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New variant from South Africa

Started by shoulders, November 25, 2021, 03:19:31 PM

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shoulders


Fambo Number Mive

Very concerning and if this thing makes things get so bad not even the government can ignore the death and hospitalisation rate it'll be much harder to get people to adhere to mask wearing and working from home than it was pre July 2021 (it was hard enough then) given how the establishment are determined to paint wearing masks and working from home as bad. Just so, so, frustrating. Makes me feel like I'm Billie on Avenue 5 (although I'm nowhere near as cool, competent or tough as Billie)

Fambo Number Mive

#2
Is the UK going to put South Africa, Botswana and Hong Kong on the red list until we find out how serious this variant is?

poo


BlodwynPig

Possibly linked to mutations arising in a severely immunocomprised Botswanan individual.

32 mutations on the spike gene. Fuck me. Hopefully it won't be fit enough to persist.



imitationleather

Never met a nice South African variant.

Norton Canes


Pranet

Could do without this to be honest.

poo


SpiderChrist


steveh

Piece from Nature about the new Nu variant: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03552-w.

I believe that so far the mutations increasing immune escape have made those variants less transmissible, which is why Delta has conquered the world and Beta hasn't. It's too early to tell if this variant can succeed and with a lot of mutations that haven't been seen before there's a lot of other things currently unknown. Have seen one comment from a virologist that the mutations Nu has that are understood probably aren't sufficient to dangerously dent vaccine effectiveness even if it does take a hit.

BlodwynPig

I had a fever dream last night and it came true. Nu it is!

Alberon

Just spent a lot of the past week trying to sort out Christmas. Which parents my sister and her partner takes in, Which ones me and my partner take in. All a big headache as they don't all get on.

So it's almost something to look forward to - a second Christmas where we're all locked down and/or dead.

Fr.Bigley

Well it's arrived in Belgium, its already here lads. Wehey. Lockdown 3.0 just in time for Christmas.

steveh

Also seems that antivirals used in treatment of Covid will be less effective with the Nu variant, at least until manufacturers can catch up.

Couple of more useful threads on it:
https://twitter.com/kallmemeg/status/1464210413231517698
https://twitter.com/kakape/status/1464226057045876754

Crenners

I actually could do with with another proper lockdown tbf, like six months wfh would be tgtbt.

Alberon

50,000 new infections today from just the boring old variants.

You might get your wish.

Fambo Number Mive

Perhaps we should put Belgium on the red list if a case was found there.

I think the government did the right thing putting South Africa on the red list and the criticism by the South African government is baffling. Until we know how dangerous this variant is, we cannot take any risks.




bgmnts

They've dubbed it Omicron.

An admittedly cool name.

mothman

Ooh! I was hoping they'd use omicron! Definitely playing EuroMillions tonight.

BlodwynPig

Hang on, I thought it was Nu (as I predicted yesterday). Bit rushy to switch to Omicron.

Surprised to hear that some government bioinformaticians didn't know that Omicron was a Greek letter.

BlodwynPig

Seems mixed messages, some say Nu, some Omicron

From ITV news : "The variant could eventually be given the moniker "Nu" "

I made a joke a few weeks ago saying I couldn't wait to see the Omicron variant - the most sinister name for a variant. I got my wish it seems

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

The Lrrr-gie.

Joking aside, this is quite upsetting.

Alberon

Quote from: BlodwynPig on November 26, 2021, 06:47:30 PMSeems mixed messages, some say Nu, some Omicron

From ITV news : "The variant could eventually be given the moniker "Nu" "

I made a joke a few weeks ago saying I couldn't wait to see the Omicron variant - the most sinister name for a variant. I got my wish it seems

I suppose it's the next in line, but part of me does think they'd save a cool name for something really bad.

Which is fair enough I suppose.

I mean, would you want to be killed by Beta or Omicron?

Milo

Quote from: BlodwynPig on November 26, 2021, 06:45:01 PMSurprised to hear that some government bioinformaticians didn't know that Omicron was a Greek letter.

You should have a basic grasp of Latin Greek if you're going to work in Currys Government informatics.

Cuellar

We might yet slip in a final fuckdown this year!!

Johnny Textface

Quote from: Norton Canes on November 26, 2021, 07:26:09 AMGett off!

That is incredible!

Can someone explain how viruses mutate like I'm five? (45).

Mr Faineant

Quote from: Johnny Textface on November 27, 2021, 12:47:03 AMThat is incredible!

Can someone explain how viruses mutate like I'm five? (45).

Virus enters host, attaches itself to a cell, injects some rna into the cell. The unsuspecting cell takes up the rna, which are basically manufacturing instructions, and  makes a bit of virus...which is basically a little packet of dna wrapped in lipids and spike proteins...dna you can think of as a sequence of letters..ACGCACCG...etc. there are, as I understand it, around 30,000 letters in the SARS-CoV2 dna. Now, imagine making millions of these virus particles, typing out 30,000 letters over and over again. You will make some mistakes, as will your cells. These mistakes manifest themselves in different dna, so that particular bit of virus acts a bit differently than "intended". Now, "survival of the fittest" kicks in. If this random error produces a change that benefits the ability of the cell to reproduce, it is more likely to reproduce (by getting into another one if your lovely cells and enslaving it). If the random error makes it more difficult for it to reproduce, then it is less likely to reproduce. Those that reproduce most, become dominant, and thus, a variant is born. And here we have natural selection by random mutations in genetic code, just as Darwin wrote about.

I am not a biologist or anything like that, just a lowly electrical engineer. There are likely errors in the above, and obviously many over simplifications...it's been a long time since my mandatory biology courses, but I think this is good enough for our purposes. Perhaps someone could follow up with a really good and technically precise explanation, I'd enjoy reading that.