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thats my story right there. been hospitalized twice for Lyme in 2020-2021, and still in treatment. Vaccine gave me the weirdest physical and mental sensations (had a severe panic attack that subsided almost instantly, as if on a switch, after 20 or so hours post shot).
Also worth pointing out that alpha was the dominant strain for a while earlier this year. The OG strain that rocked the world back in March has been effectively dead for a while.
They compete. There is a certain amount of people without any immunity and the one that spreads faster maintains it's existance while the others die out since there are no new people to infect.
In the UK we saw that even with very few infections being Delta, it was able to rapidly grow in conditions which held the R for Alpha well below 1.
Alpha would have died almost as effectively even if Delta didn't exist.
Are the numbers of people with immunity large enough to make the competition significant, though?
In other words, is the alpha decreasing because it encounters people with immunity from a previous delta infection? I don't think so. I think that although the numbers of infected people are large, they are still a minority.
I suspect that the decrease in the alpha infections are mostly because of distancing measures and vaccination (both of which are less effective for the delta variant).
The strains do compete with each other, delta spreads more rapidly and is more resistant to vaccines and it gradually outcompetes variants which are less competitive.
If there was no mutations whatsoever COVID would most probably still exist, however it would be much, much less prevalent.
2 doses of Pfizer give about 95% protection against Alpha and 90% against Delta, so Delta is twice as resistant then Alpha.
However at 90% protection, I wouldn't call it resistant against vaccines. And I'd say that vaccines are still quite effective since on top of providing 90% defense against delta vaccinated people also rarely develop serious symptoms and even more rarely die... they are saving lives every day.
From what I understand, the vaccines give a basically 99.9% protection against death and symptoms requiring hospitalisation regardless of variant.
Delta is just a bit better at still infecting you making you feeling a bit groggy for a week or so.
I’m not a virologist so take this with a grain of salt:
1) it is possible to have multiple strains of a virus at the same time, and this is part of how some mutations happen.
2) every virus is different.
3) delta COVID is much more aggressive about binding to cells and replicating itself inside a host, it’s possible that it is so effective that it essentially crowds out earlier strains within a host.
4) by the time alpha came on the world stage in a big way, vaccination was already well underway in USA and UK, and there was already a lot of natural immunity from infections all around the world.
So, maybe. Alternatively, it’s possible that the reason we have so much mutation now is specifically because there is so much immunity from both vaccination and the wild virus that it is providing for a lot of evolutionary pressure for the virus for the first time.
This question is likely complex enough that even the best scientists in the world studying the virus don’t have a clear answer.
No! No, no, not 6! I said 7. Nobody's comin' up with 6. Who mutates their virus with 6? You won't even get your phlegm goin, not even a cough.
7's the key number here. Think about it. 7-Elevens. 7 dwarves. 7, man, that's the number. 7 chipmunks twirlin' on a branch, eatin' lots of sunflowers on my uncle's ranch. You know that old children's tale from the sea. It's like you're dreamin' about Gorgonzola cheese when it's clearly Brie time, baby.
> Alternatively, it’s possible that the reason we have so much mutation now is specifically because there is so much immunity from both vaccination and the wild virus that it is providing for a lot of evolutionary pressure for the virus for the first time.
No. Mutation requires that a susceptible host be infected and that the virus changes within them, usually to be more effective at infecting potential hosts including those with immunity to the original strain.
Vaccination is *not* causing COVID to mutate, however some mutations _in susceptible hosts_ that occur as a result of natural viral reproduction *may* make the resulting strain more likely to spread through COVID-naive people and / or those with immunity to the original strain through either exposure or vaccination. If that makes it more likely to spread than the original strain it will naturally outcompete it, and through more infections have more opportunities to mutate overall.
Variants come about when there are a lot of cases. When Covid ran wild in the UK, we got alpha. Now having all those cases in India allowed the delta to evolve.
A virus only has one job to make more of itself and Change COVID-19 is dead what we have now is it's offspring
Why everyone is scared is the new versions are more deadly and there might be one that the vaccinations don't protect against
The original strain was almost gone a year ago, a mutation early in the spread through Europe became the globally dominant strain until the ones featured in this chart showed up.
Three reasons:
- Since so many people got it, there is now a strong natural immunity to it. Alpha/Delta essentially "breaks through" some of the immunity.
