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posted by martyb on Tuesday August 04 2020, @11:15PM   Printer-friendly
from the six-degrees-to-Kevin-Bacon dept.

The six strains of SARS-CoV-2:

"The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus is presumably already optimized to affect human beings, and this explains its low evolutionary change," explains Federico Giorgi, a researcher at Unibo and coordinator of the study. "This means that the treatments we are developing, including a vaccine, might be effective against all the virus strains."

Currently, there are six strains of coronavirus. The original one is the L strain, that appeared in Wuhan in December 2019. Its first mutation—the S strain—appeared at the beginning of 2020, while, since mid-January 2020, we have had strains V and G. To date strain G is the most widespread: it mutated into strains GR and GH at the end of February 2020.

Globally, strains G, GH and GR are constantly increasing. Strain S can be found in some restricted areas in the U.S. and Spain. The L and V strains are gradually disappearing.

Journal Reference:
Mercatelli, Daniele, Giorgi, Federico M.. Geographic and Genomic Distribution of SARS-CoV-2 Mutations, Frontiers in Microbiology (DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2020.01800)


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by barbara hudson on Tuesday August 04 2020, @11:51PM (35 children)

    by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Tuesday August 04 2020, @11:51PM (#1031480) Journal

    The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus is presumably already optimized to affect human beings

    If it had been endemic in the human population for hundreds of years, maybe. But mere months after crossing over into humans, and we've already got 6 strains that we know of? That's wishful thinking.

    Same as "with all the competition to develop a vaccine we'll have one by the end of the year. Gee, if we throw enough money at any problem we can certainly solve it!@ so, what's the value of Pi? What's the biggest possible number? Drug companies are currently having boatloads of money thrown at them, the same as the dot com boom. Even if they fail, they've already made a profit off it.

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  • (Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2020, @11:59PM (23 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2020, @11:59PM (#1031482)

    We can prove beyond all doubt that pi is irrational and that infinity is infinite. If you can show me a proof that Covid-19 has no practical vaccine, then I'll be right with you saying the race for one is a boondoggle.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by barbara hudson on Wednesday August 05 2020, @12:10AM (22 children)

      by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Wednesday August 05 2020, @12:10AM (#1031491) Journal
      So you can't determine the absolute value of Pi or the largest possible number. Thanks for making my secondary point, while completely ignoring my main point, which is that their presumption that the virus is already optimized for human infection is full of shit with no basis in reality. A virus optimized for maximum propagation would not kill the host.
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      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 05 2020, @01:06AM (20 children)

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 05 2020, @01:06AM (#1031510) Journal

        A virus optimized for maximum propagation would not kill the host.

        I could be mistaken, but last I checked, covid doesn't have a 100% fatality rate. So it indeed doesn't kill the host plenty of times.

        • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Wednesday August 05 2020, @01:15PM (19 children)

          by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Wednesday August 05 2020, @01:15PM (#1031687) Journal
          There are viruses, phages, and bacteria that live in harmony with their hosts - they get the most propagation.
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          • (Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday August 05 2020, @07:34PM

            by krishnoid (1156) on Wednesday August 05 2020, @07:34PM (#1031905)

            So *that*'s why there are so many dog and cat videos on Youtube! That explains it. Doesn't explain the influencers, though.

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 05 2020, @11:57PM (2 children)

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 05 2020, @11:57PM (#1032032) Journal

            There are viruses, phages, and bacteria that live in harmony with their hosts - they get the most propagation.

            How do they propagate? An infectious agent has to divert resources from the host in order to spread. And the less resources it diverts, the less likely any opportunity to spread to another host succeeds.

            • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Thursday August 06 2020, @01:03AM (1 child)

              by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Thursday August 06 2020, @01:03AM (#1032066) Journal
              A lot of them are picked up from the mother, including during passage through the birth canal (the increased rate of cesareans is associated with lower immune response). There's also via skin to skin contact between mother and child, and from the environment. 9/10 of all the cells in your body aren't human, they're bacteria, viruses, and plages.

