🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃
we’re going to be dealing with this for the rest of our lives. climate change isn’t going to get to kill capitalism because covid beat it to the punch.
Well, you know what they say, third time is the charm!
-7DeadlyFetishes
There are countless COVID strains as they are constantly mutating from host to host. What matters is whether the mutations:
- Are more infectious (Britain)
- Are more deadly
- Change the spike protein such that current immunity and vaccines stop working
for now there is not need to panic/be doomer:
do not have evidence to indicate that the P681H variant is contributing to increased transmission of the virus in Nigeria. However, the relative difference in scale of genomic surveillance in Nigeria vs the UK may imply a reduced power to detect such changes
but there is no way to predict the likelihood of a more potent mutation will appear in the future
the South African strain seems to be the most alarming strain for sure. it appears to check all three boxes (we don’t know yet if it evades the vaccine but the mutation is in the spike protein)
The UK strain is actually the real fucker, because 50% more deadly is still only a ~1.5% death rate, but 70% more infectious means the 1% death is now hitting tens of millions of more people.
Not to mention the much larger number of people who will survive it but then have lifelong health problems.
the south african strain appears to be highly transmissible (similarly to the UK strain) and more lethal and has a mutation in the spike protein, potentially impacting the vaccine.
While they’re all awful, the third one I think is the most concerning since we’re seeing the light at the end of the tunnel otherwise with vaccine. I have heard that the spread claims for the UK variant are hypotheses that haven’t really been properly tested (how can you?) and that the spread can be explained by poor pandemic responses as well.
That there are so many strains being identified now makes me think there is a real possibility of vaccine escape occurring, particular as these pressures become more common- i.e. in immunized populations.
With all the people out there like “whew 2020 what a crazy year huh glad it’s finally over”, it would be kinda ‘funny’ to get on with some new strain that the vaccine doesn’t work on like 2 days into the new year…
It’s almost like when you let a virus propagate unmitigated, it mutates regionally. This is great, can’t wait for Covid 2021 - US Edition.
this was quietly reported a week ago and there’s been virtually no news of it. it was detected in samples collected in as early as August so it’s definitely been spreading for some time.
