Coronavirus (COVID-19) Discussion Thread

[LurkerJ]

haxxiy said:

JRPGfan said:

You thought the new british mutation (B.1.1.7) of their corona virus was bad?
Now they have a new one.... this one is called E484k, and apparently this one is like the one in Brazil/south africa.

It appears that old anti bodies, your immune system buildt up from haveing the org. Corona virus (covid19), dont offer much protection against it.
This means, you could potentially get sick, first with covid19 (orginal strain or B117) and then get this new one (E484k).
(it also appears that some vaccines arnt as effective at protecting against it, just like the brazil/south african versions).

I seriously hope, these new types dont make their way across europe.
I want the vaccines to work, people get a jab, and then society returns to normal.
If what happends is a new wave, of vaccine resistant covid, starts spreading across the world again.... F***.

When there's a given mutation that is better at avoiding neutralizing antibodies then obviously it's going to spread and become the dominant strain after vaccination, even if you don't import it. The ones detected in the UK mutated in situ, after all; the seeds are already there, and everywhere.

But your immune system isn't stuck with old antibodies as you put it. Antibodies undergo affinity maturation; they become more sensitive to an antigen with time when encountering it. So even if the virus gets in and wiggles around a little bit, does this count as having Covid or just a common cold? Or course, you could still pass it on to someone who never had it, or hasn't been vaccinated, or is severely immunosuppressed...

(This is why people erroneously think viruses get "weaker". They don't. Your immune system just learns how to react to it. For instance, H1N1 mutates every year to become an order of magnitude less sensitive to last season's neutralizing antibodies, and yet it isn't constantly causing 1918-style pandemics.)

I understand some people want it squashed, but it likely isn't going to magically disappear even if you inoculate everyone in the world with mRNA vaccines every trimester. It's going to linger in the background as all the other viruses that have caused pandemics in the past.

Indeed, this isn't going anywhere. With it being more contagious than the seasonal flu, it will become a background pandemic, no doubt.

With that said, decades from now, when the children of today, who got and will get exposed repeatedly to COVID19 throughout their adulthood, will naturally have a better immune response to the inevitable seasonal COVID19 as they become adults and elderly and won't develop severe COVID19 illness, and as a result, you'll rarely see people hospitalized with COVID19. If that's actually the case, the best we can do for our generation is to vaccinate those who are at risk of severe COVID19 illness and open things up for the children of today and let nature take its course.

I wonder if I haven't had the common cold 50 times as a child what would've happened to me if I was only exposed to it when I am 40 or 50 (as I am sure you know the common cold 2nd most common cause is the coronavirus). I do question if we're doing kids a disservice by keeping them at home and "protecting" them from all the different microbes out there, I doubt few months would cause problems but this can't be the new normal. 

Last edited by LurkerJ - on 14 February 2021