8 ms·

No- designing and depending on a vaccine based on a single gene is what will (has already) lead to variants. It's no coincidence that lambda has 3 separate muta

No- designing and depending on a vaccine based on a single gene is what will (has already) lead to variants. It's no coincidence that lambda has 3 separate mutations on the spike protein targeted by the mrna vaccine.

majormajor 5y ago
The immune system doesn't lead to variants, randomness + time does. Selection pressure to see what variants become dominant happens later. They aren't being actively "designed" in any sense. That's why anything that would make real progress has to happen quickly and broadly, without large left-out pockets (not that rejecting a vaccine is any worse than not being offered one in the first place, here - that's the issue that is mostly being ignored for now, since we have no current solution).
- newbamboo 5y ago
  How do antibiotic resistant infections work? I ask as a lay person.
  - criticaltinker 5y ago
    Here are very accessible peer-reviewed primary sources that will answer your question and give historical examples [1][2]. [1] Why does drug resistance readily evolve but vaccine resistance does not? https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspb.2016.2562 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspb.2016... [2] The adaptive evolution of virulence: a review of theoretical predictions and empirical tests https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/30EC8AB1717BF7A173CF5E051DBB498F/S003118201500092Xa_hi.pdf/_div_class__title__The_adaptive_evolution_of_virulence__a_review_of_theoretical_predictions_and_empirical_tests__div_.pdf https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/c...
    - newbamboo 5y ago
      Second link was really helpful. I found this part interesting and potentially relevant, “reducing the risk of death for infected hosts reduces the cost of virulence, causing an evolutionary increase in virulence (Gandon et al. 2003, 2001b). Vaccines that either block infection or block transmission, on the other hand, have no effect on virulence evolution” Especially considering Dr Fauci’s recent statements on how the COVID vaccines do not block transmission. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AuO_OfjlPUI https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AuO_OfjlPUI Putting these together then it seems like we should expect the result of our vaccination efforts to be increased virulence in strains such as Delta variant. Is it possible the Delta variant itself was somehow the result of our intrepid and swift vaccination efforts? I’m having a hard time understanding why more people aren’t talking about this given the obviously well established scientific literature you’ve cited.
      - criticaltinker 5y ago
        I'm glad you found the reference helpful. > Is it possible the Delta variant itself was somehow the result of our intrepid and swift vaccination efforts? The variants can arise under neutral genetic drift, ie pure random chance via naturally occurring mutation. But the widespread dominance of these variants is very plausibly connected to the mass vaccination efforts. Here is another good paper on the subject, in case you haven't already seen it [1]. > I’m having a hard time understanding why more people aren’t talking about this Me too, but to be fair these are complex second and third order effects that only gained traction in the scientific literature within the past decade or so. Right now everyone is mostly focused on first order effects - eg "will the vaccination help/harm me?" Quotes from [1]: - "Our modeling suggests that SARS-CoV-2 mutants with one or two mildly deleterious mutations are expected to exist in high numbers due to neutral genetic variation, and consequently resistance to vaccines or other prophylactics that rely on one or two antibodies for protection can develop quickly -and repeatedly- under positive selection." - "Our work suggests that it is likely that standing genetic variation alone has already produced a substantial population of viruses with single and double nucleotide changes that confer nAb resistance. These variants will establish quickly in the population under selection pressure. In fact, there is already a precedent for this behavior, as one such selective sweep occurred early on in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic when the D614G mutation rose to nearly 80% frequency in under 6 months [33]." [1] Risk of rapid evolutionary escape from biomedical interventions targeting SARS-CoV-2 spike protein https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33909660/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33909660/
