F Rosa Rubicondior: Covid-19
Showing posts with label Covid-19. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Covid-19. Show all posts

Sunday 10 March 2024

Covidiot News - Just Because You Haven't Had COVID-19 Yet, Doesn't Mean You Won't!


Haven't had COVID yet? It could be more than just luck

There are some scary questions for creationists at the end of this article. They follow on naturally from what's being discussed, so creationists should probably avoid reading too far, unless they have a responsible adult with them.

This article from The Conversation is from May 2022, when we were into the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic and most vulnerable people had had the two-step vaccinations and many would have had the spring booster. At that point neither me nor my partner had had COVID-19, which we put down to rigorously following the recommendations regarding mask-wearing, social distancing, hand washing, etc. and had tried to reduce our vulnerability to the sever forms of it by losing about 3 stone in weight and, in my case, getting my blood pressure under control with medication. We also tried to ensure our immune systems were healthy by taking vitamin D3, vitamin C, zinc and iron supplements.

In the early days of the pandemic, even before the official restrictions on social contact, we had observed the basic rules of hygiene and everyone who came into the house used hand-cleanser at the front door. I had even managed to obtain a supply of face-masks and plastic gloves online, which we wore at all times outside the house. Every package that was delivered to the house was left for several hours before we touched it, and all our weekly shopping was delivered or bought with click and collect. Delivered bags were left for four hours before unpacking. And we took weekly tests just in case we had it asymptomatically. All that might seem a little over the top now, but we were vindicated as events were to prove.

We put the fact that we hadn't caught it by mid-2022 down to our preventative measures, not to luck or genetics - a view that was vindicated last year when we both came back from a two-week vacation in France with a mild form of COVID-19, despite having had all the boosters on offer. We probably picked it up in a crowded airport or on the plane, where all the social distancing measures had been forgotten and even face masks were no longer worn. We both felt like we had a mild case of flu for a couple of days and after a week we were testing negative. Had we contracted it in Spring 2020, the outcome would probably have been very different as we had no immunity, and both had three of the risk-factors - overweight, high BP and over 70. In addition, my partner had had a mastectomy and was receiving treatment for breast cancer.

One reason you can't ever be sure that you won't catch COVID-19 is because the virus keeps mutating to produce new variants so, even if you were fortunate enough to have natural or acquired immunity to the variants so far, it is quite possible that the next or subsequent variants will have evolved a way round it. The following chart from the UK NHS, shows the rise and fall of the main variants over the course of the pandemic:
But still, a few people managed to stay free from the virus. In the following article, reprinted from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license, Lindsay Broadbent, Research Fellow, School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences, Queen's University Belfast, explains why. Her article has been reformatted for stylistic consistency:

Monday 4 March 2024

Anti-Vaxxer Conspiracists News - How Trumpanzee Cult Conspiracists Are Risking People's Lives For Money While Feeding Populist Extremism


Anti-vaccine conspiracies fuel divisive political discourse | The University of Tokyo
According to a news item carried today by Agence France-Presse (AFP), US antivaxx conspiracists are deliberately spreading fear and disinformation to sell quack medical kits to gullible fools and in doing so are risking the lives of anyone foolish enough to believe them. And a recent paper published by a Japanese research group has shown how extremist parties are trading on growing antivaxx paranoia, originating in Trump-supporting conspiracists in the USA, by incorporating it into the political platforms.

This team of researchers recall how Donald Trump first of all tried to take credit for developing the mRNA vaccines against Covid-19, as though he had personally directed the research and invented the science behind mRNA vaccines, then switched to curry favour with the antivaxxers by casting doubt on the need for boosters. And of course, antivaxxer conspiracy theories became a central theme of the rabidly pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theorists.

Firstly, the AFP report:

Wednesday 28 February 2024

Covidiot News - How the mRNA Vaccines Give Long-Term Protection Against COVID-19


Long-Term Data Reveals SARS-CoV-2 Infection and Vaccine-Induced Antibody Responses Are Long-Lasting | Mount Sinai - New York

If you listen to antivaxxer covidiots you would believe:
  • COVID-19 is no worse than the common cold.
  • The SARS-CoV-2 virus which causes COVID-19, is a deadly organism developed by the Chinese for biological warfare.
  • COVID-19 was a hoax (which even normally hostile nations had signed up to, apparently).
  • God sent the virus to punish America for legalising same-sex marriage (and the rest of the world was collateral damage)
  • The vaccines developed against it don't work (regardless of what the clinic trials showed).
  • The vaccines contain microchips and special genes to make you become gay and/or subject to satellite control.
  • The vaccines contain deadly viruses that can be activated via the 5G phone network.
  • Millions of people have died or will die soon because they've been vaccinated.
  • [Fill in your own crackpot theory because someone will already have claimed it to be true].

The truth is, however, that millions of people died of COVID-19 in the first year of the pandemic, before a vaccine was generally available and this death rate fell to low levels following the roll out of the first vaccines and subsequent boosters to allow for new variants. Although the virus is still very much with us, people have been able to resume normal activities and the economic and health impact of the virus is now no more than that of seasonal flu, but there were concerns that antibody levels produced in response to the mRNA vaccines were short-lived, giving only temporary protection.

Now a large-scale analysis conducted by leading microbiologists at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has shown that antibody responses induced by COVId-19 vaccines are long-lasting. The results of this analysis are published, open access, in the Cell Press journal, Immunity, and are discussed in a Mount Sinai press release:
The emergence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in late 2019 sparked the global pandemic that is now in its fifth year. Vaccines that were developed at record speed have saved millions of lives. However, the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants and waning immunity have decreased the effectiveness of the vaccines against symptomatic disease. The common perception now is that mRNA-based vaccine-induced immunity wanes quickly. However, this assumption is largely based on data from short-term studies that include a very limited number of data points following peak responses.