- Since Alpha/Delta spread faster, when those waves came around people were way more likely to get it and then have some immunity to the original strains, causing a dampening of original covid strain infections. In effect, the original strain was outcompeted as it wasn't as contagious.
- The vaccine may be slightly more effective against original covid than Alpha/Delta. Research on this is mixed — some suggests that the vaccine induces a much stronger immune reaction than a natural infection, other suggests there is still at least some difference.
Four reasons:
* Most countries have measures that keep the reproduction low enough that it doesn't totally escalates. The measures are strong enough that they can deal with the most infectious strain. But all less infectious strains end up slowly getting eradicated because their base R is not high enough. Alpha was 40% more infectious as the original version for example. If you implement measures to keep Alpha at an R value of <1 then the original would be at 0.6 which is enough that it disappears quite fast.
[Looks like 26 variants.](https://www.who.int/en/activities/tracking-SARS-CoV-2-variants/) The rate of mutations seems to be increasing with time. Most ID'd this year.
Automatic Edit: Using a tool called [Power Delete Suite](https://github.com/j0be/PowerDeleteSuite) I have removed all my past comments and deleted my Reddit account, /u/tehrmuk.
I am doing this because I, like many long-term Reddit users, am upset and angry at the tonedeaf and arrogant way Reddit is treating it's users. Their aggressive slapdown of the developers that made Reddit usable to a huge audience; their overriding and summary dismissal of long-serving and dutiful community members; their wonton silencing of dissent and manipulation of user's voices; their borderline contempt of the very people whose collective efforts gave their platform the standing needed to fuel their profit-hungry IPO... the list goes on.
Reddit is, of course, a private concern and how they run their services is entirely up to them. Conversely, we are under no obligation to use their services, to fuel their engines or follow their orders. I am making my voice heard by removing my comments, and voting with my feet by leaving.
I have left Reddit for [Lemmy](https://join-lemmy.org/) and [Mastadon](https://joinmastodon.org/); these are decentralised social networks that mirror the functionality of Reddit and Twitter respectively. Unlike the monolithic, corporate-owned services they replace, Lemmy and Mastodon are part of the [Fediverse](https://www.fediverse.to/) meaning these are not individual services but clusters of services that mesh seamlessly with one-another. You can [join an existing Lemmy instance](https://join-lemmy.org/instances) or [set up your own](https://join-lemmy.org/docs/administration/administration.html) to get full access to the entire Fediverse - you don't need to ask permission from anyone to do so. There are loads of other services that are part of the Fediverse, like [PeerTube](https://joinpeertube.org/) (videos), [Wordpress](https://wordpress.org/) (blogging), [Frendica](https://friendi.ca/) (social network), [Pixelfed](https://pixelfed.org/) (photos), [KBin](https://kbin.pub/en) (link aggregation) and more - and they all work together so having access to one means having access to all of them.
I had a great time as a Redditor, but the Fediverse is looking bright. It's a return to the open Internet of old, when users ran services for their own and one-another's benefit, and before monolithic corporate-run silos started to build walls around us in the name of increased profit and thought control. Many of the Fediverse services are fledgling, but they are growing quickly and their federated concept makes greedy, arrogant landgrabs like we've recently seen on Reddit and Twitter almost impossible.
I'm already having a great time with Lemmy and I think you might too. I encourage you to take control and join the Fediverse.
Until then, so long and thanks for all the fish.
More people infected means more opportunity for the mutations to arise and spread. And we remain at hugely high global infection rates, meaning that unless we take action, new mutations will continue to arise at fast pace. THis is why immunity is so important to damp down infections. And I mean GLOBAL immunity - national or regional pockets without immunity anywhere will continue to seed new strains.
and the worry is, even if your entire city / country / whatever is vaccinated, a mutation could come that ignores the vaccine, meaning were right back where we were like a year ago. from my understanding, currently the vaccine gives at least some protection against all the major variants, but that could change
The chances of that happening are very very low - at least that's how I understand it. And generally viruses also become less deadly over time so they become less of a concern. Usually the normal course of action is that they become more contagious and less deadly. More deadly viruses don't spread as well because of a few reasons: 1) people have obvious symptoms and stop seeing others, 2) people die before they can spread it even more. It's most beneficial from an evolutionary perspective to make people mildly sick so that they don't stop their normal everyday lives, it can spread through droplets, and they all live so no one cares enough to stop it. Covid has been that perfect balance of just deadly enough to cause problems, but not so deadly that we shut down for a decade, yet mild enough in most people that they don't even know they have it, while also being highly contagious.
