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Farm Business
Politics, Covid19 and Brexit
Strain B1.1.529
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<blockquote data-quote="Goweresque" data-source="post: 7860153" data-attributes="member: 818"><p>Thats what you would expect to see, step changes. Most mutations in the virus are small and provide no advantage to it, so all the strains just bumble along in tandem with each other, no one becoming more prevalent. But occasionally random mutation throws up a genuine contender, one with significant changes to its overall makeup that give it a evolutionary advantage (such as being able to evade previous immunity, or being much more infectious) That strain will rapidly become the dominant one, for a while, until the process repeats itself. Its what happens with the flu, which is why we have a different flu vaccine every year, the medical boffins try to predict how the flu will mutate next, and which new strain will be dominant, and use those as the basis for the annual flu jab. Sometime they get it right, and it helps, sometimes they get it wrong and an unheralded strain takes over and we have a serious flu epidemic. </p><p></p><p>Its interesting that such advantageous mutations seem to be be more likely to happen in patients with compromised immune systems, such as AIDS. Having a compromised immune system allows the virus to live in the body for a significant amount of time (months maybe) and thus the body becomes a viral test bed - as it reproduces any mutations that have changes that allow them to evade the body's immune system are preferentially favoured. This may be why new covid variants tend to arise in poorer countries, they have more AIDS cases (South Africa certainly has a lot) and more undernourished people who may have compromised immune systems.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Goweresque, post: 7860153, member: 818"] Thats what you would expect to see, step changes. Most mutations in the virus are small and provide no advantage to it, so all the strains just bumble along in tandem with each other, no one becoming more prevalent. But occasionally random mutation throws up a genuine contender, one with significant changes to its overall makeup that give it a evolutionary advantage (such as being able to evade previous immunity, or being much more infectious) That strain will rapidly become the dominant one, for a while, until the process repeats itself. Its what happens with the flu, which is why we have a different flu vaccine every year, the medical boffins try to predict how the flu will mutate next, and which new strain will be dominant, and use those as the basis for the annual flu jab. Sometime they get it right, and it helps, sometimes they get it wrong and an unheralded strain takes over and we have a serious flu epidemic. Its interesting that such advantageous mutations seem to be be more likely to happen in patients with compromised immune systems, such as AIDS. Having a compromised immune system allows the virus to live in the body for a significant amount of time (months maybe) and thus the body becomes a viral test bed - as it reproduces any mutations that have changes that allow them to evade the body's immune system are preferentially favoured. This may be why new covid variants tend to arise in poorer countries, they have more AIDS cases (South Africa certainly has a lot) and more undernourished people who may have compromised immune systems. [/QUOTE]
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Strain B1.1.529
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