Just read it. One has to be a specialist to understand it fully but it is very interesting anyway. It suggests the variant is more infectious because it binds better to the target.
Just heard the UK has 19k in hospital, versus 21k at the previous peak in April 2020. However there doesn’t appear to be a website with this data. NHS staff are under orders to not disclose numbers of patients etc.
Cobalt wrote:
However, what appears to be driving the current panic is this something like this:
Thank you!
Without having the raw data for proper analysis – it is actually hard to see the point in the graph that the new strain is much more infectious than the older one. It rather seems to replace the older strain. Up until 2nd week of December, the detected infections with the old strain are going down about the same magnitude as the infections with the new strain are going up. If the new variant is really more infectious, you would expect that the overall case numbers go up much more significantly prior to that.
kwlf wrote:
(Public Health England briefing on the new virus)
Interesting read – especially in combination with the graph Cobalt posted above. Short summary: Due to limitations of detection, only the last 6 weeks delivered more or less reliable data on the actual spread of the new strain. In these weeks the overall infection numbers have also grown significantly.
“Unfortunately” we have seen rapid growth of infection numbers in those weeks also in areas where the new strain is not that prevalent. Therefore we need more data.
From a scientific point of view the best thing would be to do a “German style lockdown” in these areas and see how the infection numbers react. But I’m not sure if politicians and population is really up to do this…
This is a very interesting analysis. It seems apparent this strain is replacing other strains, that much seems clear. I am still unsure how you conclude it is more infectious simply because it is becoming the dominant strain without discounting other reasons for the growth in cases. Perhaps a percentage of people are exposed to the other strains but never become infectious because the virus is less successful at binding to the ACE receptor before it is dealt with by the immune system, thus giving this strain a competitive advantage. This might explain why this strain is likely to infect younger people, and if it does, presumably this could also explain why it spreads more successfully in the population given that younger people would seem to be taking fewer precautions. This might also support limiting the spread in schools which seems to be on the agenda now.
kwlf wrote:
It seems likely to me that all else being equal, a virus that spreads more rapidly will also cause more severe disease.
Actually, it is the other way around. Viruses tend to mutate so that they become more infectious and less dangerous – which makes sense from an evolutionary point of view.
I have just seen the BBC are running an article that it could well be more infectious in children which I had genuinely not seen before my earlier post but having read the study paper. This does seem to logically make sense as I can see it would drive the infection rate in the population given the behaviour of younger people who have been told they are at far less risk. If so it could be that if more young people rigorously follow the advice and spread is limited in schools the new strain will not spread any more quickly, or at least, only marginally more quickly, which I guess must follow just because it is capable of infecting more of the population now.
Airborne_Again wrote:
Airborne_Again
22-Dec-20 09:49
900kwlf wrote:
It seems likely to me that all else being equal, a virus that spreads more rapidly will also cause more severe disease.Actually, it is the other way around. Viruses tend to mutate so that they become more infectious and less dangerous – which makes sense from an evolutionary point of view.
Yes, no pathogen ulitmately does itself much good if it wipes out its host, so the logic is sound. It can be argued that some of the stealth viruses are the most successful. For example nearly everyone on the planet who has been vaccinated and is or has been sexually active has the HPV virus which most of the time doesnt cause us too many problems.
AIDS on the other hand seems to defy some of this logic, but perhaps because it is a slow burn virus it will take longer for it to evolve into less dangerous strains?
At some point there was a theory that HIV used to take decades to kill people but became more aggressive when it moved to less monogamous populations where it could spread faster (if you spread faster your host doesn’t have to live as long in order for you to find a new host).
If a virus is replicating faster and entering cells more easily then you might generally physiologically expect it to be more likely to damage its host. I am reading discussion about whether ORF8 changes means this strain will be less virulent. I hope so, but the discussions are beyond me.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-55364445
Worth a read.
Genuinely I hate non substantiated hypothesis, but I also hate what appears to be such a lack of solid information. For me it is almost inconceivable China hasnt committed huge resources to the circumstances that lead to the COVID pandemic. They have also resisted any investigation for purely political reasons, arguing essentially it would seem “the time isnt right”. The trouble with this argument, is that we all know by the time the time is right the evidence will have vanished, not necessarily am I suggesting intentionally, but in any event in the nature of these things. It is like any forensic investigation, there is limited time to “case the joint” and if you miss the opportunity most of the evidence will be lost.
Sadly trust is based on experience, and China definitely doesnt justify my trust, so while it may be unscientific I have very little faith in their denials or insistance that they know as little as they appear to be saying. This would be my starting point and I would need some convincing to shift my opinion.
kwlf wrote:
If a virus is replicating faster and entering cells more easily then you might generally physiologically expect it to be more likely to damage its host. I am reading discussion about whether ORF8 changes means this strain will be less virulent. I hope so, but the discussions are beyond me.
I am slightly struggling with the logic of why the accepted trend is for a virus to mutate to become less virulent in terms of its mortality.
Clearly is a virus kills its host too quickly then it reduces the chances of being transmitted. Also if we know a virus is especially dangerous we are more likely to isolate the patient more quickly, again having the same consequence on transmission. In times gone by as with leprosy for example even before we understood these things were were quite good at sending infected people off to remote islands.
On the other hand a virus that is rapidly mutating may well “try” (attempting to avoid anthramorphising) a more virulent strain combined with a strain that is highly infectious in the early stages when the symptoms are not apparent. it seems to me it would take some time before this strain became less successful, or am I missing some driving factor as to why such a strain would be replaced with a less virulent one?
It seems likely that this strain evolved in very specific circumstances and perhaps we are just lucky that a less virulent strain evolved to spread faster… if this actually is the case.
