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Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

The home for all non-political Coronavirus (Covid-19) discussions on The Lemon Fool
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This is the home for all non-political Coronavirus (Covid-19) discussions on The Lemon Fool
88V8
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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#452884

Postby 88V8 » October 25th, 2021, 11:47 am

onthemove wrote:So all those 'irresponsible' youngster catching covid in the manchester halls of residence (and as far as I know, none of them died from it) have probably given themselves a good degree of protection by it.

So I think the government are playing it right by not re-introducing restrictions again at this point.

Protection? Yes, but aiui only against that particular strain.

And infection is not risk-free. Study here which has found that CV19 directly damages the brain https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-021-00926-1
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) can damage cerebral small vessels and cause neurological symptoms. Here we describe structural changes in cerebral small vessels of patients with COVID-19 and elucidate potential mechanisms underlying the vascular pathology. In brains of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)-infected individuals and animal models, we found an increased number of empty basement membrane tubes, so-called string vessels representing remnants of lost capillaries. We obtained evidence that brain endothelial cells are infected and that the main protease of SARS-CoV-2 (Mpro) cleaves NEMO, the essential modulator of nuclear factor-κB. By ablating NEMO, Mpro induces the death of human brain endothelial cells.

Requiring mask wearing in shops and on public transport would not be a 'restriction'.
Passports might be termed a restriction but in my view a very moderate and appropriate one. Indeed, a potentially beneficial restriction; I think many people would be more likely to visit hospitality if they could be confident that they would only be in the company of those double-jabbed.

V8

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#452886

Postby Bouleversee » October 25th, 2021, 11:55 am

dealtn wrote:
Bouleversee wrote:
dealtn wrote:
Anyone, be they highly critically vulnerable, or not, that are not convinced they no longer need to shield can take the practical option of shielding.


Really? I hadn't thought of that. :roll: Actually, I think many or most of us in that category will have continued to shield as before, as I am doing, even after the booster since it is by no means certain how effective the current jab is on the latest variant and by no means everyone in public places is masked or jabbed, including some of my grandchildren.


So you agree personal choice is appropriate and an effective way for individuals to take responsibility for their own risk management then?


Up to a point, Lord Copper. I am certainly capable of assessing the risk and acting appropriately but not everyone follows the changing detail as I do and many will think they are safe to go on buses or into lifts and small shops etc. where not everyone is wearing a mask and they can't avoid close contact. It's not much fun being incarcerated at home, however, and if the supermarket which delivers my groceries (quite a long distance away from my home) omits some essential items, I am not happy about going into my small local Co-op where masks are not mandatory and often not worn and one cannot avoid getting reasonably close and the only ventilation is when the automatic door opens, a risk I have to take occasionally, however. Similarly, I am not happy about having my hair done by some-one who admits to being an anti-vaxxer and doesn't want either of us to wear a mask and wants to be paid in cash, so I don't and my hair is now a mess. We know that the effectiveness of masks lies mainly in stopping someone infected passing it on, so even if I were not in the vulnerable category and was circulating normally I would be wearing one to protect others, including the immuno-compromised who do not get antibodies after vaccination. I wouldn't put money on all those unmasked people in the Co-op having had a negative lateral flow test that day. (Have these now become more reliable or is it just that the CRP is too expensive and takes too long?) I take it that you do before going out and mixing with friends and that you always wear a mask when going into shops etc. It's not a huge ask and doing so could make a big difference to the infection rate but unless mandatory, many will opt out.

I heard Peter Openshaw on R4 this morning say that he is not comfortable going on public transport etc. when so many are unmasked despite being in close contact. I think most of the medical profession think masks should be mandatory so it was disappointing to hear Sajid Javid say that no change was proposed at the moment. Seems like a cop-out to me.