The Mount Sinai research team’s analysis of more than 8,000 samples collected over a three-year period in New York City examined how antibody responses to the virus’s spike protein changed after infections, during the primary immunization series, during monovalent and bivalent booster vaccination, and during breakthrough infections.

They found that upon primary immunization, participants with pre-existing immunity (those who had previously been infected with the virus) mounted higher antibody responses faster and achieved higher steady-state antibody titers than individuals who had not been previously infected. The waning of antibody response was characterized by two phases: an initial rapid decay from the strong peak after vaccination, followed by a stabilization phase with very slow decay, suggesting that antibody levels were very long-lasting. Booster vaccination equalized the differences in antibody concentration between participants with and without pre-existing immunity. Breakthrough infections increased antibodies to similar levels as an additional vaccine dose in individuals who had not previously been infected.

This investigation represents one of the most extensive and in-depth assessments of the longevity of SARS-CoV-2 immune responses to date. Its major conclusion is that changes in the virus that allow it to evade immunity, rather than waning immunity, are the major reason for breakthrough infections.

Ours is one of the longest-running COVID-19 studies out there. Following the same group of people monthly over time is rare and powerful because you can compare immune responses on an individual level. SARS-CoV-2 continues to evolve, so this research is important to provide an understanding about the impact of new variants and new vaccine doses on a healthy immune system, and to guide all of us to make the best choices to maintain protection against the virus that continues to circulate in our communities.

Professor Viviana Simon, MD, PhD, lead author
Professor of Microbiology, Medicine and Pathology, Molecular and Cell-Based Medicine
Department of Microbiology
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA.
This in-depth analysis was made possible through the Protection Associated with Rapid Immunity to SARS-CoV-2 (PARIS) study, an observational, longitudinal cohort of health care workers of the Mount Sinai Health System that was initiated in April 2020. At that time, the densely populated New York metropolitan area was hit with an exponential increase in severe SARS-CoV-2 infections, and essential workers in the health care system were at high risk for infection. In response to the crisis, a team of leading virologists, physician-scientists, and pathologists at Mount Sinai established a specific and sensitive SARS-CoV-2 binding enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay to accurately measure the SARS-CoV-2 antibody titers. This test was used to measure immune responses in the PARIS cohort in order to determine how quickly the antibody defenses were mounted and much these changed over the months and years of follow up.

In addition to showing the impact on a person’s individual antibody response to vaccines based on the type of vaccine received and whether or not they were infected before receiving the first dose, the PARIS study made possible the development of a mathematical model that can be used to predict and characterize antibody responses of both individual people and populations.

People have pandemic fatigue and vaccine uptake has slowed, especially after the vaccines started to be charged to insurance*. We were pleasantly surprised to see that the booster doses promoted a large antibody response regardless of a person’s personal infection history, so we are hopeful that our study findings will encourage people to get their vaccine boosters when eligible and to stay engaged in research. Our work also showcases the impact of viral evolution over time and why it’s critical to keep studies like this going, despite the pandemic fatigue.

Komal Srivastava, MS, Co-first author
Director of Strategy and Operation
Mount Sinai Center for Vaccine Research and Pandemic Preparedness.

According to the research team, the PARIS model has broad applications for studying the kinetics of antibodies produced to different COVID-19 vaccines in diverse populations. They stress much more work remains to analyze side effects, applications of the antibody model and continued research about new vaccines and viral variants.

This study adds an essential piece of data to understand the intricate immune response elicited by SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 vaccination. In light of the emerging viral variants, which predominantly induce a cross-reactive antibody response against the spike protein, it will be exciting to characterize in depth the role of these antibodies - in particular the non-neutralizing ones - in protection against the most recent circulating viral variants. Likewise, monitoring the induction of variant-specific antibodies after multiple exposures by breakthrough infections and by administration of updated COVID-19 vaccines, such as the XBB.1.5 monovalent booster, will be key to understand the evolution of the antibody response over time.

Assistant Professor Dr Juan Manuel Carreno Quiroz, PhD, Co-first author.
Department of Microbiology
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA.


*Note: in the UK, vaccines are provided free by the NHS. Other non-US countries will have their own health-care systems which may or may not include charges for the vaccines.
More technical detail and the background to the research is given in the team's paper in Immunology:
Graphical abstract
Highlights
  • COVID-19-vaccine-induced immunity wanes but stabilizes at an individual setpoint
  • Pre-existing immunity results in rapid antibody responses upon vaccination
  • Boosters equalize antibody titers between individuals with and without hybrid immunity
  • Antibody kinetics show two phases: an initial rapid decay followed by a steady state

Summary

It is thought that mRNA-based vaccine-induced immunity to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) wanes quickly, based mostly on short-term studies. Here, we analyzed the kinetics and durability of the humoral responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination using >8,000 longitudinal samples collected over a 3-year period in New York City. Upon primary immunization, participants with pre-existing immunity mounted higher antibody responses faster and achieved higher steady-state antibody titers than naive individuals. Antibody kinetics were characterized by two phases: an initial rapid decay, followed by a stabilization phase with very slow decay. Booster vaccination equalized the differences in antibody concentration between participants with and without hybrid immunity, but the peak antibody titers decreased with each successive antigen exposure. Breakthrough infections increased antibodies to similar titers as an additional vaccine dose in naive individuals. Our study provides strong evidence that SARS-CoV-2 antibody responses are long lasting, with initial waning followed by stabilization.

