mollyanna58
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Sept 1, 2021 9:40:36 GMT -5
Post by mollyanna58 on Sept 1, 2021 9:40:36 GMT -5
Swell.
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haapai
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Sept 1, 2021 9:52:42 GMT -5
Post by haapai on Sept 1, 2021 9:52:42 GMT -5
Reuters story regarding C.1.2 variant. link The bad news is that C.1.2 does exist. That's rotten news for those of you who instinctively distrusted a news source that you have never heard of and its talk of a C-lineage that you hadn't heard of either.
The good news is that the Lankan might have jumped the gun regarding its ability to evade existing immunity from vaccination.
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Post by The Walk of the Penguin Mich on Sept 1, 2021 10:23:45 GMT -5
They have absolutely no idea how the virus will act wrt to the various vaccines out there. This article is click bait to alarm the public, and no scientist (worth anything) would ever make this statement without proof.
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haapai
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Sept 1, 2021 11:19:34 GMT -5
Post by haapai on Sept 1, 2021 11:19:34 GMT -5
The article published by Lankan.org was a cheap, unattributed ghost of the news covered by Reuters with all of the careful and tricky bits snipped out. That's click-bait.
I'm not so confident about how to characterize the Reuters article. It's carefully written but it gets a lot of its mileage by scaring people.
If you hadn't already thought a bit about the possibility of a variant with some ability to get around immunity derived from prior infections or vaccination being masked by the presence of a highly infectious variant, you'll be thinking about it after reading the Reuters story.
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pulmonarymd
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Sept 1, 2021 11:47:55 GMT -5
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Post by pulmonarymd on Sept 1, 2021 11:47:55 GMT -5
They have absolutely no idea how the virus will act wrt to the various vaccines out there. This article is click bait to alarm the public, and no scientist (worth anything) would ever make this statement without proof. This attitude was part of the problem at the start of the current pandemic. There's no proof, it's all a story, it's click bait. Might be better off taking the cautious route on this one. So, what should we do about it? You seem to have the answers
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pulmonarymd
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Post by pulmonarymd on Sept 1, 2021 12:13:03 GMT -5
So, what should we do about it? You seem to have the answers What do you suggest doc, same route as the cdc stance in early 2020. The options to control this are the same as any other variant. Social distancing and masks. Since 1/2 of the country doesn’t want that, we have limited options. The pharmaceutical companies can start work on an rna vaccine against this variant. Takes time and money. Will they invest that effort for a variant that may not be a problem? Should we guarantee their investment? Republicans don’t seem to want do that. We have a variant running rampant now. In many places we are not doing much to mitigate our pandemic now. Why worry about what is coming next, since there are only a few ways to control this. But you clearly know better. I would LOVE to hear your learned opinion
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haapai
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Sept 1, 2021 12:31:49 GMT -5
Post by haapai on Sept 1, 2021 12:31:49 GMT -5
I think the answer is to note that while C.1.2 has all sorts of mutations that are also found in variants of concern, we simply do know what they add up to yet. It's a candidate for our nightmare variant but hasn't proven itself to be that yet.
I hope that the South Africans continue to study it. Specifically, I hope that they modify their use of their genomic sequencing capacity to take a decent sample of hospitalized cases and breakthrough cases. This might not be a silly thing to hope for. The South Africans have more genomic testing capacity than you might imagine.
The UK definitely has the capacity to go beyond monitoring which variants are present and whether they are increasing or decreasing as a percentage of cases. Lordy, I hope that they are doing just that because I'm sure that the US is not.
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Post by The Walk of the Penguin Mich on Sept 1, 2021 12:36:20 GMT -5
They have absolutely no idea how the virus will act wrt to the various vaccines out there. This article is click bait to alarm the public, and no scientist (worth anything) would ever make this statement without proof. This attitude was part of the problem at the start of the current pandemic. There's no proof, it's all a story, it's click bait. Might be better off taking the cautious route on this one. This is about the 4th variant that has come out. Mutations happen, and where the mutation happens defines how much the virus can evade the vaccine. Yes, variants can mutate to evade the vaccine yet. However if it mutates too much, it loses its ability to enter a cell and cause disease. Once this happens, any vaccine is moot as if the virus cannot enter the cell, i5 does not cause disease, nor can it replicate spit dies. The article has absolutely NO substance, nor any peer reviewed articles as to HOW the variant evades the vaccine. These little details are important and no reputable scientist would say crap like this. So my best guess is that someone twisted a scientist’s words and made it click bait. When I see stuff like this, I always look for the original article. Even when the article is quoted, 99/100 times the journal article does not say what the click bait says it says. Courtesy of people not understanding science, or willing to go ballistic over click bait, it does get old.
