Coronavirus

[kenberg]

I got my answer today about Epsilon, Zeta, Eta, Theta, Iota, Kappa, Lambda, Mu, Nu, and Xi. The WHO said they skipped Nu because it sounds like New and Xi because it's a common name in China. I'm not making this up; I read it on the internet so it must be true. But I'm still puzzled about Epsilon, Zeta, Eta, Theta, Iota, Kappa, Lambda and Mu. Where'd they go?

 

I just assumed that the intermediates exist but are not troublesome. Probably the same applies with beta and gamma before delta. As to alpha, it might be the original.

 

Just before hearing about omicron, less than a full day, I had heard about a nu variant. Given what you say above, I am guessing that it was first declared to be nu but then got renamed as omicron/

 

This is all guesswork. Maybe they are going by the first letter of the fraternity/sorority of the person who identifies it.

[Chas_P]

Maybe they are going by the first letter of the fraternity/sorority of the person who identifies it.

You may be onto something.

[pilowsky]

Or you can just go to the WHO website and find out.

https://www.who.int/en/activities/tracking-SARS-CoV-2-variants/

[kenberg]

Or you can just go to the WHO website and find out.

https://www.who.int/...CoV-2-variants/

 

So Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Omicron are Variants of Concern (VoC) and Lambda and Mu are Variants of Interest (VoI).

I didn't notice if there are any VNGaHAs, Variants Nobody Gives a Hoot About.

[Winstonm]

So Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Omicron are Variants of Concern (VoC) and Lambda and Mu are Variants of Interest (VoI).

I didn't notice if there are any VNGaHAs, Variants Nobody Gives a Hoot About.

 

I bet if we made syringes in the shape of crucifixes and advertised the vaccine as the antidote to The Omicron we could get the unvaccinated to comply.

[thepossum]

Do people remember not that long ago when we weren't constantly bombarded with and expected to be interested in the miuntiae of tiny changes in viruses that for most of us wouldn't even cause a sniffle or an off day

[hrothgar]

Do people remember not that long ago when we weren't constantly bombarded with and expected to be interested in the miuntiae of tiny changes in viruses that for most of us wouldn't even cause a sniffle or an off day

 

Yeah, that was right before several million people worldwide died of COVID, *****wit

 

My dad was one of them

My partner's father was another

[Winstonm]

Richard, I am sorry for your losses.

[hrothgar]

Richard, I am sorry for your losses.

 

Thanks

[y66]

From the Cornell Sun via Noah Smith:

 

[y66]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-01/vaccinations-key-for-recovery-would-only-cost-50-billion-oecd?sref=UHfKDqx7

 

It could cost as little as $50 billion to save the global economy.

 

That’s the amount needed to vaccinate the world, a measure that’s key to ending the pandemic and tackling the imbalances “plaguing the recovery,” according to OECD Chief Economist Laurence Boone.

 

“When you balance things out, $10 trillion for supporting the economy going through the pandemic compared with a tiny $50 billion to bring the vaccine to the entire world population, that looks completely disproportionate,” she told Bloomberg Television in an interview Wednesday. The first number is the amount spent by Group of 20 countries to mitigating the economic impact of Covid-19.

[kenberg]

I'm very willing to agree that we need to work much harder on getting vaccines worldwide. That said, any estimate of cost is based on many assumptions and on choices as to what is included in the total cost. Fifty billion is about seven bucks a person. Or are we speaking only of adults? Are we speaking just of the cost to get the vaccine to a country or of then getting the people to where it will be dispensed? Or something in between such as setting up many centers to make access easier but still letting people get there as best they can? As I understand it, the US is not the only place where there is resistance to receiving vaccines. So we need at least some sort of education program. This will be a lot easier in some places than in others. Etc etc. I looked around a bit for a fuller explanation, for example https://www.bworldonline.com/oecd-says-it-would-cost-50-billion-to-vaccinate-the-world/, but didn't see it, no doubt it's out there somewhere.

 

We need to do it, we should start there. The cost? Dunno. The effectiveness? Dunno that either but better than not trying.

