Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay measurement of serum dilution titers with a 50% effective concentration (EC50) of SARS-CoV-2 spike RBD-binding antibodies. The dotted lines indicate the assay limits of detection. Two-tailed P values were determined using the Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed rank test with the Holm-Šídák multiple comparison correction. Box plots were generated using the Tukey method. The large box displays the median and IQR. The error bars indicate 1.5 times the IQR or the furthest outlier, whichever is closer to the median. All individual data points are displayed as filled circles.
Source: Bates, T.A., et al 2021
It's early days yet and what studies there have been have been mostly inconclusive and tentative, but it's beginning to look like the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic could be nearing the end as the virus is facing extinction.
If you're a Creationist, you'll have to see this as a blunder by the supernatural malevolence you believe was behind the design and adaptations of the virus. If, on the other hand, you're rational with the thinking abilities of a normal adult, you will see this as the inevitable result of a natural, evolutionary process.
The reason for this slight optimism, and it is slight so far as the data sets are small and may not be representative of the general human population, is a couple of recent studies. The most recent being one from the Oregon Health & Science University which shows that people infected after being vaccinated (the so-called breakthrough infection where the virus manages to overcome the protection given by the antibodies produced as a result of the vaccines) go on the develop a 'super immunity' to the virus with serum antibody levels of up to 1000 times greater than with vaccination alone.
The Oregon team arrived at this conclusion after analysing the blood of 26 volunteer health-care workers who had been fully vaccinated but subsequently developed symptoms and tested positive with PCR tests and the blood of 26 volunteer controls, who were carefully matched with the test group and who were also fully vaccinated but remained from infection.
#Omicron cases are 15% less likely to attend hospital, and 40% less likely to be hospitalised for a night or more, compared to Delta – suggests new estimates from @MRC_Outbreak + @Imperial_Jameel: https://t.co/U6uD5mySu4
— Imperial College (@imperialcollege) December 22, 2021
The second reason for cautious optimism is two new studies which suggest the disease caused by the ο variant may be mild in comparison to that caused by δ and earlier variants.
- A study by Imperial College, London shows that people with PCR-confirmed ο Covid-19 are 40-45% less likely to spend one or more nights in hospital compared to δ and those with ο after a previous infection are 50-60% less likely to be hospitalised compared to δ.
This analysis is based on 56,000 ο cases and 269,000 δ cases, but has not been peer-reviewed. - A study by Edinburgh University suggests that the risk of hospitalisation may be 56% lower for ο than for δ. However, there is need for caution here too since the analysis is based on only 20 people who have been admitted to hospital with the ο variant in the whole of Scotland.
In their paper, the authors say:Interpretation
These early national data suggest that Omicron is associated with a two-thirds reduction in the risk of COVID-19 hospitalisation when compared to Delta. Whilst offering the greatest protection against Delta, the third/booster dose of vaccination offers substantial additional protection against the risk of symptomatic COVID-19 for Omicron when compared to ≥25 weeks post second vaccine dose.
How has this happened?
One of the major contributory factors has been the outstanding success of the vaccines, of course, which, while they can't give 100% protection against infection, they do three things:
- They mean fewer people catch the disease, reducing the virus’ potential host population.
- They reduce the risk of passing the virus on to others because the infected person produces fewer new virus particles to shed into the environment and the person is infectious for a shorter period of time before their primed immune response rid their body of the virus.
- They prime the body's immune system so it can be quickly boosted and, if the first study is confirmed, gives a significantly reduced risk of further infection by giving a high level of antibodies with a broader spectrum than the vaccines alone provide. Naturally acquired antibodies are produced against a broader spectrum of viral proteins than just the spike proteins which have been the focus of the vaccines approved to date. Given the very low probability of mutations arising across this whole range of viral proteins, the naturally-acquired antibodies should continue to work against possible future mutations.
The evolutionary biology behind this is relatively simple; evolution has resulted in the virus evolving to produce quantity rather than 'quality' because a significantly higher transmission rate produces more versions of the variant in the community, and, in competition with earlier variants, this variant wins the competition for resources (humans) in which to breed, so driving the earlier variant to extinction, just as a more successful variety of any species can replace earlier varieties in the local population. We saw this earlier where δ's greater transmissibility meant it quickly replaces α worldwide.
Meanwhile, this more transmissible but milder variant is quickly building up the immunity in the population, ultimately reducing the size of its available host population, so causing its own extinction by its own early success.
That's the simple science behind the evolutionary biologist's interpretation of this development, if it is subsequently confirmed.
However, all Creationists are left with is the realisation that their putative intelligent [sic] designer has designed a virus to kill as many people as possible and make many more very sick and has now, in its eagerness to overcome the human immune system and the efforts of medical science in producing the vaccine, produced a variant that could be leading to the extinction of the nasty little virus it designed to cause suffering with.
It would be completely illogical to argue that this omniscient, omnipotent, perfect designer god has now changed it's perfect mind and decided it was wrong to make this thing in the first place, or it has relented and decided we've suffered enough, because there are no lessons to be learned from the experience, other than to be ready for the next little nasty the divine malevolence decided to design to cause as much suffering as possible.
To have designed SARS-CoV-2 as a punishment without telling us what the punishment was for would be like a parent spanking a child but not telling them why. Not the act of a loving parent, but the act of a child-abusing, sadistic bully who isn't fit to be allowed near children and as far from a praiseworthy role model and giver of morals as it is possible to imagine.
Imagine being an ID advocate and trying to explain the fact that your putative magic creator having created a virus which will inevitably create the conditions for its own extinction was the act of an intelligent designer! Or that the creator of such evil is an omni-benevolent entity who loves its creation and only wants the best for it!
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