Fuck, so now we have a Brazilian variant?

[Destinysdaughter]

Apologies if this has already been discussed but I only heard about this today. So now we have a British variant, a South African one and now a Brazilian one?

Are these new variants coming from the countries where the virus is more widespread? I don't really understand how viruses mutate, but I do find it worrying, as how will our vaccine be able to combat other variants? And will there be more of them to come? And how will it affect international travel?

Sorry, lots of questions, but does anyone have any idea about this?

Yes, if you look where the variants are from - countries where there has been little attempt to control spread.

Yes it is a concern re. vaccination, if the virus were to circulate freely amongst the

Yes, the more people the virus infects, the more chances the virus has to mutate, so statistically mutations are more likely in areas with more people infected. However, that is not to say it won't mutate in low virus areas, it is just to do with chances and opportunity.
Each transmission gives the viral mutation a chance to prove whether it confers an advantage.

Plus if you ignore the new virus variant for long enough (e.g. in Kent and the SE) and it does confer an advantage, then you are in big trouble, especially if it is more infectious (tick) or more dangerous (hopefully not) or resistant to vaccines (possibly tick for SA and Brazil) and your government believe that foreign travel is more important than public health (only just catching up on that score).

Waiting on more information in the US variant (20C-US), but given that it was identified in Texas in May, we probably already have it here!

Isn't USA pushing into 400k dead? USA must have loads of variants.
All the problem variant discussion is pure speculation.
I want to stop paying attention unless there is a proven problem.

Viruses are not intelligent beings. They don't have intelligent thought. They don't wake up one day and go 'fuck it, I'm going to mutate'.

What actually happens is that like all viruses, they mutate - slight changes in their cellular makeup. Some of those mutations die out as the mutation is weaker. Some however, are more transmissible. Again, they don't decide this. It happens by mutation.
So lets call them Johnny, Anne and Bob. All three of them produce progeny. Johnny's are idiot mutants and die. Anne's babies remain the same. But Bob's little mutants mutate in such a way that they are more infectious little fuckers.

It becomes survival of the fittest. The virus survives the stronger the mutations get.

No flights allowed in from Brazil now. And England wanting negative Covid testswithin 3 tests if entry. Including other parts of GB which is a joke.

We should have followed NZ's example and we wouldbe in a better place.Im not English but I'd swap NZ's PM for Bojo.

Apparently the USA is not monitoring close enough to detect variants...

I read about Houston varient in early summer I assumed was similar to Spanish one we got that became dominant.
No where is it more out of control than usa .
Brazil been really bad but their leader a nutter .
Why are we banning Portugal is it because could fly from Brazil to Portugal then UK?
Theres a Nigerian varient.
Tbh we don't know if Kent variant is home grown just we have better genome sequencing than Europe.
Europe making proper hash of covid too and slow to approve vaccines and vaccinate.

Viruses mutate all the time, they are just being cautious till they understand the mutation.

The virus survives the stronger the mutations get

Not necessarily, selection should increase the frequency of the most succesful virus. So, it will certainly favour increased transmission, but transmission can be increased by reduction of symptoms (e.g so your host encounters lots of potential new hosts), or by making them more sick (e.g. so they go into hospital where finding a new host is more likely).

Mutations happen by chance, there is no intent to mutate towards one thing or another

It's basic evolution. The stronger the mutation is, the more it will survive and/or transmit. Some are so strong that they kill quickly - hence no time to spread. Others are little fuckers who don't quite kill their host but infect them long enough for the host to pass them on.

That's what I'm trying to explain Lua. I think some people seem to think that this one virus makes a conscious decision to mutate lol.

It is a super common misconception, Hatstrategicallydipped.

They have evidence that the longer a version of the virus is in a host unimpeded, the more opportunity it has to mutate and become more lethal. I have no links to that. Just some random shit I heard.

theres a difference between mutation and variant

this is a variant

No where is it more out of control than usa not quite true - it is a huge country so the overall case numbers are very high, but I was quite surprised to read earlier this week that the UK rate per 100,000 is currently higher than the USA

@MrsShelton

theres a difference between mutation and variant

this is a variant

What's the difference?

@MrsShelton

theres a difference between mutation and variant

this is a variant

www.independent.co.uk/news/health/covid-strain-mutation-variant-england-b1777724.html

according to this article, mutation is the process by which a new variant is created.

What do you understand the difference to be? (not sarcastic)

Mutations lead to variants. The more a virus spreads, the more opportunity for mutation, and for a successful variant to predominate. The virus is just doing its thing, it’s straightforward evolution, a more infectious variant will proliferate more than its less infectious relatives.

there was a link on here this afternoon to a scientist and his explanation of mutation and variant but i'll be damned if i can find it now!!

the word 'strain' is also bandied around a lot.

Isn’t this just like different flu strains each year so they tweak the annual flu jab ? Will we get to that stage with covid ?

See if the vaccine doesn’t work for some of these variants- what do we actually fucking do ?

Are we just going to stay locked up forever ? I don’t understand

Laurapink0 no evidence yet that they won't but they'll tweak the vaccines like they do with flu if that does become necessary.