Paul Offit has also argued that there's a limit on where the spike protein mutations can go. He also argued that the virus can get cornered with nowhere to go by repeated vaccination.
But aren't T-cells or any other antibodies essentially ineffective in the upper respiratory tract. We haven't gotten rid of other coronaviruses, so why would
this one be different?
It seems there's still a lot of "research" going on with passing the virus through
mice. What could go wrong? In the past, this sort of risky research was mainly confined to military lab, but now it seems that every university is doing this.
I'm referring to the T Cells that migrate to the tissue at the site of an infection after recovery - the memory counterpart to Natural Killer cells.
The role resident T Cells play in subsequent immune challenge is only just being studied, but there is reason to believe they are the essence of durable "mucosal" immunity, and that they are finely tuned to the physical site of original or secondary infections -
"Moreover, local skin infection with vaccinia virus led to seeding of the entire cutaneous surface with long lived, highly protective TRM, although the highest concentration of these cells occurred at the site of infection [...] Skin scarification with live vaccinia virus, associated with local keratinocyte infection, generated long-lived CD8+ T cell-mediated immunity that was 100,000 times more effective than subcutaneous, intradermal and intramuscular vaccination in protecting against viral reinfection of the skin (24). This protection was mediated entirely by skin TRM and did not require antibodies or recruitment of circulating T cells from blood [...] Both intranasal and intraperitoneal infection with influenza induced viral specific effector memory T cells but only nasal infection generated T cells that mediated protection against an otherwise lethal intranasal influenza challenge "
So, resident T Cells will be all up in the nose after Omicron, whereas they wouldn't have been before (since prior versions of SC2 replicated further down in respiratory tract), and I think this will likely fend off "sibling" strains (if they are also nasal-tropic)
High dose exposure might still result in an infection taking hold, just as with other coronaviruses - but it should be experienced the same way, as a common cold at worst.
I am always interested to see differences in the Furin Cleavage Site sequence in mutants, er, variants. Word on the street is that the Spike FCS of the Omicron(s) is still present and Furin-sensitive, though altered from the OG and obviously unrelated to Delta. Anybody got a line on that? Because if FCS suddenly "went away" one day through a natural "live attenuated virus" then the disease badness evaporates too. I am frankly surprised that friendly countries with a lot of technological savvy and a lot to gain haven't already tried this. (Looking right at you Israel.)
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.31.474653v1 suggests that despite (or because of) two apparently cleavage-enhancing mutations (N679K and P681H), Omicron doesn't seem to favor TMPRSS2 / cleavage for entry, and for the same reason doesn't prompt syncytia formation. It behaves more like their cleavage-deficient-spike pseudovirus.
I have inquiries out to local virion frens to discover if they have specific knowledge of the status of enhancement or diminution of furin cleavage in mutants. Disseminated CDSP (cleavage-deficient-spike pseudovirus) that is unlikely to recombine with genejab basecode or endemic Ronavirums, is perhaps the smartest way out of this. Strangely, we are now up against millions who absolutely do NOT want a way out of this. THIS, is their best life. ugh.
The venn diagram of people who experience this as their best life and the climate catastrophists almost form a circle. Even if we shuffle off this rona coil, climate change is lurking in the shadows, ready to make sure we own nothing and are happy...
You are lending alot of credence to H2BH's viral swarms initiative. Yes the virus exists in many different genetic forms when it is replicating inside you. Who is to say that BA2 is a "new" infection - or just a part of the original infection.
Omicron is doing the lending. The "swarm" has been an obviously necessary aspect of the virus all along, just as with other viruses like polio historically, but I until now it's been pretty easy to talk about SARS-CoV-2 as if it was one thing at one time. I do feel miffed because I always wanted to bring it up at some point, but missed the boat and now must always appear derivative, ha.
Yes, I was writing about the co-infection possibility - and the possibility that "Omicron" immunity already covers BA.2 via direct experience with the antigen / tissue tropism - but scrapped it, since my conclusion made it a bit redundant.
Delighted that you're back from ''Foggyland'' - even if seeing more clearly is not always an advantage ;-)
Speaking of ''clearly'':
An essential problem of human considerations of bio-logical interweavings in the context of evolution, is the corset-like linearization of said interweavings. A simplification is carried out in order to get, from our point of view, a clear picture that can be traced in its development by means of a timeline. However, it is completely overlooked that by this simplification of the ''clear'' picture, the essential information is completely lost. What remains are more and more snapshots, which do not show any useful correspondences with evolution. Thus the fog gets thicker. Maybe you are even deeper in ''Foggyland'' than before getting foggy in the brain.
