Another day, another variant

[TheYorkshireTerrier]

Maybe I should change my username to TheYorkshireVariant

 

[Randy]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1395481309431148552

 

[uncle_rico]

49 cases in Yorkshire and Humber, which has a population of about 5.5 million. I think we’ll be alright.

 

[uncle_rico]

View attachment 18934

Can only assume it was an essential trip to get some hair dye?

The one with the blue hair is a classic Gazette face.

 

[Pak_Doo_Ik]

Believe me if it's in Yorkshire, they're not letting anybody else ave it.

I'm sure Boycs has got it trapped in the corridor of uncertainty.

 

[Liamo]

There must be thousands of them out there, and are we the only country in the world that is 'reporting' them as if it's a whole new virus that will undo all the work of the vaccines and kill thousands more people? The media, and in particular the BBC, have got a lot to answer for in trying to scare people.

Doesn't sound like they're trying to scare people to me.

Extracts from the BBC article:

Covid: Investigation into 'Yorkshire' variant

PHE said there was "currently no evidence that this variant causes more severe disease or renders the vaccines currently deployed any less effective".

"So far the people that we have identified are not particularly infectious, they're not really getting more sick than other cases of coronavirus and we're not seeing anything particularly worrying about it," he added.

 

[Liamo]

The fact is sooner or later a variant is going to pop up that the vaccine doesn’t protect against

I haven't seen any evidence that this is the case. In fact, it's rather more the opposite - there have been several hundred variants so far (at least) and none of them yet have rendered the vaccines ineffective.

In fact what can happen (for some viruses) is that if they change too much, they no longer function properly and become non-viable.

However, even if a viable variant arose that could evade the current vaccines, all they need to do is take the new genome sequence and as mentioned in the LiveScience article below:

"The beauty of the mRNA platform is that you can easily swap out the genetic code,"

COVID-19 vaccines: The new technology that made them possible

The same is true of the viral vector vaccines, as they are also based on the genome of the spike protein - they only need to swap out the genetic sequence at the core of the vaccine construct to have a new vaccine effective against a new variant.

 

[atypical_boro]

I do think the media deliberately use language which is designed to create “debate”, and I am not in favour, but it is a reflection of what their various readerships want to hear, and it’s a reflection of what they’re being told by official sources.

It’s up to politicians to work out the way forward balancing ALL risks, not just the risk of unvaccinated people not surviving. If you’re not going to get vaccinated you should at least be willing to play it safe with socialising etc until we’re in the clear (which might be a long way off).

It’s also up to them and the scientists to work out how to deal with any variant that isn’t suppressed by the vaccine. We’ve had plenty of warning.