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by pumpkinhead 1404 days ago
That COVID-19 is new in humans, is incredibly fast spreading, evades both vaccines and tests worries me. Now it just needs to pick up some genes that can cause it to be more deadly and we are in a lot more trouble.

Did a postgrad degree in Mol Bio a while back, and I cannot think of any reason why this virus has/will not pick up genes that would increase its pathogenicity.
2 comments
hh3k0 1404 days ago
> Did a postgrad degree in Mol Bio a while back, and I cannot think of any reason why this virus has/will not pick up genes that would increase its pathogenicity.

Yeah. We've been lucky so far, comparatively speaking. It's insanity to insist on unmitigated rolling of the dice, though.

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f6v 1404 days ago
> evades both vaccines

How so? Vaccines generate a good T cell response.

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pumpkinhead 1404 days ago
Something very important that I didn't mention in my post - the virus mutates very quickly and each of the major variants seems to evade the vaccine of the last major variant.

Here in Australia I will be going to get my 4th shot in a few weeks. I only get one 'flu shot a year though in comparison, and I got MMR decades ago.

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f6v 1404 days ago
> each of the major variants seems to evade the vaccine of the last major variant

I think that COVID vaccines aren’t variant-specific.

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