I like your Elvis comparison. Not only since Corona it is revealed that more and more people are also born as originals, but by ''scientific'' simplifications die more and more often as copies. One simplification to rule them all?
I still feel like I'm missing some information on Omicron. Here's what I'm puzzling over:
1. Son & girlfriend had what sure looked like it must have been the original Covid in Nov. 2019.
2. They have remained unvaxed and have not gotten sick again, until....
3. Got sick about 3 weeks ago. Him first, her about 6 hours later. He never tested, she tested positive. Was this Omicron 1 or 2?
4. I've read of Omicron hitting a second time a couple of weeks after the first time...BUT...is this a situation with vaccinated people? Or both vaccinated AND unvaccinated?
5. IF they had Covid in Nov. 2019 (can never know since there were no tests then), and IF they had Omicron a few weeks ago, it looks like natural immunity didn't help protect against Omicron. Or is that to be expected anyway since the two viruses have a different spike protein?
The Ethical Skeptic speculates that (an ancestor of) Omicron "predates" Wuhan, and was running around Asia conferring immunity before the 2019 outbreak. I think struggles against 5. I also got sick in 2018 after spending time in the Bay, and previously thought that made sense with TES's theory. Well, why didn't that give me anti-Omicron immunity? I'm not talking about just a breakthrough sniffle due to antigenic drift. I should have been protected against the fatigue, weird headache, two days of brain fog. Nope, no protection.
I think Omicron(s) is (are) new and are from mice serial passage.
As for 3 I don't think there's any easy answer since there's no "proxy" PCR test for BA.2, and no one seems to know if the symptoms are the same or different yet.
Re: #5 - that is my understanding. Original flu (2019) is so different, particularly in the spike protein, to Omicron (2021/22) that being reinfected seems likely. There should be milder symptoms thanks to potential nucleocapsid antibodies being ramped up more quickly, plus it's just a milder form of the COVID virus, but you would be better able to relate the severity (or not) of their subsequent infection.
I'd like to see a chart comparing "cases" with tests. I expect they'll correlate pretty well. We've been mass producing tests, and hypochondriacs are lining up in the snow to get tested. Not surprising that would also increase asymptomatic cases. Every time I hear of someone with infection, they're uncomfortable til they get zpack or ivermectin, then they're fine. Cases are a scam.
I have a bottle of quercetin I use when I suspect infection or close exposure. First time, congestion, low fever couple days. Dont know if I would have handled it fine without the quercetin, but cheap insurance, though I avoid overdosing on flavanoids. Needed pcr 3 months later for surgery pre admission, ordered antibody for curiosity. Pcr neg, ab pos. No other tests, meds, or vax. Almost med free.
Around Thanksgiving, all three members of my household had mild symptoms and tested positive on antigen tests multiple times. Then, just before the New Year, we succumb to a second round of positive antigen tests, but rougher symptoms. I believe my child was the one who brought the first round to our family from school and that the low viral load kept the adults' symptoms very mild. The second bout, a high viral load after one adult was in a car and recording studio with a double vaxxed who had just returned from holiday travel to Mexico. Each of us was hit with fever and body aches to start. I had the worst symptoms to follow- extreme fatigue, heart palpitations, altered taste and smell and cold sweats. Surely, after being hit twice with different strains (presumably, no sequencing done) - we are done, right? Please say yes. I am done being fucked with by humans playing god.
So, the TGiving infection might have been a false alarm, or maybe a bout with Delta fended off by innate immunity.
It would certainly be nice if we were done. However, I have a few dozen more SARS-CoV-2 wasp+snake infection passages to run, I think I'm really onto something here...
Paul Offit has also argued that there's a limit on where the spike protein mutations can go. He also argued that the virus can get cornered with nowhere to go by repeated vaccination.
But aren't T-cells or any other antibodies essentially ineffective in the upper respiratory tract. We haven't gotten rid of other coronaviruses, so why would
this one be different?
It seems there's still a lot of "research" going on with passing the virus through
mice. What could go wrong? In the past, this sort of risky research was mainly confined to military lab, but now it seems that every university is doing this.