              Mitochondria have their own DNA independent of the host organism, which is why most biologists believe that they started off as independent bacteria. All those bugs help us survive, digest food, etc, so we are the agents for transmission from one host to another. They are literally along for the ride, not having to expend any effort or energy to "infect " a new host.

              When powerful antibiotics deplete your gut bacteria, for example, you're advised to eat lots of yoghourt to restore them. Depleted natural micro flora in the vagina creates an environment ripe for yeast infections. Depleted skin bacteria leaves a surplus of fatty acids on your skin, making your perspiration stink.

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          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2020, @01:01AM (14 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2020, @01:01AM (#1032063)

            Specifically name one or more viral strains that meets your criteria.

            • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Thursday August 06 2020, @03:23AM (13 children)

              by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Thursday August 06 2020, @03:23AM (#1032121) Journal
              Bacteriophages - viruses that kill bacteria. Used as a treatment when no antibiotic works.

              see story [huffingtonpost.ca]. I saw a CBC documentary on this last month.

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              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2020, @04:18AM (12 children)

                by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2020, @04:18AM (#1032143)

                So you can't name a specific virus strain or you chose not to?

                Regardless, bacteriophages kill their hosts. It is literally in the name.

                • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Thursday August 06 2020, @05:53AM (11 children)

                  by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Thursday August 06 2020, @05:53AM (#1032160) Journal
                  You fucking moron - there are bacteriophages that save their hosts. Think of how many humans have whole varieties of them in their systems from drinking contaminated water - the phages live in symbiosis with their hosts, same as so many other viruses and bacteria. Remember - 9/10 of all the cells in your body are bacteria and viruses. We are nowhere near able to name them all, or do anything like a complete inventory. Doesn't mean they don't exist.

                  If you don't drink sewage- contaminated water, you don't get the bacteria in the sewage or the phages that live off those bacteria. Drink the contaminated water, hopefully you get enough of the viruses that naturally feed off those bacteria to help get them under control in your body. It's why we look in sewage contaminated with human waste for phages to kill off bacteria when antibiotics don't work. You want phages that are naturally at home in humans and that won't attack the host or provoke an immune response.

                  It would probably take until the sun goes Nova to discover and name a significant fraction of them. Good luck with that.

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                  • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Thursday August 06 2020, @06:01AM

                    by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Thursday August 06 2020, @06:01AM (#1032161) Journal
                    Bacteriophages kill bacteria - it is literally in the name. Many live just fine in humans. Many form part of the defence of your body from harmful infections. Same as all the beneficial bacteria that live in your body that you would die without, without medical intervention.
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                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2020, @09:27AM (9 children)

                    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2020, @09:27AM (#1032199)

                    Call me names when you apparently don't even know what a viral host is? I guess that is your usual way to show you are out of your depth.

                    • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Thursday August 06 2020, @11:36AM

                      by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Thursday August 06 2020, @11:36AM (#1032209) Journal
                      Dude, humans are hosts to a wide assortment of symbiotic bacteria and viruses. Learn what symbiosis is. I know that education standards have declined, but this. Was 1st year high school biology when I was a kid. Then again, if you're American, you probably never had a proper classical education. Same as your president.
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                    • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Thursday August 06 2020, @05:24PM (7 children)

                      by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Thursday August 06 2020, @05:24PM (#1032349) Journal
                      You've already demonstrated multiple times that you haven't got a clue as to what a host organism is. You seem to think it's something special. It's not - it's any organism that can host a virus. Like how humans are hosts for covid. Doesn't have to benefit the host, but when it does it's called symbiosis. If it doesn't benefit the host it's parasitic.

                      If you couldn't host all the bacteria in your gut you'd suffer from multiple deficiencies. The bacteria benefit from free food in a friendly warm cozy environment. So symbiosis.

                      A tape worm in your gut, on the other hand, is parasitic - unless your goal is to eat everything in sight and still lose weight, but you'd still suffer from malnutrition.

