EPTCoronavirus and You - Page 460
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Any and all updates regarding the COVID-19 will need a source provided. Please do your part in helping us to keep this thread maintainable and under control. It is YOUR responsibility to fully read through the sources that you link, and you MUST provide a brief summary explaining what the source is about. Do not expect other people to do the work for you. Conspiracy theories and fear mongering will absolutely not be tolerated in this thread. Expect harsh mod actions if you try to incite fear needlessly. This is not a politics thread! You are allowed to post information regarding politics if it's related to the coronavirus, but do NOT discuss politics in here. Added a disclaimer on page 662. Many need to post better. | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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CuddlyCuteKitten
Sweden2630 Posts
On September 13 2021 09:12 ghrur wrote: This is actually an argument for the quicker vaccination of the population (i.e. vaccination mandates) and continued social distancing / masking protocols as we go through the vaccination period. There's been some research done on the impact of vaccination on COVID mutation rate, but the paper is still in pre-print status. You can see it here. There's better quality theoretical paper modeling the impact of evolutionary pressures and the probability of vaccine resistance here, but if you want the TLDR, just visit this webmd article instead. Basically, having vaccines to decrease the R0 and having everyone vaccinated more quickly helps reduce the probability, and in the meantime, we should continue being cautious to avoid immune escape. Additionally, I'd say that there's a false dichotomy in the discussion I've seen here. It seems as though people were discussing vaccination vs infection, and likening COVID to the flu. The problem is, even if we didn't have a vaccine, there's still evolutionary pressure on viruses to have immune escape mutations, and the probability of a virus acquiring such a mutation increases with the chance it gets to replicate. Also, our flu vaccines didn't cause the flu to have its immune escape functionality. Rather, the flu already had it due to being in circulation for so long, and our vaccines are made taking that into account. Let's not confuse cause and effect here. As for sterilizing immunity, there's a question on whether or not that's even achievable. Take a look at this article. From what I'm understanding, sterilizing immunity would seem to indicate >90% efficacy at preventing infection, like the measles vaccine, and by-and-large, the COVID vaccines had that in their phase 3 trials. However, if the virus is so widespread that you're constantly in contact with it, and even with >90% efficacy, there's still a high likely hood of getting infected, maybe sterilizing immunity is just not possible. Correct me if I'm wrong here (was a while ago I studied the immune system). But the the immune system basically chops up the virus and presents it to antigen producing cells. So in a natural infection you get all kinds of more or less effective antibodies. Some might be against the spike protein, others may be against something totally different (and less important thus less effective). But at least the mRNA vaccines seem to all target the same protein (because it seemed to have the best value). Wouldn't that make the selective pressure for mutation at least somewhat different? | ||
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Mohdoo
United States15690 Posts
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Elroi
Sweden5595 Posts
On September 14 2021 04:37 Mohdoo wrote: Young people have tinder if they need to find some rando to bang. Just shut down clubs until this is over. It will never be over. | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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Elroi
Sweden5595 Posts
By putting every person in the world in China/Australia style lockdown simultaneously? It's obviously impossible. It was obvious from the start that it would be impossible. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25506 Posts
On September 14 2021 04:37 Mohdoo wrote: Young people have tinder if they need to find some rando to bang. Just shut down clubs until this is over. But Tinder is a bleak and soul-destroying place for me. Much like clubs actually, perhaps I am the problem. Seems a nonsense to me really, if there’s one venue and activity that would most benefit from a vaccine passport restriction, well I can’t think of a more applicable one. Considering my many musician friends were unable to work, basically forever in live venues, to a degree that circumvented both common sense and how viruses spread, seems profoundly silly to about-turn quite to this degree. | ||
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Gorsameth
Netherlands21717 Posts
Yes people could still have a small chance to get sick but the chance of landing in a hospital would be small enough to ignore. Anti-vaccers complain that vaccination passes limit their freedom. But their freedom to not get vaccinated means everyone is limited in their freedom because 'shocked' there is a pandemic going on. If everyone was vaccinated we could go back to normal and basically ignore Covid because very few would get sick and almost no one would land in the hospital. | ||
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ghrur
United States3786 Posts
