Still another variant; possibly more infectious than Delta

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/delta-plus-offshoot-called-ay-223738344.html

I'm so sick and tired of this! I'm so ready for this pandemic to be over! Apparently the virus does have other plans... It hasn't been confirmed yet, but this descendent of Delta, being called Delta Plus or AY.4.2, is possibly 10% more infectious than Delta itself.

I do know that variants will keep coming... But this yo-yo situation is frustrating. We get a surge, things get better and calm down, then the virus throws us another curveball and we get another surge... rinse and repeat. Seems like an endless situation. It's very tiresome.

We need to develop a second-generation, large spectrum vaccine that will get all variants (research on this is ongoing, especially in Japan) and we need to get efficient antivirals to take by the mouth when people do catch Covid-19 (one has had its application already filed with the FDA, and two others are in the works). Then maybe we'll have more permanent solutions.

For now, this yo-yo is driving me crazy.

 

Delta+ was detected over 2 months ago, I have been mentioning it regularly at my bigly bigly bigly Covid-19 thread, but until now there was apparently not enough empiric data to classify it in relation to good old Delta without the plus.

 

Oh dear, shiver me timbers, the clot shots have brought another variant, as predicted last year by Luc Montagnier.

More fear porn from pharma, yikes!

 

The left's big lie was that if we all got vaccinated then there would be no variants. That is just plain BS on so many levels. First, this is a worldwide pandemic stretching across the entire planet, hence the term worldwide. Just assuming that the shots themselves would cause zero variants (a very big assumption), in order to not have any variants, every single person in the entire world would have to be vaccinated in a very, very short time such as just days or a week or two - something that is virtually impossible. And since that is virtually impossible, and we live in a global economy, even if 100% of every single person in the US got vaccinated, variants would still pop up in many other places in the world and begin spreading across the planet. And, no country anywhere has a 100% vaccination rate. In fact, that is also impossible on many levels because even if 100% of everyone 5 and over across the planet were vaccinated, variants would still happen due to children under five. And, that is assuming that the vaccines themselves don't cause variants. In other words, the left's big lie was that if "everyone" were vaccinated, there would be no variants. In fact, I'm not aware of even one variant that actually started in the US itself. When will the left quit lying about this?

 

We need to just live with the virus and do our best with vaccines like we do with the flu. Covid is yet another thing that kills people. We can all stop being germophobes now.

 

Well it's probably best to quit thinking of it as a pandemic it isn't really anymore it is endemic. There will probably be a season of this every year just like flu and cold.

We've been going through this now for long enough to assume that's the case.

Look at the spike in new cases and compare it to yours previous with flu or some other endemic seasonal virus.

 

Let's also not forget the chances of person has a being severely ill with it are extremely low. And the more our immune systems are tested the better they'll be.

 

This is a level one pandemic. We have one every 10 to 20 years but have never gone off the deep end like this with rampant and neurotic paranoia.

 

I'll agree that we just need to live with covid and covid isn't super horrible, but it isn't mild either. In the US we will be at a million dead from covid in a few months, and that is even with the social distancing slowing the virus down. Our immune system will be better, but viruses mutate so it will be a constant battle. Smallpox still managed to kill 1/3 of the people it infected even after hundreds of years our immune system evolution.

 

The mutations started spiking with the introduction of the experimental gene therapies. Most are not worse but some will be. Say a therapy reduces the viral load of delta. That allows the naturally occurring mutations resistant to be shed in greater numbers compared to the delta suppressed. As we go on more of the mutations will be resistant.

 

Interesting. Can you site the research that produced this?

 

The effects of covid were exaggerated

 

They were by both sides. Liberal blew them out of proportion, while conservatives underestimated them. The reality is somewhere in between. Covid is several times more dangerous than the flu and is something we should care about, but it doesn't kill enough people to be panic worthy. It will probably kill several hundred thousand people a year assuming a vaccinated population. Back in the middle ages most people got infected with smallpox, and 30% of them died. They didn't shut down the economy, they just lived with it because they couldn't stop it.

 

Its well known science. Viral mutations always occur whether in the vaccinated or unvaccinated. The unvaccinated will naturally shed and spread the main virus giving mutations less of a chance to take over.

It is also a fact that the gene therapies are a weak answer by targeting only one of the 4 virus proteins giving it a greater chance to mutate whereas natural immunity can target all four. A better therapy would have been to target at least two of the proteins giving the virus a harder time to mutate any of the other three.

It’s hard for us to imagine what a viral load is but it’s like all the grains of sand on a beach when it replicates in a body. It’s kind of mind boggling.

 

I'm not so convinced that it wasn't completely blown out of proportion

 

I'm agreeing it was blown out of proportion. But we have hard evidence that it sucks for old people and it does kill a noticeable number of people. Maybe in 50 years it will just be one of those accepted old age killers, and people are still trying to make new vaccines for the variants, and people will laugh that we all wrecked the economy over it back in 2020-2021.

 

I was hoping for a reputable source for this claim. It seems like you think you are smarter than the trained scientists who worked on the vaccine. Maybe you aren't as as smart in virology as you think you are?

 

I think this yo-yo is here to stay. I bet It’s going to be like taking flu shots every year

 

First of all, the virus is more dangerous than it seems when you just look at the death toll. It's not just the death toll but also the sequelae; up to 50% of organ damage in survivors.
Second, I don't exactly see what was blown out of proportion. If anything, most people aren't fully aware of the organ damage problem.
Third, this is a pandemic, as in, all countries on Earth. This simplistic division between liberals and conservatives doesn't apply everywhere, but the virus does.
Fourth, what shut down the economy was the virus, not the containment measures. In the United States we had a minimum period of lockdown, back in April/May 2020, but people keep whining about it one year and a half later, not realizing that a dangerous disease spreading out there is what saps consumer confidence and damages the economy.

 

so far the vaccine is doing well against the variants... as it targets the spikes

 

I know people that got covid, from the barely noticed, to the out of work for over a month, to the deceased

and looking how many have died, or been hospitalized, doesn't seem it was overexerted to me

 

naturally immunity is more likely to cause variants, the vaccine targets the spikes, which thus far effects all the variants

this is why it's important to get the vaccine even if you had covid

 

Why should you care? Why should the state care? We now have reliable vaccines which lowers the percentage at highest risk from this pandemic. W/O vaccines approx. 25 percent of the population was at greatest risk from Covid infection and now with vaccines (and proper quarantines) the percentage for those greatest at risk is very much lower than 25 percent.

Let's get back to normal and screw all the onerous pandemic rules like contact tracing, vaccination cards, and automatically prohibiting a sports athlete, for example, from competing due to a Covid infection. Not to mention that contact tracing and trying to prevent all Covid infections greatly taxes hospital resources stupidly and unnecessarily.

Let's unload those cargo containers outside California. Let's forgo any more vaccine mandates. Let's get back to normal. If we don't, we won't ever get back to normal...Let's follow the science for a change.

 

How many people do you know?

Even though many of the deaths attributed to it weren't caused by covid?

 

I'll sit this one out. Maybe I'll get on board when the delta plus, plus PLUS! rolls out next year.