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#452897

Postby XFool » October 25th, 2021, 12:21 pm

...I effectively still follow the (now voluntary) rules. Wear a mask when in shops, on public transport etc. But don't when just meeting people, say at home (but have window open), or in the open air. I am over 70 but not otherwise in a vulnerable group.

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#452913

Postby onthemove » October 25th, 2021, 1:10 pm

88V8 wrote:
onthemove wrote:So all those 'irresponsible' youngster catching covid in the manchester halls of residence (and as far as I know, none of them died from it) have probably given themselves a good degree of protection by it.

So I think the government are playing it right by not re-introducing restrictions again at this point.

Protection? Yes, but aiui only against that particular strain.


Are you talking about protection from the vaccine or the virus?

From research I've read before (and posted before, but I don't have time to dig out the link again), the protection induced from prior infection with the virus is broader than the protection from the vaccine.

In other words, the vaccine tends to be more strain specific than the protection from prior infection.

If you read the guardian link I provided, the reason that on average the protection from prior infection is now on a par with protection from the vaccine, is because the vaccines currently in use were designed against the original (alpha?) variant, whereas the predominant strain is now the delta, so the vaccines aren't being as effective as they were against the alpha strain, whereas the protection induced by prior infections is holding up better in the face of the delta variant.

I believe the main, and obvious, reason for this is because the vaccines are built to a specific subset of the virus structure - usually specifically the spike protein in the case of covid - whereas if you get an actual real infection, your immune system is exposed to the full virus structure, and so is likely to generate a broader range of antibodies and T cells.

So an overall small change in the spike protein could have quite a detrimental effect on the vaccine efficacy, whereas the broader protection from a prior infection that targets more of the virus structure will still largely be almost as effective as it was previously - it'll still recognise most of the virus and still be in a position to attack it.

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#452931

Postby Julian » October 25th, 2021, 1:59 pm

onthemove wrote:...
If you read the guardian link I provided, the reason that on average the protection from prior infection is now on a par with protection from the vaccine, is because the vaccines currently in use were designed against the original (alpha?) variant...

The Alpha variant is what used to be called the Kent variant because it was first discovered in Kent. I believe that the major vaccines in use at the moment are actually targeting what came before even the Alpha variant, i.e. the original variant that in the early days was sometimes referred to as the "Wuhan" strain. The reason is that the genetic code for the original Wuhan strain was released quite quickly and as soon as the vaccine developers got the sequence that is what they started working with. By the time even Alpha became a thing they were quite far down the development process and didn't know for sure whether Alpha would have any significant escape characteristics so changing course at that point would have been a time cost for no known (at the time) benefit. At least that's how I understand the situation from what I've read.

I read an article in the last few days that all of Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca are now starting trials on vaccines specifically targeted at Delta but that is not necessarily for mass production, it is more of a practice run to streamline the process of getting a tweaked vaccine to market, understanding what the FDA and other regulatory authorities will require in terms of new trial data, and tuning other aspects of the get-a-tweaked-vaccine-to-market process in anticipation of some variant with very significant escape properties emerging that pretty much necessitates a tweaked vaccine. The trial sizes are only in the high hundreds or low thousands of volunteers for each company doing these test runs. I'm afraid that I was reading the article on an iPad news reader and I didn't save the link.

- Julian

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#452986

Postby ursaminortaur » October 25th, 2021, 5:59 pm

onthemove wrote:
88V8 wrote:
onthemove wrote:So all those 'irresponsible' youngster catching covid in the manchester halls of residence (and as far as I know, none of them died from it) have probably given themselves a good degree of protection by it.

So I think the government are playing it right by not re-introducing restrictions again at this point.

Protection? Yes, but aiui only against that particular strain.


Are you talking about protection from the vaccine or the virus?

From research I've read before (and posted before, but I don't have time to dig out the link again), the protection induced from prior infection with the virus is broader than the protection from the vaccine.

In other words, the vaccine tends to be more strain specific than the protection from prior infection.

