4 ms·

I'm not sure about that. There are probably hundreds or thousands of still-viable mutations it might come up with at random, and we don't want to inject dozens

I'm not sure about that. There are probably hundreds or thousands of still-viable mutations it might come up with at random, and we don't want to inject dozens of vaccine candidates to deal with them. Or maybe we do? A lot of adults have probably had a dozen or two dozen varying flu shots.

mlyle 4y ago
It's not like the virus waits until we start hitting it with a vaccine, and then mutates in response. There's a certain amount of variation in the population. More fit genes are more common. If there's other variations of this portion of the spike protein out there, they're almost certainly less fit than the overwhelmingly predominant type. Maybe if the predominant type is severely attenuated by vaccine these will get more chance to replicate and become a bit fitter, but there's no guarantee they climb up to parity with the "old design".
- cesaref 4y ago
  True, but it also works the other way, the variations that are currently less successful but have a mutation that avoids this antibody may be more virulent.
- codefreeordie 4y ago
  If absolutely no other variations of this part of the spike exist then the antibody could remain effective and our use of it wouldn't materially push the virus to mutate. But, if any (survivable) variations do exist, their survival advantage would grow tremendously once this antibody saw widespread use in treatments, which would lead to the variations likely becoming dominant quite rapidly thereafter. Still, there's no reason not to keep searching and studying. We may be able to make an effective treatment based on this.
Teever 4y ago
But aren't those still-viable mutations all relatively close to the existing ones which means that existing vaccines will work against it? Like I was under the impression that there were relatively few novel configurations that it could evolve into which would evade vaccines, meaning that in theory a couple rounds of vaccines would be enough to beat it.

mlyle 4y ago

It's not like the virus waits until we start hitting it with a vaccine, and then mutates in response. There's a certain amount of variation in the population. More fit genes are more common. If there's other variations of this portion of the spike protein out there, they're almost certainly less fit than the overwhelmingly predominant type. Maybe if the predominant type is severely attenuated by vaccine these will get more chance to replicate and become a bit fitter, but there's no guarantee they climb up to parity with the "old design".

cesaref 4y ago
True, but it also works the other way, the variations that are currently less successful but have a mutation that avoids this antibody may be more virulent.
codefreeordie 4y ago
If absolutely no other variations of this part of the spike exist then the antibody could remain effective and our use of it wouldn't materially push the virus to mutate. But, if any (survivable) variations do exist, their survival advantage would grow tremendously once this antibody saw widespread use in treatments, which would lead to the variations likely becoming dominant quite rapidly thereafter. Still, there's no reason not to keep searching and studying. We may be able to make an effective treatment based on this.

Teever 4y ago

But aren't those still-viable mutations all relatively close to the existing ones which means that existing vaccines will work against it? Like I was under the impression that there were relatively few novel configurations that it could evolve into which would evade vaccines, meaning that in theory a couple rounds of vaccines would be enough to beat it.