[HN Gopher] Heavily mutated coronavirus variant puts scientists ...
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Heavily mutated coronavirus variant puts scientists on alert
Author : abbassi
Score : 133 points
Date : 2021-11-25 21:33 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
| fallingknife wrote:
| We could have a new mRNA vax against this (and delta) in days.
| Why are we still using an old vax that targets a strain that
| barely exists anymore?
| bjufgbw wrote:
| Fuck off fascists!
|
| You want to stick a needle in my arm and I'll shoot you in your
| fucking face.
|
| If you all want a hot war so be it.
| bjufgbw wrote:
| Branch covidian propaganda.
|
| You people are on the very very wrong side of history and will
| pay dearly for your war crimes.
| HenryKissinger wrote:
| It seems like viruses always tread a spectrum between infectivity
| and lethality. Does or could a virus exist which:
|
| - has a 100% fatality rate, like rabies
|
| - can keep the host alive long enough to spread and
|
| - cannot be defeated by any prospective vaccine or can evolve
| fast enough to evade them?
|
| Basically, airborne and human-to-human rabies, with no vaccine.
| Or vaccine resistant ebola, but even more lethal, infectious, and
| a longer incubation period.
|
| Put more concisely, could a virus exist with the potential to
| wipe us out.
| nojito wrote:
| Very interesting graph on preliminary data is here.
|
| https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FFECnaLXEAMtWdc?format=png&name=...
| FundementalBrit wrote:
| People are reluctant to get booster jabs because 2 jabs was
| suppose to be enough and healthy sportsmen and women seem to be
| dropping like flies with heart attacks.
|
| and now a new ultra fast spreading vaccine resistant variant for
| the media to get people to stay indoors and lockdown.
|
| I've had the jab. I need it for travel but people are at a
| tipping point right now. Peoples trust in the media is shot.
| alphabettsy wrote:
| Dropping like flies?
| Rezwoodly wrote:
| Yeah I'm prone to believe this is manufactured hysteria to
| drum up vaccination numbers. Fear mongering 101
| qwertyuiop_ wrote:
| https://www-berliner--zeitung-
| de.translate.goog/news/raetsel...
|
| From the article ..
|
| Emergency situations have come up again and again in the last
| few weeks and months:
|
| Game abandoned due to in a game of Lauber SV (Donauworth
| district)
|
| A 17-year-old soccer player from JSG Hoher Hagen has to be in
| Hannoversch Munden The has to be reanimated after a cardiac
| arrest.
|
| An assistant referee of a Kreisliga Augsburg game in
| Emersacker A district league player of the SpVgg. Oelde II
| has to be A player from the Birati Club Munster collapses in
| a regional league game against FC Nordkirchen II.
|
| 17-year-old soccer player Dylan Rich a heart attack during a
| game . The suffers a heart attack after a training session.
|
| Lucas Surek (24) from the BFC Chemie Leipzig club is unable
| to attend due to . Kingsley Coman (25) from FC Bayern Munich
| .
|
| Trainer Dirk Splitsteser from SG Traktor Divitz sidelines
| Rune Coghe (18) of the Belgian club Eendracht Hoglede
| (Belgium) suffers At the World Cup qualification match
| between Germany and Serbia in Chemnitz, an English line judge
| Team leader Dietmar Gladow from Thalheim (Bitterfeld) suffers
| before a game The 53-year-old football coach Antonello Campus
| . Anil Usta from VfB Schwelm (Ennepetal) collapses on the
| field . Dimitri Lienard from FC Strasbourg collapses with
| heart problems . Diego Ferchaud (16) from ASPTT Caen suffers
| in a U-18 league game in Saint-Lo Belgian football player
| Jente Van Genechten (25) suffers The Belgian amateur soccer
| player Jens De Smet (27) from Maldegem suddenly suffers a
| heart attack during the game and dies a little later in
| hospital. A 13-year-old soccer player from the Janus Nova
| club from Saccolongo (Italy) collapses Andrea Astolfi, the
| sports director of Calcio Orsago (Italy), suffers He dies at
| the age of 45. Abou Ali (22) collapses during a two-tier game
| in Denmark Fabrice N'Sakala (31) from Besiktas Istanbul
| collapses on the field without any action from the opponent
| User23 wrote:
| Making no judgments as to the accuracy of the source or the
| underlying data, I believe this[1] is what's being referred
| to. A fivefold increase in sudden cardiac deaths among FIFA
| athletes is pretty weird if it's true. Presumably these
| athletes have pretty good cardiovascular health as well as
| proactive medical care relative to the general population.
