There’s also this preliminary computational analysis from Bloom Lab on its possible effects on antibodies (not sure how highly thought of this mob are but they’re linked to quite a bit) :
https://twitter.com/jbloom_lab/status/1464005690775654401
https://twitter.com/jbloom_lab/status/1464005692251992085
Happy thanksgiving
I think the next strain will be The Omega Strain, which sounds badass.
They need to save that designation for the mutation that is actually going to kill us all.
I think, and stress think, that this is the type of thing where this tech is so cutting edge we can’t be sure that it’s reliable or not. The jump from computational modeling to clinical significance is a massive one. If they’re right it will spur a whole new field of research.
I thought I saw it mentioned as the Nu strain with accompanying who’s on first jokes.
Based on previous uses of the prefix, I expect Nu-Covid to be short lived and pretty lame.
As a trained computational biologist, I am super skeptical about claims from computer modeling. Alpha Fold is pretty legit, but protein-protein interactions are much harder.
Omega is the last letter of the Greek alphabet.
Xi and Omicron come directly after Nu.
And if a “Xi variant” ever takes foothold in the US, omg the conspiracy theories about this being an intentionally designed attack from China will be insufferable.
This was my understanding, but my bio and pchem shit was basic and in 2008… so I figured there might have been some big step forward.
Is there a reason we’ve leaped past epsilon etc?
Edit: oh, there’s loads more Greek named variants than I thought.
Lot of weasel words in that quote.
I recently read about some promising steps in this area - very much in its infancy, but pretty cool.
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/protein-complex-structure-predictions-already
When I read about this stuff I think about those people from like 100+ years ago who thought science was on the verge of having discovered all there was to discover. As much as we know about human biology, our knowledge is still actually incredibly primitive in the context of how much there is to know.
Protein folding has always been a huge unsolvable problem since way back when I was in grad school.
Alpha Fold is a legit revolution here, but in general I agree with you
As a reminder, Churchill was the one who made incestuous references when I brought up possibly not travelling home for the holidays and being alone for Christmas last year.
Anyway, seems that a lot of governments are taking this new mutation seriously. Damn I hope we’re not back to square one.
Wrong. The someone I referenced (now edited) did make it home last year. Please don’t try to rewrite the facts.
Susan Hopkins, chief medical adviser to the UK Health Security Agency, said the variant was the “most worrying we’ve seen”.
No cases have been confirmed in the UK.
New variant detected in Israel - local media
The new coronavirus variant first detected in South Africa has been discovered in Israel, Israeli media report.
The variant - known as B.1.1.529 - was detected in a person who returned to Israel from the southern African country of Malawi, according to the reports, which quote the country’s health ministry.
Two other suspected cases relating to travellers who have just returned to the country are reportedly awaiting test results.
All of the travellers are said to have been fully vaccinated.
The new variant is highly mutated and there are concerns that vaccines could be less effective against it.