4 ms·

Is there any science supporting your statement?

idiotsecant 6y ago
You want a source for what? That viruses are subject to evolutionary pressures and will mutate to better adapt to their environments like literally everything else as advantageous random mutations are found?
- mikem170 6y ago
  You seem to be overstating the likelihood of covid-19 mutating into another strain, like the flu does. It's a coronavirus and those are known to be different in this regard. I haven't seen a source saying that we should expect immunity-evading strains. Do you have anything decent?
  - idiotsecant 6y ago
    They literally already exist!
    - mikem170 6y ago
      >You should care because your vaccine doesn't necessarily prevent you from catching a mutated variant . Given a long enough timeline and enough hosts such a strain will evolve, it's only a matter of time. Yes, I know there are variants. But I've seen no science saying that it is likely or expected that the vaccine won't work against covid-19 variants. Have you? > They literally already exist! Ok, I googled and found this: "Variant or strain? Experts explain what's happened to the coronavirus" [0] From the article: "However, Soucy noted that all currently known variants of COVID-19 belong to the SARS-CoV-2 strain and have not mutated enough to either be classified as their own strain or be ineffective against current and prospective COVID-19 vaccines." Another quote from the article: "Infectious disease expert Dr. Lisa Barrett told CTV News Channel on Sunday that viruses often mutate, but some viruses do it more than others. She noted that while the genetic code of coronaviruses does typically change over time, she says the mutations aren’t normally a cause for concern." Here's another article, with references to multiple studies: "We now have the best evidence yet that everyone develops long-term coronavirus immunity after infection — and it's not just about antibodies" [1] From that article: "Many people who've never gotten COVID-19 seem to have memory T cells that can recognize the new coronavirus." ... "In this case, experts think these cross-reactive T cells likely come from previous exposure to other coronaviruses — those that cause common colds." That's the kind of stuff I find when I dig into this. What are you seeing? [0] https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/variant-or-strain-experts-explain-what-s-happened-to-the-coronavirus-1.5245923 https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/variant-or-strain-... [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/long-term-coronavirus-immunity-t-cells-2020-8?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/long-term-coronavirus-immuni...
      - idiotsecant 6y ago
        >Yes, I know there are variants. But I've seen no science saying that it is likely or expected that the vaccine won't work against covid-19 variants. Absolutely it is the case that even in the extremely limited time that Covid has existed it's already built tolerance to some vaccine mechanisims - for example the Novavax vaccine is something like 89% effective normally, but drops to 50% effective against variant B.1.351. [1] Any vaccine that relies on the covid-19 spike protein (all of them) is best case less effective and worst case useless if a small change to that spike protein is made. In a long enough timeline such a random mutation will happen. Most of them will not result in viable viruses but eventually one of them will. It's just a matter of statistics. >"Infectious disease expert Dr. Lisa Barrett told CTV News Channel on Sunday that viruses often mutate, but some viruses do it more than others. This language is a little bit weasley in that it implies that COVID-19 varies at a relatively slow rate. This is a widespread but incorrect assumption. Covid-19 mutates at a rate of ~10^-3 nucleotide substitutions per site per year, which is comparable to ebola or other RNA viruses [0] >We now have the best evidence yet that everyone develops long-term coronavirus immunity after infection — and it's not just about antibodies" This is saying that after you get the virus and your antibodies fade you have some residual resistance in the form of T-cells that stay in your immune system. Those T-cells are virus-specific. T-cells have all kinds of different mechanisms to detect infected cells in your body but, for example, it can detect viral peptides emitted by the cell. Where do viral peptides come from? The virus protein spike! The same thing that, when mutated, reduces or eliminates vaccine effectiveness. As far as whether this is current happening and what it means- researchers have modified other viruses to use the COVID-19 protein spike and then gave the virus suitable conditions to replicate and mutate. The result was a covid-19 spike protein that had resistance to both monoclonal antibodies and antibodies taken from patients[2].This isn't some academic exercise, this is something that is literally happening in the real world right now. Even worse on further inspection those same researchers realized these spike protein modifications were *already present* in the wild, they just weren't present in large numbers yet. [0] https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n771#xref-ref-8-1 https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n771#xref-ref-8-1 [1] https://www.advisory.com/en/daily-briefing/2021/04/16/variants-vaccines https://www.advisory.com/en/daily-briefing/2021/04/16/varian... [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02544-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02544-6