[mikeh]

Do people remember not that long ago when we weren't constantly bombarded with and expected to be interested in the miuntiae of tiny changes in viruses that for most of us wouldn't even cause a sniffle or an off day

Another fool proud of his invincible ignorance

 

 

You really do have to work at avoiding credible information to persist in this stupidity.

[pilowsky]

I just read a chapter from a book about the Cutter-polio disaster. (Paul A Offit: "The Cutter Incident How America's First Polio Vaccine Led to the Growing Vaccine Crisis", Yale University Press, 2005)

Apparently the incident occurred in 1955 and affected "Western and Mid-western" areas of the USA.

It is easy to imagine that people growing up with something like this in the back of their minds, and lacking knowledge about vaccine production, might have greater levels of anxiety about vaccination.

Further in the Chapter there is mention of Benjamin Franklin.

Paul A Offit']Benjamin Franklin, lamenting the loss of his son to smallpox, wrote ''I lost one of my sons, a fine boy of four years old, by the small-pox, taken in the common way. I long regretted bitterly, and still regret, that I had not given it to him by inoculation. This I mention for the sake of parents who omit that operation, on the supposition that they should never forgive themselves if a child died under it; my example showing the regret may be the same either way.''

[kenberg]

I just read a chapter from a book about the Cutter-polio disaster. (Paul A Offit: "The Cutter Incident How America's First Polio Vaccine Led to the Growing Vaccine Crisis", Yale University Press, 2005)

Apparently the incident occurred in 1955 and affected "Western and Mid-western" areas of the USA.

It is easy to imagine that people growing up with something like this in the back of their minds, and lacking knowledge about vaccine production, might have greater levels of anxiety about vaccination.

Further in the Chapter there is mention of Benjamin Franklin.

 

An informative review of the book can be found at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1383764/

 

i was 16 in 1955, living in Minnesota which I guess is Mid-west. I have a vague recollection of what they are speaking of, in particular the switch from Salk to Sabin vaccines. For whatever reason, I cannot recall getting worked up over it. I think I had already taken the Salk, with no problems, by the time this hit. But my memory has faded.

 

My general view of vaccines, medicines in general, and my view of doctors, is that a little caution is warranted, but caution and crazy are not the same thing. Becky is younger than I am so by the time she was eligible for a vaccine there were options. She could get J&J right away, or wait a week and get Pfizer. She waited, a choice that seemed right to me. This fall, as I was ready for my booster, my doc said he could give me Moderna and advised me to take it. My first two shots were Pfizer, I waited, maybe ten days or so, and got Pfizer, just as last January.

 

I do not treat doctors as gods, sometimes this annoys them, but again, not treating them as gods is different from treating them as hucksters. Vaccines, medicines, and doctors are very useful and they are doing their best. A sensible person starts with that, and then maybe modifies it a bit by realizing no one is always right.

 

 

 

[donnamf]

From the Cornell Sun via Noah Smith:

 

 

That is one scary graph.

[barmar]

I do not treat doctors as gods, sometimes this annoys them, but again, not treating them as gods is different from treating them as hucksters. Vaccines, medicines, and doctors are very useful and they are doing their best. A sensible person starts with that, and then maybe modifies it a bit by realizing no one is always right.

That's a reasonable attitude.

 

The problem we have these days is that there's so much corruption at high levels of politics that many people have become overly cynical, and don't trust anyone in a position of power. So someone like Faucci, who has been at the forefront of fighting epidemics for decades, is assumed to be in cahoots with the drug companies.

 

And there's not much you can do to convince them -- anyone who tries is either gullible and fell for it, or is part of the conspiracy. That's the problem with conspiracy theories, you can't "prove" that they're wrong; at best you can show that they're unlikely, but that's not good enough.

[kenberg]

That's a reasonable attitude.

 

The problem we have these days is that there's so much corruption at high levels of politics that many people have become overly cynical, and don't trust anyone in a position of power. So someone like Faucci, who has been at the forefront of fighting epidemics for decades, is assumed to be in cahoots with the drug companies.

 

And there's not much you can do to convince them -- anyone who tries is either gullible and fell for it, or is part of the conspiracy. That's the problem with conspiracy theories, you can't "prove" that they're wrong; at best you can show that they're unlikely, but that's not good enough.

