UK COVID Mutation

[PlatinumGuy]

https://twitter.com/kakape/status/1353973864569700353

[yuneeq]

I don't think so. Everyone (or almost everyone) runs for COVID testing if they don't feel well. Maybe they're only testing for COVID and not flu?

Pretty sure I read that flu tests are actually up while flu positivity rates are waaaay down.

[iluv2travel]

Pretty sure I read that flu tests are actually up while flu positivity rates are waaaay down.

Possible.

I couldn't find testing data for last year to compare but according to this,  testing doesn't seem to be up:

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/#:~:text=Influenza-Associated%20Hospitalizations%3A&text=A%20total%20of%20136%20laboratory,of%200.5%20per%20100%2C000%20population.

[PlatinumGuy]

https://twitter.com/neuropsychblog/status/1354518703644299267

[S209]

Fascinating, at Friendly Urgent care last week the doctor told me most of her COVID+ patients recently have been presenting with a sore throat.

[mercaz1]

Fascinating, at Friendly Urgent care last week the doctor told me most of her COVID+ patients recently have been presenting with a sore throat.

dumb question but does the regular nasal swab pickup the mutation?

[Ergel]

Anyone else been wondering why after nearly 12 months of no significant mutations, we see four similar mutations almost simultaneously?
Is this just chance? Was it programmed into the virus by the Chinese? Clear yad hashem to show us we're not in charge just as we get close to a vaccine?

[S209]

Anyone else been wondering why after nearly 12 months of no significant mutations, we see four similar mutations almost simultaneously?
Is this just chance? Was it programmed into the virus by the Chinese? Clear yad hashem to show us we're not in charge just as we get close to a vaccine?

BILL GATES-FAUCI

dumb question but does the regular nasal swab pickup the mutation?

Not a dumb question but the answer is yes.

[PlatinumGuy]

Anyone else been wondering why after nearly 12 months of no significant mutations, we see four similar mutations almost simultaneously?
Is this just chance? Was it programmed into the virus by the Chinese? Clear yad hashem to show us we're not in charge just as we get close to a vaccine?

Technically speaking if an evolution takes x amount of time+spread, it follows that around the same time many different ones will emerge.

I.e. if pregnancy takes 9 months, it follows that 9 months after a seeding event many different babies will appear around the same time.

Additionally, the UK was doing orders of magnitude more sequencing than other countries so they were more likely to identify it, and then other countries started checking more and found others.

We are also more worried about benign mutations now (Making them discussed more), only UK & SA have been proven to really be worse, although to me P.1 from Brazil is the scariest.

[PlatinumGuy]

Fascinating, at Friendly Urgent care last week the doctor told me most of her COVID+ patients recently have been presenting with a sore throat.

I wonder if that can be a weather related event, the biggest news to me was that lack of smell isn’t a common symptom anymore

[S209]

I wonder if that can be a weather related event, the biggest news to me was that lack of smell isn’t a common symptom anymore

Not according to the people I know who have it..

[PlatinumGuy]

Not according to the people I know who have it..

Hard to know if they have the UK variant

[Ergel]

Technically speaking if an evolution takes x amount of time+spread, it follows that around the same time many different ones will emerge.

That's not really how it works. Mutations are random events. Very dissimilar from

I.e. if pregnancy takes 9 months, it follows that 9 months after a seeding event many different babies will appear around the same time.

Which is a direct cause/effect event

Additionally, the UK was doing orders of magnitude more sequencing than other countries so they were more likely to identify it, and then other countries started checking more and found others.

That is definitely slightly true, but there has been sequencing going on all over for a while and nothing was found

We are also more worried about benign mutations now (Making them discussed more),

More discussed, yes. But it's still a fact that there were no significant mutations until recently

only UK & SA have been proven to really be worse, although to me P.1 from Brazil is the scariest.

Agreed

[AsherO]

Anyone else been wondering why after nearly 12 months of no significant mutations, we see four similar mutations almost simultaneously?
Is this just chance? Was it programmed into the virus by the Chinese? Clear yad hashem to show us we're not in charge just as we get close to a vaccine?

I'm not usually one for conspiracy theories, but this one seems like a real possibility to me. I don't think they'd have the technology to program mutations that spontaneously erupt x months later, but they could certainly have the mutations lined up and release them in x location on y date just like they would have done in Wuhan at the end of 2019.

[iluv2travel]

I'm not usually one for conspiracy theories, but this one seems like a real possibility to me. I don't think they'd have the technology to program mutations that spontaneously erupt x months later, but they could certainly have the mutations lined up and release them in x location on y date just like they would have done in Wuhan at the end of 2019.

And the plot thickens...

I don't go for conspiracies either, but let's say this one is a possibility, then I would venture to say that it seems they timed the release of these mutations together with the vaccine roll out to throw a wrench out there by perhaps the vaccine not work on the mutations keeping the virus prevalent?

[Yehuda57]

Isn't it the nature of viruses like these to mutate? #notanepidemiologistoffwhatsapp 

[Ergel]

Isn't it the nature of viruses like these to mutate? #notanepidemiologistoffwhatsapp 

Of course, but it just seems so unlikely for it not to mutate for so long and then simultaneously mutate in multiple separate streams

[Euclid]

but it just seems so unlikely for it not to mutate for so long and then simultaneously mutate in multiple separate streams

This is based on your vast knowledge of virology?

[Yehuda57]

Of course, but it just seems so unlikely for it not to mutate for so long and then simultaneously mutate in multiple separate streams

A) how long would it usually take?
B) some of these strains may have been around for longer but just not noticed for a while

[Ergel]

This is based on your vast knowledge of virology?

Yes, actually more based on knowledge of chance and probability