Introduction

The emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in late 2019 sparked the global coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic that is now in its 4th year. Vaccines to mitigate the impact of the pandemic were developed at record speed and have saved millions of lives. However, the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants1 and waning immunity2 have decreased the effectiveness of the vaccines against symptomatic disease.3 These two issues, the emergence of antigenically distinct SARS-CoV-2 variants and waning immunity, are often conflated and used interchangeably but represent two different phenomena.4 Most vaccines used in North America and Europe are based on lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) containing messenger RNA (mRNA) produced by Pfizer/BioNTech (BNT162b2) or Moderna (mRNA-1273), and the common perception now is that mRNA-based vaccine-induced immunity wanes quickly.5 However, this assumption is mostly based on data from short-term studies that include a very limited number of data points following peak responses.2,5

In March of 2020, the densely populated New York metropolitan area was hit with an exponential increase of severe SARS-CoV-2 infections, resulting in a staggering number of fatalities and a severely overburdened healthcare system.6,7,8 Due to shortages of personal protective equipment, essential workers in the health care system were at high risk for infection. In response to this crisis, we established (1) a specific and sensitive SARS-CoV-2 binding enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) to measure humoral immune responses,9 and (2) an observational longitudinal cohort of health care workers of the Mount Sinai Health System to determine the kinetics of these humoral responses. This study, named Protection Associated with Rapid Immunity to SARS-CoV-2 (PARIS),10 aims to capture the dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 antibody responses to infection as well as vaccinations, to determine re-infection rates, and to assess correlates of protection in the context of individual immune histories.

With over 8,000 longitudinal study visits across a single cohort during the first 3 years of the pandemic, our investigation represents one of the most extensive and in-depth assessments of the longevity of SARS-CoV-2 immune responses to date. Using this longitudinal cohort, we determined the kinetics of antibody responses to spike protein after infections, during the primary immunization series, during monovalent and bivalent booster vaccination, as well as during breakthrough infections. Our findings indicate that, in contrast to common perception, COVID-19 mRNA vaccination induces long-lasting antibody responses in humans. The PARIS Study also provides insights into the effect of booster vaccination and breakthrough infections on the stability of antibody responses.
What is clear from this study is that antibody levels remain at protective levels for very much longer that was previously thought and that they continue to give protection against the severe form of the disease. However, as the virus evolves in an environment in which the vast majority of possible victims have already been vaccinated or have had previous infections so have high antibody levels, the variants that can 'escape' this protection will continue to evolve and become the predominant variant.

This diagram from UK data shows how the different variants have evolved and either replaced earlier variants or have reached an equilibrium with them:
Changes in proportions of SARS-CoV-2 variants in UK over time. This diagram is a good illustration of how the proportions of different alleles of a gene change in a species gene pool over time as the species evolves.

It is essential then that regular boosters, which provide protection against the latest variants, should continue to be given. We are in a long-term struggle with this virus and vaccines keep us ahead of the game.

Friday 26 January 2024

Malevolent Designer News - How The SARS-CoV-2 Virus Has Been Redesigned to Have Another Go


The emergence of JN.1 is an evolutionary ‘step change’ in the COVID pandemic. Why is this significant?

To anyone but a reality-denying creationist, the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19, is a classic example of evolution by natural selection, as it continually mutates and those mutations that make it more successful are retained, so it continually improves in its ability to infect and be passed on to another victim, so producing more offspring in the virus gene pool than rival versions.

The latest version to gain predominance, JN.1, currently spreading across the world, is yet another variation on the omicron version, which itself ousted delta as the predominant variety. This new improved version may prove to be so different to omicron that is should be given a new Greek letter designation.

One point that shouldn't go unnoticed is that because, unlike the original, the virus now exists in an environment in which most of its potential victims have a degree of immunity to it, either by vaccination or by previous infection. Because that immunity usually means the ability to produce antibodies to the 'spike' proteins on the surface of the virus, most of the mutations of progressively more successful variants are in the genes that code for those proteins - making it more difficult for antibodies to bind to them.

To a creationist, the SARS-CoV-2 virus, like all the other pathological viruses, presents the paradox of trying to believe their putative designer god is the supreme ruler of and creator of everything in, the universe and is the only entity capable of creating biological organisms, but, because it is omnibenevolent, it would not have designed SARS-CoV-2 and would not be responsible for continually redesigning it to continue making us sick, by evading the immune system it supposedly also designed to protect us from viruses and other pathogens.

Curiously, creationists who continually present what they think is evidence of design as evidence for their magic creator on the grounds that it is the only entity capable of biological design, never use evidence of malevolent design as evidence for the same magic creator. That has to be ascribed to another entity with even greater powers than their supposedly supreme-in-all-things god and with the ability to outwit it, even though that claim is blasphemous within their own religious beliefs. They need to hold those two diametrically opposite views of 'creation' simultaneously to continue to deny the evidence for evolution by natural selection of which the SARS-CoV-2 virus is a perfect example.

And those creationists who do actually believe the religion they purport to believe and who won't contemplate blasphemy, have no recourse but to believe that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was not only designed by their putative designer god but that it also regularly updates it to continue making us sick despite the efforts of biomedical scientists, because the alternative it to accept the unthinkable and ascribe it all the a god-free natural process of evolution by natural selection, just as science claims.

The following article by Suman Majumdar, Associate Professor and Chief Health Officer - COVID and Health Emergencies, Burnet Institute; Brendan Crabb, Director and CEO, Burnet Institute; Emma Pakula, Senior Research and Policy Officer, Burnet Institute; and Stuart Turville, Associate Professor, Immunovirology and Pathogenesis Program, Kirby Institute, University of New South Wales, Australia, explains why the emergence of the JN.1 variant of SARS-CoV-2 is a significant evolutionary step change. It is reprinted from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence, reformatted for stylistic consistency:

Wednesday 24 January 2024

Malevolent Designer News - How To Keep Ahead In The COVID Game Against Creationism's Divine Malevolence - Keep Being Boosted


How long does immunity last after a COVID infection?

Creationists stuck with the evidence of parasites and viruses that appear to be designed for two purposes only - making more copies of themselves and increasing the suffering in the world by making us sick and die - traditionally try to ride two horses. They blame something else, like 'The Fall' or 'Sin' for them, whilst still arguing that their putative designer god is supreme in all things and the only entity capable of creating complex organisms.

