Connect
← Return to Interactions between SARS-CoV-2 variants?
Discussion
Interactions between SARS-CoV-2 variants?
Post-COVID Recovery & COVID-19 | Last Active: Jan 24, 2021 | Replies (5)Comment receiving replies
Ah, you always pose such interesting questions. Have you ever considered becoming a medical researcher? Then you could help us all get the answers we need!
I was listening to the radio yesterday (either BBC or NPR) and research is underway to identify and "sort out" the variants - but if we are seeing 5 known mutations in one year, who know how many others already exist? My resident Covid nurse tells me at this time some research is underway to try to ID strains in hospitalized patients and determine if different treatments are more effective, but that it is slow going because in so many cases they are just rushing to keep people out of the ICU, or once in ICU trying to save a life. I believe it will be like cancer and HIV, over time it will be better understood.
They may understand over time how often multi-strain infection occurs, but as with H1N1, H1N2, H2N2... in influenza, it will be years before they reach any conclusions. I believe the priority will be not in determining which is more deadly, but in insuring the vaccines address as many variants as possible.
Sue
Replies to "Ah, you always pose such interesting questions. Have you ever considered becoming a medical researcher? Then..."
Connect
Thank you for your comments Sue. As a matter of fact, I have been a researcher, not in medicine but in agriculture!
I agree that vaccine protection is key, and my post was prompted by what I read today in the news about the mortality of the variants (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/23/too-early-to-say-scientists-unsure-if-uk-covid-variant-is-more-deadly), that feeds fear in people (without a clear evidence base) and might make them more distrustful of vaccines, precisely what we want to avoid.
In the Guardian's article, Sir Patrick Vallance, the UK government’s chief scientific adviser, is quoted as saying that "for every thousand people in their 60s infected with the original strain of coronavirus, 10 would be expected to die. With the new variant, this figure is thought to rise to 13 or 14 deaths per thousand – an increase in mortality of about 30%." That comparison implies to me that you have a group of people infected ONLY with the original strain on the one hand, and another group infected ONLY with the new variant, on the other. Now: is that possible? I would expect that it would be more likely that people have combinations of strains.
They can determine which variants are present in a certain individual, but how would they determine the proportions of each variant? Maybe that is why Sir Vallance added that there was “a lot of uncertainty around these numbers”.
Regards,
Armando