If you read the guardian link I provided, the reason that on average the protection from prior infection is now on a par with protection from the vaccine, is because the vaccines currently in use were designed against the original (alpha?) variant, whereas the predominant strain is now the delta, so the vaccines aren't being as effective as they were against the alpha strain, whereas the protection induced by prior infections is holding up better in the face of the delta variant.

I believe the main, and obvious, reason for this is because the vaccines are built to a specific subset of the virus structure - usually specifically the spike protein in the case of covid - whereas if you get an actual real infection, your immune system is exposed to the full virus structure, and so is likely to generate a broader range of antibodies and T cells.

So an overall small change in the spike protein could have quite a detrimental effect on the vaccine efficacy, whereas the broader protection from a prior infection that targets more of the virus structure will still largely be almost as effective as it was previously - it'll still recognise most of the virus and still be in a position to attack it.



https://theconversation.com/covid-vaccines-focus-on-the-spike-protein-but-heres-another-target-150315

However, the SARS-CoV-2 virus is more complicated than just a spike protein. There are, in fact, four different proteins that form the overall structure of the virus particle: spike, envelope (E), membrane (M) and nucleocapsid (N). In a natural infection, our immune system recognises all of these proteins to varying degrees. So how important are immune responses to these different proteins, and does it matter that the first vaccines will not replicate these?

Following SARS-CoV-2 infection, researchers have discovered that we actually make the most antibodies to the N protein – not the spike protein. This is the same for many different viruses that also have N proteins. But how N protein antibodies protect us from infection has been a long-standing mystery. This is because N protein is only found inside the virus particle, wrapped around the RNA. Therefore, N protein antibodies cannot block virus entry, will not be measured in neutralisation assays that test for this in the lab, and so have largely been overlooked.

New mechanism discovered

Our latest work from the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge has revealed a new mechanism for how N protein antibodies can protect against viral disease. We have studied another virus containing an N protein called lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus and shown a surprising role for an unusual antibody receptor called TRIM21.

Whereas antibodies are typically thought to only work outside of cells, TRIM21 is only found inside cells. We have shown that N protein antibodies that get inside cells are recognised by TRIM21, which then shreds the associated N protein. Tiny fragments of N protein are then displayed on the surface of infected cells. T cells recognise these fragments, identify cells as infected, then kill the cell and consequently any virus.

We expect that this newly identified role for N protein antibodies in protecting against virus infection is important for SARS-CoV-2, and work is ongoing to explore this further. This suggests that vaccines that induce N protein antibodies, as well as spike antibodies, could be valuable, as they would stimulate another way by which our immune response can eliminate SARS-CoV-2.

Adding N protein to SARS-CoV-2 vaccines could also be useful because N protein is very similar between different coronaviruses – much more so than the spike protein. This means it’s possible that a protective immune response against SARS-CoV-2 N protein could also offer some protection against other related coronaviruses, such as Mers.

Another potential benefit that may arise from including N protein in SARS-CoV-2 vaccines is due to the low mutation rates seen in the N protein sequence. Some changes to the sequence of SARS-CoV-2 have been reported over the course of this pandemic, with the most significant changes occurring in the spike protein.

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#452987

Postby dealtn » October 25th, 2021, 6:00 pm

Bouleversee wrote:
dealtn wrote:
Bouleversee wrote:
Really? I hadn't thought of that. :roll: Actually, I think many or most of us in that category will have continued to shield as before, as I am doing, even after the booster since it is by no means certain how effective the current jab is on the latest variant and by no means everyone in public places is masked or jabbed, including some of my grandchildren.


So you agree personal choice is appropriate and an effective way for individuals to take responsibility for their own risk management then?