I'm referring to the T Cells that migrate to the tissue at the site of an infection after recovery - the memory counterpart to Natural Killer cells.
The role resident T Cells play in subsequent immune challenge is only just being studied, but there is reason to believe they are the essence of durable "mucosal" immunity, and that they are finely tuned to the physical site of original or secondary infections -
"Moreover, local skin infection with vaccinia virus led to seeding of the entire cutaneous surface with long lived, highly protective TRM, although the highest concentration of these cells occurred at the site of infection [...] Skin scarification with live vaccinia virus, associated with local keratinocyte infection, generated long-lived CD8+ T cell-mediated immunity that was 100,000 times more effective than subcutaneous, intradermal and intramuscular vaccination in protecting against viral reinfection of the skin (24). This protection was mediated entirely by skin TRM and did not require antibodies or recruitment of circulating T cells from blood [...] Both intranasal and intraperitoneal infection with influenza induced viral specific effector memory T cells but only nasal infection generated T cells that mediated protection against an otherwise lethal intranasal influenza challenge "
-https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC4425129/
So, resident T Cells will be all up in the nose after Omicron, whereas they wouldn't have been before (since prior versions of SC2 replicated further down in respiratory tract), and I think this will likely fend off "sibling" strains (if they are also nasal-tropic)
High dose exposure might still result in an infection taking hold, just as with other coronaviruses - but it should be experienced the same way, as a common cold at worst.
I am always interested to see differences in the Furin Cleavage Site sequence in mutants, er, variants. Word on the street is that the Spike FCS of the Omicron(s) is still present and Furin-sensitive, though altered from the OG and obviously unrelated to Delta. Anybody got a line on that? Because if FCS suddenly "went away" one day through a natural "live attenuated virus" then the disease badness evaporates too. I am frankly surprised that friendly countries with a lot of technological savvy and a lot to gain haven't already tried this. (Looking right at you Israel.)
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.31.474653v1 suggests that despite (or because of) two apparently cleavage-enhancing mutations (N679K and P681H), Omicron doesn't seem to favor TMPRSS2 / cleavage for entry, and for the same reason doesn't prompt syncytia formation. It behaves more like their cleavage-deficient-spike pseudovirus.
I have inquiries out to local virion frens to discover if they have specific knowledge of the status of enhancement or diminution of furin cleavage in mutants. Disseminated CDSP (cleavage-deficient-spike pseudovirus) that is unlikely to recombine with genejab basecode or endemic Ronavirums, is perhaps the smartest way out of this. Strangely, we are now up against millions who absolutely do NOT want a way out of this. THIS, is their best life. ugh.
The venn diagram of people who experience this as their best life and the climate catastrophists almost form a circle. Even if we shuffle off this rona coil, climate change is lurking in the shadows, ready to make sure we own nothing and are happy...
If it's not a perfect circle, it's at least a perfect circle as viewed after a couple beers.
You are lending alot of credence to H2BH's viral swarms initiative. Yes the virus exists in many different genetic forms when it is replicating inside you. Who is to say that BA2 is a "new" infection - or just a part of the original infection.
Omicron is doing the lending. The "swarm" has been an obviously necessary aspect of the virus all along, just as with other viruses like polio historically, but I until now it's been pretty easy to talk about SARS-CoV-2 as if it was one thing at one time. I do feel miffed because I always wanted to bring it up at some point, but missed the boat and now must always appear derivative, ha.
Yes, I was writing about the co-infection possibility - and the possibility that "Omicron" immunity already covers BA.2 via direct experience with the antigen / tissue tropism - but scrapped it, since my conclusion made it a bit redundant.
Heard reports yesterday of a new strain taking hold, described by the newsie as a sub strain of omi.
That was probably a BA.2 story
I think UK is the one to watch next. It is rising rapidly here but might just fizzle out like you say.
https://nakedemperor.substack.com/
Delighted that you're back from ''Foggyland'' - even if seeing more clearly is not always an advantage ;-)
Speaking of ''clearly'':
An essential problem of human considerations of bio-logical interweavings in the context of evolution, is the corset-like linearization of said interweavings. A simplification is carried out in order to get, from our point of view, a clear picture that can be traced in its development by means of a timeline. However, it is completely overlooked that by this simplification of the ''clear'' picture, the essential information is completely lost. What remains are more and more snapshots, which do not show any useful correspondences with evolution. Thus the fog gets thicker. Maybe you are even deeper in ''Foggyland'' than before getting foggy in the brain.
