Innovation Pharmaceuticals Inc (IPIX)

[farrell90]

Variants continue to spread in the US accounting for 27% of new cases. New variant outbreaks now in Michigan and Florida.

Brilacidin seems to be needed now more than ever.

GLTA,

Farrell

From the NYT 4/3

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/03/health/coronavirus-variants-vaccines.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article&action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article


"Even as vaccines were authorized late last year, illuminating a path to the pandemic’s end, variants were trouncing Britain, South Africa and Brazil. New variants have continued to pop up — in California one week, in New York and Oregon the next. As they take root, these new versions of the coronavirus threaten to postpone an end to the pandemic.

At the moment, most vaccines appear to be effective against the variants. But public health officials are deeply worried that future iterations of the virus may be more resistant to the immune response, requiring Americans to queue up for regular rounds of booster shots or even new vaccines..."

"“We don’t have evolution on our side,” said Devi Sridhar, a professor of public health at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. “This pathogen seems to always be changing in a way that makes it harder for us to suppress.”

"Health officials acknowledge an urgent need to track these new viruses as they crawl across the United States. Already, B.1.1.7, the highly contagious variant that walloped Britain and is wreaking havoc in continental Europe, is rising exponentially in the United States.

Limited genetic testing has turned up more than 12,500 cases, many in Florida and Michigan. As of March 13, the variant accounted for about 27 percent of new cases nationwide, up from just 1 percent in early February."

“We didn’t quite anticipate how quickly it was going to occur.”

"A variant is of concern only if it is more contagious, causes more severe disease, or blunts the immune response. The variants identified in Britain, South Africa, Brazil and California all fit the criteria.

B.1.1.7, the first to come to widespread attention, is about 60 percent more contagious and 67 percent more deadly than the original form of the virus, according to the most recent estimates.

The variant is no different from the original in how it spreads, but infected people seem to carry more of the virus and for longer, said Katrina Lythgoe, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Oxford. “You’re more infectious for more days,” she said.

So contagious is B.1.1.7 that Britain succeeded in driving down infections only after nearly three months of strict stay-at-home orders, plus an aggressive vaccination program. Even so, cases fell much more slowly than they did during a similar lockdown in March and April."

Poland’s rate of daily new cases has quintupled since mid-February, forcing the closure of most public venues. Germany’s has doubled, triggering a ban on nighttime gatherings in Berlin.

In France, where B.1.1.7 is causing three-quarters of new infections, some hospitals have had to move coronavirus patients to Belgium to free up beds. Roughly as many people are dying each day from Covid-19 in Europe as were this time a year ago.

For too long, government officials disregarded the threat. “Case plateaus can hide the emergence of new variants,” said Carl Pearson, a research fellow at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. “And the higher those plateaus are, the worse the problem is.”

In the United States, coronavirus infections began a rapid decline in January, soon prompting many state leaders to reopen businesses and ease restrictions. But scientists repeatedly warned that the drop would not last. After the rate bottomed out at about 55,000 cases and 1,500 deaths per day in mid-March, some states — notably Michigan — began seeing an uptick.

Since then, the national numbers have steadily risen. As of Saturday, the daily count was up to nearly 69,000, and the weekly average was 19 percent higher than the figure two weeks earlier.

Even when cases were falling, researchers questioned the notion that vaccinations were the reason. Millions of Americans are immunized every day, but even now only 31 percent have received a single dose of a vaccine, and just 17 percent of the population have full protection, leaving a vast majority susceptible.

“The fact is that we’re still in a position now where we don’t have enough vaccinated people,” said Kristian Andersen, a virologist at the Scripps Research in San Diego. “And if we, like Texas, say we’re done with Covid-19, B.1.1.7 will come in and remind us that we are not right. I have no doubt about it.”

“I still don’t think we’re out of the woods,” Dr. Cobey said, referring to the country at large. “If we don’t have another wave this spring, then I’m going to be really, really worried about the fall.”

"While most vaccines are effective against B.1.1.7, researchers are increasingly concerned about other variants that contain a mutation called E484K. (Scientists often refer to it, appropriately, as “Eek.”)

This mutation has evolved independently in many variants worldwide, suggesting that it offers the virus a powerful survival advantage.

In laboratory studies, the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines seem to be slightly less effective against B.1.351, the variant identified in South Africa. That variant contains the Eek mutation, which seems to enable the virus to partly sidestep the body’s immune response. The vaccines made by Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca and Novavax were even less potent against B.1.351.

“I think for the next year or two, E484K will be the most concerning” mutation, said Jesse Bloom, an evolutionary biologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.

The mutation slightly alters the so-called spike protein sitting on the surface of the coronavirus, making it just a bit harder for antibodies to latch on and destroy the invader.

The good news is that the virus seems to have just a few survival tricks in its bag, and that makes it easier for scientists to find and block those defenses. “I’m feeling pretty good about the fact that there aren’t that many choices,” said Michel Nussenzweig, an immunologist at Rockefeller University in New York.

The Eek mutation seems to be the virus’s primary defense against the immune system. Researchers in South Africa recently reported that a new vaccine directed against B.1.351 ought to fend off all other variants, as well.

Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna already are testing newly designed booster shots against B.1.351 that should work against any variants known to blunt the immune response.

Instead of a new vaccine against variants, however, it may be just as effective for Americans to receive a third dose of the Pfizer-BioNtech or Moderna vaccines in six months to a year, said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious disease."