New variant BA.2.75.2 — in studies of serum from recovered covid patients, it shows “profound escape,” evading the antibodies produced from prior infections, and raising “concerns that it may effectively evade humoral immunity in the population.” https://t.co/3ZqhYGUpT1 pic.twitter.com/Ucq7gecD1G— Scott Gottlieb, MD (@ScottGottliebMD) September 22, 2022
Turns out in fact this pandemic is not in fact "over".
However the spike proteins of the variants show convergent evolution cause of the evolutionary pressure we (or parts of we) put on them. So while it isn't over the strains we see now are either more easily to handle by future immunization/vaccination or are easy to handle by your own body.
So basically what was suspected by some and showed starting 2021 is quite clear cut now. Though new variants might not optimize for that convergent local optimum, but it is rather unlikely.
So while it isn’t over the strains we see now are either more easily to handle by future immunization/vaccination or are easy to handle by your own body.
Last i checked excess morbidity is still pretty much keeping track with last year though, right?
Depends on the location :hero-of-socialist-labor: , but yeah excess morbidity even with "mild" variants is still higher than without. It remains an infection that is not to be taken lightly.
To add to my points about convergent evolution above, when the pandemic began and a year in it was having a field day with the global human host population (except for some countries like Cuba, Vietnam, China, Singapore): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867421010503
That changed. Sadly I don't find the articles I read about it (and honestly I mostly trust the MDs and experts I interact with). Another thing one of them noted was that there are some Covid holdouts in some patient bodies which our own immune system sometimes doesn't handle. It seems there are now promising ways to deal with that and make it so that a few people who had chronic Covid infections will be cured proper. I think the long and post covid research and treatment will be something that will go on till 2030.
Thing is since this impairs humoral immunity it means that as people slowly start doing their due diligence to keep getting vaccinated this is gonna snowball. There is literally no way to functionally vacinate out of this pandemic due to how fucked the governmental response is.
However the spike proteins of the variants show convergent evolution cause of the evolutionary pressure we (or parts of we) put on them. So while it isn't over the strains we see now are either more easily to handle by future immunization/vaccination or are easy to handle by your own body.
So basically what was suspected by some and showed starting 2021 is quite clear cut now. Though new variants might not optimize for that convergent local optimum, but it is rather unlikely.
Last i checked excess morbidity is still pretty much keeping track with last year though, right?
Depends on the location :hero-of-socialist-labor: , but yeah excess morbidity even with "mild" variants is still higher than without. It remains an infection that is not to be taken lightly.
To add to my points about convergent evolution above, when the pandemic began and a year in it was having a field day with the global human host population (except for some countries like Cuba, Vietnam, China, Singapore): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867421010503
That changed. Sadly I don't find the articles I read about it (and honestly I mostly trust the MDs and experts I interact with). Another thing one of them noted was that there are some Covid holdouts in some patient bodies which our own immune system sometimes doesn't handle. It seems there are now promising ways to deal with that and make it so that a few people who had chronic Covid infections will be cured proper. I think the long and post covid research and treatment will be something that will go on till 2030.
Thing is since this impairs humoral immunity it means that as people slowly start doing their due diligence to keep getting vaccinated this is gonna snowball. There is literally no way to functionally vacinate out of this pandemic due to how fucked the governmental response is.