Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2021/01/22/brazil-has-a-new-coronavirus-variant-and-it-is-present-in-about-50-of-all-new-covid-cases-in-manaus-city.html
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Modern science and communication are great, but I’m not sure I like this blow by blow pandemic coverage,
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Aren’t mutations the normal and expected result of generational things - isn’t every generation a mutation of the one before it?
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Yes, in fact, we can identify witch strains are currently infecting witch countries by their particular mutations.
The point is not every mutation is relevant, but when they are (lets say more transmissible, deadly or resistant to antibiotics), we can pin point it and take special precautions with the travelers coming or going to these places.
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It doesn’t help that Brazil’s dirtbag of a President Jair Bolsonaro is telling his nation that the vaccine may turn people into crocodiles or bearded ladies.
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Yikes. All these mutations popping up everywhere are not good news. Eventually one’s going to be vaccine-resistant, and then we’ll be going through all this all over again, except given the slow rate at which people are being vaccinated, we’ll probably have to be dealing with both variants at the same time…
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If Brazil were really ahead of this (aheh…) they would tell us how this one makes the cardiovascular system stylish and strong, rather than comprimised and flusterable. Gitta gotta get those ML people to apply edgelordiness optimizations and call from there (…to make masks and socially distant EtOH work well in at least one west.)
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Eventual resistance to the vaccines is definitely a big concern, but I’ve been reading that there’s growing evidence that some of these new variants are already resistant to the existing monoclonal antibody treatments that are sometimes used for high-risk patients.
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Statistcally, in every single sample studied, there should be multiple mutations. Viruses are very stripped down reroductive units, and don’t really bother with gene editing or correcting, so they tend to mutate very frequently and evolve very very quickly. Whether any particular alteration is concerning is purely random chance, but it is a given that with enough rolls of the dice, you will eventually come up snake eyes. This is why the very slow vaccine rollout co concerns me so much. The slower the roll out, the more time the bug has to adapt. We don’t owe this bastard any favors.
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Since we have no chance on the vaccination race, we’re giving our best on the vaccine breaking new strain race. Sorry, world.
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