5 ms·

The situation is also horrible in Brazil (14M cases, 378k deaths, ICUs near full): https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/brazil-alarming-high-number-babies-childr

The situation is also horrible in Brazil (14M cases, 378k deaths, ICUs near full): https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/brazil-alarming-high-number-babies-children-are-dying-covid-19-n1264231 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/brazil-alarming-high-num... One can only wonder if it's simply a matter of time before variants break through vaccines in the US too.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago
I've heard there's an Indian variant that affects vaccinated people in the UK; it's not as clear cut though, this article seems a bit uncertain about it atm: https://news.sky.com/story/is-the-indian-covid-variant-more-infectious-and-should-the-uk-be-concerned-12280387 https://news.sky.com/story/is-the-indian-covid-variant-more-...
- FriendlyNormie 6y ago
  Kill yourself you retarded NPC faggot fuck. Now.
- collyw 6y ago
  Keep believing the covid hype. they have said this about most of the variants, but I see no evidence of them actually being more deadly.
- nonamechicken 6y ago
  Indian Council of Medical Research announced today that Covaxin is effective against several variants including B.1.617 (double mutant variant identified in certain regions of India and several other countries), B.1.1.7 (UK variant), B.1.1.28 (Brazil variant) and B.1.351 (Southern African variant). https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/icmr-says-covaxin-effective-in-neutralising-uk-strain-double-mutant-variant-101618994406690.html https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/icmr-says-covaxin-... https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/covaxin-shows-78-overall-interim-efficacy-100-efficacy-against-severe-covid-bharat-biotech-icmr/articleshow/82178824.cms https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/covaxin-shows-78-o... According to this Twitter person: https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/1384825539895173123 https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/138482553989517312... >Covaxin is the inactivated virus-based COVID-19 vaccine being developed with Bharat Biotech and Covishield is the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine being manufactured locally by the Serum Institute of India under that name. >So inactivated vaccines tend to have lower immunogenicity on average (when we look back on past vaccines). I would like to think if Covaxin neutralizes it, the others would likely do so as well. We will definitely need data but this is very promising
Balgair 6y ago
Seeing how the 'original' SARS-COV2-19 virus spread, if you are concerned about a variant, then likely it's already in your population. The speed of the virus is much faster than the speed of the public health infrastructure. Maybe upping the tempo of our human controlled reaction is something we can focus on in this pandemic.
- dataflow 6y ago
  The question isn't whether the variant is in the population (of course we can assume it is), the question is whether it differs enough from the prior variant to break through past immunization at the population level.
lamontcg 6y ago
Eventually there will be a variant which spreads epidemically in even a fully vaccinated population. But such an complete escape mutation is likely to come at a cost to fitness for the virus so it will be less transmissible and virulent. And in vaccinated individuals they will still have cross-reactive immune responses. The 1918 H1N1 pandemic just evolved into seasonal influenza (or co-evolved with the human immune system). In 1957 the H1N1 virus left the human race and was displaced by H2N2. It mutated in pigs for 50 years, then the H1 protein came back in the 2009 triple reassortment pandemic. That pandemic had minimal impact though because people who were exposed to H1N1 before 1957 still had partial immunity through cross reactive T-cells to the H1 envelope protein -- even after it had evolved in pigs for 50 years. Immunity is very non-binary. There is "survivor island style immunity" which is sterilizing immunity that prevents an individual from being infected. But there's a lot of partial immunity that just takes the edge off the disease, even though the virus may still spread epidemically.
- blake1 6y ago
  And vaccine escape is non-binary as well. Variants able to do that may displace other variants, but be unable to push R0 over 1 in a largely vaccinated population. The "South African" variant B1351 can break through Pfizer, but it does seem to be controllable.[1] A booster shot has already been developed, and I expect we'll be able to win the arms race against this virus. [1] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.06.21254882v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.06.21254882v...
  - lamontcg 6y ago
    We've most likely already won the arms race against this virus. I'll take a variant booster if I'm offered one, but in a population where 60%-70% of the population is vaccinated and a good chunk of the rest have natural immunity I doubt any of the existing variants can spread. And if it does spread it is only a matter of time before there's enough immunity to push R0 below zero for all the existing variants. An actual immune-escaping variant is going to have to do more than just a few mutations and will have to substantially change along 20 or so different epitopes of the spike protein, which will almost certainly come at a cost to fitness. It probably will eventually do that and it'll become endemic, but won't be anywhere near as transmissible or virulent as it has been.
standardUser 6y ago
"One can only wonder..." You can do more than wonder! You can look at the facts and see no evidence that any variant to date can evade the existing vaccines to the point that they are no longer useful.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago

I've heard there's an Indian variant that affects vaccinated people in the UK; it's not as clear cut though, this article seems a bit uncertain about it atm: https://news.sky.com/story/is-the-indian-covid-variant-more-infectious-and-should-the-uk-be-concerned-12280387 https://news.sky.com/story/is-the-indian-covid-variant-more-...