We know that the effectiveness of masks lies mainly in stopping someone infected passing it on, so even if I were not in the vulnerable category and was circulating normally I would be wearing one to protect others, including the immuno-compromised who do not get antibodies after vaccination. I wouldn't put money on all those unmasked people in the Co-op having had a negative lateral flow test that day. (Have these now become more reliable or is it just that the CRP is too expensive and takes too long?) I take it that you do before going out and mixing with friends and that you always wear a mask when going into shops etc. It's not a huge ask and doing so could make a big difference to the infection rate but unless mandatory, many will opt out.



No I don't take a lateral flow test every time I go out, nor do I suspect many do. I take them regularly though, as do my family. 3 of the 4 of us attend schools, one being a school nurse. I am the regular matchday Covid Officer at my employer, a football club.

I don't claim to always wear a mask in a shop either. Always is a very high bar, although I can't recall the last time I didn't. As you say, it's not a big ask but it isn't mandatory, nor do I think it needs to be.

I, like everyone, take conscious and unconscious risk assessments hundreds of times a day. I don't think such risk assessments should be undertaken by the authorities, nor the actions I take be dictated to regarding the vast majority of those. That sounds a lot different to "normal life" to me.

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#453049

Postby look » October 26th, 2021, 12:08 am

baricitinib

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#453056

Postby Hallucigenia » October 26th, 2021, 12:56 am

Julian wrote:I read an article in the last few days that all of Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca are now starting trials on vaccines specifically targeted at Delta but that is not necessarily for mass production, it is more of a practice run to streamline the process of getting a tweaked vaccine to market, understanding what the FDA and other regulatory authorities will require in terms of new trial data, and tuning other aspects of the get-a-tweaked-vaccine-to-market process in anticipation of some variant with very significant escape properties emerging that pretty much necessitates a tweaked vaccine.


AIUI aside from the regulatory aspects of introducing a new anti-delta vaccine versus boosting with "classic" anti-Wuhan vaccines, another factor is that delta is out on a limb from a antigen perspective, so an anti-delta vaccine would work a bit better against delta, but quite a bit worse against the various other variants, so unless you're sure that the virus will definitely only go in a delta direction in future, the classic vaccines give better protection against the full spectrum of variants.

This article touches on the idea of "antigen space" :
https://www.science.org/content/article ... us-do-next

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#453060

Postby Julian » October 26th, 2021, 2:05 am

Hallucigenia wrote:
Julian wrote:I read an article in the last few days that all of Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca are now starting trials on vaccines specifically targeted at Delta but that is not necessarily for mass production, it is more of a practice run to streamline the process of getting a tweaked vaccine to market, understanding what the FDA and other regulatory authorities will require in terms of new trial data, and tuning other aspects of the get-a-tweaked-vaccine-to-market process in anticipation of some variant with very significant escape properties emerging that pretty much necessitates a tweaked vaccine.


AIUI aside from the regulatory aspects of introducing a new anti-delta vaccine versus boosting with "classic" anti-Wuhan vaccines, another factor is that delta is out on a limb from a antigen perspective, so an anti-delta vaccine would work a bit better against delta, but quite a bit worse against the various other variants, so unless you're sure that the virus will definitely only go in a delta direction in future, the classic vaccines give better protection against the full spectrum of variants.

This article touches on the idea of "antigen space" :
https://www.science.org/content/article ... us-do-next

Indeed. I did come across the concept, going by the rather wonderful name of antigenic cartography, a few months ago in a Zoe (King’s college COVID-19 tracking project) video. Just to be clear, I wasn’t reporting any intention whatsoever by any of those companies to release a tweaked vaccine for the Delta variant. Delta is just a handy target to use for a dummy run to get an example of a tweaked vaccine through approvals so that if/when they need to genuinely target a new nasty escape variant they will have already gone through the steps - a dummy run if you like with a test case. If any tweaked vaccine is actually put into manufacturing I assume, based on what you and others observe, that it would not be any of these Delta-specific test cases. Presumably Delta is a good target to use for a dummy run because its genetic sequence is well known, it has a high prevalence, and it has at least some escape characteristics.

