If it doesn't have a spike protein, is it still a coronavirus?The gist of the question - can a coronavirus mutate sufficiently to no longer be vulnerable to the class of vaccines being developed, ones that target this S-protein? The information then was, likely not. Covid-19, sui generis, has to have not only an S-protein, but the one it was born with. No nose jobs for you!
Well, today's news further advises that changes to the S-protein, should they happen, have to be so minor that the gross function of the S-protein remains. Phew!
All the current vaccines target what is known as the spike protein -- the structure the virus uses to get into the cells it attacks.We was right! We was right!
"This protein happens to be so important that it is always on display," said Dr. Buddy Creech, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center who is helping lead clinical trials there of coronavirus vaccines.
Creech said a virus really cannot afford to mutate too much.And, in what might be a (unknowning) shot at the wannaBePresident Huey Long 2024:
"If it changes too much, it can't bind to the cell surface now and it's not just a good virus any more," he said. It might evade the immune response elicited by a vaccine, but it also would be unable to infect cells.
"Let's stop this virus in its tracks. If we could magically get 60-70% of the population vaccinated tomorrow, we wouldn't have to worry about drift because the virus would pretty much go extinct."As speculated(?) here many times, the length of immunity from a coronavirus appears to be measured in months. If that proves true for Covid-19, times a wastin.
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