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pulmonarymd
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Sept 1, 2021 12:43:12 GMT -5
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Post by pulmonarymd on Sept 1, 2021 12:43:12 GMT -5
The options to control this are the same as any other variant. Social distancing and masks. Since 1/2 of the country doesn’t want that, we have limited options. The pharmaceutical companies can start work on an rna vaccine against this variant. Takes time and money. Will they invest that effort for a variant that may not be a problem? Should we guarantee their investment? Republicans don’t seem to want do that. We have a variant running rampant now. In many places we are not doing much to mitigate our pandemic now. Why worry about what is coming next, since there are only a few ways to control this. But you clearly know better. I would LOVE to hear your learned opinion I clearly know how to design pulsed lasers that can vaporize armored vehicles. As a doctor I've seen you come up with more questions with a little political pandering thrown in, along with loving to hear what a weapons designer would do. A lot of words, but no answer except for the 'why worry'. What should be done ? Democrats control the House and Senate and the Presidency since you want to go that route. Still refuse to say what should be done, I see. Easier to sit back and criticize, then Monday morning quarterback. Our options are limited as I outlined above. Unless you have another idea. And the places where the pandemic is uncontrolled are currently controlled by republicans. Minor detail you conveniently ignore
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pulmonarymd
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Sept 1, 2021 13:21:42 GMT -5
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Post by pulmonarymd on Sept 1, 2021 13:21:42 GMT -5
Still refuse to say what should be done, I see. Easier to sit back and criticize, then Monday morning quarterback. Our options are limited as I outlined above. Unless you have another idea. And the places where the pandemic is uncontrolled are currently controlled by republicans. Minor detail you conveniently ignore Doing something is a political impossibility due to those other guys. Deflect again. Simple question. What do you believe should be done?
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pulmonarymd
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Sept 1, 2021 14:12:30 GMT -5
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Post by pulmonarymd on Sept 1, 2021 14:12:30 GMT -5
Deflect again. Simple question. What do you believe should be done? Your answer already posted. #16 . Still not saying what we should do. Then why post the original post. We need to be do what we should be doing already. Once that is for me, we should do the following: Universal masking when positivity rate is over 5%/icu or hospital census is over a certain threshold Mandatory vaccination for healthcare workers/first responders/essential workers. No exemptions Vaccine “passports” to travel or attend large events. Help fund the development of vaccine against new variants so when we know which one is dominant we can ramp up supply more easily Since 1/2 of the country refuses to do the the first, it will be almost impossible to do the rest. But go ahead with your usual attack against me. At least I am willing to take a stand instead of playing your usual game
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weltschmerz
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Sept 1, 2021 15:01:49 GMT -5
Post by weltschmerz on Sept 1, 2021 15:01:49 GMT -5
Still refuse to say what should be done, I see. Easier to sit back and criticize, then Monday morning quarterback. Our options are limited as I outlined above. Unless you have another idea. And the places where the pandemic is uncontrolled are currently controlled by republicans. Minor detail you conveniently ignore Doing something is a political impossibility due to those other guys, or what people refuse to say. Wearing masks and social distancing are not political impossibilities, except for the Republican morons.
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pulmonarymd
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Sept 1, 2021 15:18:20 GMT -5
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Post by pulmonarymd on Sept 1, 2021 15:18:20 GMT -5
Ah, up to your usual antics. Multiple Republican states have outlawed mask mandates. Maybe we should pass a federal mask mandate. I’m sure we would have excellent compliance.
If you don’t like my answer, let’s see your recommendations for what to do. In regards to the original post, are you going to post about every variant? Viruses mutate. Worrying about every specific mutant is not going to be helpful, because we do not understand how a specific mutant will act in the real world, as we do not understand well enough the factors that are most important. As walk outlined in her post.
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Post by The Walk of the Penguin Mich on Sept 1, 2021 16:09:48 GMT -5
What no one other than scientists seem to realize is that the virus is driving the pandemic……NOT the scientists. The best that they can do is damage control, with the tools at our disposal that pulmonaryMD mentioned.
How well we use the tools we have takes SOME of the control out of the virus’s hands…..and the US population as a whole has done a piss poor job of it. We need 90+% compliance, but can barely get 70% in many places, and it is as low as 30% in others. Unfortunately, the ability to move freely between states has hampered us considerably,
So as a result of our abysmal record, the best we are going to do is play whack a mole with variants.
