Manchester variant

[littlebillie]

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/manchester-areas-residents-workers-should-19796809

@Lollipop1234

“we are just going to eventually learn how to live alongside the virus, new variant or not”

It’s probably true, but I never really understand what this means....?

Does it mean carry on having Lockdown after lockdown, or regular vaccine boosters? Or continuing restrictions on socialising and travelling?

Or is there some other way of managing that we haven’t learnt yet?

I would also be very interested to know the answer to this.

Why do people keep saying vaccine resistant?

I've not ever heard they are resistant to vaccine as a mutation.

Just that we may need to adjust the vaccine to be more effective against the mutations?

So they can be vaccinated against the same way the flu variants are vaccinated against yearly - by adapting the vaccine?

@userxx How do you feel about mushy peas ? That's the important question.

I like mushy peas, but not with gravy.

Anybody else sick of all this shit now?

@itsgettingwierd

Why do people keep saying vaccine resistant?

I've not ever heard they are resistant to vaccine as a mutation.

Just that we may need to adjust the vaccine to be more effective against the mutations?

So they can be vaccinated against the same way the flu variants are vaccinated against yearly - by adapting the vaccine?

Well yes but that doesn't help in the short term while a vaccine gets tweaked.

Seems this is an issue for example in Austria where the SA variant has spread suddenly and they were giving out the AZ vaccine. So almost overnight their vaccine programme is much less effective. AZ said they can remake for autumn?

However, whilst the variants are always better for the virus

Pedant here. The mutations are random it's just that the ones that are bad for reproduction don't carry on reproducing. For obvious reasons. The ones that 'help' reproduction reproduce.

Evolution isn't prescient. It is successful though.

It's interesting to see what happens in Austria. Currently case numbers don't look particularly high. But time will tell. Case numbers are not currently high on South Africa and the variant has been there for a while. It's a puzzle.

You're right, @MrsTerryPratchett. I should have said "while the successful variants are always better for the virus" - which is true, though a bit redundant. I suppose I could try to quibble back that a mutation is random, but to become a viable variant, it would need to be at least a little successful? I'm not secure enough on my vocab to try to out pedant your pedantry, though.

@strawberriesontheNeva

Anybody else sick of all this shit now?

Pretty much everyone I know IRL.