|
| [1] https://stephenc.substack.com/p/5-fold-increase-in-
| sudden-ca...
| akomtu wrote:
| GP made a valid point. The 5x increase of cardiac arrest
| after 2 shots might be OK if that risk was very low, but if
| you need to keep getting boosters twice a year, that risk
| will also grow (how? exponentially?), until one day it
| becomes a bigger problem than covid. That's my reasoning
| for waiting out on those booster shots.
| [deleted]
| WJW wrote:
| Going to assume you meant this seriously; but just to
| enumerate the things you aren't certain about:
|
| - IF the cardiac arrest risk indeed rises 5x
|
| - AND that is not related to study effects (perhaps the
| risk of those athletes using performance enhancing drugs
| which you presumably aren't using was many time higher
| than 5x)
|
| - AND the chance of of 5x higher cardiac arrest risk is
| higher than the increased risk you run of dying from
| COVID
|
| - AND the risk of booster shots increasing cardiac arrest
| risks (which has not been proven yet) is indeed
| exponential, which seems quite unlikely at first glance
| (since the dose of boosters is only increasing linearly
| over time)
|
| And several other factors I can't think of off the top of
| my head. It looks like you are assigning a very high risk
| to booster shots and assigning a very low risk to dying
| of COVID. Given the amount of people who have died of
| COVID vs the amount of people who have died from booster
| shots this seems like a misassignment of risk.
| User23 wrote:
| One also must control for physical fitness and age. Those
| are by far the most powerful factors correlating to
| severe covid morbidity or mortality.
|
| The comparative disease vs vaccine risk assuredly differs
| between fit young FIFA players and obese geriatric
| persons. It may well be that even in the former case the
| vaccine reduces overall risk, but surely the effect is
| smaller than in the latter group.
| jsnell wrote:
| Discussed at the time in
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29242509
| 01100011 wrote:
| I don't know, but just to throw this out there, I believe
| very cardiovascularly 'fit' people have a risk of death
| because their heart rate can drop dangerously during
| sleep(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hT8GZlBBv5k). I would
| also think soccer players are more likely to use
| performance enhancing drugs. I wouldn't blame it on the
| vaccine without more data.
| User23 wrote:
| Unless there's also a corresponding increase in
| somnambulism, "sudden collapse" doesn't sound like it's
| related to sleep.
|
| The increase is over the last year. I don't follow soccer
| so for all I know there has been an increase in PED year
| over year too. Or it could be any number of other
| confounding factors.
|
| As for the cause, I feign no hypotheses. I just think
| that if and only if this increase is real it merits
| further research by persons with far greater subject
| matter expertise than myself. If the science ends up
| showing it is vaccine related than we should accept that,
| just as we should if it shows it isn't. Fortunately, for
| the sake of the science, we're going to continue
| gathering a great deal of data.
| rpadovani wrote:
| Well, football calendar, at least in Europe, has been crazy
| full since the suspension in the spring of 2020:
| https://www.fifpro.org/media/bffctrd1/at-the-limit.pdf
|
| This could be of course a cause of spike in deaths: I'd say
| way more data is necessary to find a cause.
| doomrobo wrote:
| > healthy sportsmen and women seem to be dropping like flies
|
| Just to avoid perpetuating a potential bias: can you provide
| numbers on this? And then if you can, provide the number per
| 100k of COVID deaths in their areas for their age
| throw63738 wrote:
| I read something like that. There was link to Wikipedia
| article, list of active sportsmen who died in last 150 years,
| about 50 people. And list of 100+ professional sportsmen who
| died in last 2 years with sources. Mostly from heart related
| stuff.