Half the country is deciding 100% of what is happening here. The vaccinated, mask wearing, crowd avoiding public can only do so much because the virus is not mutating in them…..it is mutating in those whose immune system is allowing it to run amok. And this is where we are at right now.
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pulmonarymd
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Sept 1, 2021 16:29:44 GMT -5
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Post by pulmonarymd on Sept 1, 2021 16:29:44 GMT -5
Keep a close eye on it. It requires the same mitigation steps we should already be doing, but as I pointed out, have been legislated against or have had executive orders against. It does not require anything additional, as we do not know if it is more dangerous or more well suited for spread than delta. It will not be the last variant, nor is it definitely the most well suited to spread. Since we have very few tools to protect ourselves, the options are as I outlined above.
Again, what do you propose. You have still not answered that. All you do is criticize my answers and deflect. Easy to avoid criticism if you don’t take a position
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pulmonarymd
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Sept 1, 2021 16:33:41 GMT -5
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Post by pulmonarymd on Sept 1, 2021 16:33:41 GMT -5
Keep a close eye on it. It requires the same mitigation steps we should already be doing, but as I pointed out, have been legislated against or have had executive orders against. It does not require anything additional, as we do not know if it is more dangerous or more well suited for spread than delta. It will not be the last variant, nor is it definitely the most well suited to spread. Since we have very few tools to protect ourselves, the options are as I outlined above. Again, what do you propose. You have still not answered that. All you do is criticize my answers and deflect. Easy to avoid criticism if you don’t take a position I never took a position, because I don't have one on this. Just want to try to provoke me then. Yet, despite me saying the same thing walk said, which you like, you continue to poke at me
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Sept 1, 2021 16:34:48 GMT -5
Post by The Walk of the Penguin Mich on Sept 1, 2021 16:34:48 GMT -5
Ah, up to your usual antics. Multiple Republican states have outlawed mask mandates. Maybe we should pass a federal mask mandate. I’m sure we would have excellent compliance. If you don’t like my answer, let’s see your recommendations for what to do. In regards to the original post, are you going to post about every variant? Viruses mutate. Worrying about every specific mutant is not going to be helpful, because we do not understand how a specific mutant will act in the real world, as we do not understand well enough the factors that are most important. As walk outlined in her post. So do something about it, or not worry as you posted. Those that CAN do something, ARE doing something. But those who CHOOSE not to are making this more difficult than it should be. In other words, the virus would not mutate if there were no places it could mutate. If everyone who could be successfully vaccinated were vaccinated, the virus couldn’t replicate and mutate. A virus cannot mutate without replicating. A virus cannot replicate without a hospitable (read unvaccinated) human cell to replicate in. There is a clear, political divide between the unvaccinated and vaccinated. So who do you think is driving the mutations?
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Sept 1, 2021 16:50:15 GMT -5
This variant is only in shithole countries, or something like that.
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pulmonarymd
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Sept 1, 2021 16:57:37 GMT -5
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Post by pulmonarymd on Sept 1, 2021 16:57:37 GMT -5
Just want to try to provoke me then. Yet, despite me saying the same thing walk said, which you like, you continue to poke at me You came here on your own with no provocation whatsoever. You were not tagged nor referenced. Your first post on this thread poked at me. Your usual game ensued. So you have nothing. No opinion, no ideas, no reason that we need to know about this. Sounds about right
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pulmonarymd
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Sept 1, 2021 17:22:13 GMT -5
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Post by pulmonarymd on Sept 1, 2021 17:22:13 GMT -5
I’m not playing a game. You act like a person who avoids giving an opinion, so you can avoid any accountability. I’m sure a successful businessman such as yourself liked to hire those sorts of individual.
You have no opinion on what you are posting? It has made no impression on you then?
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billisonboard
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Sept 2, 2021 8:42:54 GMT -5
Post by billisonboard on Sept 2, 2021 8:42:54 GMT -5
A new strain of the covid virus has been identified in South Africa, immunity produced from current vaccines will not effective. (First sentence from linked article in the OP, emphasis added)
“There are other modifications that would predict that it might be better able to reproduce to higher levels in our body. The thing that would be concerning to us is if there are enough modifications to the outside of the virus that our own antibodies, induced by either vaccination or previous infection, would make us more susceptible to this variant,” says Aronoff (From post #39, emphasis added))
Very different.
