totm april 2020 Coronavirus

[Serenity]

Just now, cubinator said:

A vaccine filters out the viruses that can't mutate. If a few viruses happen to be immune to vaccine, then you risk eventually ending up with those viruses becoming the common ones, and you need to modify your vaccine. 

Ok, i get it, so the problem is that vaccines targets mainly the viruses that mutate less to have the most effectiveness, but eventually those minor ones that left alone, become stronger and stronger

and then you need a modified vaccine.

[DunaManiac]

3 minutes ago, Boyster said:

Ok, i get it, so the problem is that vaccines targets mainly the viruses that mutate less to have the most effectiveness, but eventually those minor ones that left alone, become stronger and stronger

 

As I understand it, it's not that those viruses are less adaptable, it's that the strains targeted get killed, but the immune strain is not killed by the vaccine, it's not a matter of adaptability, it's a matter of immunity to the vaccine.

(Someone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong).

Edited December 3, 2020 by DunaManiac

[cubinator]

Just now, Boyster said:

Ok, i get it, so the problem is that vaccines targets mainly the viruses that mutate less to have the most effectiveness, but eventually those minor ones that left alone, become stronger and stronger

and then you need a modified vaccine.

Yep, that's it! It's a big issue with fighting bacteria in various settings, so people will periodically switch out between a few different antibiotics to keep any one strain from getting too powerful. 

[DDE]

1 hour ago, Boyster said:

Wait...what...?

If viruses needs to go against more defenses doesn't that mean it will mutate faster than if it has an easy job?

A virus is incapable of altering its mutation rate like that.

What the vaccine does is filter out the more common strain so that the new freak one becomes more notable than it otherwise would.

[Serenity]

22 minutes ago, DDE said:

A virus is incapable of altering its mutation rate like that.

What the vaccine does is filter out the more common strain so that the new freak one becomes more notable than it otherwise would.

I read somewhere that maybe it will mutate faster when the vaccines are around, but probably the article was poorly written/copy/paste and it meant what you said.

Edited December 3, 2020 by Boyster

[Clamp-o-Tron]

1 hour ago, Boyster said:

I read somewhere that maybe it will mutate faster when the vaccines are around, but probably the article was poorly written/copy/paste and it meant what you said.

Or just straight misinformation. The number of antivaxxers in the world is too damn high.

[K^2]

3 hours ago, Boyster said:

Ok, i get it, so the problem is that vaccines targets mainly the viruses that mutate less to have the most effectiveness

It's not as much about rate of mutation as what mutates. Immune system targets specific sites on specific proteins of specific viruses. If that portion of a protein happens to be fairly arbitrary to the function of the virus, that site may quickly mutate with subsequent generations of that virus. But if it's critical to the way the virus works, it can be impossible for enough mutations to happen at once to produce something distinct enough for virus to be undetected, but also still allowing virus to function.

And all that a vaccine does is give your immune system some target practice, so that it can learn to identify the virus before that virus has been introduced to the system. There are different ways to do that, however. One of the simplest is to take virus, shine some UV on it or even just heat the vial to kill it, and then inject it as is. In that case, you don't really have a lot of say on what the immune system will focus on, but it will be very similar to how the immune system will learn from a real virus. On the exact opposite side of the spectrum are vaccine like what's being developed for coronavirus. Instead of giving you actual virus or any part of it, you are injected with some delivery mechanism for a strand of RNA containing the code for one of the proteins from the virus. In case of COVID vaccines, specifically the S protein that makes up spikes on the virus that coronaviruses get their name from. Your body then produces copies of that protein, which is harmless on its own, but your immune system still learns to identify it as a foreign substance and to create antibodies for it. With this method, we get to chose which protein the immune system learns to recognize, and that can be advantageous.

Unfortunately, spike proteins are most definitely a subject to mutation, but with viruses that have a lipid layer, there isn't a whole lot of a choice. Influenza virus is similar in that way. So yeah, CoV-19 is likely to mutate resulting in us having to update the vaccines. Fortunately, once we've sorted out the delivery method, updating the RNA strand that codes for a specific variant of the spike is pretty quick. And it does look like COVID doesn't spread quite as easily as Influenza does, so even if we'll only be able to tackle a fraction of the strands in any given year, similar to influenza, we should be able to avoid such dramatic outbreaks. But just like influenza, COVID isn't going to go completely away with a vaccine.

