Current Events > CDC warns COVID-19 may be a few mutations away from evading vaccines

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.businessinsider.com/cdc-covid-19-could-few-mutations-away-from-evading-vaccines-2021-7

The coronavirus could be just a few mutations away from evading existing COVID-19 vaccines, according to the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"These vaccines operate really well in protecting us from severe disease and death, but the big concern is that the next variant that might emerge just a few mutations potentially away could potentially evade our vaccines," CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said in a Tuesday press briefing.

She added, though that "right now, fortunately we are not there," since current COVID-19 vaccines "operate really well in protecting us from severe disease and death."

Coronavirus cases, fueled by the highly transmissible Delta variant, have been surging in the US and across the globe largely among those who are unvaccinated. In the last month, the US's seven-day average of new daily cases has quintupled: from 11,887 on June 26 to 56,635 on Monday.

The CDC announced Tuesday that people infected with Delta vaccinated or unvaccinated have higher viral loads (meaning they carry greater amounts of virus) compared to other versions of coronavirus. That means even vaccinated people could pass the virus along to others similarly to how unvaccinated people do.

More transmission means more mutations

All viruses change over time as they replicate inside an infected host. So countless versions of the coronavirus are circulating, each separated by a handful of tiny changes in its genetic code. Many of these have no real public-health impact, but the more people a virus infects, the more chances it has to mutate into a new, dangerous variant.

"The biggest concern at the moment is just the sheer number of people that have the virus and therefore the sheer number of variants that are being generated," Andrew Read, who studies the evolution of infectious diseases at Pennsylvania State University, previously told Insider. "Some of those might be the jackpot which are even fitter than Delta."

This virus is outsmarting us. We're in the endgame and its game over if it becomes resistant to the vaccines, which sounds like its very close to happening.

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We live in a dystopian permanent pandemic.

some people are gonna be pissed when they realize they have to get the vaccine every year if this is ever going to go away

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Hm. So is this how it ends?

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Existing vaccines.

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Half the population could get wiped out and those fucking republicans will still call for no mask and no lockdowns.

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Get fucking vaccinated!

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GregShmedley posted...

We cannot sustain if this continues to get worse. Societies will absolutely collapse, and the US is an extremely fragile country already.

Basically the worst case scenario has been playing out. Which is really sad considering how blitzing fast the vaccine rollout was, but it's obviously difficult to get the whole world vaccinated, much moreso the brainwashed dumbasses who thumb their noses to what can be considered mankind's greatest achievements.

This is just gonna be a forever thing now.
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Johnny_Nutcase posted...

Half the population could get wiped out and those fucking republicans will still call for no mask and no lockdowns.

"Half the country is still millions of people. Besides, all those people were old or had preexisting conditions."

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Those mutations will happen in a lowly vaccinated part of the world if they do happen at all.

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This was always possible

Good thing CDC has been very firm on continuing to wear masks...oh

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We should deny everything public to the unvaccinated at this point. No public schools, no public service, no nothing. You want to be a dumbass you can pay out of pocket for it, this is absolute shit.

And 100 percent send every liar who claims vaccination to prison if they're caught lying about getting it.

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Clutch posted...

Existing vaccines.

Chuds won't take the ones we have now. It won't matter if we make new ones, they still won't take them, which then lead to this happening again.

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Rob Cesternino posted...

https://www.businessinsider.com/cdc-covid-19-could-few-mutations-away-from-evading-vaccines-2021-7

This virus is outsmarting us. We're in the endgame and its game over if it becomes resistant to the vaccines, which sounds like its very close to happening.

Endgame? Somebody out there likely made a thanos snap meme with the unvaccinated

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DoctorPiranha3 posted...

We live in a dystopian permanent pandemic.

Sada_Pop posted...

Hm. So is this how it ends?

It doesnt. We will just have to get an annual Covid vaccines that covers the years dominant mutant strains like the flu.

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Obviously it's because the microchips in the pfizer vaccine are malfunctioning so they have to design hoaxid-21 to justify designing a new chip-cine.

/s

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I'm vaccinated and encourage it but how was it that the Spanish Flu just went away with no vaccine? Did the world just get lucky that time?

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ZEROWOLF posted...

I'm vaccinated and encourage it but how was it that the Spanish Flu just went away with no vaccine? Did the world just get lucky that time?

It never really went away, the flu we have today descends from it, and an estimated 600K people a year die from it.

What's the point in fucking living at this point.

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Son of a fucking bitch. We're gonna spend the next century in lockdown

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sounds like the flu

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The real problem is the current Vaccines dont always prevent you from catching and spreading it. They need to make Vaccines that can completely eradicate it like small pox. The virus isnt gonna mutate to learn how to evade the current vaccines from someone who isnt vaccinated, its gonna happen from breakthrough cases in people who are.

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xD

it time to dip those masks into lysol

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Looks like booster shots for years to come. Similar to the flu shot, each year they can come out with a new booster shot to fight the latest mutations.

If we turn into zombies, take comfort in the fact that I have zero problem eating all of your brains.

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Booster time boiz

Bleuets posted...

Looks like booster shots for years to come. Similar to the flu shot, each year they can come out with a new booster shot to fight the latest mutations.

it kinda remind me of HIV. people gotta keep getting dat shot so it doesn't turn into AIDS.