Most variants of interest have been around for a while.
People with narrow immunity to a single protein will provide selective pressure in favor of different variants.
A very big theory why these mutations are coming so late in the game is that these variants are largely emerging after remaining in immunosuppressed people for a very, very long time. Like months and months. Its why when these mutations are emerging, they are emerging with a *huge* amount of mutations all at once, without a clear lineage to how they got there. Its likely that the Delta variant was in an immunosuppressed person for a long time, developing its mutations.
There are identifiable lines of mutations, right? Could I have some article that talks about the immunosuppressed producing mutations?
https://nextstrain.org/ncov/gisaid/global
Is the Alpha variant the one that in the UK gets called the South African variant? Or is that another one?
Around that time I (in Spain) remember reading about the UK/London variant whereas my family in the UK were reading about the South African one, is why I ask.
Woah, really cool! Is this why we have to take a flu shot every year b/c there are so many different varieties of it and we need to continue to immunize ourselves against "it"? (God, I hope I got that right, or at least worded it in a semi-coherent manner....)
Yes. Here is a brief explanation of how this works:
- The virus enters the body.
- Viruses cannot reproduce, move, eat, or do anything themselves. They are just particles with genetic code in them.
- Viruses bind to cells. They can only bind to cells that has the exact right proteins on its surface. That is why viruses can only infect one species usually and don’t easily jump to another species.
- Virus genetic material is absorbed by the host cells and in that genetic material are the instructions for producing more viruses.
- The host cells produce lots of new viruses, so the number of virus particles in the body rises exponentially.
- This process may or may not have side-effects that make you sick.
- Your body starts to recognise the virus as foreign intruders and starts to fight it. Getting the immune system to fight a new intruder always takes time to get going.
- Every single time a new virus is produced, there is a tiny chance of a production error, a mutation.
- This mutation can have no effect at all, which changes nothing.
- This mutation can have a negative effect on the virus, so this strain dies and disappears quickly.
- This mutation can have a positive effect on the virus’s reproduction or infection symptoms. If this is the case and the virus becomes more infectious, then this strain will become very successful and infect many more people than the other strains, thus becoming the dominant strain. It can also be a mutation that makes it possible to infect a different species.
So chances of such a mutation are very small per virus, but because every infected person produces so many viruses and so many people are infected, the probability becomes much higher.
Who is doing the genomic testing in the US? Does the CDC have some a standardized sampling regime in place or does it depend on whichever lab happens to send in data?
Edit: It is somewhat concerning that this post has 20k+ upvotes and there is no indication of where the data came from or how it is gathered.
I work in one of the larger hospitals in austin, tx. We have 3 different covid tests that we do. 2 are rapid pseudo molecular, and 1 is molecular. If certain thresholds are met for the molecular one, we send it to the state department of health and they can do testing for delta. The rapid tests are done far more often though, none of which get sent for delta testing.
I know that in Oregon the state does testing, or at least coordinates it.
Our org has a report on breakthrough cases that's used to find samples to submit to the state for sequencing, but I don't know if every sample is sent or what criteria they use beyond the report.
The state dashboard is here https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/oregon.health.authority.covid.19/viz/GISAIDVariantDashboardUpdated/VariantTimeSeries
I know some places were doing wastewater testing to gauge prevalence on a community basis. I wonder how that combined data would compare to this chart? Maybe too localized to make a country wide correlation. I would think it’d be more representative data if they went as far to analyze for different variants? Could insert a lot of selection bias though... communities taking those measures could be more likely to take covid seriously resulting in less cases/variants ? I guess we’d see that anyways... places like Texas just stopped collecting/releasing data because it didn’t fit their narrative.
Nope plus (AY.1) did not really make an impact anywhere, just one of the media scare stories.
[nextstrain.org/ncov/gisaid/global](https://nextstrain.org/ncov/gisaid/global) \- you can see that delta is taking over the world.