| cnlevy wrote:
| source ?
| skybrian wrote:
| According to this study, less than 1 in 100k:
|
| https://www.healthline.com/health-news/heart-inflammation-
| ri...
| michaelmrose wrote:
| For deaths is actually 3 potential out of hundreds of
| millions of doses. Number 3 is a 17 year old woman in WA
| state who before receiving her vaccine had just gotten over
| symptomatic covid meaning her heart damage was likely pre
| existing from the disease not the vaccine.
| [deleted]
| wnevets wrote:
| Whenever you hear news about mutated COVID and how fast it
| spreads there are a few important things to remember.
|
| 1. Viruses are constantly mutating, its kind of their thing.
|
| 2. Most mutations do absolutely nothing or are actually harmful
| to the virus.
|
| 3. When a new mutation is noted to be spreading fast its usually
| because of the nature of super spreader events and not because
| the new mutation is more or less transmissible.
|
| 4. Scientist and health officials should absolutely be keeping an
| eye on these things.
|
| [0] Vincent Racaniello - SARS-CoV-2 UK variant: Does it matter
| https://youtu.be/wC8ObD2W4Rk
| tamaharbor wrote:
| Does the flu virus mutate every year?
| lbotos wrote:
| I'm not sure if you are trolling, or sincere, but yes:
|
| https://www.uabmedicine.org/-/flu-strains-explained-and-
| how-...
|
| This is why Flu shots are seasonal
| LudwigNagasena wrote:
| Yeah, that's why people take a shot every year.
| bserge wrote:
| 5. "News" companies should be heavily fined for every
| sensationalist bullshit headline they write.
|
| If you don't agree based on this one, remember this is the same
| media that regularly questioned mRNA vaccine safety for
| _fucking months_ when it was announced, even as people with
| actual knowledge were explaining how it actually works.
| bhouston wrote:
| > 3. When a new mutation is noted to be spreading fast its
| usually because of the nature of super spreader events and not
| because the new mutation is more or less transmissible.
|
| Mostly true but in some very major cases it was because the
| variant did spread faster in general. Such as Delta and the
| British variant before hand.
| prox wrote:
| Wasn't there also some kind of watchlist where they track up to
| 7000 mutations in a given timeframe? Probably just minor
| mutations, but still.
| jsnell wrote:
| But Vince from YouTube was of course completely wrong there. At
| the time they recorded that video, there was overwhelming
| evidence that the Alpha variant was more transmissive. It was
| astronomically unlikely that it could have been explained by a
| founder effect or individual super-spreader events.
| Unsurprisingly, the evidence was correct while the uninformed
| pattern-matching from a non-epidemiologist was wrong.
|
| For this new variant it could still plausibly be a founder
| effect. But that's because the circumstances are different this
| time (the variant became dominant while cases were surging from
| almost nothing, not when the cases were already at a high
| level). Not because that checklist is actually correct.
| wnevets wrote:
| > But Vince from YouTube was of course completely wrong
| there.
|
| Claiming Vince was wrong in the video also means the
| researchers that discovered the variant were wrong. After all
| he was just parroting their findings in the video.
| kryogen1c wrote:
| > So far, the threat B.1.1.529 poses beyond South Africa is far
| from clear, researchers say. It is unclear whether the variant is
| more transmissible than Delta
|
| this is danger porn. pay it no mind and have happy holidays.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| 90% of new infections being this new variant should be quite
| alarming
| xienze wrote:
| A variant outcompeting other variants isn't in and of itself
| concerning. Viruses mutate in order spread more effectively,
| not surprising. Does it produce milder or more extreme
| symptoms? That's the interesting part and the article doesn't
| go into any specifics.