- Julian

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#453062

Postby 1nvest » October 26th, 2021, 2:12 am

Mike4 wrote:
Lootman wrote:
XFool wrote:Err... Did I mention it's infectious, folks?

So is the flu but we accept a certain level of deaths from flu. We don't shut down society because the flu kills a few (thousand?) people every year.

And you know perfectly well 'flu kills only "a few (thousand?)" with NO public health precautions to limit transmission.

And COVID has killed 160,000 in two years with all the measures you oppose.

Our GP practice has pretty much been closed for the two years and continues to remain dark. Many GP's opted to shift over to half weeks when their pay was doubled some years ago, nowadays they can work just a few hours/week remotely. Many people die in hospitals, a great place to contract Covid. Around 600,000 die/year, so of 1.2M deaths over two years, 13% might have entered hospital in their twilight days, contracted Covid in the process and then passed and been recorded as a Covid death. Or been in a care home and had Covid exported into it by the NHS under duress (care homes forced to accept Covid patients ... or else (funding/licence cut threats etc.)). My 89 year old mother contracted Covid within 3 days of entering hospital last January for a fall/hip op. In her case the symptoms were very mild, the 10 days isolation period with no physio was the more damaging (of the 14 days isolation period she remained for four days on the same hip ward with no obvious separation from others so seemingly contracted it and then passed it on to others before being separated).

Relative to younger healthier individuals Covid death rates are very low. Much of the spread is via the NHS, overpaid GP's working part time and other wastage and incompetence. Front line Covid workers are having to earn their pay whilst a large proportion of other NHS staff are largely inactive. A&E's are busy, dealing with minor ailments that GP's might otherwise have dealt with. Sack 90% of GP's and replace each with 4 senior nurses approved to prescribe and the service would be vastly improved.

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#453063

Postby servodude » October 26th, 2021, 2:15 am

Julian wrote:
Hallucigenia wrote:
Julian wrote:I read an article in the last few days that all of Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca are now starting trials on vaccines specifically targeted at Delta but that is not necessarily for mass production, it is more of a practice run to streamline the process of getting a tweaked vaccine to market, understanding what the FDA and other regulatory authorities will require in terms of new trial data, and tuning other aspects of the get-a-tweaked-vaccine-to-market process in anticipation of some variant with very significant escape properties emerging that pretty much necessitates a tweaked vaccine.


AIUI aside from the regulatory aspects of introducing a new anti-delta vaccine versus boosting with "classic" anti-Wuhan vaccines, another factor is that delta is out on a limb from a antigen perspective, so an anti-delta vaccine would work a bit better against delta, but quite a bit worse against the various other variants, so unless you're sure that the virus will definitely only go in a delta direction in future, the classic vaccines give better protection against the full spectrum of variants.

This article touches on the idea of "antigen space" :
https://www.science.org/content/article ... us-do-next

Indeed. I did come across the concept, going by the rather wonderful name of antigenic cartography, a few months ago in a Zoe (King’s college COVID-19 tracking project) video. Just to be clear, I wasn’t reporting any intention whatsoever by any of those companies to release a tweaked vaccine for the Delta variant. Delta is just a handy target to use for a dummy run to get an example of a tweaked vaccine through approvals so that if/when they need to genuinely target a new nasty escape variant they will have already gone through the steps - a dummy run if you like with a test case. If any tweaked vaccine is actually put into manufacturing I assume, based on what you and others observe, that it would not be any of these Delta-specific test cases. Presumably Delta is a good target to use for a dummy run because its genetic sequence is well known, it has a high prevalence, and it has at least some escape characteristics.

- Julian


I find this stuff absolutely fascinating
- mostly because it has a huge overlap with one of my old research topics (using genetic algorithms for solving state space control problems) except that this has fewer degrees of abstraction (it's real genetics in real places)
- so I kind of feel like I can follow along :)

I wonder if either of you know if any subsequent vaccine will face difficulties in proving efficacy given how widespread the vaccine roll outs have been
- will they have to find an un-vaxed population? or will they run for longer? or will there be a shift in the goal posts?