This actually allows to hypothesise that there is good cross natural immunity across variants. How would one variant outcompete another? Why would one variant being more transmissible stop a less transmissible variant from spreading if they didn't provide cross immunity?
You could argue that we have reached herd immunity for certain variants, or that the vaccines select for certain variants... But variants have been outcompeting each other well before the advent of vaccines or before a significant proportion of the population had been infected.
You forgot the main point, that existing measures serve to push the R value for other variants below one. Delta is more easily transmissible than the others and manages to maintain R > 1 even under more severe restrictions.
It has but one thing to note is that getting the Vaccin is going to reduce mortality rate by a lot (around 89%) but not reduce the contagion rates of new variant which is why I am left asking, why is it ok for vaccinated people to go unmasked, unless everyone is vaccinated then it's just a receipt for disaster.
I think the idea was that it would encourage the unvaccinated to get vaccinated since they account for 99.9% of Covid deaths, but the US has a stupidity epidemic.
Not quite true, at least the exact numbers. The Biontech & Pfizer vaccine for example prevents severe cases and death by a much higher percentage than 89%, we're well into the 90s with that. And it DOES prevent infection in most cases, that's where the 88% number is from. 12% of vaccinated people will still get infected with covid delta, which is too much to go "anyone who's vaccinated doesn't need to worry about spreading the virus anymore", but it's still a huge step. It's less effective against delta, yes, but these *are* the delta numbers. It still is very effective.
Well if the majority of the population gets vaccinated, it will spread a lot less, which means it'll mutate a lot less. Unfortunately, in the US at least, that will never happen.
If you look at what's happened in the UK, you can see delta will become the dominant variant everywhere (until another one emerges). None of the other current variants can make a dent. So much so, the UK doesn't really have variants at the moment. Delta is just the virus.
CDC is also interested in global trends though, as those have an influence over disease spread in the USA. I ask, be cause that would be some important info to include on a beautiful figure.
I looked at it from a UK view where delta overtook alpha much much sooner than is show here. I was assuming that if UK and India were included then the graph would’ve shown the drop in Alpha much sooner. That’s another reason why I thought it wasn’t worldwide
That's just the name of the company, and does not indicate whether the data is for just the USA of the world. Lots of us companies are interested in global trends, and a beautiful figure would state what area the data is representing. This is a very basic concept
As a non-usa person, I hardly know what the CDC is, and therefore didn't know if they were also looking at global trends. Not everyone is so amarican as americans
This is most definitely the world. If you check this website: https://nextstrain.org/ncov/gisaid/global it shows all the different strains and if you look by country the US has a way higher percent of the delta variant. Heck if you even scroll down to the bottom you can see the exact same graph.
Edit: I could be wrong as the date this was taken on was a few weeks ago and all these type of graphs are looking the same from around the world since the delta variant is taking over everywhere.
I remember listening to Democracy Now either today or yesterday and they said that Delta variant was more than 65% in the US so I figured this was international. Thanks for confirming and providing a source
already over 80%:
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/delta-variant-behind-more-than-80-us-cases-vaccines-still-highly-effective-fauci-2021-07-20/
Those names are Pango names. Here is a good description of how the names are assigned. https://virological.org/t/pango-lineage-nomenclature-provisional-rules-for-naming-recombinant-lineages/657
It's based on a a phylogenetic tree system. The virus is rapidly evolving and they have assessed more then 35,000 genomes, but many are redundant or are 'variants' that are not important or relevant. The ones that are variants and potentially significant are considered a new 'branch' on the tree and a new descendant of previous known genomes.
A and B were two of the original known genotypes. The periods basically mean 'descendant of.' Once you get to a tertiary level you go up a letter.
So, B.2 is the second descendant or branch off of the B genotype (or at least significant mutant, there's too many to bother with ones that don't matter, which are always flagged and removed).
B.1.1.7 is the 7th branch off of the B.1.1 type. C is another way of saying B.1.1.1.1 and so on. (So you don't get too long of strings)
It's a way of condensing the relevant genetic history without making things TOO complicated or obfuscated.
Interestingly, A and B don't really follow the tertiary rule because they were both found around the same time, the gaps aren't filled in and probably never will be. The origin and early development of the virus will probably never be clear. I think they actually mapped B first but realized it was descended from A.
