News today that should impress dedicated Creationists who are obliged by dogma to believe all things are the work of their putative creator god, in that yet another, potentially even more dangerous, variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has been discovered. This new variant appears to have been 'designed' by a small but important tweak of the δ-variant which is responsible for the new wave of cases in several countries and which is set to become the dominant form of the virus in circulation throughout the world.
90% of new coronavirus cases in Russia are caused by the Delta variant, according to state media. Russia is also reporting the first confirmed case of Delta Plus
— BNO Newsroom (@BNODesk) June 29, 2021
All you need to know about the Delta Plus Variant of Covid-19 (2/2) pic.twitter.com/kesXriYSj7
— RVCJ Media (@RVCJ_FB) June 29, 2021
#Covid19 | #DeltaPlus variant has been classified as 'Variant of Concern' due to:
— Hindustan Times (@htTweets) July 1, 2021
- Increased transmissibility
- Stronger binding to receptors of lung cells
- Potential reduction in monoclonal antibody response
- Potential post vaccination immune escapehttps://t.co/amggRHntK4 pic.twitter.com/rZxjYiZqFW
Professor Sunit K. Singh, Professor of Molecular Immunology and Virology, Institute of Medical Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, writing in The Conversation said:
Will vaccines work against Delta plus?To a dedicated Creationist, there is only one way permitted to interpret what is happening here - the intelligent [sic] designer is trying out different combinations of tweaks to the virus to try to get round the undoubted success of medical science in producing a vaccine and, as we have seen in the UK, substantially broken the link between infection and serious outcome; not removing the threat completely but substantially reducing it to the level of one of the more serious forms of influenza.
According to the Indian health ministry, Delta plus could have a similar ability to evade immunity and an ability to reduce the effect of monoclonal antibody therapies used to treat COVID.
The mutation is worrying because it’s located on a key portion of the virus, the spike protein, used to penetrate human cells.
Previous mutations have been on the “receptor binding domain” of the spike protein that allows the virus to attach to the receptors in our cells.
The unique mutations in the Delta variant mean the virus can escape the immune system to some extent. Indeed, Delta has shown to reduce efficacy of vaccines somewhat. This means a single dose of vaccine may offer reduced protection.
However, a second dose has been shown to produce enough antibodies against symptomatic infection and severe disease. It’s important to remember most COVID vaccines don’t provide absolute sterilising immunity, but work to reduce the severity of disease.
UK researchers found the Pfizer vaccine had an efficacy of 33% against Delta after a single shot, and 88% after both doses. In the case of the AstraZeneca vaccine, the efficacy was just 33% after the first dose but went up to 60% after the second dose.
The Delta plus variant might have a similar degree of reduction in efficacy against the vaccines currently in use. Though we’re yet see good data on whether this is the case.
Studies are under way in India to assess the effectiveness of vaccines against Delta plus.
It’s important to note Delta plus hasn’t yet taken off substantially, and the World Health Organization hasn’t yet classified it as a variant of concern.
What do we need to do now?
Variants with increased transmissibility and the potential to escape antibodies pose a threat to efforts to control and mitigate the pandemic. And countries with low vaccination rates may see new outbreaks.
How should our response change? Despite the mutations, no extra special measures need to be taken. We must continue to get maximum numbers of people vaccinated, increase genomic surveillance to track the evolution of the virus, and follow COVID-appropriate behaviour.
Covid-19 daily new cases, UK.
Data source: UK Gov
So, to a creationist then, if must appear that their malevolent creator god is not giving up in its determination to kill as many people as possible, make millions more very ill and ruin businesses and national economies and is not going to treat the threat to its plans from mere human medical science laying down. We can expect many more of these variant in the next few years, but, thanks to the brilliance of the scientists who developed the technology, we should be able to stay in front by quickly developing vaccines to counter the new variants as they arise.
I hope Creationists are not too upset by the success of science and the relative failure of their beloved god so far. But this triumph of medical science is not without precident, we won with smallpox and are almost there with polio and in with a good chance against malaria. No wonder the nut-jobs in the antivaxxer movement and the campaign of opposition to the measures to mitigate the coronavirus pandemic are mostly Creationist religious fundamentalists.
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