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                      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2020, @08:03PM (6 children)

                        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2020, @08:03PM (#1032457)

                        Introduction to the Viruses [berkeley.edu] might be helpful for you to get the basics. You may want to pay special attention to their use of "host" in relation to viruses.

                        • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Thursday August 06 2020, @10:30PM (5 children)

                          by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Thursday August 06 2020, @10:30PM (#1032549) Journal
                          Don't be intentionally obtuse. The meanings I gave are current usage for symbiotic.
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                          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2020, @11:19PM (4 children)

                            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2020, @11:19PM (#1032584)

                            Don't be intentionally obtuse. The meanings I gave are current usage for virology.

                            • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Friday August 07 2020, @01:50AM (3 children)

                              by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Friday August 07 2020, @01:50AM (#1032634) Journal
                              In relation specifically to viruses, the Oxford English Dictionary agrees with me. If you want to argue with the OED, knock yourself out. Yes, the OED was the first result I found. No need to cherrypick.
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                              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 07 2020, @04:59AM (2 children)

                                by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 07 2020, @04:59AM (#1032742)

                                Cool, but that is not a medical dictionary nor is it free to access. But the Harvard Medical Dictionary defines a host as "host: A person or other living organism that can be infected by a virus or other pathogen under natural conditions." Bacteriophages don't infect people because an infection is "The growth of harmful organisms that can cause disease, such as bacteria, in the body." But they do cause disease in the bacteria because those are the viruses' hosts.

                                • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Friday August 07 2020, @12:15PM (1 child)

                                  by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Friday August 07 2020, @12:15PM (#1032826) Journal
                                  Don't be wilfully stupid. When antibiotics kill off your gut bacteria, you wilfully infect yourself with new bacteria. In extreme cases hospitals have a treatment room reserved for fecal transplants. Harvard's definition is not a one size fits all. BTW, even beneficial bacteria can turn rogue - like the flesh-eating disease - and attack the host. Log in to continue or fuck off.
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                                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 07 2020, @10:11PM

                                    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 07 2020, @10:11PM (#1033200)

                                    Don't be willfully stupid. We were talking about bacteriophages and the bacteria hosts.

      • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2020, @01:19AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2020, @01:19AM (#1031516)

        Stop talking - your argument just got eaten up, shat out and handed back to you.

  • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2020, @12:02AM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2020, @12:02AM (#1031486)

    It's too perfect... Kills off only the weak, spreads quicker than AIDS, infectious without symptoms. If I were China's version of Dr Evil, I'd design a virus that only gets rid of the weak.
    Yup... Manmade in China.

    I only post anon and shitpost all I want, It's the Anonymous Coward way.

    • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Wednesday August 05 2020, @12:05AM (3 children)

      by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Wednesday August 05 2020, @12:05AM (#1031487) Journal
      If the Chinese had made it and weaponized it, it would be far more effective to only kill caucasians.
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      • (Score: 1) by zion-fueled on Wednesday August 05 2020, @12:11AM

        by zion-fueled (8646) on Wednesday August 05 2020, @12:11AM (#1031493)

        But a ton more impractical considering how little we can do in that realm.

      • (Score: 5, Insightful) by RS3 on Wednesday August 05 2020, @01:47AM (1 child)

        by RS3 (6367) on Wednesday August 05 2020, @01:47AM (#1031528)

        I'll be cynic for a moment: if the Chinese did create COVID-19 and release it, they may not care if it indiscriminately kills 500 million or 1 billion people worldwide- they still win.

        • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2020, @06:44AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2020, @06:44AM (#1031602)

          If the Chinese made it, it would rattle and fall apart in 2 weeks.

    • (Score: 2) by Opportunist on Wednesday August 05 2020, @12:11AM

      by Opportunist (5545) on Wednesday August 05 2020, @12:11AM (#1031492)

      If I was to create a weaponized virus, I would certainly not make it a Baltimore IV virus. Way too eager to mutate, way too hard to control.

