So there is a more transmissible strain of COVID in the U.K and maybe some other countries. This is obviously not good.
However, the next, and more important, question is where this strain will have the same structure on its surface protein or not (if it has adopted sizable mutations). This will mean that the vaccines developed will still be effective or, by the contrary, will be able to escape human immunity making it necessary to produce periodic updates á la influenza .
The tweet thread below seems to indicate that antigenic drift is likely. I haven’t ben able to locate the original paper and got this recent thread from another board.
https://mobile.twitter.com/trvrb/status/1340409968818671616
IF (big if) this turns out to be the case, the implications might be extremely important as this will make the need for therapeutics like Vyrologix even larger and permanent.
We need to follow up on this as more information becomes available.
However, the next, and more important, question is where this strain will have the same structure on its surface protein or not (if it has adopted sizable mutations). This will mean that the vaccines developed will still be effective or, by the contrary, will be able to escape human immunity making it necessary to produce periodic updates á la influenza .
The tweet thread below seems to indicate that antigenic drift is likely. I haven’t ben able to locate the original paper and got this recent thread from another board.
https://mobile.twitter.com/trvrb/status/1340409968818671616
IF (big if) this turns out to be the case, the implications might be extremely important as this will make the need for therapeutics like Vyrologix even larger and permanent.
We need to follow up on this as more information becomes available.
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