Yes, still Covid-19 coronavirus edition.
There are variants of the Covid-19 coronavirus like the Delta variant. Then there are the subvariants, which are variants of the variants. And AY. 4. 2 is a Delta subvariant that has now spread to at least 42 other countries, adding to the United States. , based on the most recent weekly epidemiological update from the World Health Organization (WHO) on Covid-19. This AY. 4. 2 takes the Delta variant and raises 3 more mutations, two of which are the most important spike proteins that studded the surface of the These mutations are called A222V and Y145H, which look like relatively weak passwords for his boy band’s fan club accounts. Some have called this subvariant “Delta plus”, although it is not necessarily the only “Delta plus” that exists, since I covered the previous one for Forbes.
The big question, of course, is whether those mutations make the virus more transmissible. And more destructive as more deadly. OK, the two big questions are whether those mutations make the virus more transmissible and destructive. And more to dodge immunity to the vaccine or a past infection. OK, there are 3 big questions.
It should not be so unexpected that new variants and subvariants continue to emerge. After all, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a beep. This is a reference to the spike proteins that make the virus look like one of the spiny balls used in BDSM, not that you necessarily know anything about it. No, it refers to the interest of viruses to reproduce a lot. Once viruses enter your cells, they have a transparent goal: to make many, many copies of themselves. . They’re like that user who comes on a first date and says by way of introduction, “Okay, when are we going to have sex?”
Each time the virus recurs, it can be seen as a user making photocopies of their buttocks. The virus can make mistakes so that subsequent copies of the virus can change slightly with mutations spread in its genetic code. Some of those mutations can weaken the new resulting versions of the virus. Others would possibly make no difference. And some would possibly make the virus stronger, which are the mutations that worry public fitness officials as this high-profile pandemic continues.
A new edition is a subvariant of an absolutely new variant if it is obviously a variant of an existing original variant. Did they give it to me? In other words, is the new edition anything absolutely different?If so, it’s a new variant. If it obviously affects more mutations of an existing variant, it can be considered as a subvariant. The Delta variant has already had many “descendants”, so to speak: another 67 lines according to the WHO report. A lineage is a line circle of relatives. Each kin-line circle itself can continue to generate other variations.
To understand the concept of lineages, think of viruses as you would other people. Viruses like humans can produce offspring, although few people have hundreds, if not thousands, of young. It would be difficult to take so many young people in a van. In addition, a user takes much longer to generate offspring. You want to access a dating app first, then choose a restaurant, etc. Genealogists can recreate a tree circle of relatives, which will come with combinations of other lineages or circle of family lines using genetic data. They can compare other people’s genetic sequences to see who their parents might have been and how each can relate to each other. Similarly in the pandemic, a network of scientists from across the global world has sent genetic data from virus samples to repositories of global knowledge.
This helped divide the tree of the circle of relatives of the Delta variant into 3 clades: 21A, 21I, 21J. Dictonary. com defines a clade as “an organization of organisms thought to have evolved from a non-unusual ancestor. “So, in theory, you can tell your parents, “me, about our clade. “
While AY. 4. 2 reports have been expanding since July of this year, the subvariant still accounted for only about 5. 9% of all Delta instances reported in the week of October 3. So, it’s not like AY. 4. 2 has swept the world yet. However, the AY. 4. 2 subvariant has a higher speed in the United Kingdom (UK), which has provided 93% of AY. 4. 2 reports to date. Eric Topol, MD, founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, referred to an October 29 report from the U. K. Health Security Agency in the following tweet:
The report reported that “the Delta AY. 4. 2 subline (VUI-21OCT-01) represents a slowly expanding proportion of instances in the UK. Represents 8. 5% of Delta instances in the last full week of sequencing (October 4, 2021 to October 10). , 2021). In recent weeks, sequencing knowledge is incomplete, but AY. 4. 2 accounts for 10. 3% of Delta instances the week of October 11-17, 2021 and 11. 3% the week of October 18-24, 2021. Therefore, an increasing percentage of Delta instances are actually the AY. 4. 2 subvariant. This suggests that AY. 4. 2 would possibly be more transmissible and therefore propagate more smoothly than the original Delta variant.
According to the report, there is additional evidence that the AY. 4. 2 subvariant would possibly be more transmissible than the original Delta variant. For example, Americans inflamed with the AY. 4. 2 subvariant ended up infecting on average a higher percentage (12. 4%) of their relatives than those inflamed with the original Delta variant (11. 1%).
This is not smart news. However, take a look at the thread of tweets from Meaghan Kill, an epidemiologist at the UK Health Security Agency, about what they discovered regarding the vaccine’s efficacy against the AY subvariant. 4. 2. He started the October 29 thread with “Happy Friday,” which is rarely how you start bad news threads. As a general rule, you don’t say anything like, “Happy Friday! Your eyes are going to fall out of your head. Here’s how the Kill thread began:
Well, the tweet at the time didn’t remove the “Happy Friday” vibe. “There is no evidence that EV (infection) decreases for AY. 4. 2” is smart news. His tweet thread continued with the following:
Granted, there may be slight relief in EV rather than symptomatic infection by the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine. But “negligible impact” isn’t a big deal. The big smiling face of his latest tweet turns out to vibrate with happiness. than trembling with terror. The bottom line is that lately it seems that covid-19 vaccines are still quite effective compared to the AY. 4. 2 subvariant, which is good news. Of course, public health officials and scientists deserve to continue to monitor the scenario and examine the subvariant.
In any case, the spread of this AY. 4. 2 subvariant, this “Delta plus”, is a reminder that the Covid-19 coronavirus can continue to evolve. That’s why it’s so important to vaccinate as many people as possible as soon as possible. imaginable. Reaching herd immunity thresholds can break the chain of virus transmission and thus delay the emergence of new variants. It may also better protect the population from long-term variants so that SARS-CoV-2 more closely resembles other seasonal respiratory viruses such as influenza. The flu virus has become less fatal over time, as more people have been continuously exposed to the virus through a combination of exposure to herbs and vaccines.
This may occur as early as 2022 for the Covid-19 coronavirus. As long as enough people in countries around the world are fully vaccinated, this pandemic may become more endemic. And yes, everywhere, other people are really in a position to see the “end” attached to this pandemic.
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Psychology Today and I have written articles for The New York Times, Time, The Guardian, The HuffPost, STAT, MIT Technology Review and others. My paintings and experience have been published in major media such as The New York Times, ABC, USA. U. S. Today, Good Morning America, Tamron Hall Show, BBC, The Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, CBS News, Businessweek, U. S. News and World Report, Bloomberg News, Reuters, National Public Radio (NPR), National Geographic, MSN and PBS. Follow me on Twitter (@bruce_y_lee) but don’t ask me if I know martial arts.