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?

@MrsShelton

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.

The Independent article I linked to above does explain the difference regarding 'strain' (basically the whole SARS-Cov-2 virus is one strain of the coronavirus family and the new variants are not new strains). So calling new variants 'strains' is incorrect.

The mutation/variant thing is closer and it is not incorrect to interchange the two, except that strictly speaking mutation is the process and variant is the outcome (if I understood the article correctly, but other poster seem to be saying the same).

A mutation is a noun used to describe the end result of the mutation process. If we're splitting hairs.
Mutant, variant whatever. It's just a version of a base virus that has mutated.

theres a difference between mutation and variant

Could you unpack this a bit more tor me?
Can anyone recommend a simple link for me on literally how, physically the virus mutates?
I thought viruses have a different separate and simpler (RNA?)genome to say a biological organism cell genome with DNA which has loads more information in it.
So if we humans are the host.. is the mutation just a ‘fault’ a transcription error of the copying process of the virus itself?
Or is it something to do with the interaction of virus with the particular cell/genome of host that the virus uses to replicate? Do some human genomes allow or prevent changes more than others? I thought humans genomes’ are all fairly similar to each other?
Presumably animal species’ genomes must vary greatly between different animal categories or species or even breeds- can this happen to point that some DNA genomes presumably can’t interact with this virus at all?

How does the human or animal having had the vaccine play into this process of mutation?
I’ve no idea how any of this works and definitely didn’t get taught this the last time I had a science lesson.. which was at school ..

I feel annoyed that the public messaging has been all about personal risk of symptoms that you can get from this illness- ie risk of harm or death to the individual or loved ones. I remember media reports of the infamous initial political tacit approval of the virus spreading widely in population without hopefully killing ‘too many’ people ie ‘herd immunity’. The idea of herd immunity made me think that actually if the virus spreads widely in a population then eventually we all develop immunity and thus protection, if we are lucky enough to survive it, which is still unpredictable at this point so a total gamble.
So that was already a reckless dangerous theory for anyone in government to have.

But now this seems even worse- because actually we should have been very very much more cautious about any transmission. Not only because of risk of illness and death but because it’s transmission that allows mutation and the more opportunities the virus has to mutate the more (potentially) dangerous the virus could get. And vaccines presumably depend on virus they target being fairly stable, so all this effort and hope around the vaccine could be ruined by wider spread because mutations.

I’ve very probably misunderstood a lot of this but it seems even more worrying and more strategically mishandled than I first thought.

I agree it has been massively mishandled.

As the vaccine appears not to stop people catching or passing on the virus, there is high risk of further mutation if the virus just circulates.

It could mutate in a way that makes it a worse fit with the vaccine, I have read that is a risk. But of course no one knows the form any mutation might take. So I guess, knowing our -stupid Prime Minister, we will gamble again.

@Laurapink0

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

What we should do is:

-set up a decent test and trace (face up to the fact our system has failed)

• suppress virus to very low levels
• continue with the non-disruptive measures like masks and distancing in public
• hunt down clusters

What we will do is fuck all, wait for the next mutation, risk fucking up completely.

But now this seems even worse- because actually we should have been very very much more cautious about any transmission. Not only because of risk of illness and death but because it’s transmission that allows mutation and the more opportunities the virus has to mutate the more (potentially) dangerous the virus could get. And vaccines presumably depend on virus they target being fairly stable, so all this effort and hope around the vaccine could be ruined by wider spread because mutations.

Jeepers - that is exactly what I thought when reading about the Brazilian variant. I am feeling anxious about this as I know that what @inquietant says after is 100% correct also. Boris always acts at the last possible second, not listening to the SAGE group until it is literally too late.

@leafygarden42 sorry for making you feel worried

I have to say Johnson's utter uselessness is the most scary bit, I feel we could manage so much better if he just FUCKED OFF! Sorry, feel better now

Again the scientists give some hope -Valance said the vaccines are pretty easy to reconfigure if necessary.

The issue would be needing another lockdown while that occurs. But mutation can make things less deadly too.

I just wish we could try to avoid issues rather than ignore them with crossed fingers!

@leafygarden42

But now this seems even worse- because actually we should have been very very much more cautious about any transmission. Not only because of risk of illness and death but because it’s transmission that allows mutation and the more opportunities the virus has to mutate the more (potentially) dangerous the virus could get. And vaccines presumably depend on virus they target being fairly stable, so all this effort and hope around the vaccine could be ruined by wider spread because mutations.

Jeepers - that is exactly what I thought when reading about the Brazilian variant. I am feeling anxious about this as I know that what @inquietant says after is 100% correct also. Boris always acts at the last possible second, not listening to the SAGE group until it is literally too late.