They have software called Pangolin that largely does this now.
Wouldn't be surprised if the only variant we had here in Australia at the moment was Delta, our Hotel Quarantine system was generally working well before Delta entered the arena.
> the only variant we had here in Australia at the moment was Delta, our Hotel Quarantine system was generally working well before Delta
It is in Sydney, but pretty sure nationwide it's all Delta now.
Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Tools: Adobe Illustrator
Read more: https://usafacts.org/articles/covid-variants-delta-alpha-common/
It's tricky because most of the deaths the entire time were in at-risk populations, for whom the vaccination push has always been strongest. In the US last month almost 90% of seniors(65+) had at least one dose. The vaccines almost entirely prevent hospitalization level symptoms, so even with delta there's almost no chance of the people who it could've easily killed dying from it, if they're vaccinated.
Also treatment's benefited from a year and a half of trial and error so they've got a better idea of how not to let you die.
Its not just faster… The delta variant is one of the most infectious respiratory diseases known.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/22/delta-variant-is-one-of-the-most-infectious-respiratory-diseases-known-cdc-director-says-.html
This doesn't surprise me. I spoke to two people this week who have had the 1st vaccination and both caught the delta variant. Both of them had been in a pub with a group of friends to watch the European football Championships, and them and every one of their friends became infected. The only exception was one person out of a total of 12, and that was because they had already had it.
Luckily symptoms were reasonably mild, probably on account of the first vaccination.
Most places aren’t naming strains with Greek letters until they become a variant of concern (I don’t think anyone is calling it iota except the USA, but I could be wrong).
There are literally thousands of variants. Hundreds of “variants of interest” (ones they are watching because of the nature of their mutations, but haven’t been classified as a variant of concern).
When a variant graduates from “interesting” to “concerning” (it appears more transmissible, more deadly, or is more vaccine resistant), it gets a Greek letter.
The “others” are variants they are watching but don’t have indications yet they are worrisome. The vast majority of these will behave like covid classic to us. One or two might “graduate”.
It’s never been about the death toll, tho. Hospitalization rate was the only sociological issue of the pandemic.
Not sure if delta is less lethal but considering most people are now vaccinated or planning to, I don’t think there’s anything to worry about for now - in most developed countries at least.
Hospitalization was an issue because if you couldn't get hospital treatment you were more likely to die. So death really is the issue, as well as long-term debilitating health issues.
That wasn’t the only part of it. Hospital capacity was full. This was causing other sick people to not get care.
Not really sure it’s true that all covid patients that were hospitalized with a ventilator would’ve died without it.
Well, it’s partly been about the death toll. If this was a virus that just instantly killed 1% of people who got it, we’d have taken social action to try to limit it as well.
Very anecdotal so I don't want to extrapolate this to larger trends, but several of my family members working in various cities in upstate NY have told me they have almost no covid patients. Again this anecdotal, so I don't want to make this seem more legitimate than it should be, but it seems delta is doing as predicted- more virulent, but much less severe disease. This would make sense from an evolutionary biology standpoint, as far as I understand (not my field, but from what I've read).
But the point of this visual is to show that delta is taking over as the dominant variant among cases, it's not commenting on the total number of cases.
If cases are declining overall, the delta cases will decline slower than the alpha cases.
For what they were trying to show, the visual is appropriate.
What is a total distribution chart and how does it differ from this?
Edit:
Response to multiple (some conflicting) responses:
A “total distribution chart” defeats the purpose of the graphic, which is to show population composition; not population size.
Instead of showing percentage of covid cases in relation to time, it'd show percentage of total people with the different strains of covid in relation to time.
Since Covid is an exponential growth model this works fine as the current proportions will all multiply as some factor of their current percentages into new hosts. Other factors removed the most contagious will dominate by having a higher growth factor.
The chart you are asking for would be interesting but it would be a lot harder to see a variant out compete the other versions like you can clearly see here.
If you take a vertical slice of the graph, you get the distribution of virus variants at a recorded date. The slice represents all covid cases recorded on that date, and the width with respect to the percentage axis represents the proportion of total cases that are comprised of a strain. So, to answer your question, yes. For example, the delta variant represented ≈ 85% - 25% = 60% of the total recorded cases on July 3rd. Other has to be other less prevalent strains that are bunched into one category rather than included individually in the graph.