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pulmonarymd
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Post by pulmonarymd on Sept 2, 2021 13:06:45 GMT -5
You think that this isn’t being done?
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haapai
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Sept 2, 2021 15:25:25 GMT -5
Post by haapai on Sept 2, 2021 15:25:25 GMT -5
You think that this isn’t being done? I believe that there are lots of samples being sequenced and that some of the sequencing data is being analyzed and categorized by lineage but that the US is doing a pretty poor job of getting a random sample of positive cases and is making no attempt to get a decent-sized sample of hospitalized patients or breakthrough patients, hospitalized or not.
I'm basing most of this on news articles from this spring that talked about what the UK and Denmark were doing regarding sequencing and what the US was doing. The UK had the sequencing and analysis capacity to select and analyze a decent-sized and reasonably random sample of positive test results to get an idea of how quickly Alpha was taking over.
Denmark was able to sequence every positive case. I'm not sure if they actually managed to categorize everything by lineage, or do so in a timely manner, but for a brief moment they weren't sampling and monitoring but actually surveying.
Meanwhile, the US was sequencing a paltry percentage of cases, often from samples of convenience instead of the universe of positive results, and combining the results of whatever got sequenced anywhere in the US to give us something with a decent-sized N but absolutely no indications of how representative it was.
This was not a good start to US genomic surveillance. It could have gotten much better since then and still be pretty pathetic. We may have upped our game recently and gotten a pretty good bead on how more infectious variants are taking over and where, but I have little hope that we are conducting the genomic surveillance that will allow US authorities to detect more virulent variants (by sampling hospitalized cases) or variants that have increased ability to get around our existing immunity derived from prior infection or vaccination. We're probably relying on the rest of the world to give us a heads up on what to look for, which is kinda sick, since we definitely have enough disease circulating to develop the next nasty variant.
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pulmonarymd
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Sept 2, 2021 15:33:26 GMT -5
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Post by pulmonarymd on Sept 2, 2021 15:33:26 GMT -5
The variants are developing all over the world. We need everyone to sequence them. The cdc cannot do this alone. The WHO needs to keep track of this. Which is why pulling out of the WHO was a bad move. So, as long as the virus samples are being analyzed in a systematic way all over the world, new variants will be found. It is not like we have many ways of dealing with any we find. Keeping transmission down is the most effective way to prevent mutations. But that ship has sailed
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jerseygirl
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Sept 2, 2021 15:36:09 GMT -5
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Post by jerseygirl on Sept 2, 2021 15:36:09 GMT -5
Variants seem to be arising in places in the world with really low availability of vaccines, e.g., Peru and lambda variant
Even the piss poor rates in some US states are higher
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jerseygirl
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Sept 2, 2021 15:40:29 GMT -5
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Post by jerseygirl on Sept 2, 2021 15:40:29 GMT -5
The variants are developing all over the world. We need everyone to sequence them. The cdc cannot do this alone. The WHO needs to keep track of this. Which is why pulling out of the WHO was a bad move. So, as long as the virus samples are being analyzed in a systematic way all over the world, new variants will be found. It is not like we have many ways of dealing with any we find. Keeping transmission down is the most effective way to prevent mutations. But that ship has sailed Lost track of WHO and US, is/has Biden got US ton rejoin WHO ?
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pulmonarymd
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Sept 2, 2021 15:59:04 GMT -5
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Post by pulmonarymd on Sept 2, 2021 15:59:04 GMT -5
You think that this isn’t being done? What else am I thinking ? I was asking a question.
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pulmonarymd
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Post by pulmonarymd on Sept 2, 2021 16:07:11 GMT -5
You think that was a question. Sorry that way of communicating is over your head. I was trying to have a dialogue with you. Forgot I shouldn’t waste my time. You would rather play semantic games. You posted something for “information” purposes only. Something that is difficult for us to do anything about, and something that may or may not be important. But you have no opinion on what we should do. Got it.
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billisonboard
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Sept 2, 2021 22:00:42 GMT -5
Post by billisonboard on Sept 2, 2021 22:00:42 GMT -5
From the link above: Ontario has never seen case counts match up with the worst-case scenarios presented in provincial modelling
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billisonboard
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Sept 2, 2021 22:05:01 GMT -5
Post by billisonboard on Sept 2, 2021 22:05:01 GMT -5
From the link above: Ontario has never seen case counts match up with the worst-case scenarios presented in provincial modelling You think that isn't known.
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