  - majormajor 5y ago
    Similar thing. What's important to note, though, is that the mutations are blind to their environment. The virus or bacteria doesn't see an antibiotic or antibody and say "I need to adjust this aspect." It's just constantly changing as it reproduces, and some of them may end up winning a battle that the original did not. And then they spread from there as would any strain. From the purposes of the virus, an unvaccinated person in a poor country without access to vaccines isn't better or worse than one in the US who's simply refusing. It doesn't know. They're both opportunities for the virus to keep replication and so keep (randomly, blindly) mutating. If the odds of reproducing in a way that escapes people's current antibodies, and making your way outside the host (because a mutation the immune system adapts to before it can be spread dies there) are 1 in ten billion, say... and you leave 7 billion people in the world unvaccinated... suddenly those odds aren't so great. (Numbers entirely fake here, but basically, less likely events become more likely as more time goes by, if you keep giving them opportunities to happen.) A key advantage of a vaccine over an antibiotic is that it can potentially stops the problem before it starts whereas antibiotics are generally given if you already have a nasty infection. So the amount of virus that's exposed to the immune system in a vaccinated person will be lower, and throttled more quickly, giving less time for it to get lucky, IIRC. But nothing about that would magically necessarily stop a virus that's still spreading like wildfire in a large unvaccinated population from coincidentally developing new traits that help it out. The goal is to vaccinate a large enough population quickly enough that this "spreading like wildfire" situation stops, so we reduce the mutation rate of the virus.
    - newbamboo 5y ago
      So that says right in the abstract: “When vaccine resistance has evolved, these generalities have been violated.” So as long as mutations like the epsilon variant don’t occur (they do right?) and as long as vaccines are prophylactic against infection (not the case given need for boosters is Israel, right?), there’s nothing to worry about? Sorry if I’m being dense.
- criticaltinker 5y ago
  > They aren't being actively "designed" in any sense The point made by GP is that the current mRNA vaccines are actively designed to illicit a highly targeted immune response targeted towards the spike protein [1]. > That's why anything that would make real progress has to happen quickly and broadly, without large left-out pockets Assuming you mean 100% vaccine coverage, this is the opposite conclusion that the authors of this paper came to [1]. Citing [1]: - "The speed at which nAb resistance develops in the population increases substantially as the number of infected individuals increases, suggesting that complementary strategies to prevent SARS-CoV-2 transmission that exert specific pressure on other proteins (e.g., antiviral prophylactics) or that do not exert a specific selective pressure on the virus (e.g., high-efficiency air filtration, masking, ultraviolet air purification) are key to reducing the risk of immune escape" - "Strategies for viral elimination should therefore be diversified across molecular targets and therapeutic modalities" [1] Risk of rapid evolutionary escape from biomedical interventions targeting SARS-CoV-2 spike protein https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33909660/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33909660/
- Banyonite 5y ago
