Why a highly mutated coronavirus variant has scientists on alert
Why a highly mutated coronavirus variant has scientists on alert
Research is under way to determine whether the mutation-laden lineage BA.2.86 has the potential for global spread — or whether it is nothing to worry about.
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Even if BA.2.86 does becomes widespread — and proves adept at dodging neutralizing antibodies, which seems likely, on the basis of its set of spike mutations — other forms of immunity will probably stop most people from getting seriously ill if they are infected, Bloom adds.
Ok, still something to keep an eye out, but it might not be that devastating as it once was back in 2019-2020
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T cells.
“Most studies on COVID-19 vaccines have focused on neutralizing antibody (NAb) responses, with little emphasis on cellular immunity. However, accumulating data suggest that T cell responses play an important role in vaccine protection against severe COVID-19 disease, particularly against viral variants that partially escape from recognition by NAbs. These insights have implications for using current COVID-19 vaccines and for developing next-generation vaccines against COVID-19 and other infectious diseases”
@notacat speaking of those -- there is evidence that SARS-CoV-2 sticks around and causes chronic T cell activation, and there are only so many naive T cells the thymus can supply before it shrinks (it normally shrinks with age)
This implies that all covid infections, even those that don't produce obvious long covid at first, may be prematurely aging the immune system
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.27.23293177v1.full
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As someone who plays a lot of D&D I would not like to keep rolling a 5% chance to die.
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