being licensed as such in recent times!
Why ND and not BY-SA?
Re: SARS-CoV-2 spike D614G variant confers enhanced replication and transmissibility
#5Re: SARS-CoV-2 spike D614G variant confers enhanced replication and transmissibility
#6One thing isn't clear to me, for lack of background knowledge: have there been several strains since the beginning of the pandemic, or is this study based on evidence of mutation in the wild? It sounds like the former, but since it wasn't explicitly addressed in the abstract, I thought I'd ask.
Doesn't the first phrase of the abstract state that the latter is the case: "During the evolution in humans ...."?
Re: SARS-CoV-2 spike D614G variant confers enhanced replication and transmissibility
#7Re: SARS-CoV-2 spike D614G variant confers enhanced replication and transmissibility
#8Something I have been wondering about, wouldn't a virus naturally evolve to be less deadly and more contagious over time? I.e. virus's tend to achieve a steady state like the cold and flu in the long run. If you are too deadly it hinders spread so I would expect Covid to get less deadly and more contagious over time, which kind of fits the data?
Re: SARS-CoV-2 spike D614G variant confers enhanced replication and transmissibility
#9Something I have been wondering about, wouldn't a virus naturally evolve to be less deadly and more contagious over time? I.e. virus's tend to achieve a steady state like the cold and flu in the long run. If you are too deadly it hinders spread so I would expect Covid to get less deadly and more contagious over time, which kind of fits the data?
Influenza isn't in a steady state, there are hundreds of strains[0] that compete with each other and recombine to form novel versions. Each year's flu vaccine targets four of them based on modeling as to which will be most prevalent in the upcoming flu season[1/2].
0: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/viruses/types.htm
1: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/prevent/quadrivalent.htm
2: https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/lot-release/inf...
Re: SARS-CoV-2 spike D614G variant confers enhanced replication and transmissibility
#10Something I have been wondering about, wouldn't a virus naturally evolve to be less deadly and more contagious over time? I.e. virus's tend to achieve a steady state like the cold and flu in the long run. If you are too deadly it hinders spread so I would expect Covid to get less deadly and more contagious over time, which kind of fits the data?
Evolution is a random and long-term process. What you're thinking of is natural selection. Even that does not guarantee things will get better. For example, there was a worse second wave of Spanish Flu. Natural selection only implies there's less chance these terrible things will last. And, to adapt an economic adage, "The disease can remain deadly longer than you can remain alive."