On September 14 2021 04:26 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote: Correct me if I'm wrong here (was a while ago I studied the immune system). But the the immune system basically chops up the virus and presents it to antigen producing cells. So in a natural infection you get all kinds of more or less effective antibodies. Some might be against the spike protein, others may be against something totally different (and less important thus less effective). But at least the mRNA vaccines seem to all target the same protein (because it seemed to have the best value). Wouldn't that make the selective pressure for mutation at least somewhat different? I'm neither an immunologist nor an evolutionary biologist, so I don't know. I'm sure it would be different somehow given how complex our immune systems are, but I don't have the models nor the knowledge to quantify or explain what the differences are. I only have the research I'm able to parse. My basic understanding is that viral evolution is a process starting from viral reproduction with random genetic changes leading to survival of the fittest, and while mRNA vaccines might create different selective pressures from attenuated or inactivated vaccines on the survival of the fittest portion, they nonetheless heavily reduce the viral reproduction portion of the process. Thus, based on the paper above, vaccinations actually reduce the chance of an immune escape mutation given their impact on the first part of the evolutionary process. However, it would be interesting to see research on the impact of vaccine types between mRNA (Pfizer, Moderna), Adenovirus DNA (JnJ, Astrazeneca), or inactivated virus (Sinopharm, Sinovac) vaccines and their resulting selective pressure on viral mutations. That could be a continuation of the research I posted. If someone here makes that model and gets sound results, they can probably get a PhD! That said, based on your hypothesis, it'd be logical to deduce that the Chinese vaccines should be better at preventing the spread of variants, and there should be a larger dropoff in efficacy between mRNA vaccines versus inactivated virus vaccines for new variants. I'm not sure that pans out in the data given the issues countries reliant on the Chinese vaccines have also faced against the Delta variant. Additionally, the Lambda variant came from Peru, one of the countries which was mostly vaccinated with inactivated virus vaccines instead of mRNA vaccines. I think if your hypothesis were correct, I would've expected it to come out of the US or Israel instead. Of course, again, not an expert. This is just my thoughts on the issue. | ||
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Magic Powers
Austria4198 Posts
On September 14 2021 04:26 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote: Correct me if I'm wrong here (was a while ago I studied the immune system). But the the immune system basically chops up the virus and presents it to antigen producing cells. So in a natural infection you get all kinds of more or less effective antibodies. Some might be against the spike protein, others may be against something totally different (and less important thus less effective). But at least the mRNA vaccines seem to all target the same protein (because it seemed to have the best value). Wouldn't that make the selective pressure for mutation at least somewhat different? Every part of a virus can mutate, including the spike protein. The following paper contains information about mutations specific to the spike protein. The protein is the main target of antibodies, which puts the observation of spike protein mutations at a high priority. "The spike protein mediates attachment of the virus to host cell-surface receptors and fusion between virus and cell membranes11 (Box 1). It is also the principal target of neutralizing antibodies generated following infection by SARS-CoV-2 (refs12,13), and is the SARS-CoV-2 component of both mRNA and adenovirus-based vaccines licensed for use and others awaiting regulatory approval14. Consequently, mutations that affect the antigenicity of the spike protein are of particular importance." https://www.nature.com/articles/s41579-021-00573-0 The spike protein is both a curse and a blessing. The downside is that it's part of what allows the virus to infect cells as easily as it does. The upside is that it's essential for the virus' infectivity, which is why eliminating it shows great results. Unfortunately any mutation has a chance of making the spike protein more difficult to detect for antibodies. The mechanisms and implications are discussed in the following article. It's one of the best articles I've read so far, really worth a read. "More furin cuts mean more spike proteins primed to enter human cells. In SARS-CoV, less than 10% of spike proteins are primed, says Menachery, whose lab group has been quantifying the primed spike proteins but is yet to publish this work. In SARS-CoV-2, that percentage rises to 50%. In the Alpha variant, it’s more than 50%. In the highly transmissible Delta variant, the group has found, greater than 75% of spikes are primed to infect a human cell." https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02039-y | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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BlackJack
United States10568 Posts
Depends what you mean by "over." If you mean nobody will ever die from COVID again then yes it will never be over. It looks like Florida is on the other side of this delta wave, and much to the chagrin of the COVID doomsayers, they made it through to the other side without going back into lockdown. Florida's clubs are still open, I'm not really sure what Mohdoo has in mind when he says "shut them down until this is over." | ||