  >> The immune system doesn't lead to variants, randomness + time does. I disagree. It has been shown over many years of research that viral mutations may be driven by both antigenic drift as well as selective immunological pressures, with the question being more the degree to which these factors influence mutation in different viral species. Not to present an argument against vaccination, rather an argument against making blanket statements that fail to accurately represent the current state of collective knowledge on the subject, to wit: We do not know with any certainty the degree to which either of these factors drive SARS-CoV-2 mutations. A naked statement that the un-vaccinated population drives the mutation rate of this virus is nothing more than speculation; issues surrounding a field of study as incredibly complex as this may not ever be definitively put to bed through analysis of (conflicting?) study outcomes- let alone through arguments made in the commons of popular science. I don't argue that emerging SARS-CoV-2 mutations are driven more by one factor or the other, I argue that we do not know the degree to which mutations are driven by 'random' antigenic drift vs selective pressures. Unfortunately, the issue has been politicized to the point where study outcomes that suggest dominance of one over the other are likely to be attacked or even ignored, regardless of the strength of study. Citations? Efforts to find evidence here prioritized time invested over strength- this may not represent the best arguments out there, however it took only a scant few moments to gather, and points to a much larger body of literature supporting the position that both antigenic drift and selective immunological pressures drive viral mutations (SARS-CoV-2 being no exception) and that we do not know the degree to which each is a factor... and therefore stating OR implying that the un-vaccinated population drives the viral mutation rate in this pandemic is inaccurate. Once again- we simply do not know. CF "Given that the antibody response to the spike protein is so focused, could mutations in these restricted sequences lead to a less efficacious vaccine, if the human immune response is specific to the vaccine sequence? These mutations might be driven by antigenic drift, or by selection, either during natural infection or due to the vaccine itself. When a virus is grown under the selective pressure of a single monoclonal antibody that targets a single epitope on a viral protein, mutations in that protein sequence will lead to the loss of neutralisation, and the generation of escape mutants. This sequence of events has been shown in the laboratory for polio, measles, and respiratory syncytial virus,7 and in 2020 for SARS-CoV-2.8" https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(21)00075-8/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2... McCarthy, K. R. et al. Recurrent deletions in the SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein drive antibody escape. Science 371, 1139–1142 (2021). Plante, J. A. et al. The variant Gambit: COVID’s next move. Cell Host Microbe 29, 508–515 (2021). Ravindra Gupta, Steven Kemp, William Harvey et al. Recurrent independent emergence and transmission of SARS-CoV-2 Spike amino acidH69/V70 deletions, PREPRINT (Version 1) available at Research Square https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-136937/v1(2021) https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-136937/v1(2021).
treis 5y ago
The vaccine elicits a response to many different sites on the virus. It's extremely unlikely that the vaccine ever becomes useless.
- criticaltinker 5y ago
  Some experts from highly regarded institutions across the country would disagree. See this peer-reviewed paper for introduction to their reasoning [1]. [1] Risk of rapid evolutionary escape from biomedical interventions targeting SARS-CoV-2 spike protein https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33909660/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33909660/
  - treis 5y ago
    That's talking about 1-2 sites. The vaccine elicits a response to a dozen or more.
    - criticaltinker 5y ago
      Did you read the paper I linked to (at least the abstract)? It directly contradicts your claims. Please cite primary sources to support your claim, otherwise it must be regarded as uninformed opinion.
      - treis 5y ago
        It says: >Our modeling suggests that SARS-CoV-2 mutants with one or two mildly deleterious mutations are expected to exist in high numbers due to neutral genetic variation, and consequently resistance to vaccines or other prophylactics that rely on one or two antibodies for protection can develop quickly -and repeatedly- under positive selection. 1 or 2 mutations isn't enough. It would need an order of magnitude more. It's very unlikely for that to happen. I don't wish to get into a cite duel with what appears to be a Covid troll account.