[Serenity]

6 hours ago, K^2 said:

you are injected with some delivery mechanism for a strand of RNA containing the code for one of the proteins from the virus.

6 hours ago, K^2 said:

Fortunately, once we've sorted out the delivery method, updating the RNA strand that codes for a specific variant of the spike is pretty quick. 

Do they need to update/modify the delivery mechanism as well?

Maybe the immune system will finally get alerted of this cloaked messenger?

6 hours ago, Clamp-o-Tron said:

Or just straight misinformation. The number of antivaxxers in the world is too damn high.

Its a tough matter, everyone should have the freedom to decide for his body...but we are not alone in this world...i don't know its just so complicated to simply accuse a portion of the population.

[K^2]

2 hours ago, Boyster said:

Do they need to update/modify the delivery mechanism as well?

I wouldn't think so, but then I wouldn't have called them taking so long to get it the first time around. Even looking at Pfizer vs Moderna vaccines, both are using basically the same delivery mechanism, but they have very different manufacturing and storage requirements. Notably, Pfizer's vaccine has to be stored at way lower temperatures, making distribution complicated, but they can apparently make a lot more of it?

Point is, it seems to be more complicated than it sounds, and it doesn't sound all that simple, so I don't really know.

2 hours ago, Boyster said:

Maybe the immune system will finally get alerted of this cloaked messenger?

That's how it usually works, especially with diseases that aren't particularly threatening to children - you catch it a few times in childhood, and then you have a much better immune response to new strands as you grow older. But given that this is a new virus, we don't really know what the long term effect is going to be. Best we can do is handle the immediate emergency, break the pandemic, and then see what other adjustments we have to make in the future.

2 hours ago, Boyster said:

Its a tough matter, everyone should have the freedom to decide for his body...but we are not alone in this world...i don't know its just so complicated to simply accuse a portion of the population.

You're not deciding for your body, though. You're deciding for everyone you're coming in contact with. Vaccination doesn't provide full immunity, and even if it did, for most vaccines, there are people with adverse reactions who can't have them. That means a person who refuses vaccination may infect an individual who had no choice in the matter, and at that point, personal freedoms end and social responsibility begins. You wouldn't accept, "It's my car," argument for driving without a license, and you shouldn't accept "my body" argument for refusing vaccination. Precisely because it's not just their body that's at risk.

[Serenity]

1 hour ago, K^2 said:

That's how it usually works, especially with diseases that aren't particularly threatening to children - you catch it a few times in childhood, and then you have a much better immune response to new strands as you grow older. But given that this is a new virus, we don't really know what the long term effect is going to be. Best we can do is handle the immediate emergency, break the pandemic, and then see what other adjustments we have to make in the future.

I was talking about the delivery mechanism not the vaccine as a whole unit

This delivery method is used for the first time in such a grand scale.

My concern is the delivery will cause more problems to the immune system than the actual vaccine.

1 hour ago, K^2 said:

You wouldn't accept, "It's my car," argument for driving without a license, and you shouldn't accept "my body" argument for refusing vaccination. Precisely because it's not just their body that's at risk.

Whoah whoah calm down, i am not against the whole we are one thing but lets remember, we need to find a balance btw individualism and becoming a hive organism.

We are smarter than this and we should not aim to erase personal freedoms just for what is considered general good.

Because the lines get blurred and before you know, the general good is what few powerful people define.

There should be freedom of choice and the consequences ofcourse that come with it.

And if the society decides the consequences is to isolate you or even throw you out, then so be it, but we need to remember that we can choose in this life.

Edited December 4, 2020 by Boyster

[K^2]

31 minutes ago, Boyster said:

I was talking about the delivery mechanism not the vaccine as a whole unit

This delivery method is used for the first time in such a grand scale.

My concern is the delivery will cause more problems to the immune system than the actual vaccine.

I don't like the word "impossible," but lets leave it at, "extremely unlikely." Pfizer and Moderna are both using lipid particles, which is the same stuff that your cell membranes are already made from. There's slight risk of allergic reaction to additives keeping the membrane stable, but this is no different than discovering a food allergy. There are other delivery methods, like Russia's Sputnik V that's a bit more intimidating, but even there the risk from adenovirus vector are absolutely minimal.