I like your Elvis comparison. Not only since Corona it is revealed that more and more people are also born as originals, but by ''scientific'' simplifications die more and more often as copies. One simplification to rule them all?
I can only imagine you are still writing because you are surviving your current infection, and it is less virulent than the infamous man flu.
I still feel like I'm missing some information on Omicron. Here's what I'm puzzling over:
1. Son & girlfriend had what sure looked like it must have been the original Covid in Nov. 2019.
2. They have remained unvaxed and have not gotten sick again, until....
3. Got sick about 3 weeks ago. Him first, her about 6 hours later. He never tested, she tested positive. Was this Omicron 1 or 2?
4. I've read of Omicron hitting a second time a couple of weeks after the first time...BUT...is this a situation with vaccinated people? Or both vaccinated AND unvaccinated?
5. IF they had Covid in Nov. 2019 (can never know since there were no tests then), and IF they had Omicron a few weeks ago, it looks like natural immunity didn't help protect against Omicron. Or is that to be expected anyway since the two viruses have a different spike protein?
Anyone know?
The Ethical Skeptic speculates that (an ancestor of) Omicron "predates" Wuhan, and was running around Asia conferring immunity before the 2019 outbreak. I think struggles against 5. I also got sick in 2018 after spending time in the Bay, and previously thought that made sense with TES's theory. Well, why didn't that give me anti-Omicron immunity? I'm not talking about just a breakthrough sniffle due to antigenic drift. I should have been protected against the fatigue, weird headache, two days of brain fog. Nope, no protection.
I think Omicron(s) is (are) new and are from mice serial passage.
As for 3 I don't think there's any easy answer since there's no "proxy" PCR test for BA.2, and no one seems to know if the symptoms are the same or different yet.
Re: #5 - that is my understanding. Original flu (2019) is so different, particularly in the spike protein, to Omicron (2021/22) that being reinfected seems likely. There should be milder symptoms thanks to potential nucleocapsid antibodies being ramped up more quickly, plus it's just a milder form of the COVID virus, but you would be better able to relate the severity (or not) of their subsequent infection.
I'd like to see a chart comparing "cases" with tests. I expect they'll correlate pretty well. We've been mass producing tests, and hypochondriacs are lining up in the snow to get tested. Not surprising that would also increase asymptomatic cases. Every time I hear of someone with infection, they're uncomfortable til they get zpack or ivermectin, then they're fine. Cases are a scam.
Except me - I went medication-free. But also test free. Living off the grid.
And you weren't tested so you could have had anything. Just sayin'. I haven't been tested either and won't be.
Absolutely. The two days of brain fog was a pretty strong clinical evidence, though.
You're a fraud for this. But we all chose our own hypocrisies. Cheers.
I have a bottle of quercetin I use when I suspect infection or close exposure. First time, congestion, low fever couple days. Dont know if I would have handled it fine without the quercetin, but cheap insurance, though I avoid overdosing on flavanoids. Needed pcr 3 months later for surgery pre admission, ordered antibody for curiosity. Pcr neg, ab pos. No other tests, meds, or vax. Almost med free.
Around Thanksgiving, all three members of my household had mild symptoms and tested positive on antigen tests multiple times. Then, just before the New Year, we succumb to a second round of positive antigen tests, but rougher symptoms. I believe my child was the one who brought the first round to our family from school and that the low viral load kept the adults' symptoms very mild. The second bout, a high viral load after one adult was in a car and recording studio with a double vaxxed who had just returned from holiday travel to Mexico. Each of us was hit with fever and body aches to start. I had the worst symptoms to follow- extreme fatigue, heart palpitations, altered taste and smell and cold sweats. Surely, after being hit twice with different strains (presumably, no sequencing done) - we are done, right? Please say yes. I am done being fucked with by humans playing god.
Supposedly the rapid antigen tests can easily score false positives for HKU1 coronavirus https://popularrationalism.substack.com/p/rapid-antigen-tests-cannot-distinguish
So, the TGiving infection might have been a false alarm, or maybe a bout with Delta fended off by innate immunity.
It would certainly be nice if we were done. However, I have a few dozen more SARS-CoV-2 wasp+snake infection passages to run, I think I'm really onto something here...
Kids these days! It's all that rock and roll music!
Shhh! Don't say that so loudly!