Ripe And Swelled With Rain
Screenshot
I wrote here a couple of nights ago (Chilly, Chilly is the Evening Time) that:
More generally, I’m getting more pessimistic about how we’re progressing with dealing with the virus. Obviously I’m pleased about the vaccine(s) but I’m getting increasingly antsy about the lack of international co-ordination of the response and the way vaccines are being rolled out. My worry, as a layman who tries to follow the issues, is that both worldwide and within the UK we have lots of unvaccinated people who function as a place for the virus to mutate and also a reservoir of mutated virus. Increasingly I get the feeling that we’re a very long way from being done with this.
I saw a tweet over breakfast from a doctor in British Columbia expressing concern about the rapid spread of the P1 variant in BC and have seen similar from Ontario and Alberta. P1 is the ‘Brazilian’ variant. I’ve pasted in a screenshot (he mentions P1 in a separate tweet). This is precisely what’s been on my mind–rapid spread in an unvaccinated population/age group favouring variants.
In the meantime, there’s a lot of chatter about ‘vaccine passports’. Even putting aside the issue of fake passports, these would, pretty much by definition, be historical documents, unless they were continuously updated in near-real time for variants in circulation. We don’t know what variants are in circulation without widespread genomic testing, and most places do not have widespread genomic testing. It follows that vaccine passports are of limited use domestically and near-useless internationally.
I should add that there have, to the best of my knowledge, been only a handful of cases of the P1 variant in the UK, including three in Scotland. That’s an obvious good, at least locally, but all the informed opinion I’m seeing is worried about convergent evolution of mutations.
Links:
Boris Johnson to give go-ahead for trials of Covid passports The Guardian
How New Zealand’s Covid success made it a laboratory for the world The Guardian
Covid-19 variants: Five things to know about how coronavirus is evolving Horizon. Extract:
With some of the Covid-19 vaccines already showing signs of being less effective against the B1.351 and the P1 variants, some manufacturers have begun developing booster shots that will give extra immunity against these versions of the virus.
But it is likely vaccines will have to be continually updated as the virus evolves. Already there are some cases in Britain of the B117 variant picking up the mutation that is thought to have been largely responsible for the ability of the virus to be resistant to antibodies in P1 and B1.351. There are other variants spreading in California, US, for example, that carry mutations that could lead to problems in the future by causing reinfections.
‘There is a growing list of variants under investigation and it is likely some of these will become variants of concern,’ said Dr Volz. ‘The virus has demonstrated it has the ability to become more transmissible and to escape from immunity. With a pretty large proportion of the population with immunity either from infection or vaccines, there’s going to be much more pressure for escape variants to appear.’
***
I mentioned yesterday that we have snow forecast for tomorrow and Tuesday. The forecast is still good and is accompanied by a weather warning. I’ve only been outside a couple of times today, and this morning’s breeze, that strengthened this afternoon, is spreading rumours of cold air on the way.
***
Music: a very old favourite of mine. Simon And Garfunkle : April, Come She Will
Recent Comments