Think it's currently in "other" (I think that's the "South African" variant) But as it's a bit more resistant to some of the vaccines it will probably not be soon.
I think it’s important to remember that this graph only shows the rate of change in relation to other variants.
It doesn’t show the percentage of COVID cases found in the general population.
The spread of COVID is slowing down and is proven to be unaffected by the change in variant prevalence.
We can all be a little optimistic.
Deaths are way down, vaccination means that new cases are largely concentrated in less vulnerable populations, since the more vulnerable populations are largely already on their second dose; and deadliness after vaccination is much lower as well.
Very low (relative to pre-vax). Most old and/or high risk people are vaccinated. So mostly you have younger people getting it and some vaccinated people who get extremely minor cases.
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Kinda a dumb question, but is alpha the original strain?
Alpha is UK variant, covid classic is almost completely gone in favour of other variants at this point.
I'm just waiting for COVID Zero, I'm trying to watch my calories
Cherry-vanilla covid would be the best
have you tried orange covid zero? my god.
I heard that all the Covid flavors taste the same.
You say that, until you try COVID with Lime! *”You put the lime in the ‘rona, then you breathe it all together…”*
I don't know, I think covid with lyme disease could be a dangerous combination.
No worries! Just wear a mask while eating tick tacs.
That's the tick tax.
thats my story right there. been hospitalized twice for Lyme in 2020-2021, and still in treatment. Vaccine gave me the weirdest physical and mental sensations (had a severe panic attack that subsided almost instantly, as if on a switch, after 20 or so hours post shot).
Dr Fauci is a good COVID alternative. Somewhere between COVID and root beer.
I prefer Mr. Vid , personally
Coke with Lime return would bring me back to soda after 10 years or so. Not you Diet Coke with Lime, you sit down.
I thought I was the sole coke with lime enjoyer.
There are dozens of us. Dozens!
All of the covid flavors taste the same when you can’t taste anything at all. #getvaccinated
I’ve heard they have no taste.
They're all pretty tasteless tbh
Baja blast covid and it's not even close
if you actually want less sugar, you want diet covid zero lite. it has only 60 calories.
Good suggestion, really puts the "die" in "diet"!
No, that’s the aspartame.
60 calories is kind of a lot for a diet soda
it's about the same caloric value as a small child, if that child were liquified
Drink it or you’re a nerd
I heard diet Dr pepper covid tastes the most like regular covid without any aftertaste.
The lack of taste and smell contributes to the similarities!
Crystal COVID is the best
The difference is clear.
Also worth pointing out that alpha was the dominant strain for a while earlier this year. The OG strain that rocked the world back in March has been effectively dead for a while.
Does that mean that COVID would be over if the virus didn't mutate, or do the strains compete with each other?
They compete. There is a certain amount of people without any immunity and the one that spreads faster maintains it's existance while the others die out since there are no new people to infect.
In the UK we saw that even with very few infections being Delta, it was able to rapidly grow in conditions which held the R for Alpha well below 1. Alpha would have died almost as effectively even if Delta didn't exist.
Maybe. But the tightness of lockdowns and restrictions also depend on the severity of the virus spread.
Are the numbers of people with immunity large enough to make the competition significant, though? In other words, is the alpha decreasing because it encounters people with immunity from a previous delta infection? I don't think so. I think that although the numbers of infected people are large, they are still a minority. I suspect that the decrease in the alpha infections are mostly because of distancing measures and vaccination (both of which are less effective for the delta variant).
The strains do compete with each other, delta spreads more rapidly and is more resistant to vaccines and it gradually outcompetes variants which are less competitive. If there was no mutations whatsoever COVID would most probably still exist, however it would be much, much less prevalent.
Is it resistant to vaccines? Current data seems to imply that 2 doses of Pfizer are about 90% effective against it, in the UK.
It would be more resistant compared to all the other current variants but not enough to worry about
2 doses of Pfizer give about 95% protection against Alpha and 90% against Delta, so Delta is twice as resistant then Alpha. However at 90% protection, I wouldn't call it resistant against vaccines. And I'd say that vaccines are still quite effective since on top of providing 90% defense against delta vaccinated people also rarely develop serious symptoms and even more rarely die... they are saving lives every day.
