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Re: Coronavirus
Quote:
Originally Posted by joglynne
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This is another (similar) take on that - a pre-release paper on Omicron (my brother in law sent it to me, as he subscribes to it (being in the "business")).
https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/ha...ceptor-binding
I found this bit near the end encouraging
Quote:
We often seem to fall into simple, binary thinking when considering complicated problems. Left or right-wing politics. Vaccinated or unvaccinated selecting for newly evolved viruses. This can limit our ability to make sense out of the world. But what if what is going on with Omicron is not so much driven by antibodies directed against the Spike RBD, but by selection for shifting the region of the respiratory tract that it infects? Or perhaps, this variant has bounced back and forth between humans and other species, and in so doing it has accumulated mutations which have exploited subtle differences in the ACE2 receptor.
One thing that has always fascinated me about viral evolution (or any evolution, for that matter) is the existence of evolutionary islands. Regions of genetic optimization that may not be the best solution, but which might require genetic changes which are less adaptive for a given environment before they are able to reach a new genetic “island” that is more optimal. Once a population (swarm) of viruses are able to bridge the evolutionary barriers to reach a new “island”, then they have a sort of evolutionary burst that can result in many changes within a short period of time as they evolve to adapt to the new optimum of that “island”. Perhaps what we are seeing with Omicron is the genetic consequence of one of these evolutionary bursts.
This is why this new finding from a team at Hong Kong University is so significant. Because it indicates that what may be most important about Omicron may not be the ability to evade vaccine-induced immunity, but that it has shifted its preferred tissue target for infection and replication to the upper airway instead of deep lung. That could explain why it is more infectious, replicates to higher levels, and yet causes less severe disease.
Let’s hope that is our best gift this Christmas.
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