JLang, For those who did not follow the link yo
Post# of 154854
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Posted On: 01/15/2021 11:23:16 PM
JLang,
For those who did not follow the link you posted, I will paste some of that thread below in the event some of the high-tech folks on this board decide to follow it. It was written by Trevor Bedford who is described as a scientist studying viruses, evolution, and immunity. I have already had shot #1 of Moderna's vaccine and hope that if it doesn't prevent Covid, it at least minimizes the effects. As CTMedic said, everyone has to make their own decision, but for me (over 70), it was not a hard decision. I intend to follow your advice about continuing precautions even with vaccine.
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My (highly speculative!) hypothesis is that the emergence of these variant viruses arises in cases of chronic infection during which the immune system places great pressure on the virus to escape immunity and the virus does so by getting really good at getting into cells.
This results in the observed increased viral load (https://medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.24.20248834v1) and greater transmissibility (https://gov.uk/government/publications/investigation-of-novel-sars-cov-2-variant-variant-of-concern-20201201) of 501Y.V1 / B.1.1.7, but importantly this is not due to population-level selection for antigenic drift or faster transmission.
Instead it's a knock-on effect of the reactor of evolution occurring in rare chronic infections and then spillover from these infections into the greater population.
Again, this hypothesis is highly speculative at this point, but separately, the fact that we've observed 3 variants of concern emerge since September suggests that there are likely more to come.
For those who did not follow the link you posted, I will paste some of that thread below in the event some of the high-tech folks on this board decide to follow it. It was written by Trevor Bedford who is described as a scientist studying viruses, evolution, and immunity. I have already had shot #1 of Moderna's vaccine and hope that if it doesn't prevent Covid, it at least minimizes the effects. As CTMedic said, everyone has to make their own decision, but for me (over 70), it was not a hard decision. I intend to follow your advice about continuing precautions even with vaccine.
________________________________________________________
My (highly speculative!) hypothesis is that the emergence of these variant viruses arises in cases of chronic infection during which the immune system places great pressure on the virus to escape immunity and the virus does so by getting really good at getting into cells.
This results in the observed increased viral load (https://medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.24.20248834v1) and greater transmissibility (https://gov.uk/government/publications/investigation-of-novel-sars-cov-2-variant-variant-of-concern-20201201) of 501Y.V1 / B.1.1.7, but importantly this is not due to population-level selection for antigenic drift or faster transmission.
Instead it's a knock-on effect of the reactor of evolution occurring in rare chronic infections and then spillover from these infections into the greater population.
Again, this hypothesis is highly speculative at this point, but separately, the fact that we've observed 3 variants of concern emerge since September suggests that there are likely more to come.
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