        criticaltinker 5y ago
sudosysgen 5y ago
This is highly misleading. All variants right now are significantly more effective at transmission in unvaccinated individuals. The reason the mutations are on the spike protein is because it's the part of the virus that matters the most for infectivity. The more effective the spike protein, the more easily other people are affected and the faster the virus is produced. The Delta variant itself rose in India, which has really low vaccination rates.
- criticaltinker 5y ago
  This is not misleading at all, GP's point is well founded and backed by peer-reviewed literature, see [1]. I have more references if you're interested. > All variants right now are significantly more effective at transmission in unvaccinated individuals. Please cite your primary source(s). [1] Risk of rapid evolutionary escape from biomedical interventions targeting SARS-CoV-2 spike protein https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33909660/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33909660/
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    The article you linked does not say what you think it says. It says that mutation for immune escape is possible. There has been zero mutations for immune escape, so far all mutations were for higher infectivity. Beyond that, we do know that all variants are more infective in unvaccinated individuals : http://weekly.chinacdc.cn/fileCCDCW/journal/img/cover/ffd464f2-ff7e-4bcf-8210-e7fb781fbb50.pdf#page=18 http://weekly.chinacdc.cn/fileCCDCW/journal/img/cover/ffd464... If it wasn't, it would never have out-competed the ancestral type in unvaccinated India. The OP's point was that vaccines drove mutations. So far, that has not happened. There is no variant that is more infective in vaccinated individuals but not in unvaccinated individuals, all variants are simply more effective across the board.
    - criticaltinker 5y ago
      > There has been zero mutations for immune escape, so far all mutations were for higher infectivity. You're making very broad claims here that are again contradicted by the literature, see [1]. The very short paper you linked to "Transmission Dynamics of an Outbreak of the COVID-19 Delta Variant B.1.617.2" does not even discuss vaccination status. I'm inclined to believe you linked to the wrong paper - or you haven't thoroughly reviewed it yourself. I'm not interested in arguments based on logical deductions. Show me the peer-reviewed sources backing your point and I will happily read them with an open mind. [1] SARS-CoV-2 immune evasion by the B.1.427/B.1.429 variant of concern https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2021/06/30/science.abi7994 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2021/06/30/scie...
croes 5y ago
It's no coincidence the variants come from areas with lower vaccination rates. If your claim were true the variants would come from Israel , Europe or the US. And most variants don't get a own name because they don't differ enough from known viruses, so only the variants with certain mutations get the attention and a name at all.
- pbak 5y ago
  >If your claim were true the variants would come from Israel, >Europe or the US. Except for the UK variant, b.1.1.7, also called Alpha, the deadliest since the beginning...
  - rsynnott 5y ago
    First detected in November, becoming dominant by end December. The first vaccine wasn't approved in the UK until December.
    - pbak 5y ago
      I should have been longer. Exactly : Location of emergence of a variant has nothing to do with vaccination or not. All of the current variants raging around appeared before there were vaccines, as were all current and past variants of interest.
  - croes 5y ago
    Pre vaccination and not really deadlier just faster spreading.
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    The UK had a full vaccination rate of approximately 0.0% when B.1.1.7 was detected, and a first dose rate of 1.5%.
    - rsynnott 5y ago
      Even earlier than that; it was detected in November, though it didn't become dominant til late December.
croes 5y ago
Like majormajor already said, evolution is not targeted conscious process, it's randomness plus time and as long the result doesn't lead to extinction a species remains existent even if it needs very special conditions to survive.

