Thus far, there doesn't appear to be a lot of evidence suggesting Delta variants are any more problematic than those before them in terms of overall health impacts...
They may actually have significantly lesser impacts...
But, they do appear to be more transmissible... if less dangerous... with the symptoms being reported boiling down to a mild cold. So, the primary social and health impacts might be... driven by gross over-reactions by public health officials... imposing lock downs to avoid relatively few people getting a minor cold.
I find it a tad suspicious that the new variant includes large and very particular mutations in the N terminal domain spike protein... and at the furin cleavage site... along with as many as nine other proteins... which they're not describing with much particularity ? Pretty big leaps to make multiple changes of that sort in one giant "random" step... ?
If engineered... it would appear its purpose is to specifically target those who have avoided vaccination... but, as prior variants have done, it also appears to target younger populations more effectively...
But, if you have avoided both vaccination and obvious illness from being infected, thus far... there's not much here to suggest that you have any greater risk from this new variant than from those before... and absolutely nothing about the new variants being discussed now is suggesting they are any less easily addressed by the range of medicines that are known to successfully treat those infected by prior variants...
I do note in reading the Science article... that they appear to have become vastly less fastidious in presenting actual data versus opinion... that has them sliding into doom porn that rivals the Zero Hedge brand... even if they're competing to be the preferred doom porn brand catering to the opposing team.
Almost two years in... and it appears there have been no meaningful efforts made by WHO, CDC, or any others... to improve either basic reconnaissance or functional analysis of emerging threats... which they gloss over as a point to highlight the threat of the virus... rather than the threat of bureaucratic incompetence.
The changes in the variants that matter most, thus far, are ones that make it more transmissible... not a problem in itself, unless a more transmissible variant mutates again, keeps that feature in being more transmissible. and pairs it with worse symptoms and greater mortality.
I'll poke through the site changes in the various mutations, tonight, and see what I can learn that's useful... |