As with pretty much any other vaccine, the main risk comes from immune system responding exactly as it's supposed to to the foreign proteins being introduced, and possibly being a bit too aggressive about it. In most cases, it's going to be no different than potentially getting some flu-like symptoms following an influenza vaccine.

There are edge cases and specific vulnerabilities. We still don't know where the autoantibody correlation with COVID is coming from, and there's a chance that a COVID vaccine will trigger the same. But crucially, that's a problem with a new vaccine being new and has absolutely nothing to do with delivery method.

The good news is that if there is an autoimmune risk in introducing the CoV-2 S protein, we might be able to do genetic screening for it. And that's already way more than we can hope for with most diseases.

New vaccine requires due diligence. Due diligence is given, at least, in US and EU. Going broad with vaccine will give us the missing data, and while there's going to be some risk, it's generally lower than risk of getting sick by orders of magnitude based on data we already have. Crucially, if we'll need to modify the mRNA that goes into vaccine for other strands of the virus, we will not need to re-test the whole thing. We will, by that point, have high confidence in the method.

46 minutes ago, Boyster said:

We are smarter than this and we should not aim to erase personal freedoms just for what is considered general good.

Some people think that having to wear a mask is erasing their personal freedoms. That is the exact reactionary attitude because of which we are in this excrements right now.

I don't care what risks people want to take with their own health and well-being. That guy who was building steam rockets and found out the hard way that you should test your parachutes? I salute him. He knew the risks and he made sure that nobody but himself would get hurt. But anybody who can't act responsibly towards other people's health? They shouldn't have a say. Personal freedoms end where you start taking freedom from others, and people have the right to be healthy. Refusing to vaccinate is stripping away that right from others. Freedom to refuse a vaccine is not worth the LIFE it can cost of another person.

Quarter of a million deaths from COVID have been reported so far in US alone. These are primarily immuno-compromised and elderly who would not benefit from vaccine directly. Majority of these deaths are preventable with a vaccine, however, if everyone else takes it. The 95% effectiveness we're seeing right now is enough to completely stop the spread of the virus. Freedom to refuse vaccination on personal conviction is not worth quarter of a million lives. You'll have to come up with something better than that.

And COVID is pretty mild as far as diseases we have vaccination against. Do you want to throw in numbers for Polio and Small Pox, which have been all but eradicated with vaccination? Tuberculosis and people dying of consumption ring any bells? This is no longer a problem because vaccination against these things was not looked at as an option, but rather a requirement. And we're now living in a world where many people don't need to be vaccinated against these things, because there is no risk of catching the disease. Freedom not to have to worry about a disease is a much more important one than right to object to injection based on ignorant belief.

[Serenity]

Let me be clear, i am not anti-vaccine.

I am saying as humanity we should strive to give freedom of options.

I know its almost impossible but this is what we need to strive for.

The correct solution must include the adverse affect of a group of people that have different views and desires, even if we know for sure it has a negative impact in our overall well being.

I hope in the future society somehow manages to find that balance.

Life it's not just what you or me think its right, we are billions, we can't just paint it white and black.

Edited December 4, 2020 by Boyster

[K^2]

2 minutes ago, Boyster said:

The correct solution must include the adverse affect of a group of people that have different views and desires, even if we know for sure it goes against their well being.

You are still saying "their well being", though. It's not about them. I'll try to talk a person off a bridge, but I won't hold them. Everyone has a right to chose for themselves. Anyone who wants to move to a remote jungle or desert and live there without vaccines is welcome. Problem is, these kinds of people insist they have the right to send their kids to public schools, to shop at public stores, and to otherwise mix with general population. They aren't risking their own health. They are risking other people's health.

If you see a person chain-smoking, you let them be. Unlikely they haven't heard it all by now. But if you see a person chain-smoking at a gas station, you don't look for correct solution that balances everyone's freedoms. You call the cops. We have a word for it. It's called criminal negligence.

[Serenity]

I edited few seconds after i posted it, but obviously you don't enen take some time to read, you are just in automode, laters.