 

For better or worse, societies evolve. Calculus in high school simply did not exist in St. Paul in the 1950s, not in the public schools anyway, and I knew a few kids from private schools so I don't think it did there either. Otoh, I had a driver's license three months after my fifteenth birthday, and bought a car that I chose going from lot to lot on my own and paid for with money of my own, a month later. The world was just different.

 

Here is a "conspiracy theory" from back then that I have mentioned earlier. I was eleven when the Korean War started. I read about it every day in the paper. In discussion, my mother explained that all wars are fought over oil. I told her that I didn't think there was any oil in Korea. She explained that if we were fighting there, there was oil there. But she wasn't part of a nationwide group, it was just her own weird idea. And maybe not all that weird, I have always assumed we would not give a hoot about what Saudi Arabia did or did not do if they were not sitting on oil fields.

 

Society is screwed up. Becky was talking (by phone, to a family member) with someone who has not been vaccinated, now is not feeling well, and has not been feeling well for six weeks, and will not go to a doctor because she believes, well, I am not sure what she believes, something about us all being part of a cosmic universe that takes care of us if we just let it. I suggested Becky call her back and not try to change her mind in any large way but to speak about Becky's worries and maybe convince her to see a doctor to alleviate her, that is, Becky's, worries. She tried, no luck.

 

I don't get it. Part of life is and always has been to make the best choice in an uncertain world. Some choices are tough, vaccines are clear-cut. I get tired of saying I don't get it, but I don't get it.

[y66]

What the President Could Have Done Today to Counter the Pandemic by Eric Topol

[y66]

“I mean, how did that happen after everything we did?” Trevor Noah asked on “The Daily Show.” “I mean, for two years now, people, we wore masks for some of the time, we social distanced when it was convenient, then like half of us got vaccinated — what more is it gonna take?”

[y66]

US Army Creates Single Vaccine Against All COVID & SARS Variants, Researchers Say

 

Within weeks, scientists at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research expect to announce that they have developed a vaccine that is effective against COVID-19 and all its variants, even Omicron, as well as previous SARS-origin viruses that have killed millions of people worldwide.

 

The achievement is the result of almost two years of work on the virus. The Army lab received its first DNA sequencing of the COVID-19 virus in early 2020. Very early on, Walter Reed’s infectious diseases branch decided to focus on making a vaccine that would work against not just the existing strain but all of its potential variants as well.

 

Walter Reed’s Spike Ferritin Nanoparticle COVID-19 vaccine, or SpFN, completed animal trials earlier this year with positive results. Phase 1 of human trials, which tested the vaccine against Omicron and the other variants, wrapped up this month, again with positive results that are undergoing final review, Dr. Kayvon Modjarrad, director of Walter Reed’s infectious diseases branch, said in an exclusive interview with Defense One. The new vaccine will still need to undergo phase 2 and phase 3 trials.

 

Unlike existing vaccines, Walter Reed’s SpFN uses a soccer ball-shaped protein with 24 faces for its vaccine, which allows scientists to attach the spikes of multiple coronavirus strains on different faces of the protein.

 

“It's very exciting to get to this point for our entire team and I think for the entire Army as well,” Modjarrad said.

 

The vaccine’s human trials took longer than expected, he said, because the lab needed to test the vaccine on subjects who had neither been vaccinated nor previously infected with COVID.

 

Increasing vaccination rates and the rapid spread of the Delta and Omicron variants made that difficult.

 

“With Omicron, there's no way really to escape this virus. You're not going to be able to avoid it. So I think pretty soon either the whole world will be vaccinated or have been infected,” Modjarrad said.

 

The next step is seeing how the new pan-coronavirus vaccine interacts with people who were previously vaccinated or previously sick. Walter Reed is working with a yet-to-be-named industry partner for that wider rollout.

 

“We need to evaluate it in the real-world setting and try to understand how does the vaccine perform in much larger numbers of individuals who have already been vaccinated with something else initially…or already been sick,” Modjarrad said.

 

He said nearly all of Walter Reed’s 2,500 staff have had some role in the vaccine’s nearly-two-year development.