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Gorsameth
Netherlands21717 Posts
On September 14 2021 07:36 BlackJack wrote: Florida is losing over 300 people a day to Covid and has been for multiple weeks (because yay backlogging deaths to hide them)Depends what you mean by "over." If you mean nobody will ever die from COVID again then yes it will never be over. It looks like Florida is on the other side of this delta wave, and much to the chagrin of the COVID doomsayers, they made it through to the other side without going back into lockdown. Florida's clubs are still open, I'm not really sure what Mohdoo has in mind when he says "shut them down until this is over." They have their highest spike since Covid began. If cases are dropping now deaths are still ~4 weeks behind. That is 4 more weeks of over 300 deaths a day. The doomsayers were hardly wrong. | ||
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BlackJack
United States10568 Posts
On September 14 2021 07:45 Gorsameth wrote: Florida is losing over 300 people a day to Covid and has been for multiple weeks (because yay backlogging deaths to hide them) They have their highest spike since Covid began. If cases are dropping now deaths are still ~4 weeks behind. That is 4 more weeks of over 300 deaths a day. The doomsayers were hardly wrong. Our definition of doomsayer is probably different | ||
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Acrofales
Spain18012 Posts
On September 14 2021 07:36 BlackJack wrote: Depends what you mean by "over." If you mean nobody will ever die from COVID again then yes it will never be over. It looks like Florida is on the other side of this delta wave, and much to the chagrin of the COVID doomsayers, they made it through to the other side without going back into lockdown. Florida's clubs are still open, I'm not really sure what Mohdoo has in mind when he says "shut them down until this is over." This is the dumbest take I read in a while. The lockdowns weren't necessary for humanity to survive but rather to prevent a lot of deaths. Florida had record deaths. | ||
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farvacola
United States18829 Posts
On September 14 2021 08:37 Acrofales wrote: This is the dumbest take I read in a while. The lockdowns weren't necessary for humanity to survive but rather to prevent a lot of deaths. Florida had record deaths. The lives of those who died in record numbers are a sacrifice he's willing to make to fight lockdowns, if only everyone could be so brave. | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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Sapaio
Denmark2037 Posts
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BlackJack
United States10568 Posts
On September 14 2021 08:37 Acrofales wrote: This is the dumbest take I read in a while. The lockdowns weren't necessary for humanity to survive but rather to prevent a lot of deaths. Florida had record deaths. Likewise, your post is the dumbest take I have read in a while. Lockdowns to prevent "a lot of deaths"? Even the health experts have said that lockdowns should be used as a last resort. Preventing death is not a last resort. Everyone with 2 brain cells to rub together knows that a lot more people are going to die if you open back up. That's not a good reason to not open back up. Full lockdowns should be a 'very, very last resort' and can be avoided, WHO's Europe chief says https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/15/lockdowns-should-be-last-resort-whos-europe-chief-says.html “The only time we believe a lockdown is justified is to buy you time to reorganize, regroup, rebalance your resources, protect your health workers who are exhausted, but by and large, we’d rather not do it.” -Dr. Navarro, special envoy on covid-19 for the WHO | ||
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Amui
Canada10567 Posts
On September 14 2021 16:06 BlackJack wrote: Likewise, your post is the dumbest take I have read in a while. Lockdowns to prevent "a lot of deaths"? Even the health experts have said that lockdowns should be used as a last resort. Preventing death is not a last resort. Everyone with 2 brain cells to rub together knows that a lot more people are going to die if you open back up. That's not a good reason to not open back up. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/15/lockdowns-should-be-last-resort-whos-europe-chief-says.html -Dr. Navarro, special envoy on covid-19 for the WHO A lockdown while cases are extremely high, healthcare is overwhelmed, and tons of people are being infected every day is 100% justified, as throughout the pandemic it's proven to be the single most effective way to get an untenable situation under control. I believe Florida did fit that bill, although having the grim reaper as governor really didn't help things. Clearly having 1/10000 drop dead from covid in a week has been deemed an acceptable number. I do agree that lockdown should be a last resort though. Pretty much every other measure should be put in place before locking down (and quite frankly in places with 60%+ vaccination, there should be no need to lockdown any more as it can be controlled with just restrictions). USA admittedly with the abysmal vaccination rates in most states unfortunately doesn't meet that mark. | ||
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