[Listy]

13 hours ago, K^2 said:

Unfortunately, spike proteins are most definitely a subject to mutation, but with viruses that have a lipid layer, there isn't a whole lot of a choice. Influenza virus is similar in that way. So yeah, CoV-19 is likely to mutate resulting in us having to update the vaccines. Fortunately, once we've sorted out the delivery method, updating the RNA strand that codes for a specific variant of the spike is pretty quick. And it does look like COVID doesn't spread quite as easily as Influenza does, so even if we'll only be able to tackle a fraction of the strands in any given year, similar to influenza, we should be able to avoid such dramatic outbreaks. But just like influenza, COVID isn't going to go completely away with a vaccine.

I recall reading earlier this year that at least one of the leading vaccine candidates (I think the German BioNtech/Pfizer one) was screened against a library of about a dozen different SARS COV2 viruses with modified spike proteins, and it produced a satisfactory antibody response against those mutants. Also, (fingers crossed) if the current COVID spike protein is about as efficiently infectious as it can get, then it might be that any variants that do slip the vaccine net are also slower spreading.

Judging by the flu season we've just had in the Southern Hemisphere  (or rather, haven't had), I'd be inclined to think that flu is a lot less infectious than COVID. Many countries struggled through the winter months trying to deal with COVID, but influenza just never became widespread (even in vulnerable places without significant flu vaccination programs), despite the season being well underway by early March. Here in Australia, there hasn't been a single flu death since late March, and only a few hundred detected cases, despite record levels of testing. The fact that cases are popping up occasionally shows that it is still in the community, but vaccinations, social distancing & enhanced hygiene is keeping it suppressed. Rhinovirus on the other hand, is just spreading merrily as if nothing has changed this year, even in the city of Melbourne, which endured a 12 week lockdown over winter. Heaven help us if we ever encounter a pandemic rhinovirus ...

Edited December 4, 2020 by Listy

[AHHans]

[Angry rant about antivaxxers deleted. After re-reading it I thought it didn't add enough to the discussion.]
Maybe the short version is: before deciding on the "freedom" <-> "mandatory vaccination" scale please think about all the consequences and who will have to suffer from them. Because it is much easier to say that the non-vaccinated people alone should suffer the consequences of their actions than making sure that this happens.

At least we don't have to discuss about the BS of vaccination & autism or similar here.

[K^2]

5 hours ago, Listy said:

I'd be inclined to think that flu is a lot less infectious than COVID

Flu rarely hits population entirely unprepared for it. Only a fraction of population lacks propper immune defense against even a new strain. Given how quickly R0 for influenza drops after an outbreak begins, my guess is that influenza is inherently more infectious if we didn't already have immune training. Which is why I'm cautiously optimistic about vaccine effectiveness in the long run. We get enough people vaccinated, maybe there's a chance to stop COVID for good.

[Serenity]

An informative video about this matter:

 

Edited December 8, 2020 by Boyster

[KerikBalm]

Regarding the mutations.

Once the vaccine is out and approved, then simple modifications can be released similar to the yearly flu-vaccines. 

Immunity is expected to be unreliable after 1 year anyway (it is with other coronaviruses).

However, even if you lose immunity after 1 year, its unlikely that you'll lose a protective effect. Your antibody titers will be down, the binding affinity for the next years strain may be suboptimal, but your immune response should still be somewhat effective.

My pet hypothesis is that the reason this virus is so bad is that nobody has had it before. Get it as a kid, not that big of a deal, similar to other "common" coronaviruses.

Get "common" coronaviruses as an elderly adult... well you've had it many times over the years, you've got some protection against it, not that big of a deal (although some "common" coronaviruses can cause serious complications in the elderly, but lets face it, if you are on death's doorstep already, it doesn't take much to cause serious complications)

Get this one as an elderly adult... you've had no exposure to it, and not even a somewhat effective pre-existing immunity... it hits you hard...

I expect after a few years of taking vaccines, and natural infections among younger populations, that it will cease to be much worse than the common cold viruses.

Until then, stay safe... and it sucks that we have yet another virus to be a pain in the ass in the winters...

[Serenity]

41 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

My pet hypothesis is that the reason this virus is so bad is that nobody has had it before. Get it as a kid, not that big of a deal, similar to other "common" coronaviruses.

Sorry for being a bit mean...but...DUH....