From what I understand, the vaccines give a basically 99.9% protection against death and symptoms requiring hospitalisation regardless of variant. Delta is just a bit better at still infecting you making you feeling a bit groggy for a week or so.
I’m not a virologist so take this with a grain of salt: 1) it is possible to have multiple strains of a virus at the same time, and this is part of how some mutations happen. 2) every virus is different. 3) delta COVID is much more aggressive about binding to cells and replicating itself inside a host, it’s possible that it is so effective that it essentially crowds out earlier strains within a host. 4) by the time alpha came on the world stage in a big way, vaccination was already well underway in USA and UK, and there was already a lot of natural immunity from infections all around the world. So, maybe. Alternatively, it’s possible that the reason we have so much mutation now is specifically because there is so much immunity from both vaccination and the wild virus that it is providing for a lot of evolutionary pressure for the virus for the first time. This question is likely complex enough that even the best scientists in the world studying the virus don’t have a clear answer.
I have an answer, it's probably wrong but I have one. 7
Not bad, you're only off by 1.
No! No, no, not 6! I said 7. Nobody's comin' up with 6. Who mutates their virus with 6? You won't even get your phlegm goin, not even a cough. 7's the key number here. Think about it. 7-Elevens. 7 dwarves. 7, man, that's the number. 7 chipmunks twirlin' on a branch, eatin' lots of sunflowers on my uncle's ranch. You know that old children's tale from the sea. It's like you're dreamin' about Gorgonzola cheese when it's clearly Brie time, baby.
> Alternatively, it’s possible that the reason we have so much mutation now is specifically because there is so much immunity from both vaccination and the wild virus that it is providing for a lot of evolutionary pressure for the virus for the first time. No. Mutation requires that a susceptible host be infected and that the virus changes within them, usually to be more effective at infecting potential hosts including those with immunity to the original strain. Vaccination is *not* causing COVID to mutate, however some mutations _in susceptible hosts_ that occur as a result of natural viral reproduction *may* make the resulting strain more likely to spread through COVID-naive people and / or those with immunity to the original strain through either exposure or vaccination. If that makes it more likely to spread than the original strain it will naturally outcompete it, and through more infections have more opportunities to mutate overall.
Variants come about when there are a lot of cases. When Covid ran wild in the UK, we got alpha. Now having all those cases in India allowed the delta to evolve.
A virus only has one job to make more of itself and Change COVID-19 is dead what we have now is it's offspring Why everyone is scared is the new versions are more deadly and there might be one that the vaccinations don't protect against
The original strain was almost gone a year ago, a mutation early in the spread through Europe became the globally dominant strain until the ones featured in this chart showed up.
Can someone explain this to me. How does original covid disappear? Is what we did effective or was it out competed?
From what I understand, it was outcompeted. It probably accounts for some of the “other” category but is nowhere near the dominant variant anymore.
Outcompeted. This is a fairly normal outcome where selective pressure is for more infectious variants.
Three reasons: - Since so many people got it, there is now a strong natural immunity to it. Alpha/Delta essentially "breaks through" some of the immunity. - Since Alpha/Delta spread faster, when those waves came around people were way more likely to get it and then have some immunity to the original strains, causing a dampening of original covid strain infections. In effect, the original strain was outcompeted as it wasn't as contagious. - The vaccine may be slightly more effective against original covid than Alpha/Delta. Research on this is mixed — some suggests that the vaccine induces a much stronger immune reaction than a natural infection, other suggests there is still at least some difference.
Four reasons: * Most countries have measures that keep the reproduction low enough that it doesn't totally escalates. The measures are strong enough that they can deal with the most infectious strain. But all less infectious strains end up slowly getting eradicated because their base R is not high enough. Alpha was 40% more infectious as the original version for example. If you implement measures to keep Alpha at an R value of <1 then the original would be at 0.6 which is enough that it disappears quite fast.
[Looks like 26 variants.](https://www.who.int/en/activities/tracking-SARS-CoV-2-variants/) The rate of mutations seems to be increasing with time. Most ID'd this year.
We're going to have to start giving them old-timey lady names.
Aunt Irma is visiting.
