Creationist mode: 
It's beginning to look like Creationism's divine malevolence may have blundered badly in its eagerness to modify the SARS-CoV-2 virus so it could overcome the vaccines made by medical science and kill more people and leave more with long-term disabilities.
At least this has to be the conclusion for Creationists who are obliged by dogma to reject the idea that a natural, evolutionary process could be behind the modifications which can only occur if their putative intelligent (sic) supernatural designer makes the changes.
Our study provides for the first time an explanation, why Omicron infections are less likely to cause severe disease. Obviously, Omicron can in contrast to Delta not effectively inhibit the host cell interferon immune response.
Scientists from the University of Kent and the Goethe University, Frankfurt have shown that the SARS-CoV-2 omicron variant is less effective than delta at blocking a cellular defence mechanism against viruses - the so-called “interferon response”.Prof Martin Michaelis, co-Lead author
School of Bioscience
University of Kent
Canterbury, Kent, UK
School of Bioscience
University of Kent
Canterbury, Kent, UK
The researchers have shown that omicron variant viruses are particularly sensitive to inhibition by the so-called interferon response, an unspecific immune response that is present in all body cells. This provides the first explanation of why COVID-19 patients infected with the omicron variant are less likely to experience severe disease.
Although cell culture experiments do not exactly recapitulate the more complex situation in a patient, our data provide encouraging evidence that the available antiviral COVID-19 drugs are also effective against Omicron.
But what the modifications give the virus is the ability to spreads faster and more easily so it can infect people who have been vaccinated or have previously been infected by escaping the antibodies circulating in their bodies.Prof. Jindrich Cinatl, Co-lead author
Institute of Medical Virology
Goethe-University
Frankfurt, Germany
Institute of Medical Virology
Goethe-University
Frankfurt, Germany
Creationist mode: 
The researchers also found that the omicron variant is still sensitive to eight of the most important antiviral drugs and drug candidates for the treatment of COVID-19. This included: EIDD-1931 (active metabolite of molnupiravir), ribavirin, remdesivir, favipravir, PF-07321332 (nirmatrelvir, active ingredient of paxlovid), nafamostat, camostat, and aprotinin.
Of course, as always in biology, the explanation for the success of the omicron variant and the fact that its reduced pathology looks like a major blunder by a malevolent designer, is the fact that it wasn't designed, but has evolved to the variant which produced the most copies of itself in competition with other variants for the same resource, in an unplanned and mindless natural process requiring neither intelligence nor magic.
For reasons which they seem too shy to explain though, Creationists seem to prefer the view that they worship an incompetent malevolence than that these parasites are the result of a natural process not requiring gods or supernatural entities.
Sadly, the paper in Cell Research, in the form of a letter to the editor, is behind an expensive paywall so can't be reproduced here. However, it is available online here.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Obscene, threatening or obnoxious messages, preaching, abuse and spam will be removed, as will anything by known Internet trolls and stalkers, by known sock-puppet accounts and anything not connected with the post,
A claim made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. Remember: your opinion is not an established fact unless corroborated.