The world has built up a lot of immunity in the nine months since the Omicron variant of the novel coronavirus became dominant, driving a record wave of infections.
That immunity from vaccines and past infection is helping to keep down hospitalizations and deaths even as Omicron’s offspring—a succession of subvariants—have become dominant, one after the other.
Now the virus is trying to find a way around our antibodies. A new subvariant, BA.4.6, is beginning to outcompete its predecessor, BA.5. Its advantages include a particular mutation to the spike protein, the part of the virus that helps it to grab onto and infect our cells.
We’ve seen this R346T mutation before. And every time it’s appeared, it’s been associated with forms of the SARS-CoV-2 pathogen with an increased ability to dodge our antibodies. A quality epidemiologists call “immune escape.”
If BA.4.6 becomes dominant, it could reverse the encouraging trend we’ve seen in most countries in recent weeks toward fewer infections, fewer hospitalizations, fewer deaths.
It’s a reminder that the novel coronavirus is a living, evolving thing. As we adapt to it, it adapts to us. “Viruses in general mutate to be more infectious and to avoid our immunity,” Ali Mokdad, a professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington Institute for Health, told The Daily Beast.
This Relentless COVID Variant Is the Most Dangerous One Yet
STEALTH MODE
David Axe
Don’t panic quite yet. “One thing I try not to do is get too excited for every new variant that pops up,” Peter Hotez, an expert in vaccine development at Baylor College, told The Daily Beast.
Most coronavirus variants and subvariants appear and disappear without significantly changing the pandemic’s overall direction. Plus, there’s a new kind of vaccine in the works that could help us to fight, long-term, even the worst forms of COVID. Eventually.
All the same, BA.4.6 warrants close attention. It’s the seventh major subvariant of Omicron, which first appeared in Africa back in November. It spread fast, outcompeting and replacing the previous major variant, Delta. Epidemiologists have described Omicron and its subvariants as the most contagious respiratory viruses they’ve ever seen.
Omicron is four times as transmissible as Delta but half as lethal. So Omicron resulted in the worst-ever day for new COVID infections when a record 4.1 million people got sick on Jan. 19. That’s a fivefold increase over Delta’s worst day back in April last year.
But just 13,000 people died on the worst day for Omicron deaths on Feb. 9—thousands fewer than died on Delta’s most lethal day back in January 2021.
It’s not hard to explain the growing gap between infections and deaths as the pandemic grinds toward its fourth year. Billions of people have been at least partially vaccinated. Billions have caught COVID and survived. The combination of vaccine-induced and natural antibodies has created a global wall of immunity that has blunted the worst outcomes.
But with BA.4.6, the virus is trying to find a way around that wall. “There’s a huge selective pressure for immune escape, especially now that the great majority of the population has some degree of immunity, from immunization, infection or both,” Keith Jerome, a University of Washington virologist, told The Daily Beast.
SARS-CoV-2 is, in essence, fighting for its own survival—trying out mutations until it settles on one that might give it the upper hand.
R346T is one of those mutations. It’s not totally clear how the virus came up with the change. It’s possible Omicron mixed with an older form of SARS-CoV-2 in a person who’s gotten sick more than once. It’s possible, in other words, that BA.4.6 is a “recombinant” subvariant that picked up its most advantageous quality from one of its predecessors.
That one change to the spike protein appears to make the virus somewhat harder for our antibodies to recognize. With R346T, the virus has a better chance of slipping right past our immune systems and causing an infection. Even if we’ve been vaccinated. Even if we’ve also caught and gotten over COVID in the past.
There’s One Thing Between Us and the COVID Vax of Our Dreams
MOMENT OF TRUTH
David Axe
Greater immune escape means more and worse infections. We’ve been lucky with Omicron in the sense that, even as the variant and its subvariants have driven back-to-back-to-back waves in cases since November, hospitalizations and deaths haven’t risen in proportion.
It’s still an open question how much worse BA.4.6 might be and how far it might spread. Health agencies all over the world have been tracking the subvariant for months now. As BA.5 cases plateau, BA.4.6 is outcompeting BA.5—but not everywhere.
The BA.4.6 hotspots include some Australian states and parts of the U.S. Midwest. So far, BA.4.6 accounts for around four percent of new cases in the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom.
The proportion of BA.4.6 is set to rise as BA.5 declines. BA.4.6 appears to have only a 10-percent growth advantage over BA.5, but that advantage has been growing over time.
If there’s good news in BA.4.6’s rise, it’s that for all its worrying mutations it’s still an Omicron sublineage—and still has a lot of mutations in common with BA.5, BA.4, BA.2 and BA.1.
That means the Omicron-specific boosters that Pfizer and Moderna are developing for their messenger-RNA vaccines, and which U.S. regulators are on track to approve in coming weeks, should still work at least somewhat against BA.4.6.
BA.4.6 isn’t the worst case scenario. That would be a subvariant—or brand-new variant—with strong immune escape, a form of SARS-CoV-2 that has mutated so much that all those antibodies we’ve built up over the past three years barely recognize it.