They also get in a terrible muddle when asked whether their 'designer' god included an immune system to protect us from these parasites when it designed us before 'The Fall', in which case it was planning for it all along, or whether there was a subsequent upgrade to V.1.2, in which case it couldn't have been omniscient and had to redo its design to account for the unforeseen.

But whatever rationalisation creationists can think up for these mutually contradictory beliefs, we are left with the fact that viruses like the SARS-CoV-2 virus and our immune system are locked in an arms race, in which human medical science has had to get involved because the immune system isn't fit for purpose, and the protection it gives us is only temporary.

Meanwhile, medical scientists, aware of the fact that evolution by natural selection is going to continually produce new variants of the virus and that these viruses may become better at evading our defences, continue to apply that knowledge and develop new vaccines against the latest variants.

The following article by Lara Herrero, Research Leader in Virology and Infectious Disease, and Wesley Freppel, Research Fellow, Institute for Glycomics, both of Griffith University, Australia explains why regular vaccination with boosters to keep out immune system primed for the latest iteration of the arms race with a latest version of the virus. The article is reproduced from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence, reformatted for stylistic consistency:

Tuesday 28 November 2023

Antivax COVIDiot News - Study Shows Vaccines Halted The Rise In Prem Births Caused By COVID-19


Covidiot Trumpanzees.
Risking the lives of unborn babies for political ends.
Study: Spike in premature births caused by COVID, halted by vaccines

About the last thing the politically-motivated, far right antivaxxers covidiots are interested in is protecting human life. With characteristic hypocrisy, many of the same frauds are also active campaigners against legal abortions and a woman's right to choose which, together with COVID-19 denialism and antivaxx conspiracism, have become major talking points in the Trumpanzee far right playlist.

The hypocrisy of these frauds was revealed yesterday in a study which shows there was a huge spike in the number of premature births during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic when women infected with the virus spontaneously aborted their baby. The same study also shows that in those areas where the vaccine uptake was high, the premature birth rate quickly fell back to pre-pandemic levels, but in areas where uptake was low, it took another year to return to pre-pandemic levels.

The study was carried out by Professor Jenna Nobles of Wisconsin–Madison University and Professor Florencia Torche, of Stanford University who have published their findings in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

As the Wisconsin–Madison University press release explains:

Tuesday 14 November 2023

Evolution in Progress - How The Different SARS-CoV-2 Variants Rise and Fall In The Population


I came across this the other day while perusing NHS information sources about COVID-19, which is now declining again in UK, having had a brief revival a few weeks ago. It's a chart showing how new variant rise to dominance in the viral population, to be replaced in their turn by newer variants.
Screen clip of page 16 of the National Influenza and COVID-19 surveillance report Week 45
This diagram only covers a year since November 2022.

This, in miniature, is exactly how new gene variants can rise in the species gene pool, depending on how advantageous they are compared to other variants. Some will increase rapidly to become the predominant form and may even stage something of a rally when in competition with a new variant. Some will linger on for a long time as a small proportion of the total, while others will become extinct, or very nearly extinct as newer variants enter the fray. What allows the new variants to increase as a proportion of the total is, of course, that it produces more copies of itself than its rivals do.

Tuesday 3 October 2023

Creationism in Crisis - How Science is Fighting Creationism's Divine Malevolence With Nobel Prize-Winning Science


Nobel prize in medicine awarded to mRNA pioneers – here's how their discovery was integral to COVID vaccine development

Of course, no serious biologist things they are fighting and invisible magic creator in the sky who is actively designing parasites to harm us, or designing anything else, for that matter, but creationists believe that's just what they are doing.

Some even go so far as claiming scientists, together with their technical staff and publishers, are all part of a secret Satanic conspiracy to mislead people about what their god has created, including the parasites and the suffering and misery they cause, apparently.

So, this piece of research must come across to genuine creationists who really do believe what their cult mandates them to believe, as scientists waging a war on their god's creation.

The war, of course, is a war that medical science has always waged against suffering and the causes of suffering, because increasing the sum total of happiness, but reducing the unhappiness in the world, is basic humanist morality - something that would appear to be lacking in creationists' putative intelligent [sic] designer.

A particularly successful recent war was the war against the SARS-CoV-2 virus that caused the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic still raging throughout the world, but thanks to the success of medical science, in a much less virulent form, most people having been protected by the mRNA vaccine developed by Nobel Prize-winning scientists, Dr Katalin Karikó and Dr Drew Weissman of the University of Pennsylvania and a massive world-wide effort to find a vaccine.

First a little about mRNA vaccines:

Tuesday 5 September 2023

Covidiot News - How ChatGPT is Dispelling Anti-Vaxx Disinformation


ChatGPT is Debunking Myths on Social Media Around Vaccine Safety, Say Experts - Taylor & Francis Newsroom

According to a very recent report in the peer-reviewed journal, Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics, the artificial intelligence chat bot, ChatGPT, is helping to dispel some of the myths surrounding vaccines, by providing the factual information that debunks the myths.

Having had all our COVID-19 vaccinations, including any seasonal boosters, and having just recovered from a mild, but unpleasant bout of it which my partner and I probably caught in France or during the flight back, I thought I would put this to the test with a little research of my own:

Tuesday 8 August 2023

Malevolent Designer News - Creationism's Favourite Malevolence's Top 5 Deadliest Pandemics


While I'm sitting here slowly recovering from COVID-19 which my partner and I probably either picked up in France or during the flight home, I thought I would look at some of Creationism's putative intelligent [sic] designer's other successes with lethal pandemics, so I asked my AI app for the 5 deadliest pandemics from known history.

It should be noted that the current COVID-19 pandemic, which is far from over, has to date produced 768,983,095 cases with 6,953,743 deaths and is still producing 352,943 new cases every week (WHO figures as at 2 August, 2023) This despite the fact that 13,492,099,754 (13.5 billion) vaccine doses have been administered.