| wirrbel wrote:
| I am definitely alarmed. What I learned while doom-scrolling
|
| * SA has a <50% vaccination rate, so its not quite clear
| whether its spread could be circumvent vaccine-induced
| antibodies * SA is past its delta-wave, so this variant has
| made relatively huge gain over delta, but absolute numbers
| are still fairly moderate.
|
| I'm all in for taking necessary precautions for slowing down
| the arrival of the new variant in other countries, but it
| seems it isn't clear yet that the effect we see in South
| Africa will replicate elsewhere.
| ukie wrote:
| Fear mongering. Let people live their lives.
| darig wrote:
| Just another seasonal idiot
| Wherecombinator wrote:
| There's a thread on Twitter here that makes it quite concerning
|
| https://twitter.com/miamalan/status/1463846528578109444?s=21
|
| I don't have a background to properly analyse this but to me it
| looks legit.
| ukie wrote:
| Nobody cares.
| tigershark wrote:
| Another interesting one: https://mobile.twitter.com/jburnmurd
| och/status/1463956686075...
| swampthing wrote:
| The solution to overreaction should probably be to adjust the
| reaction to information, not to ignore information altogether.
| judge2020 wrote:
| I'm sure it's not hard to grasp how people might react to
| "puts scientists on alert".
| polote wrote:
| We still don't know if Delta was much more transmissible than
| Alpha actually. We have only observed that Delta spread faster
| than Alpha at some point in time.
|
| Not only have happy holiday, but also have happy return to
| normal. Most adults are vaxxed, if we don't remove restrictions
| now we will never remove them.
| rch wrote:
| I don't think it can be called normal when hospitals are near
| capacity in some states (e.g. CO).
| ummonk wrote:
| ICUs being near capacity is actually very normal,
| especially during flu season.
| ummonk wrote:
| Fully agree with your second paragraph but your first
| paragraph is nonsense.
|
| We have evidence that Delta has a much larger viral load and
| that it has outcompeted the Alpha variant everywhere in the
| world. You have to be in total denial to pretend the Delta
| variant might have been no more transmissible than Alpha.
| polote wrote:
| I said it spread faster at one point in time, what is
| different than what you said?
|
| Imagine delta and alpha are both introduced in a naive
| population at the exact same time. Which one will spread
| faster? No one has a clue
| tigershark wrote:
| Delta since it outcompeted Alpha everywhere in the world.
| idlewords wrote:
| You were on this forum calling covid "a normal seasonal virus"
| in February of 2020, so maybe sit this one out.
| chitowneats wrote:
| Are you also asking for Anthony Fauci, CNN, etc, to "sit this
| one out"? Because that was the overwhelming consensus in
| February 2020 in the United States.
| idlewords wrote:
| If they post here I'll zing them too
| throwawaylinux wrote:
| Weren't "experts" calling for events to continue and that
| border closures would be racist and that people should not
| wear masks around that time?
|
| Maybe he was just listening to the experts.
| polote wrote:
| Doesn't seem a wrong stake, the population was naive to this
| virus, but except that what is special with covid?
| tigershark wrote:
| Nothing, we didn't have the whole world locked down for 1
| year for the first time in a pandemic...
| ummonk wrote:
| Ehh - the majority of times I've seen researchers claim this,
| the variant has turned out to be more transmissible than other
| variants. Researchers seem to have a track record of being
| really hesitant to rule out founder effects and acknowledge
| higher transmissibility even when a variant is clearly
| spreading faster than its competition.
| skybrian wrote:
| Well sure but we could easily wait a week until scientists
| know more. What would you do now that you're not doing
| already?
| the8472 wrote:
| > What would you do now that you're not doing already?
|
| Well, if you're a policymaker then suspending travel to
| prevent it from spreading internationally. If it's the
| worst case (more infectious than delta + immune evading)
| then buying a little time to adapt vaccines or produce the
| recently announced antivirals could save a lot of lives.
| skybrian wrote:
| We aren't policy makers, though.
| vernie wrote:
| On the low end I'd guess that 85% of HN commenters are
| policymakers who influence international travel
| regulations, so thanks for the tip, I'll advise my
| government right away!
