06 January 2021

We Have An Answer

Back in December the question was asked:
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.

"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.
We was right! We was right!
Creech said a virus really cannot afford to mutate too much.

"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.
And, in what might be a (unknowning) shot at the wannaBePresident Huey Long 2024:
"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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