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What I am still trying to understand is if we get variations of the flu virus every year so dramatic that sometimes they guess on the vaccine completely wrong (
by ck2 7y ago
What I am still trying to understand is if we get variations of the flu virus every year so dramatic that sometimes they guess on the vaccine completely wrong (like this year) then why aren't we going to have a Covid-19 variant this winter that everyone can catch again?
- floe 7y agoMy (low-information) understanding is that coronaviruses have much lower mutation rates than flu viruses!
- lbeltrame 7y agoThey have a proofreading RNA polymerase, IIRC, which means that indeed they have a lower error rate than other viruses.
- ebalit 7y agoApparently 30% of cases of the common cold are cause by coronavirus. And the worrying thing is that the immunity we acquire for those is only temporary.
- lbeltrame 7y agoAt this point, I think it's just appropriate to say "we don't know yet". This is a new virus, and not much is known about it yet. And that is why drug development needs to go parallel with a vaccine. If a vaccine fails, we can fall back to drugs to prevent people from going into ICUs (hopefully).
- RivieraKid 7y agoThis is true, the influenza virus contains 8 small strands of RNA, which means that two different influenza viruses can combine to create a novel one.
- marcosdumay 7y agoThe influenza has a completely atypical rate or mutation. For most diseases, one infection is enough to make a person resistant for life. Besides, partial resistance is a thing. When our immune system has seen some other similar virus, we get a much less severe version of the disease.