- sd

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#453070

Postby look » October 26th, 2021, 5:26 am

reading for nerds
old pandemies and herbs

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10 ... 71042/full

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#453075

Postby Steveam » October 26th, 2021, 6:50 am

A well balanced article from the BBC emphasising the high degree of uncertainty about future U.K. Covid numbers. Neither sanguine nor alarmist but putting some of the fog factors in perspective.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59039739

Best wishes,

Steve

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#453177

Postby ursaminortaur » October 26th, 2021, 12:01 pm

Hallucigenia wrote:
Julian wrote:I read an article in the last few days that all of Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca are now starting trials on vaccines specifically targeted at Delta but that is not necessarily for mass production, it is more of a practice run to streamline the process of getting a tweaked vaccine to market, understanding what the FDA and other regulatory authorities will require in terms of new trial data, and tuning other aspects of the get-a-tweaked-vaccine-to-market process in anticipation of some variant with very significant escape properties emerging that pretty much necessitates a tweaked vaccine.


AIUI aside from the regulatory aspects of introducing a new anti-delta vaccine versus boosting with "classic" anti-Wuhan vaccines, another factor is that delta is out on a limb from a antigen perspective, so an anti-delta vaccine would work a bit better against delta, but quite a bit worse against the various other variants, so unless you're sure that the virus will definitely only go in a delta direction in future, the classic vaccines give better protection against the full spectrum of variants.

This article touches on the idea of "antigen space" :
https://www.science.org/content/article ... us-do-next


Wouldn't it then be an idea to combine a delta and classic vaccine in a single jab just as the yearly influenza jab consists of a number of different flu variant vaccines ?

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#453182

Postby pje16 » October 26th, 2021, 12:15 pm

ursaminortaur wrote:
Hallucigenia wrote:
Julian wrote:Wouldn't it then be an idea to combine a delta and classic vaccine in a single jab just as the yearly influenza jab consists of a number of different flu variant vaccines ?

let's go one stage further, Covid and Flu in one
I am not medically minded but they are both "corona" viruses

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#453197

Postby vrdiver » October 26th, 2021, 12:51 pm

pje16 wrote:let's go one stage further, Covid and Flu in one
I am not medically minded but they are both "corona" viruses

(my bold)

The first google hit on searching "is flu a corona virus?" took me to https://www.cdc.gov/flu/symptoms/flu-vs-covid19.htm where it states:
Influenza (flu) and COVID-19 are both contagious respiratory illnesses, but they are caused by different viruses. COVID-19 is caused by infection with a coronavirus first identified in 2019, and flu is caused by infection with influenza viruses.

I'm not trying to be picky, but you really undermine yourself by posting stuff that is so easily shown as incorrect. May I suggest you check your assertions before posting, especially where you readily admit it is not your specialism?

All the best
VRD

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#453207

Postby ursaminortaur » October 26th, 2021, 1:10 pm

pje16 wrote:
ursaminortaur wrote:
Hallucigenia wrote:

let's go one stage further, Covid and Flu in one
I am not medically minded but they are both "corona" viruses


Combining them in one shot should be possible - though they are NOT both coronaviruses. Influenza and Coronavirus are at least as far apart on the virus family tree as backboned animals like humans (phylum chordata) and arthropods like lobsters (phylum arthropoda) are on the animal family tree.