Given the high mortality rate of in the early months of the pandemic, imagine what the death toll would have been without the assistance of science! Earlier pandemics had no such benefits so direct comparisons are meaningless.

A survey published in The Lancet in June 2022 estimated that about 20 million deaths from COVID-19 had been prevented in the first year following COVID-19 vaccination, so human medical science has deprived the malevolent designer of an even more stunning success with its SARS-CoV-2 virus. If it had occurred a century earlier, it would have ranked about 2 or 3 in the pandemic deaths league table - up there with the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic.

Now for the top 5 pandemics:

Way out in the lead we have the Black Death or Bubonic plague, with 72-200 million deaths.
Please note that my knowledge is based on information available up to September 2021. These references provide more detailed information about each pandemic and their impacts. Additionally, there have been other significant pandemics throughout history, but these five are among the deadliest. [ChatGPT3]

Friday 4 August 2023

Creatinism in Crisis - When Were Humans Given an Immune System?


What happens in our body when we encounter and fight off a virus like the flu, SARS-CoV-2 or RSV?

Having tested positive for COVID-19, I thought I would spend a little time finding out more about what's going on inside my body right now.

But the research has collided with the work I normally do in exposing the absurdity of creationism in all its guises and the futility of trying to force-fit real world evidence into origin myths made up by people from the fearful infancy of our species who thought Earth was just a small flat disc with a dome over it to keep the water above the sky out, centered on the Canaanite Hills where they hearded their goats, told their camp-fire tales of magic sky-gods and imagined it was all made just for them.

What occurred to me is the problem creationists would have if they knew enough about the subject and weren't too afraid to question their cult dogmas. For example: The standard creationist excuse for all the nasty little parasites such as viruses, bacteria, etc., is that they are the result of 'sin' which entered the world because of 'The Fall' (so betraying the fact that creationism isn't the science their cult leaders pretend, but religious superstition after all).

It always amuses me how cult leaders like Michael J. Behe make a big issue of the 'irreducible complexity' of bacteria such as E coli as evidence that creationism putative designer must have designed them, only to have them dismissed on another day in a different argument, as the creation of another 'evil' entity - 'sin'.

But with creationism, the tactic is to use whichever argument will work on the current audience, regardless of if consistence of intellectual integrity.

Incidentally, blaming 'sin' flatly contradicts the claim in the Bible that God told Isaiah that He created evil because he created everything.
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.

Isaiah 45:7 (KJV)
So, either God lied to Isaiah or Isaiah lied in the Bible - or creationist cult leaders are lying to their cult.

But let's forget that bit of Bible awkwardness and think things through a little more:

Humans were allegedly created before 'The Fall' so would have had no need for an immune system, which is our defense, imperfect though it is, against the parasites 'sin' created after 'The Fall'.

So, were we given an immune system after 'The Fall'? There is no mention of a major redesign in the Bible, but wouldn't it have been simpler for the creator to have forgiven Adam and Eve and stopped 'sin' creating these things in the first place? And of course, most multicellular species also have an immune system which wasn't needed before 'The Fall'.

Or, if he was really going to need to have himself sacrificed later in a blood offering first why did he wait several thousand years? Why couldn't he impregnate Eve, have Adam do the dirty deed and solve the problem there and then?

Or did he omnisciently anticipate what would happen and design immune systems for the (future) parasites right from the start? If so, he must have anticipated 'The Fall' and the creative powers of 'sin', including details of what it would create, and being omnipotent, could have stopped it.

Anyway, those are just a few of the many problems that creationism causes for itself by trying to fit reality into such an absurd myth, like trying to ram a large square peg into a small round hole, without changing its shape in any way.

Here then is the account of how our immune system tries, often unsuccessfully because it isn't very efficient, to cope when an infection enters our body. It is an article from The Conversation by Lara Herrero, Research Leader in Virology and Infectious Disease, and Wesley Freppel, Research Fellow, Institute for Glycomics, both of Griffith University, Australia. It is reprinted here under a Creative Commons licence, reformatted for stylistic consistency:

Thursday 20 July 2023

Malevolent Designer News - Why Creationism's Favourite Sadist Gave Some People Protection From COVID-19 - If You Believe That Superstitious Nonsense



Gene Mutation May Explain Why Some Don’t Get Sick from COVID-19 | UC San Francisco

The thing about being a follower of the intelligent [sic] design cult is that you have to believe whatever the 'design' is, that was precisely what your putative intelligent [sic] designer intended to design because, although you should never say so, your designer god is one and the same god that fundamentalist Christians and Moslems believe in, i.e., it is omniscient, omnipotent and inerrant so is incapable of making a mistake.

So, what the cult now has to explain is why their favorite sadist gave some people a gene which protects then against symptomatic COVID-19, but not everyone, if, as the normal excuse for these parasites is valid - i.e., it wasn't God, it was something called 'sin' which creates viruses (and apparently the supreme, omniscient ruler of the universe is powerless to stop it or uncaring enough to not bother, or maybe even unaware of it).

In which case, why create the protective gene?

Of course, a ready explanation which fits in with the intelligent [sic] design superstition is that it wanted a few people to catch COVID-19 but not know they has=d it, so they could spread it around - the infectious but asymptomatic cases that are believed to have been responsible for a great deal of the pandemic's success.

So, creationists need to explain whether their intelligent [sic] designer deliberately created these super-spreaders to infect as many people as possible and if not, what did it create them for and how come it didn't know what the outcome would be? The discovery of this gene was made by a group led by researchers from the University of California San Francisco, who have just published their findings, open access, in Nature. As the UC San Francisco news release explains:

Friday 14 July 2023

Malevolent Designer News - How Creationisms Putative Designer is Hiding its New Improved Version of SARS-CoV-2 for Later.