You want a source for what? That viruses are subject to evolutionary pressures and will mutate to better adapt to their environments like literally everything else as advantageous random mutations are found?

mikem170 6y ago
You seem to be overstating the likelihood of covid-19 mutating into another strain, like the flu does. It's a coronavirus and those are known to be different in this regard. I haven't seen a source saying that we should expect immunity-evading strains. Do you have anything decent?
- idiotsecant 6y ago
  They literally already exist!
  - mikem170 6y ago
    >You should care because your vaccine doesn't necessarily prevent you from catching a mutated variant . Given a long enough timeline and enough hosts such a strain will evolve, it's only a matter of time. Yes, I know there are variants. But I've seen no science saying that it is likely or expected that the vaccine won't work against covid-19 variants. Have you? > They literally already exist! Ok, I googled and found this: "Variant or strain? Experts explain what's happened to the coronavirus" [0] From the article: "However, Soucy noted that all currently known variants of COVID-19 belong to the SARS-CoV-2 strain and have not mutated enough to either be classified as their own strain or be ineffective against current and prospective COVID-19 vaccines." Another quote from the article: "Infectious disease expert Dr. Lisa Barrett told CTV News Channel on Sunday that viruses often mutate, but some viruses do it more than others. She noted that while the genetic code of coronaviruses does typically change over time, she says the mutations aren’t normally a cause for concern." Here's another article, with references to multiple studies: "We now have the best evidence yet that everyone develops long-term coronavirus immunity after infection — and it's not just about antibodies" [1] From that article: "Many people who've never gotten COVID-19 seem to have memory T cells that can recognize the new coronavirus." ... "In this case, experts think these cross-reactive T cells likely come from previous exposure to other coronaviruses — those that cause common colds." That's the kind of stuff I find when I dig into this. What are you seeing? [0] https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/variant-or-strain-experts-explain-what-s-happened-to-the-coronavirus-1.5245923 https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/variant-or-strain-... [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/long-term-coronavirus-immunity-t-cells-2020-8?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/long-term-coronavirus-immuni...
    - idiotsecant 6y ago
      >Yes, I know there are variants. But I've seen no science saying that it is likely or expected that the vaccine won't work against covid-19 variants. Absolutely it is the case that even in the extremely limited time that Covid has existed it's already built tolerance to some vaccine mechanisims - for example the Novavax vaccine is something like 89% effective normally, but drops to 50% effective against variant B.1.351. [1] Any vaccine that relies on the covid-19 spike protein (all of them) is best case less effective and worst case useless if a small change to that spike protein is made. In a long enough timeline such a random mutation will happen. Most of them will not result in viable viruses but eventually one of them will. It's just a matter of statistics. >"Infectious disease expert Dr. Lisa Barrett told CTV News Channel on Sunday that viruses often mutate, but some viruses do it more than others. This language is a little bit weasley in that it implies that COVID-19 varies at a relatively slow rate. This is a widespread but incorrect assumption. Covid-19 mutates at a rate of ~10^-3 nucleotide substitutions per site per year, which is comparable to ebola or other RNA viruses [0] >We now have the best evidence yet that everyone develops long-term coronavirus immunity after infection — and it's not just about antibodies" This is saying that after you get the virus and your antibodies fade you have some residual resistance in the form of T-cells that stay in your immune system. Those T-cells are virus-specific. T-cells have all kinds of different mechanisms to detect infected cells in your body but, for example, it can detect viral peptides emitted by the cell. Where do viral peptides come from? The virus protein spike! The same thing that, when mutated, reduces or eliminates vaccine effectiveness. As far as whether this is current happening and what it means- researchers have modified other viruses to use the COVID-19 protein spike and then gave the virus suitable conditions to replicate and mutate. The result was a covid-19 spike protein that had resistance to both monoclonal antibodies and antibodies taken from patients[2].This isn't some academic exercise, this is something that is literally happening in the real world right now. Even worse on further inspection those same researchers realized these spike protein modifications were *already present* in the wild, they just weren't present in large numbers yet. [0] https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n771#xref-ref-8-1 https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n771#xref-ref-8-1 [1] https://www.advisory.com/en/daily-briefing/2021/04/16/variants-vaccines https://www.advisory.com/en/daily-briefing/2021/04/16/varian... [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02544-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02544-6