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ZEROWOLF posted...

I'm vaccinated and encourage it but how was it that the Spanish Flu just went away with no vaccine? Did the world just get lucky that time?

Mutations can work in our favor and weaken the virus in it's ability to be deadly..

Though if this becomes an endemic issue we'll just see the virus fluctuate in it's communicability and fatality rate just like the flu.

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At this point I'd prefer a Zombie Apocalypse over this shit.

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solosnake posted...

The real problem is the current Vaccines dont always prevent you from catching and spreading it. They need to make Vaccines that can completely eradicate it like small pox. The virus isnt gonna mutate to learn how to evade the current vaccines from someone who isnt vaccinated, its gonna happen from breakthrough cases in people who are.

I think a key difference is stuff like smallpox doesn't mutate very rapidly, so it's a lot easier to isolate it and vaccinate against it, whereas we've already seen like a ton of variations of SARS-CoV-2 and "coronaviruses" themselves are not anything new.

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BettyWhite posted...

Mutations can work in our favor and weaken the virus in it's ability to be deadly..

it hasn't worked that way.
keeps going up and up. there's no fall.
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Havent seen you in a while, tc. Are you still extremely all in pro-trump?
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MabusIncarnate posted...

If we turn into zombies, take comfort in the fact that I have zero problem eating all of your brains.

What brains?

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Alteres posted...

What brains?

half the group doesn't have a working brain (the anti-vaxxers) and maga crowd.
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kingdrake2 posted...

it hasn't worked that way.
keeps going up and up. there's no fall.

Pretty much all viruses become more transmissible and less pathogenic over time. From an evolutionary standpoint, it's in the best interest of corona. If it just kept levelling up and maxed its stats out, it would kill us all and itself as a result.

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Alteres posted...

What brains?

CE is a diet area for brain eaters

ZEROWOLF posted...

I'm vaccinated and encourage it but how was it that the Spanish Flu just went away with no vaccine? Did the world just get lucky that time?

A lot more of the population died relative to the world population. Also, there was less travel.

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BettyWhite posted...

Pretty much all viruses become more transmissible and less pathogenic over time. From an evolutionary standpoint, it's in the best interest of corona. If it just kept levelling up and maxed its stats out, it would kill us all and itself as a result.

The idea that a virus must become less pathogenic over time is a myth. There's no evolutionary advantage for COVID to become less severe, it's already one of the most infectious diseases of all time, and at the point anyone feels any symptoms it's already been nearly two weeks from the time they were infected and have already spread it to several other people.

COVID is a unique beast and should be treated as such.

Maybe it's time America does something like China did, force these people to stay home or get locked up or throw in a facility.

I think martial law may need to happen.

We are at the point where we must forcefully detain and vaccinate anti vaxxers

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Rob Cesternino posted...

This virus is outsmarting us. We're in the endgame and its game over if it becomes resistant to the vaccines, which sounds like its very close to happening.

It's not "outsmarting" them, it's changing its form so that the body doesn't recognize it as the same virus the vaccines trained it against.

It's basically the virus equivalent of putting on a fake mostauche. Except now, it's starting to get really good fake mostauches. Or perhaps, it's closer to plastic surgery, but the point is - it's essentially just changing so that it can't be recognized.

And carrying on from this, all that's needed is an updated shot (very easy to do with the mRNA ones, a bit harder with other types) that's based off the newer strains. Then we're back to more or less full protection, at least until it does the same over again. But we'll be in a better position overall, because the previous shots will still confer some immunity (think of it as that the body will at least be on higher alert because it knows there's someone to look for, even if it can't fully see through the disguise).

Obligatory disclaimer, I've simplified things down here a lot and used the metaphor to make it easier to understand. Or in other words - no, conspiracists, the virus is not literally putting on a fake mostauche in order to avoid vaccines.

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apolloooo posted...

We are at the point where we must forcefully detain and vaccinate anti vaxxers

Hopefully a vaccine spray is developed. Just like how there are trucks that drive around to spray and kill mosquitos. There should be vaccine sprays going around the anti-vax neighborhoods to force them to be vaccinated.

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DoctorPiranha3 posted...

The idea that a virus must become less pathogenic over time is a myth. There's no evolutionary advantage for COVID to become less severe, it's already one of the most infectious diseases of all time, and at the point anyone feels any symptoms it's already been nearly two weeks from the time they were infected and have already spread it to several other people.

Eh, you have the right ideas but you're greatly overestimating the magnitude of some of this.

There could still be evolutionary advantage to becoming less severe - it leaves the person alive for a later reinfection, and also potentially means the person is able to spread it for a longer period of time. The pre-symptomatic infectiousness certianly reduces the advantage of this, but it doesn't eliminate it.

It's very infectious, but there are plenty of diseases far, far more infectious - the Delta variant is estimated to have an R0 (the number of other people that a person will, on average, infect during the course of their own infection) of around 6. Again, to be clear, that's the Delta variant, not the original one. Just as one comparison, measles's R0 is estimated to be anywhere from 12 to 18.

And no, people aren't infectious for two weeks before they show symptoms; only for about two days before symptoms. It's conceivable that might be even shorter with the Delta variant (though if so, it'd be on the order of half a day or so less), but I don't think we've got a solid answer to that question yet.

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Can we get some informed people on this one?
@COVxy
@DarkRoast