“Reservoir Species” – USDA Releases Shocking Research on COVID-19 Transmission Between White-Tailed Deer and Humans

White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus)
in 2022, 12.2% were carrying the virus and 31% showed signs of previous exposure.
If you're a malevolent designer and you just had a major triumph with a nasty little virus that killed millions, made many more times that sick, and wrecked economies worldwide, but the human victims hit back with a vaccine that protects them, what do you do?

We'll, if you're creationism's favourite sadist, you don't just give up and allow your victims to win; you have a long-term plan to teach the upstarts a lesson.

Using the fact that immunity to your virus is short-lived because you designed their immune systems that way, you store your nasty little virus away somewhere where there is no vaccine-induced immunity and you can experiment with better, more deadly and more infectious versions of it and wait until your human victims no longer have enough immunity to resist the new, improved, version, then you transfer it back into the human population and sit back to enjoy the suffering again!

And what better than a wild species that humans regularly hunt for food, but which don't need to meet the food-hygiene regulations with which humans normally protect themselves from infections in domesticated species.

In China, this could be practically any species, but in North America, what better species is there than the white-tailed deer, which is regularly hunted for meat?

This, of course, is the sort of thinking an honest, troobuleeving creationist (if there is such a thing) would have to believe, because the evidence is that white tailed deer are a reservoir species harbouring the SARS-CoV-2 and providing an environment in which to mutate and evolve.

This evidence comes from the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) which has just released the results of its first year of sampling white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) for active infection of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. These studies show that SARS-CoV-2 is likely to have spread widely within the U.S. white-tailed deer population.
According to a USDA APHIS news item:

Tuesday 23 May 2023

Malevolent Designer News - The Divine Malevolence's Next Move with it's SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus.

Slideshow code developed in collaboration with ChatGPT3 at https://chat.openai.com/

Arcturus: what to know about the new COVID variant, omicron XBB.1.16

Creationism's divine malevolence excelled itself with the SARS-CoV-2 virus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic, killing millions, making hundreds of millions more sick either in the short term with the initial infection, or long-term with the long-lasting aftereffects experienced by some victims with 'long-COVID'. It managed to achieve a stunning over three-quarters of a billion cases worldwide with nearly 7 million deaths, as of 18 May 2023, not to mention the bankrupted business and ruined national economies.

But human science having hit back with a vaccine produced in record time, it then had to go into an arms race of new, resistant variants to keep it ahead of science. The most successful of those, Omicron, resulted in unprecedented peaks of cases although deaths were relatively low due to the vaccines.

And now, not to be outdone by humans, it has produced the latest variant, a version of Omicron (Omicron XBB.1.16) that epidemiologists have named Arcturus.

Should we be concerned, that Arcturus can evade the immunity conveyed by vaccines, regular booster vaccines and natural immunity due to previous infections? Here is how Manal Mohammed, a Senior Lecturer and Medical Microbiology at the University of Westminster, UK sees it. Her article is reprinted from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence, reformatted for stylistic consistency:




Arcturus: what to know about the new COVID variant, omicron XBB.1.16

Manal Mohammed, University of Westminster

A new COVID variant XBB.1.16, or “Arcturus”, has now been identified in at least 34 countries including the UK.

Arcturus is a subvariant of omicron and was first detected in India in January 2023.

As of April 17, the latest date up to which the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has reported data on this variant in the UK, 105 cases of Arcturus had been sequenced across England. Five Britons who tested positive for Arcturus have died.

It’s important to note that only a small portion of COVID infections undergo genetic sequencing, so it’s likely there are many more cases of Arcturus. The UKHSA recently reported that the variant is making up 2.3% of sequences in the UK.

Meanwhile, Arcturus has been steadily rising in the US in recent weeks, accounting for more than 10% of new confirmed COVID cases as of the end of April.

But the variant has been most dominant in India, which had recorded 61% of global sequences of Arcturus as of mid-April. It has driven a huge increase in cases in India over the past month. The country was recording more than 10,000 COVID cases each day with Arcturus making up about two-thirds of all cases. Fortunately this wave now appears to be on the decline.

Nonetheless, Arcturus has been classified as a variant of interest by the World Health Organization. So what do we know about this variant, and should we be worried?
Where did Arcturus come from?

XBB.1.16 is a descendant of XBB, a recombinant omicron strain, meaning it contains genetic material from two different variants. Specifically, XBB is a mixture of two BA.2 sublineages: BA.2.10.1 and BA.2.75.

XBB has shown increased transmissibility relative to earlier variants, probably because it appears to be better at evading existing immunity from vaccination and prior infections.

Arcturus is very closely related to XBB.1.5, also known as Kraken.

Compared with its parent strain XBB, Arcturus has three additional mutations in the spike protein: E180V, F486P and K478R. This is a protein on the surface of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID) which allows it to bind to and infect our cells.

Arcturus is understood to be the most contagious subvariant yet, and these additional mutations might explain why.
A young woman puts on a mask.
COVID is still with us.

The typical symptoms of COVID include fever, cough, runny nose and loss of sense of taste or smell. However, doctors in India have reported conjunctivitis symptoms in children infected with Arcturus, which has not generally been seen in earlier COVID waves.

What about vaccine protection?

COVID vaccines target the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2. As such, mutations in the spike protein may affect how well the vaccines work.

There is no data yet on vaccine efficacy against Arcturus. However, a recent study found that among people who had been vaccinated or previously infected, the antibody responses generated against closely related strains XBB and XBB.1 were significantly lower than against other variants.

So XBB subvariants could threaten current COVID vaccines and therapeutics. But importantly, it’s likely vaccines still offer good protection against severe disease.

While further studies are needed to confirm how Arcturus responds to vaccines, scientists are continuing work on new vaccines that could offer stronger protection against emerging variants.

