More Covid news

In theory, wide-spread vaccination could have an effect, in that a random mutation that made the virus significantly different from the one the vaccine was based on would have an advantage and could spread more rapidly. But I don't know how likely that is.

Anyway, both the Kent virus and the South African one have been sequenced and neither seems to be that different. I don't know about the new Brazilian one.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019...n/variant.html

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-...nt-states.html

Originally Posted by Hermani However it could be possible that a certain strain that is less suppressed by vaccination in the general population will become more prevalent when there is a sizeable portion of the population vaccinated.

Obviously that's the only sensible interpretation of "caused by a vaccine". Although it doesn't seem like vaccination has progressed far enough to cause that sort of thing yet.

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Covid-19 reinfection ‘rare’ but some may still pass the virus on, says NHS study

Antibodies from past Covid-19 infection provide 83% protection against reinfection for at least five months according to a large study of NHS staff which gives ‘the clearest picture yet’ of ongoing immunity. But early evidence from the Public Health England (PHE) study which has monitored healthcare workers using PCR and antibody testing every 2-4 weeks suggests that some of those with antibodies may still be able to pass the virus on.

Perhaps reason to be a bit more pessimistic about the vaccine stopping transmission as well? I guess if it doesn't stop transmission at least it's less likely for a mutation that bypasses the vaccine to be selected for...

Originally Posted by ntubski Obviously that's the only sensible interpretation of "caused by a vaccine".

Are you being sarcastic, commenting on distorted media coverage or something like that?

The African Union has just purchased vaccine supplies for the Continent, but of course they're not delivered yet. The head of the African Union is Cyril Ramphosa(sp?). Hence I doubt the S.A. variant was caused by a vaccine, and doubt if anyone could be definitive about it.

In other news, Ireland's wave seems to have peaked. Yesterday, we hit a peak of 1552.8 cases per 100,000 for the last 14 days. It will be down from here on. How much down remains to be seen. The thing to watch now is deaths. 50 yesterday, 63 the day before - that's multiples of what we are used to. We will probably get into three figures some days, but our excess deaths are very low. Domestic violence is up, but gangland deaths are down. Of course, when you factor all the factors that are driven down by lockdowns, it's not that surprising.

Originally Posted by ondoho Are you being sarcastic, commenting on distorted media coverage or something like that?

No, it was just a straightforward comment on the post I quoted.

Originally Posted by hazel In theory, wide-spread vaccination could have an effect, in that a random mutation that made the virus significantly different from the one the vaccine was based on would have an advantage and could spread more rapidly. But I don't know how likely that is.

I am thinking that way. Past year we had two species of virus. This year we should have four different species - I mean each specie mutates by its own. So the growth of number of species is like 2^n - but not as bad due to possible repetitions. So in couple of years will appear a mutation which resists vaccines we have now. Fighting virus is dynamical process. Due to lack of information my opinion is for now to consider worst possible scenario. For example we have to wait years perhaps to decide how in reality vaccines are effective. Years of immunity promised by companies is just theory - and as we know theory is often different from what we can observe in real world.

The solution to the mutation problem is obvious. You take an annual sample of the variants abroad and make a vaccine against them. We have been doing that with influenza for years. Flu viruses mutate a lot faster than coronaviruses so you can't vaccinate people for life, the way you do with measles. No one expects that. Instead, susceptible people (like me!) automatically get called up for an annual jab in the autumn, immunising them against the variants they are most likely to encounter that winter.

Because these annual vaccine updates are basically alike, they don't need to be tested each year. They can just be rolled out. We will just have to get used to doing the same thing for covid.

It's not quite the same.

I never get the flu vaccines by the way. They're inoculating you against half a dozen wildly different strains, effectively giving you a load of slightly weakened infections. I believe in giving my body a chance. 1 vaccine at a time, for one infection at a time.