The epidemiological community is divided over how likely this variant is to evolve. Some are confident that respiratory viruses such as the flu and the novel coronavirus tend to get overall milder over time as they become “endemic”—that is, always present but usually manageable.
Others fear near-total immune escape is all but inevitable for cleverer viruses as they tirelessly fight to survive. “This idea that each subsequent variant causes less severe illness—I don’t buy that,” Hotez said.
https://www.waterblast.com/boards/topic/152716/watch-one-piece-film-red-2022-fullmovie-free-online-on-123movies
https://www.waterblast.com/boards/topic/153514/free-download-one-piece-film-red-2022-online-on-123movies-16-august
https://www.waterblast.com/boards/topic/153978/hdq-watch-one-piece-film-red-free-online-on-reddit
https://www.waterblast.com/boards/topic/153240/where-to-watch-one-piece-film-red-online-for-free
https://www.waterblast.com/boards/topic/152184/-%E2%84%99-%E2%84%9D-
https://c.mi.com/thread-4130924-1-0.html
https://wikifactory.com/@stream/stories/this-new-covid-variant-is-shaping-up-to-be-a-d%C3%A9j%C3%A0-vu-nightmare
https://techplanet.today/post/free-watch-one-piece-film-red-2022-online-on-123movies-2
https://techplanet.today/post/how-to-watch-one-piece-film-red-online-free-streaming
https://techplanet.today/post/watch-one-piece-film-red-free-online-streaming-at-home-heres-how-where
https://techplanet.today/post/123movies-watch-one-piece-film-red-online-17-august
https://www.waterblast.com/boards/topic/153240/where-to-watch-one-piece-film-red-online-for-free
https://techplanet.today/post/watch-one-piece-film-red-online-for-free
https://www.radionvc.com/profile/Opsbr-movie/profile
https://www.medmotion.org/profile/4k-One-Piece/profile
https://sway.office.com/FGBdBfRi4hJ1EA6a?ref=Link
https://www.yunusmasters.ait.ac.th/profile/watch-one-piece-pilm-red-full-movie-streaming-123moveis/profile
https://caribbeanfever.com/profiles/blogs/this-new-covid-variant-is-shaping-up-to-be-a-d-j-vu-nightmare
https://www.onfeetnation.com/photo/albums/asfdsf-dsfsdf
https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/efrrtfdg434/692686463419203584
https://c.mi.com/thread-4130929-1-1.html
https://sway.office.com/vNzyi4fBz7qaQn1V
https://www.hybrid-analysis.com/sample/9cc311b34d6ec03366ca6d2ef3d1b2d3b3d9902392d23b84b8f4f4fa4d302855
https://techplanet.today/post/watch-one-piece-film-red
https://c.mi.com/thread-4130944-1-1.html
https://flipboard.com/@saedse/this-new-covid-variant-is-shaping-up-to-be-a-d-j-vu-nightmare-crq47bk0y
https://www.deviantart.com/saedse393/journal/This-New-COVID-Variant-Is-Shaping-Up-to-Be-a-Dj-926078433
https://medium.com/@saedse393/watch-one-piece-film-red-online-for-20edf2907e88
https://mathforums.com/t/this-new-covid-variant-is-shaping-up-to-be-a-d%C3%A9j%C3%A0-vu-nightmare.365042/
https://pastelink.net/4efb0dvd
https://foros.3dgames.com.ar/threads/1068292-this-new-covid-variant-is-shaping-up-to-be-a-dej%E0-vu-nightmare
https://pastelink.net/2rizpqkk
https://paiza.io/projects/5tC1figsXZQJRorI0ys-Ug
https://paste.ee/p/VHybH
https://txt.fyi/-/22226/a161bf1e/
https://paste.cutelyst.org/oLpR8cTCQ
https://dpaste.com/GDS9R79FM
https://onecompiler.com/java/3yd4svp4a
https://justpaste.it/2rsse
http://pastie.org/p/6zTqPWp2gKK9W1x4OF7qQz
https://pastebin.fun/qnooycptpe
https://paste2.org/IX2ctG62
https://p.teknik.io/4Eb8d
https://www.bankier.pl/forum/temat_dsfsdf-dfsdfsdf,56141589.html
https://paste.rs/4yE
https://jsfiddle.net/kpmo7neu/
https://ideone.com/BMG5P4
https://rextester.com/QJUZ9209
https://pasteio.com/xaKP03tHhDeI
https://paste.cutelyst.org/0pjGqGYFQ
https://0paste.com/389556
http://paste.akingi.com/iM8vhA5l
https://paste.feed-the-beast.com/view/06079b31
http://codepad.org/Vs7M1L07
https://0paste.com/389557
https://yamcode.com/qwscxehhzj
https://www.pastery.net/uqfudr/
https://telegra.ph/This-New-COVID-Variant-Is-Shaping-Up-to-Be-a-D%C3%A9j%C3%A0-Vu-Nightmare-08-15
https://controlc.com/cf70e64f
https://rentry.co/wtfix
https://txt.fyi/-/22226/d0943a06/
https://bitbin.it/U3m17SQu/
https://yamcode.com/rufruhjh0s
https://notes.io/qpQbH
