Isn’t the vaccine a selective pressure in itself? Its an old article but this chap from Germany suggested that South Africa provides a great breeding ground for COVID:
It can occur at the level of an individual or a population. For example, in individuals with weakened immune systems, who cannot effectively fight the virus effectively, the pathogen can “try out” new things for a longer period of time. In the end, the variants that most effectively escape the body’s defences remain.
Regions where the first wave of the pandemic was particularly strong – such as parts of South America and South Africa – also exert strong selection pressure because many people there developed immunity following Sars-CoV-2 infection. New virus variants may have an advantage here.
The point about the virus trying out new things - I do wonder whether, like has been suggested in the news, HIV has played a role in this too. A country with high level of infection with a large immunocompromised population (HIV) is a nice sandpit for the virus to play in until a successful mutation is created.
Unfortunately it doesn’t really make it into the news here in the UK but if you are talking about poor nations (third world), have there been many that are rejecting AZ and still have supply issues for replacement vaccines? DRC is probably the only one I have heard of. There have been some stories about 100s of thousands of AZ vials needing to be destroyed as they have been delivered expired vaccines ( ) but I haven’t heard too much outright rejection of AZ itself from the third world.
Even with the balls-up with the AZ jabs, South Africa AFAIK haven’t had a supply problem since June/July but more a lack of willing arms to inject in. Which is probably a common theme across Africa noracist. In all cases though, like you say, Gordon Brown is probably wrong in suggesting distribution is the problem at least for S.A.
Yes, that is exactly my point. If you have a high vaccination, low case numbers environment, there is an extreme selective pressure - but relatively few mutation opportunities because the reproduction number is low. In a low vaccination - high case numbers environment, a variant that actually has better capacity to breakthrough doesn’t see much of an advantage, so it may not win out (quite possible this is what happened to P2). It is the intermediate case where there are both evolutionary advantages to being able to breakthrough and an unvaccinated population in which to breed that presents the most dangerous environment (for us).
Yes he is. Rural areas are problematic but pretty much every town in South Africa has a mall or is at least close to a town with a mall and those malls invariably have a Clicks or Dischem pharmacy. Those chains administer vaccines free of charge yet go into any random Clicks or Dischem and you will find very little in a way of queuing up to get vaccinated. There are alot of idiots around.
Never in my life could I have fathomed what a toll fake news would have on our actual lifestyle.
Or the US, though we don’t quite know what the optimal balance is - South Africa’s ~25% vaccinated may be worse. But allowing a huge number of cases the way the UK has is definitely not ideal.
However, it doesn’t look like this one started in South Africa, I think the oldest case is still Botswana, but the timing of the cases with a Nigerian origin suggests it was in Nigeria at about the same time.
Both before the Netherlands? I think I read that Netherlands earliest case may have been before South Africa’s equivalent.
The flip side is that there will be a high % of immunity in the UK population now - something that I postulated at the time as being deliberate that subsequently appears to be the case.
That’s right, and supply and distribution of either is no longer an obstacle and has not been for months. It’s just a large percentage of the population being complete fuckwits.
Botswana was November 11, I believe that is still the earliest sample. Netherlands, I think the oldest is November 19. In Ottawa, the cases are all Nigerian origin, one of those may be November 17…but could also be social contact with one of them that came November 23.
We don’t know a great deal about the effectiveness of naturally-acquired antibodies versus this variant, so it may not be immunity at all. The vaccines all key off the spike protein, but my understanding is we don’t really know what natural antibodies are recognizing - the concern is that if this variant has evolved in an area with significant prior infection, it may be quite good at reinfection.
All of which makes it pretty clear that the flight bans are now pointless, but need to be replaced with a robust testing regime that will put many people off flying. We have to stop listening to the whining and complaining from the travel industry, and just make the necessary measures part of the cost of doing business for now.
I don think he actually said that. He was asking for a wider distribution with countries like the UK holding large stockpiles. Stockpiles that may be better used elsewhere.
which is absolutely sound, on its own merits. The likelihood of that making a difference in the preventing of another variant emerging is vanishingly small.
That’s classic Torycrap reporting though. Only mild symptoms in 2-3k of people so far. Almost tempted to drag out the Frank Drebin sketch again.
if there’s no concern why has Boris, the Telegraphs biggest supporter instructed masks again and put South Africa on the Red List?
Secondly there is absolutely every reason for you still to get the booster at the appropriate time. Delta is still in the UK and yesterdays new cases topped 39,700. 877 of those were in Warrington and that number is increasing. Holding off for “reasons” is a bit Eric Clapton
It will be three months at least before such a vaccine will be available, may as well get your booster now and then you’ll be coming up to another potential booster window by which time a tweaked vaccine is likely to be rolled out. First to the vulnerable. It could be another 2 months before it would get to you. So that’s 5 months minimum from now before you can get a tweaked vaccine. May as well get the booster that’s currently available to give you some added protection in the mean time.
Going to see how the next few weeks play out. Only had the vax to get the passport to get to the USA. As I’ve said before, very sure I had COVID in the November before it hit the world publicly. No point having a booster for a virus I’ve already had (without a vax) that bedded me for a few days after double jabs since. I now have no sense of smell which is a bitch but let’s see how this goes in the following weeks.
) but I haven’t heard too much outright rejection of AZ itself from the third world.