Coronavirus

[Donnie Ebert]

Scientists say a now-dominant strain of the coronavirus appears to be more contagious than original

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.

...

Wherever the new strain appeared, it quickly infected far more people than the earlier strains that came out of Wuhan, China, and within weeks it was the only strain that was prevalent in some nations, according to the report. The new strain’s dominance over its predecessors demonstrates that it is more infectious, according to the report, though exactly why is not yet known.

[mikechamp]

Donnie hit on the bad news of the evening. Here's (hopefully) some good news, though in light of the report above, I'm not sure which strain this trial vaccine is focused on:

Pfizer, BioNTech set to begin U.S. coronavirus vaccine trial

Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE said on Tuesday they have begun delivering doses of their experimental coronavirus vaccines for initial human testing in the United States.

The U.S. drugmaker and German partner said if the vaccine proves to be safe and effective in trials, it could potentially be ready for wide U.S. distribution by the end of the year, shaving several years off the typical vaccine development timeline.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/pfizer-b ... 00028.html

[sighyoung]

[sighyoung]

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Here's kind of a sobering thought.

It's possible if not probable that there will never be another day where America doesn't have a new confirmed case of covid 19 for the remainder of our lives.

[cardsfantx]

Here's kind of a sobering thought.

It's possible if not probable that there will never be another day where America doesn't have a new confirmed case of covid 19 for the remainder of our lives.

eh, as long as we come up with a viable vaccine...you'll be right, but it's ok

i mean people still get measles (even vaccinated people) all the time now, and the uproar from that is the stupid parents not vaccinating their kids...we're not talking about staying at home and quarantining because of the measles

once we get a vaccine and everyone has access to it, it will be ok (obv that will take some time)...then we can go about hating on the parents who refuse to give their kids the COVID19 vaccine

[thrill]

i mean people still get measles (even vaccinated people) all the time now, and the uproar from that is the stupid parents not vaccinating their kids...we're not talking about staying at home and quarantining because of the measles

I actually had a conversation with the director of infectious disease control at a large hospital chain about just this. I was putting together a video for our workers about new protocols for entering the hospital facilities and why they don't need to be freaked out by all the safety precautions and interviewed her. She told me that the measles is even more contagious and appears more deadly than COVID (COVID data is still so hard to parse), so when we have a vaccine, it's not going to loom very large in our collective consciousnesses. It'll be just another de-fanged plague like measles, smallpox, polio, etc.

WE will remember how scary it was, like our grandparents remember how scary polio was, but every generation born after will be hardly care.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

That's an eye-opening statement about measles.

[heyzeus]

Measles really is insane. Apparently it’s transmissible to many people well after the person with an active case has left the room.

But if you’re vaccinated there’s little risk of ever getting it. That’s my hope for CV19 some day.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Regarding a vaccine, on the bright side, Pfizer is taking a new approach to this vaccine by essentially trying to disrupt the tRNA of the virus so it can't reproduce....kind of like chopping its nuts off. That's the fastest possible available timeline I've seen with it possibly available this fall. There are tons (hundreds last I saw) of traditional vaccines under development but all those are on the more traditional timeline of 18-24 months though some have already started.

Also, obviously covid has a ton of attention and lots of companies trying to produce a vaccine. At the same time, Covid has many strains already over the course of, what, 5 months. While some viruses can be eradicated by vaccines, those have traditionally taken long times to come about (9 years for the measles for instance from when they first started to when a vaccine became available and 5 more years to perfect it). Others that mutate have vaccines that are imperfect, like the flu, that even with vaccines available still result in tens of thousands of deaths every year. Others have no vaccines despite worldwide attention, like HIV, and my understanding (which granted is very limited) is because it can mutate so quickly any vaccine is like trying to play whack-a-mole and hasn't been successful.

So, on the dark side, it's not a given that a vaccine will be available shortly and may possibly take years or decades even.

It does seem like the S proteins of the virus (the spikes) can be targeted so I'm more optimistic than pessimistic. Regardless, I'm not 100% convinced it'll be over in a year.