41 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

I expect after a few years of taking vaccines, and natural infections among younger populations, that it will cease to be much worse than the common cold viruses.Until then, stay safe... and it sucks that we have yet another virus to be a pain in the ass in the winters...

How can you stay safe in the winter if families have no money to get some heat?

Few years might be a major problem for ''rich'' populations but it will be total destruction for everyone else.

And when that destruction happens it will move like a world tsunami.

Those are my thoughts when i am optimistic.

Edited December 9, 2020 by Boyster

[sevenperforce]

On 12/4/2020 at 9:23 AM, Listy said:

On 12/3/2020 at 8:24 PM, K^2 said:

And it does look like COVID doesn't spread quite as easily as Influenza does, so even if we'll only be able to tackle a fraction of the strands in any given year, similar to influenza, we should be able to avoid such dramatic outbreaks.

Judging by the flu season we've just had in the Southern Hemisphere  (or rather, haven't had), I'd be inclined to think that flu is a lot less infectious than COVID. 

I could be wrong but I think @K^2 was saying that SARS-CoV-2 doesn't mutate into new strains as rapidly as Alphainfluenzavirus, not that it was less infectious than Alphainfluenzavirus. 

On 12/4/2020 at 9:23 AM, Listy said:

if the current COVID spike protein is about as efficiently infectious as it can get, then it might be that any variants that do slip the vaccine net are also slower spreading.

Yeah, if the vaccine targets the receptor binding domain (RBD) on the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, then it should cover mutant varieties fairly well. The reason SARS-CoV-2 is so infectious is that its spike protein has a REALLY effective RBD. If it mutates enough to avoid being within the coverage of the vaccine, it should no longer be particularly infectious.

[K^2]

4 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

I could be wrong but I think @K^2 was saying that SARS-CoV-2 doesn't mutate into new strains as rapidly as Alphainfluenzavirus, not that it was less infectious than Alphainfluenzavirus. 

I'm saying that if we had a population that was never exposed to any sort of influenza or coronavirus, an introduced strain of influenza would probably spread through it more rapidly than CoV-2. The fact that pretty much everyone have had dozens of strains of flu over the course of their life makes it a lot more likely that any given's individual immune system is already prepared for a new strain. At the same time, CoV-2 is pretty much new to most people, so it spreads faster for now. This is purely from gauging R0 change by eye and not based on any sort of study, of course. I can easily be wrong here.

The idea, then, is that we might be more resistant to new strains of CoV-2 than influenza once we have a vaccine and most people have either been previously exposed or vaccinated, even if CoV-2 ends up mutating just as rapidly. If it doesn't mutate as rapidly, that's cherry on top.

If CoV-2 is both inherently more infectious and mutates as or more rapidly as influenza, then we're just going to have to make seasonal COVID vaccines in perpetuity. That would be less than optimal.

And again, this is based on me literally doing a search for some papers citing R0 numbers and how they change during outbreak and not even doing proper analysis on these. I'm slightly more confident in above than just guessing, that's about it.

[DDE]

https://www.uq.edu.au/news/article/2020/12/update-uq-covid-19-vaccine

Quote

The Phase 1 data also showed the generation of antibodies directed towards fragments of a protein (gp41), which is a component used to stablise the vaccine. Trial participants were fully informed of the possibility of a partial immune response to this component, but it was unexpected that the levels induced would interfere with certain HIV tests.

There is no possibility the vaccine causes infection, and routine follow up tests confirmed there is no HIV virus present.

With advice from experts, CSL and UQ have worked through the implications that this issue presents to rolling out the vaccine into broad populations. It is generally agreed that significant changes would need to be made to well-established HIV testing procedures in the healthcare setting to accommodate rollout of this vaccine. Therefore, CSL and the Australian  Government have agreed vaccine development will not proceed to Phase 2/3 trials.

And that's a showstopper why?

[AHHans]

6 hours ago, DDE said:

And that's a showstopper why?

My guess is because "significant changes [...] to well-established HIV testing procedures in the healthcare setting" cost money.  If that would be the only promising COVID-19 vaccine around then it probably wouldn't be a showstopper. But with several other vaccines to choose from then the one that interferes with established HIV testing is unlikely to be commercially viable.

tldr: Because money!

[DDE]

"Look at me, I'm Sputnik-AZ now"