4 ms·
> 3) at least one of the mink variants of covid-19 is different enough that there is reason to worry the vaccines might not give immunity to it, This is paten
by lbeltrame 6y ago
> 3) at least one of the mink variants of covid-19 is different enough that there is reason to worry the vaccines might not give immunity to it,
This is patently false, and the press have kept on saying it wrong to keep the terror giving them clicks. That mutation:
- Hasn't been observed in humans since Sep 5th;
- gives a slight advantage over escaping neutralizing antibodies (10%, not 100%)
- has no "fitness" at this point because there is no selective pressure for it
- has no effect on T cell based immunity
The Danish move was out of precaution, not because of the mutation, but because minks can become huge animal reservoirs of the virus due to the ease it spreads among them.
- rossdavidh 6y agoThis is good to know, do you have a link? I haven't seen anything with any actual data in it, just generic reassurances. But good to hear.
- lbeltrame 6y agoMost of this is a summary of the links and the discussions in the r/COVID19 community on reddit (tightly regulated, scientific discussion only). Some: - https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/jo2muy/mink_and_covid19/ https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/jo2muy/mink_and_co... - https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03218-z https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03218-z
- rossdavidh 6y agoThat subreddit looks like an excellent source, thanks! While I am not panicking yet, I have to say this feels somewhat like how I felt about Covid-19 in December/January. "Hmmm...." Of course, I also felt that way about SARS and bird flu and MERS and Ebola and Zika, so maybe that still means no need to get too concerned yet. But the statement that, essentially, any mutation which can occur in Covid-19, will occur many times (because the population is now so large), and the fact that this strain appears to have spread between mink farms miles apart in ways not yet explained, do give one food for thought.