The continued evolution of omicron

Although omicron was first detected in late 2021 it continues to evolve resulting in new subvariants. Arcturus is one of some 600 detected to date.

This is to be expected in a highly vaccinated population. New variants naturally evolve to evade existing defences. Those strains with a competitive advantage – namely greater transmissibility and capacity to escape our immune response – will dominate. Arcturus may yet fuel a rise in cases in the UK and elsewhere.
However, there is no great cause for concern. While scientists will continue to monitor Arcturus, there’s no evidence at this stage to suggest it’s more severe than previous variants. In addition, we have good protection now from vaccines and natural infection.

That said, the continued evolution of COVID and the emergence of new strains such as Arcturus is a reminder that the virus is still with us. For those eligible for further boosters, it’s important to keep these up to date. The Conversation
Manal Mohammed, Senior Lecturer, Medical Microbiology, University of Westminster

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Published by The Conversation.
Open access. (CC BY 4.0)
I'm still waiting for an intelligent reply explaining why creationists would rather we thought of their putative designer god as a pestilential malevolence forever designer new and better ways to make its creation suffer, than have people accept that the theory of evolution explains the origins of parasites like the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus as a natural process, without the intervention of a supernatural deity - which would let their favourite genocidal monster off the hook.

Saturday 1 April 2023

Trumpanzee News - Success of The MAGA Cult's Self-Inflicted Genocide With COVID-19

Trumpanzee News

Success of The MAGA Cult's Self-Inflicted Genocide With COVID-19

Excess death gap widens between U.S. and Europe, study finds: U.S. has an increasingly high proportion of excess deaths compared to five European countries -- ScienceDaily

Figures published in PLOS a few days ago point to an astonishing success rate for the self-inflicted genocide campaign waged by the MAGA/Trumpanzee cult during the COVID-19 pandemic between 2020 and 2021.

Probably as a result of the antivaxx campaign and the evangelical Christian and Repugnican-led campaign against the measures to impede the spread of the virus and lower pressure on health services such as social distancing, prohibiting indoor gatherings and wearing face-masks, the 'excess deaths' gap between Europe and the USA grew even wider.

Saturday 25 March 2023

Malevolent Designer News - Creationists Hoping to Blame the Chinese For SARS-CoV-2 Have Just Had Their Forlorn Hopes Dashed


Creationists Hoping to Blame the Chinese For SARS-CoV-2 Have Just Had Their Forlorn Hopes Dashed
Malevolent Designer News

Creationists Hoping to Blame the Chinese For SARS-CoV-2 Have Just Had Their Forlorn Hopes Dashed
Malevolent Designer News

Creationists Hoping to Blame the Chinese For SARS-CoV-2 Have Just Had Their Forlorn Hopes Dashed
Malevolent Designer News

Creationists Hoping to Blame the Chinese For SARS-CoV-2 Have Just Had Their Forlorn Hopes Dashed
Malevolent Designer News

Creationists Hoping to Blame the Chinese For SARS-CoV-2 Have Just Had Their Forlorn Hopes Dashed
Malevolent Designer News

Creationists Hoping to Blame the Chinese For SARS-CoV-2 Have Just Had Their Forlorn Hopes Dashed
Malevolent Designer News

Creationists Hoping to Blame the Chinese For SARS-CoV-2 Have Just Had Their Forlorn Hopes Dashed
Malevolent Designer News

Creationists Hoping to Blame the Chinese For SARS-CoV-2 Have Just Had Their Forlorn Hopes Dashed
Malevolent Designer News

Creationists Hoping to Blame the Chinese For SARS-CoV-2 Have Just Had Their Forlorn Hopes Dashed
Malevolent Designer News

Creationists Hoping to Blame the Chinese For SARS-CoV-2 Have Just Had Their Forlorn Hopes Dashed
Malevolent Designer News

Creationists Hoping to Blame the Chinese For SARS-CoV-2 Have Just Had Their Forlorn Hopes Dashed
Malevolent Designer News

Creationists Hoping to Blame the Chinese For SARS-CoV-2 Have Just Had Their Forlorn Hopes Dashed

Wuhan wet market
The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in the city of Wuhan

Photo credit: Noel Celis/AFP/Getty Images
China's only now revealed crucial COVID-19 origins data. Earlier disclosure may have saved us 3 years of political argy-bargy

There has always been little doubt in scientific circles that the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 is a zoonotic virus that evolved in another mammal and then transferred to humans.

The problem this causes for Creationism is that their dogma insists that evolution doesn't happen, and everything is created by their supposedly omniscient, omnipotent god, making this god look like a pestilential malevolence.

Some have tried to rationalise this belief by invoking a process, (or a substance) called 'sin' which also has the powers of sentient creation which their supposedly omnipotent god is powerless to control, apparently. This usually leaves the apologist for creationism floundering to explain how exactly this 'sin' thing creates living organisms which their dogma says can only be intelligently designed.

So, the brighter ones have been hoping to get away with the claim that the virus was invented by Chinese scientists in a laboratory in Wuhan. The problem with that notion is that it clashes with their assertion that science can't create life.

Ah well! You can't have everything!

And that claim, echoing former president Donald Trump's panicky response, calling it a 'Chinese Virus', as though viruses have nationality, and calling them names makes them go away, was given some credence recently when a review by the US Department of Energy [sic] concluded 'with low confidence' (in other words, with a high probability of being wrong, but we'll say it anyway!) that the virus did leak out of the Wuhan laboratory.

Being fully signed-up members of the Trumpanzee cult, most Creationists would love their idol, the serial adulterer, liar and crook, Donald Trump, America's worst ever president, to have been right.

But that 'conclusion' has now been debunked and we are back to the most probable explanation being zoonosis in a Chinese wet market where wild animals are sold for human consumption.
That is the conclusion of Dominic Dwyer, Director of Public Health Pathology, New South Wales Health Pathology, Westmead Hospital and University of Sydney, Australia, who was involved in the initial investigation of the origins of the virus early in the pandemic, writing in The Conversation.