Influenza :

Realm: Riboviria
Kingdom: Orthornavirae
Phylum: Negarnaviricota
Class: Insthoviricetes
Order: Articulavirales
Family: Orthomyxoviridae


Coronavirus :

Realm: Riboviria
Kingdom: Orthornavirae
Phylum: Pisuviricota
Class: Pisoniviricetes
Order: Nidovirales
Family: Coronaviridae
Subfamily: Orthocoronavirinae


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthomyxoviridae

Orthomyxoviridae (from Greek ὀρθός, orthós 'straight' + μύξα, mýxa 'mucus')[1] is a family of negative-sense RNA viruses. It includes seven genera: Alphainfluenzavirus, Betainfluenzavirus, Deltainfluenzavirus, Gammainfluenzavirus, Isavirus, Thogotovirus, and Quaranjavirus. The first four genera contain viruses that cause influenza in birds (see also avian influenza) and mammals, including humans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus

Coronaviruses are a group of related RNA viruses that cause diseases in mammals and birds. In humans and birds, they cause respiratory tract infections that can range from mild to lethal. Mild illnesses in humans include some cases of the common cold (which is also caused by other viruses, predominantly rhinoviruses), while more lethal varieties can cause SARS, MERS, and COVID-19.
.
.
.
Coronaviruses constitute the subfamily Orthocoronavirinae, in the family Coronaviridae, order Nidovirales, and realm Riboviria.[3][4] They are enveloped viruses with a positive-sense single-stranded RNA genome and a nucleocapsid of helical symmetry.[5

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#453213

Postby Hallucigenia » October 26th, 2021, 1:24 pm

Julian wrote:Presumably Delta is a good target to use for a dummy run because its genetic sequence is well known, it has a high prevalence, and it has at least some escape characteristics.


Exactly - even if it's mainly being used as a proof of concept for how we might develop and trial variants in future, and if it does form the basis of future strains then at least we'll have a proven anti-delta as a starting point. Anthopomorphising horribly, the virus is currently probing the confines of antigen space, trying to find the weak spots where it can escape human immune responses.
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The beta variant was the most "immune-escape-y" named variant so far, but it didn't really take off because the mutations involved compromised other functions of the virus. Delta represents another approach - "let's not worry too much about immune evasion, let's just go for maximum transmissibility". As vaccination/infection levels increase, it could be that a more beta-type strategy will be more successful than a delta strategy, or a new variant based on delta manages to find ways to be more immune-escape-y whilst retaining delta levels of transmissibility. It's fascinating to have the sequencing coverage to see a pathogen figuring this stuff out in real time, probing the confines of the box, compare this with Smith et al (2004) who showed influenza A (H3N2) going in a definite direction in antigen space between 1968 and 2002 :
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servodude wrote:I wonder if either of you know if any subsequent vaccine will face difficulties in proving efficacy given how widespread the vaccine roll outs have been
- will they have to find an un-vaxed population? or will they run for longer? or will there be a shift in the goal posts?


The short answer is that there will be no problem finding unvaxxed populations for at least another year or so, which will give time to compare responses to updated vaccines in unjabbed versus jabbed populations. The great thing about this new generation of vaccines is that the delivery system is the same, and you can just slot in a gene "cassette" depending on the target. So potentially any vaccine 2.0 is >95% or more identical to the [highly-tested] original, which means any subsequent testing can focus on a relatively small change. Which hopefully means any vaccine based on these kinds of technology have an easier path to where we are with flu vaccines, where the variants are approved relatively quickly. But if you mean "an accelerated approval like for annual flu variants" by "shift in the goal posts" then yes, that has to be the long-term aim.

Hallucigenia
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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#453220

Postby Hallucigenia » October 26th, 2021, 1:41 pm

ursaminortaur wrote:Wouldn't it then be an idea to combine a delta and classic vaccine in a single jab just as the yearly influenza jab consists of a number of different flu variant vaccines ?


It's a possibility, but from a manufacturing and regulatory point of view, there's a lot to be said for keeping things simple, and the classic vaccine still works pretty well against delta. Given the timescales, I suspect most of the world will end up getting a classic jab - once trials of the delta vaccines as single shots are complete we will understand better how well they work in their own right, and then there would need to be separate trials of a mix. And then an assessment of whether the additional complexity was worth it relative to the variant mix at the time.


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