Andy_W
Well-known member
Yeah, obviously take what I wrote with a pinch of salt mind, as I'm clearly not a geneticist I get numbers and graphs thoughLets hope that is the case and the mutations don't affect vaccines. 30 mutations is a lot, I would have thought though. Whilst the mutations may not have had the vaccine petri dish to mutate in, it is, as you say, early days.
Heres hoping.
Watching the WHO news conference, the guy presenting it, and his accent was strong, so it was a struggle, suggested that they were deciding whether it was a variant of concerrn. Listening to otherr news channels, they seem to be doom and gloom about this, sensationalising the ass out of it. They ma, of course, turn out to be right, but the WHO seem to be advocating a watching and monitoring brief at the moment.
Have been following a few geneticists for a long while now mind, and they all seem respected by others, even when opinions differ on measures to be taken. Balloux has some views on things which I don't align with, and some of his previous views were a bit selfish, but he's admitted that, he's quite centrist like me.
Some think lots of mutations could mean for some vaccine evasion, but I think what they're getting at, is by doing this, they may become weaker. I don't think many of the those picked up with Omicron have been symptomatic, and not sure if any had died, but did read about one 32 year old who had a booster a month ago, and she still got it (asymptomatic).
News will scaremonger at the wrong time, and play things down at the wrong time too, a lot of the time they're trying to appeal to a set audience. Those who I follow who have been sensible and rational, and even the way over cautious aren't making as much of deal out of this as those who've been denying it the entire time, but I don't follow any of the latter, just see their quoted tweets by others.
Most are concerned, and agree that we should put control measures in place whilst we find out more, which should only take a week or two. Moderna and Pfizer already have already created variant specific vaccines, including Omicron. They did all the testing with Delta and Alpha, but didn't need to role them out as the vaccines were still excellent. They may chose to roll out one for this, and Moderna think they could have it on the shelves in 3 months.