| SvennoJ said: A less conspiracy view on the new strain (what was that second part of that video....) |
Yep. Mind you, it is very hard to prove if D614G or this actually makes the virus more transmissible or not. There's a number of factors that favor heterogeneous distribution of viral strains, akin to the founder effect, such as superspreader events, degrees of sociability among different groups, sheer chance, etc.
On the other hand, bind too perfectly to your target receptor and you become an easier target to neutralizing antibodies. So the chances are, much like it has been theorized for D614G, that vaccines and natural infections will actually be more protective against future Covid than they would otherwise be.
As for the natural selection of the virus, it was evident from the beginning that our response to the pandemic placed an unusual degree of evolutionary pressure over a respiratory virus that favors not only less virulence, but also greater transmissibility and/or longer incubation periods. But the greater concern would be if people were adequately shielding against it but the virus was still efficiently spreading in hospitals, since that is precisely what could have made it more dangerous over time.
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Personally, I think it's reductionism to ascribe to a single mutation the consequences of hundreds of millions of people moving around for the holidays, in the middle of the northern hemisphere winter, at a time when the fear of the virus has dulled and a lot of people are tired of following the guidelines. It was obvious that the end of the year was going to be bad all along.
Last edited by haxxiy - on 22 December 2020
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