| tigershark wrote:
| U.K. put South Africa and other African countries in the
| red list for example.
| ummonk wrote:
| The locations of the spread of this variant might inform
| whether / when I choose to get a booster (third dose). If
| it starts spreading in the US, I might get a third dose to
| be safe. Until then, I'll avoid doing so as I do not want
| to contribute to domestic vaccine demand (which induces the
| US to stockpile more doses and export fewer doses to the
| rest of the world where they're more urgently needed).
| cblconfederate wrote:
| I think responses should be local, instead of countries
| essentially waiting and coordinating themselves in a
| cascade. If possible new variants should be contained at
| least until it is clear if they are more dangerous or not.
| So far china has been able to basically be covid-free by
| using local strategies, something we havent seen in the
| west
| mckirk wrote:
| Run around screaming, of course!
|
| Have to get rid of the holiday-calories _somehow_.
| WJW wrote:
| I have never considered the calorie-burning benefits of
| screaming while running before, opting for just simple
| running without any type of noise-making before. Maybe
| I've been missing out on amazing health benefits this
| whole time! I think I'll have to try tomorrow.
|
| (/s for those who were doubting)
| [deleted]
| soperj wrote:
| Does nature.com have a track record of danger porn?
| chuckleMuscle wrote:
| In my field nature papers have a reputation for employing a
| fair amount of poetic licence. Have no idea how universal
| this is .
| podgaj wrote:
| There is no escape from this unless you attempt to mitigate all
| your personal health risk factors (diabetes, obesity, etc).
|
| I will say this because it is not talked about enough, taking
| zinc LOZENGES will help right when you get sick because it
| stimulates the ADAM17 enzyme to cleave ACE2 off of the cells to
| make Soluble ACE2. The virus attaches to Soluble ACE2 and cannot
| enter the cell.
|
| https://www.mdpi.com/viruses/viruses-12-00491/article_deploy...
| vletal wrote:
| Is Nu _/ 'nju:/ (en) /ni:/ (cz)_ a good name? I assume that most
| people have heard first few letters of Greek alphabet. Yet after
| Delta they should have switched to Pokemon names. Would be much
| more robust. I can already imagine all the misspelling in Twitter
| rants.
| hkt wrote:
| The Shiny Charizard Variant would get the kids into it. Sibling
| post is right about the slogan though..
| xenonite wrote:
| On the other hand, it may finally give a reason to learn it.
| Tade0 wrote:
| I wonder if we would eventually reach the Koffing and Weezing
| variant?
| dane-pgp wrote:
| > they should have switched to Pokemon names
|
| The slogan "Gotta catch 'em all!" makes that idea even less
| viable than it first seems.
| abbassi wrote:
| Researchers are racing to determine whether a fast-spreading
| variant in South Africa poses a threat to COVID vaccines'
| effectiveness.
| Taniwha wrote:
| I don't think we even know that it's "fast spreading" yet. It's
| just different enough to have set off various scientist's
| personal danger detectors.
|
| The thing is that mutations probably occur all the time, most
| don't provide any evolutionary advantage and probably never get
| passed on, the fact that something with this many mutations
| being viable is a bit worrying - equally I think that the
| evolutionary pressure that vaccines represent is going to
| result in mutations that work better in vaccinated people - and
| as a result we'll make better vaccines - one of the great
| things about mRNA vaccines is that we can knock out new ones
| really quickly
| cromka wrote:
| https://twitter.com/miamalan/status/1463846542264131584
| jb1991 wrote:
| > I don't think we even know that it's "fast spreading" yet.
|
| We do know:
|
| > A new coronavirus variant has been detected in South Africa
| that scientists say is a concern because of its high number
| of mutations and rapid spread among young people in Gauteng,
| the country's most populous province. "Over the last four or
| five days, there has been more of an exponential rise," he
| said, adding that the new variant appears to be driving the
| spike in cases. "We can see that the variant is potentially
| spreading very fast. We do expect to start seeing pressure in
| the healthcare system in the next few days and weeks."
