COVID-19: Chapter 7 - Brags, Beats, and Variants

Maybe the have you erroneously down as not white on a database somewhere.

Iā€™m translucent man. White doesnā€™t begin to describe it.

Yeah, once they see you, they probably realize it was a mistake. But by that point theyā€™re already committed.

How long of a quarantine are you required? I think NY is pretty strict about that, but I dunno.

Remember that happening in 2017.

Around 3-4 agents take me into a windowless hallway and start peppering me with questions about why Iā€™m going to Russia. I tell them that Iā€™m transferring through Russia on my way to Cyprus and show them my boarding passes. There was a pause as one guy shows the boarding passes to another. The guy clears his throat and starts asking some random bullshit questions and ends it quickly.

I walk out, get a piece of pizza and check to see if any of them are around before breaking out in laughter. People around me must have thought I was nuts.

So much incompetence.

Technically, three days with a covid negative test taken within the previous 72 hours. However, itā€™s really poorly enforced. I just had to fill out some online form based on the honor system. I wasnā€™t asked for my covid test results at any point to prove anything.

Got my covid vaccine today. Got a low grade fever and some body aches. Completely standard for me when it comes to vaccines.

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You lucky ducky front line doctors and nurses getting the vaccine. :D

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wil is neither, heā€™s a respiratory therapist IIRC, which is honestly about as dangerous a job as there is right now. Super critical job too

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Sweet. Immune response already working it out :slight_smile:

Hopefully you Docs will feel some mental relief in a month knowing you have that 95% shit!

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Going off memory: 60000 is a bad year. I think the typical range is 12k to 60k with an average of 20k.

https://twitter.com/jefftimmer/status/1340367579995643906

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The simple version is that the vaccines target the spoke protein and it mutates slowly, right? Influenza mutates more rapidly and we are guessing which strain(s) to vaccinate against not targeting a specific mutation to a specific strain. Something like that?

Congrats! Keep up the good work and stay safe for the next 4-5 weeks!

We have a new strain in South Africa with faster transmission, higher viral loads, reduced sensitivity to antibodies, and possibly more severe cases in young people.

The Health Minister of South Africa says theyā€™re hearing of more critical cases in younger patients with no co-morbidities. He thinks the vaccines will still work, but they arenā€™t totally sure.

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1340517608643317761?s=21

Meanwhile the new UK strain appears to have mutated in the part of the spike protein that binds to the ACE2 receptors, making it latch on stronger.

https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1340509798773772289

Thatā€™s the part weā€™re targeting with vaccines, right? Scary to watch all of these mutations. USA#1 not yet in on the mutation game yet, which is pretty surprising given how many cases weā€™re cranking out. So Iā€™m inclined to think weā€™ve got some fun new mutations of our own we just havenā€™t discovered yet.

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There are maybe two registered members of this forum who actually know wtf a spike protein is.

And presumably a couple hundred who know in laymanā€™s terms what a spike protein is.

I assume itā€™s the favorite drink of Crossfit Nation.

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I arrived in NYC about a week ago and 2 days ago a government official came by my apt to verify I was quarantining. Couldā€™ve been a random spot check (itā€™s in Manhattan fwiw), or they are following up more thoroughly this time around. They say $10k fine for breaking quarantine. No idea if anybody actually paid that if they werenā€™t at home.

Slightly more complex version is that the spike protein targets the ACE2 protein. The ACE2 protein varies some person to person, but itā€™s largely the same.

This is important because we model this kind of targeting and interaction with something called the lock and key model. The lock is the ACE2 protein, the key for the virus is the spike protein.

The idea is that if you use a key to put in a lock, it has to be a certain shape. If you massively change the key, it wonā€™t fit into the lock anymore. Therefore if you make antibodies to the key, you should be good.

Note this is a simplification of a simplification and etc, but the idea that the virus canā€™t massively change the spike protein is why that protein has been chosen to be targeted.

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Right, I understand all that. I guess my question is are we vaccinating against like the entire key or one part of it? If itā€™s one part of it, we are fucked if that one part mutates, right? If itā€™s the entire key, weā€™re okay if a few parts mutate as long as most of it stays the same?

Is that about it? Obviously extremely oversimplified.

Iā€™ve got a protein spike, if you know what I mean.

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