I agree and in particular our government's initial attitude towards schools and young people. They encouraged (forced) children back to schools where the virus freely spread due to limited measures. We just kept being fed the line that firstly children do not spread which then changed to children suffer only mild symptoms. The decision to lockdown in November but keep all schools open was wrong and quite a reckless approach.

And as more adults become vaccinated will it be a risky time for children and younger people? I do not have a science background but I worry of the virus mutating again. Could it become more of a risk with more serious problems to children or will it eventually fizzle out? I can only see that strict social distancing in schools will be necessary for some time to come but I hope I'm wrong.

What I'm not clear on is whether we have a sudden rush of new variants globally or whether we just weren't looking for or reporting on them before and now we are? The former seems like it would be more worrying.

@stuckhereontheinside

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

I agree but it depends how you are looking at the figures. Overall the USA has a better rate per 100,000 but individual states vary a lot. Some of the worst hit (New York for example) have incredibly high rates varying from 1000 to 2000 cases per million (we’re about 1200 for context).

Given the size of the country it’s more comparable to Europe’s individual countries. I don’t know what Europe’s rate as a continent is but that would be a better comparison with the whole of the USA.

@mrshoho
Thats what has crossed my mind in the past too, as adults become vaccinated do we end up forcing the virus into an evolutionary corner and have it mutating again to a more virulent strain in children?

I presume its a risk but as others have said, mutations doesn't necessarily mean more dangerous, any mutation could be less dangerous.
And I think that a vaccine for children is currently in development so hopefully it won't be too far behind once the adult population has been vaccinated.

@FionatheCat

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 ?

The flu jab is, basically, dead flu viruses from strains caught in the wild early in the flu season (without a guarantee that all dominant strains will be found). Well, not "dead", as technically viruses are not living beings in the first place, but inactivated. So there's limited tweaking as such that is going on. It is a very simplified and inaccurate explanation, just to illustrate the concept.

This approach won't work with coronavirus vaccines, for various reasons (they are not inactivated vaccines, but created through other methods).

@DateLoaf

There's always a risk of mutation under the selective pressure from antibodies. One hypothesis of how some of the variants that we see now emerged is that there was a single immunocompromised patient with covid treated with convalescent plasma fpr a long time, and the virus mutated under the pressure. I think I even saw a wet lab experiment published that confirmed that.
This pressure is unlikely to be very different for naturally acquired infection vs vaccine-induced immunity though.
This is not my area of expertise, I've only a high-level knowledge in the area and monitor this topic on the surface.

Viruses mutate, there will be lots more variants but not all countries are checking as carefully (I read the U.K. is sequencing more than the rest of the world put together partly due to our excellent scientific facilities and partly due to having a nationalised health system). My exh is sequencing samples as I type (well if he's dragged himself in yet) so I have been getting info from him and understand a bit about it (due to him banging on about it during our long marriage)

One reason why the vaccination program needs to be rolled out quicker and amongst all age groups. The more the virus mutates the longer we will be living under restrictions.

@abitofpeace

One reason why the vaccination program needs to be rolled out quicker and amongst all age groups. The more the virus mutates the longer we will be living under restrictions.

Followed by very strict border policies (including on-going quarantine requirements and enforcement) and immediate closures to areas with worrying mutations, e.g. S. America in this case.

The Brazilian variant is here:

www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/coronavirus-news-vaccine-rollout-uk-covid-lockdown-deaths-cases/

Guess it was inevitable but let’s hope it’s not worse than our own B117 variant

Sorry, story changed since I was sent link It now says it isn’t the variant of concern. Sorry! And phew.

Thanks emptydreamer I think I follow that, just about (definitely not you, it’s me!)

Apparently we are at about 2000 variants now (and counting). Before the English variant the media weren't reporting on them so no one was bothered. Suddenly everybody jumps when a new variant is discovered.

As others have said: that's what viruses do. They mutate and develop variants. That's what was expected (and everyone said) right from the start. Some variants may have other characteristics (be more infectious), but it takes a long time to have enough data to be sure about it. They are still not absolutely sure about the English variant (and that has been around since September).

I expect that this will in the long term play out like the flu. You get a new vaccine every autumn with the 3-4 strains that they think are most likely to be active. Once we have all had it (or had some vaccine), I suspect we all have some partial immunity so hopefully at that point it will really become not much worse than the flu.

I suspect the sudden interest in variants is due to the fact we have working vaccines now and there is a new element of threat of them not working any longer

Thanks for all the sensible and informative replies, must admit I was starting to panic when I heard about it yesterday!