 

“We decided to take a look at the long game rather than just only focusing on the original emergence of SARS, and instead understand that viruses mutate, there will be variants that emerge, future viruses that may emerge in terms of new species. Our platform and approach will equip people to be prepared for that.”

[pilowsky]

The same group of scientists from Walter Reed also published this in 2020: https://pubmed.ncbi....h.gov/32868447/

Abstract

The magnitude of the COVID-19 pandemic underscores the urgency for a safe and effective vaccine. Many vaccine candidates focus on the Spike protein, as it is targeted by neutralizing antibodies and plays a key role in viral entry. Here we investigate the diversity seen in severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) sequences and compare it to the sequence on which most vaccine candidates are based. Using 18,514 sequences, we perform phylogenetic, population genetics, and structural bioinformatics analyses. We find limited diversity across SARS-CoV-2 genomes: Only 11 sites show polymorphisms in >5% of sequences; yet two mutations, including the D614G mutation in Spike, have already become consensus. Because SARS-CoV-2 is being transmitted more rapidly than it evolves, the viral population is becoming more homogeneous, with a median of seven nucleotide substitutions between genomes. There is evidence of purifying selection but little evidence of diversifying selection, with substitution rates comparable across structural versus nonstructural genes. Finally, the Wuhan-Hu-1 reference sequence for the Spike protein, which is the basis for different vaccine candidates, matches optimized vaccine inserts, being identical to an ancestral sequence and one mutation away from the consensus. While the rapid spread of the D614G mutation warrants further study, our results indicate that drift and bottleneck events can explain the minimal diversity found among SARS-CoV-2 sequences. These findings suggest that a single vaccine candidate should be efficacious against currently circulating lineages.(my emphasis)

 

I'll wait for real world results.

What they are doing appears to be using a Ferritin nanoparticle as the carrier for multiple types of spike protein.

This is a potentially useful approach to making a polyvalent vaccine.

As I understand it this approach is similar to other methods for making polyvalent vaccines.

 

The critical part of the interview is this statement

"With Omicron, there's no way really to escape this virus. You're not going to be able to avoid it. So I think pretty soon either the whole world will be vaccinated or have been infected,"

[thepossum]

Another fool proud of his invincible ignorance

 

 

You really do have to work at avoiding credible information to persist in this stupidity.

 

You showed your ignorance mate by attacking someone who would know more than most of you

 

But I'm used to your constant obnoxious unprovoked personal attacks Hargreaves. From Day 1

 

Obnoxious *****.Stick to Bridge

 

I will grudgingly respect your knowledge of Bridge but nothing else and will never respect you as a person

 

I'd been taking a break from this place and it had been quite pleasant. But seemingly you have stalked me and tracked me down to attack me again. Its been going on 4-5 years now mate. I suggest you back off. The little gang of bullies and trolls will probably show up now yu have trolled me into responding. I know I am not your only target. Needed a Christmas target did you Mike.

 

You could have actually read and understood my legitimate point about the last two years obsession (and media ignorance) over the minutuae of a virus. The world has never been subjected to the indulgence of the genetechs before. Maybe learn to address arguments without ad hominem

 

The worst thing you said was that I take pride in ignorance. Firstly I try to avoid ignorance altogether and if I find I have it I am shamed into researching it further :) I suggest you do the same. I hate ignorance more than almost anyone

[kenberg]

I found this interesting. It's about efforts to keep kids in a reasonable learning environment while keeping them reasonably safe, acknowledging that perfection is out of reach.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/12/27/test-to-stay-montgomery-schools/

 

From the beginning, a big portion of my concern has been for the kids, and the resurgence pushes on us even harder. I sure hope this works. I am not yet endorsing it, no doubt careful monitoring is needed, but we can hope.

 

My older daughter lives in that school district (Montgomery) but her oldest finished college last spring so it does not directly apply to them.

 

My childhood was very good. I want other kids to have the same.

[Cyberyeti]

I bet if we made syringes in the shape of crucifixes and advertised the vaccine as the antidote to The Omicron we could get the unvaccinated to comply.

 

In some parts of the US leaking that the Pfizer vaccine contained some of the other product Pfizer are known for creating would encourage takeup from the men of a certain age that are part of the problem.