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Opportunist on Wednesday August 05 2020, @12:06AM (4 children)

    by Opportunist (5545) on Wednesday August 05 2020, @12:06AM (#1031488)

    Covid is a +ssRNA virus. They are well known to mutate heavily and quickly. This makes developing vaccines and cures against them very tricky. Developing a vaccine takes almost a year from inception to delivery, and that's already a pretty rushed job with very little time for testing. This is, by the way, one of the key reasons why there is still nothing we can really do against the common cold, which is also a +ssRNA virus. By the time we would have a vaccine against it, it has mutated enough to make the vaccine ineffective.

    It's been theorized that Covid, while being a +ssRNA virus, has some "error correction" code in its genome, which would actually be a good thing for us since that means its mutation rate would be slower than what we see in other ssRNA viruses.

    The key question is now whether those 6 strains are close enough still that a vaccine developed against the original strain L would be effective against the currently widespread strain GH.

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2020, @01:46AM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2020, @01:46AM (#1031527)

      From what I've seen in the phylogenetic analysis, it still appears close enough to get one vaccine for all of them. But even a partial vaccine targeting the right strains can make a monumental difference.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2020, @08:33AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2020, @08:33AM (#1031620)

        even a partial vaccine targeting the right strains can make a monumental difference

        But that's what the GP was getting at: it'll only make a monumental difference if the longevity of those strains is significantly longer than the development time of the vaccine. If the vaccine turnaround time from isolation to rollout is one year, and the virus mutates on average once a year, the vaccine is largely useless by the time it's ready: the targeted strain is already on its way out, and different strains might be spreading in its place.

        • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2020, @09:47AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2020, @09:47AM (#1031631)

          That's not how strains or mutations work. The proteins control whether the vaccine will be effective enough. Not every genetic mutation leads to phenotype changes or different proteins, not every protein change nullifies immune response, and not every strain has a different set of proteins. And we don't have to guess at this either. People have done the analysis of mutation rate and strains and all that. Right now, it appears that one vaccine can hit the entire SARS-CoV-2 species because the strains, while different, still aren't different enough because it is so young. Sure there are probably tens of thousands of substrains out there but they appear to be relatively conserved when you do the analysis.

          What I really suspect has happened is she has looked at the much older Coronaviruses and how they don't have a vaccine and then mistakenly generalized to anything that falls under that entire family classification. Despite the fact that SARS-CoV-2 has important differences from others in the family that affect the ability to make a vaccine at all and different incentives and history in research that affects the creation speed, efficacy, and effectiveness of a vaccine candidate. SARS-CoV-2 is not the flu, it is not HIV, or Ebola, MERS, or even hCoV-229E, and generalizing from them to it is an easy way to come to wrong conclusions.

    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2020, @12:18PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2020, @12:18PM (#1031661)

      common cold, which is also a +ssRNA virus

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_cold#Viruses [wikipedia.org]

      The common cold is a viral infection of the upper respiratory tract. The most commonly implicated virus is a rhinovirus (30–80%), a type of picornavirus with 99 known serotypes.[29][30] Other commonly implicated viruses include human coronaviruses (≈ 15%),[31][32] influenza viruses (10–15%),[33] adenoviruses (5%),[33] human respiratory syncytial virus (orthopneumovirus), enteroviruses other than rhinoviruses, human parainfluenza viruses, and human metapneumovirus.[34] Frequently more than one virus is present.[35] In total, more than 200 viral types are associated with colds

      So not sure about that single virus you talk about when in fact there are HUNDREDS of viruses that are the "common cold".

      Covid is a +ssRNA virus. They are well known to mutate heavily and quickly.

      Viruses don't mutate for no reason. They mutate when there are problems with their duplication. Some viruses don't mutate at all, even when there is a vaccine against them, like the "perfect" measles virus.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive-sense_single-stranded_RNA_virus [wikipedia.org]

      Dengue is on the list there and it has a vaccine. So I'm not sure about that vaccine talk. Sounds to me like an arm-chair virologist (like me). Not every virus mutates just because it's a +ssRNA virus.