majormajor 5y ago

The immune system doesn't lead to variants, randomness + time does. Selection pressure to see what variants become dominant happens later. They aren't being actively "designed" in any sense. That's why anything that would make real progress has to happen quickly and broadly, without large left-out pockets (not that rejecting a vaccine is any worse than not being offered one in the first place, here - that's the issue that is mostly being ignored for now, since we have no current solution).

newbamboo 5y ago
How do antibiotic resistant infections work? I ask as a lay person.
- criticaltinker 5y ago
  Here are very accessible peer-reviewed primary sources that will answer your question and give historical examples [1][2]. [1] Why does drug resistance readily evolve but vaccine resistance does not? https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspb.2016.2562 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspb.2016... [2] The adaptive evolution of virulence: a review of theoretical predictions and empirical tests https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/30EC8AB1717BF7A173CF5E051DBB498F/S003118201500092Xa_hi.pdf/_div_class__title__The_adaptive_evolution_of_virulence__a_review_of_theoretical_predictions_and_empirical_tests__div_.pdf https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/c...
  - newbamboo 5y ago
    Second link was really helpful. I found this part interesting and potentially relevant, “reducing the risk of death for infected hosts reduces the cost of virulence, causing an evolutionary increase in virulence (Gandon et al. 2003, 2001b). Vaccines that either block infection or block transmission, on the other hand, have no effect on virulence evolution” Especially considering Dr Fauci’s recent statements on how the COVID vaccines do not block transmission. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AuO_OfjlPUI https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AuO_OfjlPUI Putting these together then it seems like we should expect the result of our vaccination efforts to be increased virulence in strains such as Delta variant. Is it possible the Delta variant itself was somehow the result of our intrepid and swift vaccination efforts? I’m having a hard time understanding why more people aren’t talking about this given the obviously well established scientific literature you’ve cited.
    - criticaltinker 5y ago
      I'm glad you found the reference helpful. > Is it possible the Delta variant itself was somehow the result of our intrepid and swift vaccination efforts? The variants can arise under neutral genetic drift, ie pure random chance via naturally occurring mutation. But the widespread dominance of these variants is very plausibly connected to the mass vaccination efforts. Here is another good paper on the subject, in case you haven't already seen it [1]. > I’m having a hard time understanding why more people aren’t talking about this Me too, but to be fair these are complex second and third order effects that only gained traction in the scientific literature within the past decade or so. Right now everyone is mostly focused on first order effects - eg "will the vaccination help/harm me?" Quotes from [1]: - "Our modeling suggests that SARS-CoV-2 mutants with one or two mildly deleterious mutations are expected to exist in high numbers due to neutral genetic variation, and consequently resistance to vaccines or other prophylactics that rely on one or two antibodies for protection can develop quickly -and repeatedly- under positive selection." - "Our work suggests that it is likely that standing genetic variation alone has already produced a substantial population of viruses with single and double nucleotide changes that confer nAb resistance. These variants will establish quickly in the population under selection pressure. In fact, there is already a precedent for this behavior, as one such selective sweep occurred early on in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic when the D614G mutation rose to nearly 80% frequency in under 6 months [33]." [1] Risk of rapid evolutionary escape from biomedical interventions targeting SARS-CoV-2 spike protein https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33909660/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33909660/
- majormajor 5y ago
  Similar thing. What's important to note, though, is that the mutations are blind to their environment. The virus or bacteria doesn't see an antibiotic or antibody and say "I need to adjust this aspect." It's just constantly changing as it reproduces, and some of them may end up winning a battle that the original did not. And then they spread from there as would any strain. From the purposes of the virus, an unvaccinated person in a poor country without access to vaccines isn't better or worse than one in the US who's simply refusing. It doesn't know. They're both opportunities for the virus to keep replication and so keep (randomly, blindly) mutating. If the odds of reproducing in a way that escapes people's current antibodies, and making your way outside the host (because a mutation the immune system adapts to before it can be spread dies there) are 1 in ten billion, say... and you leave 7 billion people in the world unvaccinated... suddenly those odds aren't so great. (Numbers entirely fake here, but basically, less likely events become more likely as more time goes by, if you keep giving them opportunities to happen.) A key advantage of a vaccine over an antibiotic is that it can potentially stops the problem before it starts whereas antibiotics are generally given if you already have a nasty infection. So the amount of virus that's exposed to the immune system in a vaccinated person will be lower, and throttled more quickly, giving less time for it to get lucky, IIRC. But nothing about that would magically necessarily stop a virus that's still spreading like wildfire in a large unvaccinated population from coincidentally developing new traits that help it out. The goal is to vaccinate a large enough population quickly enough that this "spreading like wildfire" situation stops, so we reduce the mutation rate of the virus.
