Why scientists are very worried about the variant from Brazil (very depressing)

[progree]

Why scientists are very worried about the variant from Brazil, NPR, 1/27/21

... for some scientists, the most worrying variant [of all the variants that have emerged around the world in the last several months] might be the newest one. A variant called P.1, which emerged in early December in Manaus, Brazil, and by mid-January had already caused a massive resurgence in cases across the city of 2 million people.

On Monday, officials detected the first confirmed case of P.1 in the U.S., specifically in Minnesota.

"If you were to ask me right now, what's most concerning of all the things that I've heard so far, it's the fact that they are reporting a sudden increase in cases in Manaus, Brazil," virologist Jeremy Luban, at the University of Massachusetts, told NPR two weeks ago, before the variant arrived in the U.S. "Manaus already had 75 percent of people infected [in the spring of last year]."

... While the variant from the U.K. took about three months to dominate the outbreak in England, P.1 took only about a month to dominate the outbreak in Manaus. In addition, Manaus had already been hit extremely hard by the virus back in April. One study estimated that the population should have reached herd immunity and the virus shouldn't be able to spread easily in the community. So why would the city see an even bigger surge 10 months later?

(and then details about the variant and particularly several mutations on the surface that make it more effective. Very concerning details -Progree)

"We've been here before with the flu. We're having to live with influenza and figure out a way of staying ahead of the virus by making vaccines on a yearly basis," says Gupta, at the University of Cambridge.

"So I can imagine that we'll be doing something similar with coronavirus. Eventually we'll need to design different vaccines that are targeting different parts of the virus — ones that the virus finds harder to change."

MORE: https://www.mprnews.org/story/2021/01/27/npr-why-scientists-are-very-worried-about-the-variant-from-brazil

Manaus is also the city that's been in the news for running out of oxygen supplies.

[DSandra]

1. I think the best hope is effective antivirals

HIV could only be dealt with with antivirals, not a vaccine. Fortunately Dr. Fauci has said that there are antivirals being developed that look promising.

[Aussie105]

2. What a lot of countries that went . . .

'we will just wait for herd immunity' didn't realize, is that the more the virus replicates in a person, and the more people carry it, that the possibility for the virus to mutate into different and more effective forms, increases.

Those that survive one strain may succumb to another. And so on, until you get a much reduced population that is immune to all of the variants.

Those who advocated letting the virus run rampant in order to protect the economy, need to consider the impact on the economy if their population is reduced down to 10%.

Solution?
Develop compound vaccines for inoculation to prevent the disease, updated to cater for emergent strains on a regular basis, just like the flu.
Add to that effective anti-virals for those who get the disease.
And you will still get an annual death toll, just as we do now with the flu.

A long way away from that at the moment. The UK and USA have a difficult job ahead.

Countries that went hard from the outset to reduce the impact of the virus on their population called it right.

[bucolic_frolic]

3. We're dinosaurs

Buy a cave if you can find and afford one.