|
| https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/south-african-
| scient...
| mro_name wrote:
| I found it quite striking, that while infections here are
| balanced through age groups, fatalities are only 60+ and mostly
| 80+.
|
| e.g. seen on the "Dashboard" on rki.de, chart "COVID-19 cases by
| age group and sex".
|
| Stats indicate old people die. Duh. A tragedy in each case, but
| that's what will happen eventually, right?
|
| And a mutated virus mostly is more contagious but less fatal,
| isn't it? A virus optimises for spreading, not killing it's taxi.
| Was like that with delta.
| mupuff1234 wrote:
| I think delta is also considered to be more deadly and has a
| much higher viral load than the original strain.
| mro_name wrote:
| > more deadly
|
| than what? If age < 60, e.g. car accidents are orders of
| magnitude more deadly in my county here. There are just no (=
| 0) fatalities < 40 years here. So even swallowing hammers is
| equally or more deadly in that group.
| Zpalmtree wrote:
| just two more boosters we'll get it this time
| dane-pgp wrote:
| Only two more boosters, because when those don't stop the
| virus, they will be replaced with CRISPR treatments that
| rewrite your DNA to not be susceptible to covid. Of course, if
| you're against mandatory DNA rewriting then you'll have to be
| locked up to protect society.
| Skunkleton wrote:
| I mean what I am about to ask honestly. Why do you think of
| vaccinations in this way? From my perspective they are
| bringing us closer to a normal society at minimal risk.
| Vaccine mandates have been part of American society (and I
| assume others) for many years. Why is this one so different
| for you?
| ro-_-b wrote:
| A mandate in this case is different because
|
| a) this vaccine is not highly effective at preventing the
| disease (especially after 6 months+)
|
| b) long term effects have not yet been studied
|
| c) fatality is still much lower than for diseases where
| vaccines are mandatory
|
| I'm vaccinated myself twice by I feel extremely
| uncomfortable to force other people to vaccinate. I don't
| think liberal democracies should go this path.
| ipaddr wrote:
| I don't recall any vaccine mandate that have been part of
| America society like this. Are you referring to a flu shot
| some get yearly?
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Medical professionals routinely work under influenza
| vaccine mandates. The antivaxxers among them have just
| always been afforded an escape hatch.
| akira2501 wrote:
| I generally don't.. just this particular one given it's
| fairly novel mechanism of action and the potential for it
| to be too specifically targeted to a single variant that is
| no longer even present in the US. Other than this massive
| campaign, we don't have a lot of safety data and the
| outlook for effectiveness looks grim.
|
| There are also other ways to reduce risk, but we don't seem
| to engage with any of those. The lack of advice to lose
| weight and to get pre-diabetes under control seems to be
| missing from our approach in general.
|
| Vaccine mandates for particular institutions, usually
| involving the welfare of children, have been normalized
| somewhat recently. I've been working for 40 years, and not
| once have I ever been asked about my vaccination status for
| any particular vaccine or disease. It is unprecedented that
| the federal government in the US is attempting to use it's
| executive power to introduce this novel requirement.
|
| For my own part, I'm lucky enough to work at home full
| time, and I am in a position and of an age where it's very
| easy for me to spend most of my time isolated from others.
| I sincerely doubt that being vaccinated would provide any
| benefit to anyone other than myself, and since I'm not
| comfortable with it for the reasons above, I really don't
| feel that the issue should be forced upon me.
|
| This is an honest answer. It's not a recommendation for
| anyone else. It's not a presupposition that my solution is
| the best solution, or that it's even practical for the
| majority of people. COVID is real and I don't want to
| spread it, but I'd like the latitude to decide _personally_
| what the best way to achieve that is.
| faeyanpiraat wrote:
| I'd like to have eagle dna please.
| MissionInfl wrote:
| A similar thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29344274
| quotemstr wrote:
| Yeah, but this thread has a title that's comprehensible for
| humans.
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(page generated 2021-11-25 23:00 UTC)