His article is reprinted here under a Creative Commons Licence, reformatted for stylistic consistency. The original me be read here.



China’s only now revealed crucial COVID‑19 origins data. Earlier disclosure may have saved us 3 years of political argy‑bargy

Dominic Dwyer, University of Sydney Once more, we’re talking about the origins of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

First the US Department of Energy’s review gave more emphasis to the laboratory leak hypothesis than previously, although the confidence for this conclusion was low.

Second, and more importantly, is the release and analysis this week of viral and animal genetic material collected from the Huanan wet market in Wuhan, the place forever associated with the beginning of the pandemic.

It’s a subject close to me. I was the Australian representative on the international World Health Organization (WHO) investigation into the origins of SARS-CoV-2. I went to Wuhan on a fact-finding mission in early 2021. I visited the now-closed market.

Now we have stronger evidence that places raccoon dogs at the market as a possible animal reservoir of SARS-CoV-2, potentially infecting humans.

If we’d had this evidence three years ago, we need to ask ourselves how different recent history would have been. We would have reduced the enormous energy, media frenzy and political argy-bargy about less likely hypotheses of the pandemic’s origins. We might have better focused our research attention.
The twists, turns and puzzles

Samples were taken from various places in the market, in January 2020, within weeks of the early COVID-19 cases in Wuhan. SARS-CoV-2 RNA and human DNA were identified in these environmental samples, although no animal swabs were positive for the virus.

This was presented to the WHO team investigating the origins of the pandemic in January 2021, of which I was part.

The work was published as a preprint (posted online, before being independently verified) in February 2022.

The underlying “metagenomic” data to support the conclusions in the preprint – that SARS-CoV-2 and human (but not animal) sequences were present – needed to be provided to allow further analyses. This is something that is generally required by journals and regarded as appropriate in the spirit of scientific openness and collaboration.

However, it wasn’t until early March 2023 that the international community had access to the data.

That’s when there was a “drop” of these environmental metagenomic sequences into the GISAID database, the international open access repository of viral sequences.

This allowed an independent team of international experts to analyse them. In a startling revelation, they identified large amounts of raccoon dog and other animal DNA in conjunction with SARS-CoV-2. Raccoon dogs can be readily infected with SARS-CoV-2 and can transmit it. The international team published their observations as a preprint earlier this week.
Raccoon dogs can be readily infected with SARS-CoV-2 and can transmit it.
Credit: Shutterstock
Of note was the physical co-location of these virus and animal sequences in the corner of what is a very large market, the corner associated with early human cases. It is now known (but initially rejected by Chinese authorities) that wild and farmed animals were sold in this area of the market.

After the sequences were analysed by the international team, the Chinese scientists who had performed the market testing were contacted for comment and discussion – especially around the important observation that mixed in among the SARS-CoV-2 sequences were a large proportion of raccoon dog and other animal DNA.

The sequences were then withdrawn from the GISAID database within a few hours of the study authors being approached. This is perhaps unusual for an open database such as GISAID, and clarity could be sought why this occurred.
Why is this work important?

This latest work does not prove raccoon dogs were definitely the source of SARS-CoV-2. Presumably, they are likely to have been an intermediate host between bats and humans. Bats harbour many coronaviruses, including ones related to SARS-CoV-2.

However, the data fits the narrative of the animal/human connections of SARS-CoV-2.

This, along with other examination of animal links to SARS-CoV-2, should be taken in the context of the lack of robust data to support the other SARS-CoV-2 origins hypotheses, such as a laboratory leak, contaminated frozen food, and acquisition outside China. Bit by bit, the evidence supports animal origins of the outbreak, centred on the Huanan market in Wuhan.

The length of time taken for this early work to surface and the difficulty in accessing the raw data are unfortunate, points made recently by the WHO.

Sympathetically, one might say, the wrong analysis of the original data collected in early 2020 was undertaken and the researchers missed the animal links.

Cynically, (and without evidence) one might say that the significance of the data was recognised, but not made readily available. This is a question for the Chinese researchers at the Chinese Center for Disease Control to answer.

What are the implications of this delay?

If this had been identified in early 2020 then further studies to understand the viral origins in animals could have been undertaken.

Three years on, it is very difficult to do such studies, tracking backwards from the now closed market to the animal sources and the people who handled these animals.

Clearer answers would have taken some of the heat out of the debate around the possible viral origins. Of course, all hypotheses should remain on the table, but some of these could have been much better explored with earlier data.

Would it have changed the course of the pandemic? Probably not. The virus had already spread worldwide and adapted very well to human-to-human transmission by the time this work was available. However, it would have driven research in better directions and improved future pandemic planning.
What now?

Lessons for the future are obvious. Open disclosure of sequence data is the best way to undertake scientific investigation, especially for something of such international significance.

Making data unavailable, or not reaching out for assistance in complicated analyses, only slows the process.

The resulting political to and fro by all countries, particularly the US and China, has meant that suspicion has deepened, and progress slowed even further.

Although WHO has been criticised for errors in how it managed the pandemic, and in collating data to understand the origins and progress future research, it remains the best international agency to foster open sharing of data.

Scientists, for the most part, want to do the right thing and find the answers to important questions. Facilitating this is crucial.
The Conversation Dominic Dwyer, Director of Public Health Pathology, NSW Health Pathology, Westmead Hospital and University of Sydney, University of Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Published by The Conversation.
Open access. (CC BY 4.0)
That just leaves Creationists with two possibilities: either their putative designer god malevolently designed the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the full, omniscient knowledge of what it would do, or the virus is a zoonotic species which probably evolved out of a bat virus, maybe via another mammal, albeit an evolutionary process facilitated unwittingly by the Chinese cultural practice of consuming a diverse range of wild mammals.
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