  - newbamboo 5y ago
    So that says right in the abstract: “When vaccine resistance has evolved, these generalities have been violated.” So as long as mutations like the epsilon variant don’t occur (they do right?) and as long as vaccines are prophylactic against infection (not the case given need for boosters is Israel, right?), there’s nothing to worry about? Sorry if I’m being dense.
criticaltinker 5y ago
> They aren't being actively "designed" in any sense The point made by GP is that the current mRNA vaccines are actively designed to illicit a highly targeted immune response targeted towards the spike protein [1]. > That's why anything that would make real progress has to happen quickly and broadly, without large left-out pockets Assuming you mean 100% vaccine coverage, this is the opposite conclusion that the authors of this paper came to [1]. Citing [1]: - "The speed at which nAb resistance develops in the population increases substantially as the number of infected individuals increases, suggesting that complementary strategies to prevent SARS-CoV-2 transmission that exert specific pressure on other proteins (e.g., antiviral prophylactics) or that do not exert a specific selective pressure on the virus (e.g., high-efficiency air filtration, masking, ultraviolet air purification) are key to reducing the risk of immune escape" - "Strategies for viral elimination should therefore be diversified across molecular targets and therapeutic modalities" [1] Risk of rapid evolutionary escape from biomedical interventions targeting SARS-CoV-2 spike protein https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33909660/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33909660/
Banyonite 5y ago
>> The immune system doesn't lead to variants, randomness + time does. I disagree. It has been shown over many years of research that viral mutations may be driven by both antigenic drift as well as selective immunological pressures, with the question being more the degree to which these factors influence mutation in different viral species. Not to present an argument against vaccination, rather an argument against making blanket statements that fail to accurately represent the current state of collective knowledge on the subject, to wit: We do not know with any certainty the degree to which either of these factors drive SARS-CoV-2 mutations. A naked statement that the un-vaccinated population drives the mutation rate of this virus is nothing more than speculation; issues surrounding a field of study as incredibly complex as this may not ever be definitively put to bed through analysis of (conflicting?) study outcomes- let alone through arguments made in the commons of popular science. I don't argue that emerging SARS-CoV-2 mutations are driven more by one factor or the other, I argue that we do not know the degree to which mutations are driven by 'random' antigenic drift vs selective pressures. Unfortunately, the issue has been politicized to the point where study outcomes that suggest dominance of one over the other are likely to be attacked or even ignored, regardless of the strength of study. Citations? Efforts to find evidence here prioritized time invested over strength- this may not represent the best arguments out there, however it took only a scant few moments to gather, and points to a much larger body of literature supporting the position that both antigenic drift and selective immunological pressures drive viral mutations (SARS-CoV-2 being no exception) and that we do not know the degree to which each is a factor... and therefore stating OR implying that the un-vaccinated population drives the viral mutation rate in this pandemic is inaccurate. Once again- we simply do not know. CF "Given that the antibody response to the spike protein is so focused, could mutations in these restricted sequences lead to a less efficacious vaccine, if the human immune response is specific to the vaccine sequence? These mutations might be driven by antigenic drift, or by selection, either during natural infection or due to the vaccine itself. When a virus is grown under the selective pressure of a single monoclonal antibody that targets a single epitope on a viral protein, mutations in that protein sequence will lead to the loss of neutralisation, and the generation of escape mutants. This sequence of events has been shown in the laboratory for polio, measles, and respiratory syncytial virus,7 and in 2020 for SARS-CoV-2.8" https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(21)00075-8/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2... McCarthy, K. R. et al. Recurrent deletions in the SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein drive antibody escape. Science 371, 1139–1142 (2021). Plante, J. A. et al. The variant Gambit: COVID’s next move. Cell Host Microbe 29, 508–515 (2021). Ravindra Gupta, Steven Kemp, William Harvey et al. Recurrent independent emergence and transmission of SARS-CoV-2 Spike amino acidH69/V70 deletions, PREPRINT (Version 1) available at Research Square https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-136937/v1(2021) https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-136937/v1(2021).

