Good points and I'm looking forward to Pt 4.
Flu may also be inherently not representative here. It doesn't have a receptor-binding protein, and hence perhaps doesn't need to make leaps. Similar parainfluenza binds to a sialic acid, not a complex protein.
For RSV family though, it does seem to be stable. But we have very low historic…
Flu may also be inherently not representative here. It doesn't have a receptor-binding protein, and hence perhaps doesn't need to make leaps. Similar parainfluenza binds to a sialic acid, not a complex protein.
For RSV family though, it does seem to be stable. But we have very low historical sampling and the strength of RSV is that it can use a wider selection of receptor binding proteins and has been suggested to have decoy mechanisms to have antibodies bind to the wrong things.
And to be fair, we actually are not really sure COVID-19 is unprecedented in the corona family. After all, we barely studied common coronaviruses at this biochemical level. Perhaps they do make leaps too?
So perhaps nature has a few methods to solve the problem of immunity evasion and we should not assume COVID-19 should necessarily follow the same patterns as flu?
Of course, perhaps this is unprecedented. But then also no virus ever in our human history had just under 8 American billion *virgin* hosts to work with. A one in a 10 million chance, can be compensated by throwing simply more hosts at it.
In essence my point is, we should be careful trying to extrapolate based on current knowledge as we really know very little for sure in general, but as you say do assume a lot.
Good points and I'm looking forward to Pt 4.
Flu may also be inherently not representative here. It doesn't have a receptor-binding protein, and hence perhaps doesn't need to make leaps. Similar parainfluenza binds to a sialic acid, not a complex protein.
For RSV family though, it does seem to be stable. But we have very low historical sampling and the strength of RSV is that it can use a wider selection of receptor binding proteins and has been suggested to have decoy mechanisms to have antibodies bind to the wrong things.
And to be fair, we actually are not really sure COVID-19 is unprecedented in the corona family. After all, we barely studied common coronaviruses at this biochemical level. Perhaps they do make leaps too?
So perhaps nature has a few methods to solve the problem of immunity evasion and we should not assume COVID-19 should necessarily follow the same patterns as flu?
Of course, perhaps this is unprecedented. But then also no virus ever in our human history had just under 8 American billion *virgin* hosts to work with. A one in a 10 million chance, can be compensated by throwing simply more hosts at it.
In essence my point is, we should be careful trying to extrapolate based on current knowledge as we really know very little for sure in general, but as you say do assume a lot.