An image from an electron microscope shows SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Scientists say this version of the coronavirus has mutated and become more contagious. (Associated Press)
Los Angeles Times: A mutant coronavirus has emerged, even more contagious than the original, study says
Scientists have identified a new strain of the coronavirus that has become dominant worldwide and appears to be more contagious than the versions that spread in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new study led by scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
The new strain appeared in February in Europe, migrated quickly to the East Coast of the United States and has been the dominant strain across the world since mid-March, the scientists wrote.
In addition to spreading faster, it may make people vulnerable to a second infection after a first bout with the disease, the report warned.
Read more ....
WNU Editor: Last month I read that there were about 8 or so unique strains of this virus. The fact that one has been able to mutate into a stain that is even more contagious and deadlier than the original is disturbing. It tells me that more mutations are possible in the future. The report is here .... Spike mutation pipeline reveals the emergence of a more transmissible form of SARS-CoV-2 (bioRxiv).
Doesn’t this run contrary to the normal mutation pattern?
ReplyDeleteThere are only so many docking sites of only different types on a cell.
ReplyDeleteErgo there are only so many different access points/ docking sites to a cell that have to be protected.
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/victoria-taft/2020/05/05/388111-n388111
If you had a cosmonaut in space worried about aliens getting him and he knew that they only came thru docking points, would he stare at the bulkheads or at the docking port and try to protect that?
What worries me is that some viruses can go through cell walls bypassing docking points.
But, if you are talking viruses that use cellular docking sites, the only ones we have to worry about is the ones that have the complementary interfaces. We do not have to worry about viruses that have docking proteins for cats or dogs but not for humans (until the mutate)
- The body has only so many genes.
- So it only produces some any types of proteins.
- So there all only so many types of docking sites.
- So the human body has only produce so many types of antibodies to protect these docking sites.
It is a finite number!
There is a finite number of viruses (albeit a large number) that can get us.
So I wonder why you keep going Dogbert. IMO there are only 2 reasons.
ReplyDelete"Remember when Q yells something about "mutating" right before the UI goes all hinky? Well, that might not be entirely impossible."
https://io9.gizmodo.com/just-how-inaccurate-were-the-hacking-scenes-in-skyfall-5960384
Yeah, corona virus is mutating right before Our Eye because some Chinese Raoul Silva designed it that way. He could predict how it would mutate and then let loose.
Nah, mutations are by definition random.
ReplyDeleteThere are more than 30 mutations so far and the numbers are going up slowly
ReplyDeleteMutations are not random.
ReplyDeleteUse the same seed, basically get the same results.
Try some sims for work/school or some games and find out the hard way.
There are mechanisms for mutations.
There is a progression for Huntingdon's Chorea or so I read. If you have it in 60s, you kids will have it in the 40s and your grandkids in their 20s.
I am pretty sure there were more 30 mutations and/or variations of corona before 2019 unless God told them to stay in their lane, since the Age of Dinosaurs.
ReplyDeleteWe were just not taking snapshots in time.
“It is purely a fortuity that this isn’t one of the great mass casualty events in American history, ... It had nothing to do with us doing anything right. It just had to do with luck. If anyone thinks that this can’t happen again, they don’t have to go back to 1918, they just have to go back to 2009, 2010, and imagine a virus with a different lethality, and you can just do the math on that.”
ReplyDelete- Ron Klain about H1N1 of 2009 in 2019