treis 5y ago

The vaccine elicits a response to many different sites on the virus. It's extremely unlikely that the vaccine ever becomes useless.

criticaltinker 5y ago
Some experts from highly regarded institutions across the country would disagree. See this peer-reviewed paper for introduction to their reasoning [1]. [1] Risk of rapid evolutionary escape from biomedical interventions targeting SARS-CoV-2 spike protein https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33909660/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33909660/
- treis 5y ago
  That's talking about 1-2 sites. The vaccine elicits a response to a dozen or more.
  - criticaltinker 5y ago
    Did you read the paper I linked to (at least the abstract)? It directly contradicts your claims. Please cite primary sources to support your claim, otherwise it must be regarded as uninformed opinion.
    - treis 5y ago
      It says: >Our modeling suggests that SARS-CoV-2 mutants with one or two mildly deleterious mutations are expected to exist in high numbers due to neutral genetic variation, and consequently resistance to vaccines or other prophylactics that rely on one or two antibodies for protection can develop quickly -and repeatedly- under positive selection. 1 or 2 mutations isn't enough. It would need an order of magnitude more. It's very unlikely for that to happen. I don't wish to get into a cite duel with what appears to be a Covid troll account.
      - criticaltinker 5y ago

sudosysgen 5y ago

This is highly misleading. All variants right now are significantly more effective at transmission in unvaccinated individuals. The reason the mutations are on the spike protein is because it's the part of the virus that matters the most for infectivity. The more effective the spike protein, the more easily other people are affected and the faster the virus is produced. The Delta variant itself rose in India, which has really low vaccination rates.

criticaltinker 5y ago
This is not misleading at all, GP's point is well founded and backed by peer-reviewed literature, see [1]. I have more references if you're interested. > All variants right now are significantly more effective at transmission in unvaccinated individuals. Please cite your primary source(s). [1] Risk of rapid evolutionary escape from biomedical interventions targeting SARS-CoV-2 spike protein https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33909660/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33909660/
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  The article you linked does not say what you think it says. It says that mutation for immune escape is possible. There has been zero mutations for immune escape, so far all mutations were for higher infectivity. Beyond that, we do know that all variants are more infective in unvaccinated individuals : http://weekly.chinacdc.cn/fileCCDCW/journal/img/cover/ffd464f2-ff7e-4bcf-8210-e7fb781fbb50.pdf#page=18 http://weekly.chinacdc.cn/fileCCDCW/journal/img/cover/ffd464... If it wasn't, it would never have out-competed the ancestral type in unvaccinated India. The OP's point was that vaccines drove mutations. So far, that has not happened. There is no variant that is more infective in vaccinated individuals but not in unvaccinated individuals, all variants are simply more effective across the board.
  - criticaltinker 5y ago
    > There has been zero mutations for immune escape, so far all mutations were for higher infectivity. You're making very broad claims here that are again contradicted by the literature, see [1]. The very short paper you linked to "Transmission Dynamics of an Outbreak of the COVID-19 Delta Variant B.1.617.2" does not even discuss vaccination status. I'm inclined to believe you linked to the wrong paper - or you haven't thoroughly reviewed it yourself. I'm not interested in arguments based on logical deductions. Show me the peer-reviewed sources backing your point and I will happily read them with an open mind. [1] SARS-CoV-2 immune evasion by the B.1.427/B.1.429 variant of concern https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2021/06/30/science.abi7994 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2021/06/30/scie...

croes 5y ago

It's no coincidence the variants come from areas with lower vaccination rates. If your claim were true the variants would come from Israel , Europe or the US. And most variants don't get a own name because they don't differ enough from known viruses, so only the variants with certain mutations get the attention and a name at all.

pbak 5y ago
>If your claim were true the variants would come from Israel, >Europe or the US. Except for the UK variant, b.1.1.7, also called Alpha, the deadliest since the beginning...
- rsynnott 5y ago
  First detected in November, becoming dominant by end December. The first vaccine wasn't approved in the UK until December.
  - pbak 5y ago
    I should have been longer. Exactly : Location of emergence of a variant has nothing to do with vaccination or not. All of the current variants raging around appeared before there were vaccines, as were all current and past variants of interest.
- croes 5y ago
  Pre vaccination and not really deadlier just faster spreading.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  The UK had a full vaccination rate of approximately 0.0% when B.1.1.7 was detected, and a first dose rate of 1.5%.
  - rsynnott 5y ago
    Even earlier than that; it was detected in November, though it didn't become dominant til late December.

croes 5y ago

Like majormajor already said, evolution is not targeted conscious process, it's randomness plus time and as long the result doesn't lead to extinction a species remains existent even if it needs very special conditions to survive.