FriendlyNormie 6y ago
Kill yourself you retarded NPC faggot fuck. Now.
collyw 6y ago
Keep believing the covid hype. they have said this about most of the variants, but I see no evidence of them actually being more deadly.
nonamechicken 6y ago
Indian Council of Medical Research announced today that Covaxin is effective against several variants including B.1.617 (double mutant variant identified in certain regions of India and several other countries), B.1.1.7 (UK variant), B.1.1.28 (Brazil variant) and B.1.351 (Southern African variant). https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/icmr-says-covaxin-effective-in-neutralising-uk-strain-double-mutant-variant-101618994406690.html https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/icmr-says-covaxin-... https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/covaxin-shows-78-overall-interim-efficacy-100-efficacy-against-severe-covid-bharat-biotech-icmr/articleshow/82178824.cms https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/covaxin-shows-78-o... According to this Twitter person: https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/1384825539895173123 https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/138482553989517312... >Covaxin is the inactivated virus-based COVID-19 vaccine being developed with Bharat Biotech and Covishield is the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine being manufactured locally by the Serum Institute of India under that name. >So inactivated vaccines tend to have lower immunogenicity on average (when we look back on past vaccines). I would like to think if Covaxin neutralizes it, the others would likely do so as well. We will definitely need data but this is very promising

Balgair 6y ago

Seeing how the 'original' SARS-COV2-19 virus spread, if you are concerned about a variant, then likely it's already in your population. The speed of the virus is much faster than the speed of the public health infrastructure. Maybe upping the tempo of our human controlled reaction is something we can focus on in this pandemic.

dataflow 6y ago
The question isn't whether the variant is in the population (of course we can assume it is), the question is whether it differs enough from the prior variant to break through past immunization at the population level.

lamontcg 6y ago

Eventually there will be a variant which spreads epidemically in even a fully vaccinated population. But such an complete escape mutation is likely to come at a cost to fitness for the virus so it will be less transmissible and virulent. And in vaccinated individuals they will still have cross-reactive immune responses. The 1918 H1N1 pandemic just evolved into seasonal influenza (or co-evolved with the human immune system). In 1957 the H1N1 virus left the human race and was displaced by H2N2. It mutated in pigs for 50 years, then the H1 protein came back in the 2009 triple reassortment pandemic. That pandemic had minimal impact though because people who were exposed to H1N1 before 1957 still had partial immunity through cross reactive T-cells to the H1 envelope protein -- even after it had evolved in pigs for 50 years. Immunity is very non-binary. There is "survivor island style immunity" which is sterilizing immunity that prevents an individual from being infected. But there's a lot of partial immunity that just takes the edge off the disease, even though the virus may still spread epidemically.

blake1 6y ago
And vaccine escape is non-binary as well. Variants able to do that may displace other variants, but be unable to push R0 over 1 in a largely vaccinated population. The "South African" variant B1351 can break through Pfizer, but it does seem to be controllable.[1] A booster shot has already been developed, and I expect we'll be able to win the arms race against this virus. [1] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.06.21254882v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.06.21254882v...
- lamontcg 6y ago
  We've most likely already won the arms race against this virus. I'll take a variant booster if I'm offered one, but in a population where 60%-70% of the population is vaccinated and a good chunk of the rest have natural immunity I doubt any of the existing variants can spread. And if it does spread it is only a matter of time before there's enough immunity to push R0 below zero for all the existing variants. An actual immune-escaping variant is going to have to do more than just a few mutations and will have to substantially change along 20 or so different epitopes of the spike protein, which will almost certainly come at a cost to fitness. It probably will eventually do that and it'll become endemic, but won't be anywhere near as transmissible or virulent as it has been.

standardUser 6y ago

"One can only wonder..." You can do more than wonder! You can look at the facts and see no evidence that any variant to date can evade the existing vaccines to the point that they are no longer useful.