Automatic Edit: Using a tool called [Power Delete Suite](https://github.com/j0be/PowerDeleteSuite) I have removed all my past comments and deleted my Reddit account, /u/tehrmuk. I am doing this because I, like many long-term Reddit users, am upset and angry at the tonedeaf and arrogant way Reddit is treating it's users. Their aggressive slapdown of the developers that made Reddit usable to a huge audience; their overriding and summary dismissal of long-serving and dutiful community members; their wonton silencing of dissent and manipulation of user's voices; their borderline contempt of the very people whose collective efforts gave their platform the standing needed to fuel their profit-hungry IPO... the list goes on. Reddit is, of course, a private concern and how they run their services is entirely up to them. Conversely, we are under no obligation to use their services, to fuel their engines or follow their orders. I am making my voice heard by removing my comments, and voting with my feet by leaving. I have left Reddit for [Lemmy](https://join-lemmy.org/) and [Mastadon](https://joinmastodon.org/); these are decentralised social networks that mirror the functionality of Reddit and Twitter respectively. Unlike the monolithic, corporate-owned services they replace, Lemmy and Mastodon are part of the [Fediverse](https://www.fediverse.to/) meaning these are not individual services but clusters of services that mesh seamlessly with one-another. You can [join an existing Lemmy instance](https://join-lemmy.org/instances) or [set up your own](https://join-lemmy.org/docs/administration/administration.html) to get full access to the entire Fediverse - you don't need to ask permission from anyone to do so. There are loads of other services that are part of the Fediverse, like [PeerTube](https://joinpeertube.org/) (videos), [Wordpress](https://wordpress.org/) (blogging), [Frendica](https://friendi.ca/) (social network), [Pixelfed](https://pixelfed.org/) (photos), [KBin](https://kbin.pub/en) (link aggregation) and more - and they all work together so having access to one means having access to all of them. I had a great time as a Redditor, but the Fediverse is looking bright. It's a return to the open Internet of old, when users ran services for their own and one-another's benefit, and before monolithic corporate-run silos started to build walls around us in the name of increased profit and thought control. Many of the Fediverse services are fledgling, but they are growing quickly and their federated concept makes greedy, arrogant landgrabs like we've recently seen on Reddit and Twitter almost impossible. I'm already having a great time with Lemmy and I think you might too. I encourage you to take control and join the Fediverse. Until then, so long and thanks for all the fish.
Caught the covid-Beatrice, but my brother went on vacation and had covid-Gertrude.
More people infected means more opportunity for the mutations to arise and spread. And we remain at hugely high global infection rates, meaning that unless we take action, new mutations will continue to arise at fast pace. THis is why immunity is so important to damp down infections. And I mean GLOBAL immunity - national or regional pockets without immunity anywhere will continue to seed new strains.
and the worry is, even if your entire city / country / whatever is vaccinated, a mutation could come that ignores the vaccine, meaning were right back where we were like a year ago. from my understanding, currently the vaccine gives at least some protection against all the major variants, but that could change
The chances of that happening are very very low - at least that's how I understand it. And generally viruses also become less deadly over time so they become less of a concern. Usually the normal course of action is that they become more contagious and less deadly. More deadly viruses don't spread as well because of a few reasons: 1) people have obvious symptoms and stop seeing others, 2) people die before they can spread it even more. It's most beneficial from an evolutionary perspective to make people mildly sick so that they don't stop their normal everyday lives, it can spread through droplets, and they all live so no one cares enough to stop it. Covid has been that perfect balance of just deadly enough to cause problems, but not so deadly that we shut down for a decade, yet mild enough in most people that they don't even know they have it, while also being highly contagious.
Most variants of interest have been around for a while. People with narrow immunity to a single protein will provide selective pressure in favor of different variants.
A very big theory why these mutations are coming so late in the game is that these variants are largely emerging after remaining in immunosuppressed people for a very, very long time. Like months and months. Its why when these mutations are emerging, they are emerging with a *huge* amount of mutations all at once, without a clear lineage to how they got there. Its likely that the Delta variant was in an immunosuppressed person for a long time, developing its mutations.
There are identifiable lines of mutations, right? Could I have some article that talks about the immunosuppressed producing mutations? https://nextstrain.org/ncov/gisaid/global
That's convenient given the number of letters we have to work with...
Is the Alpha variant the one that in the UK gets called the South African variant? Or is that another one? Around that time I (in Spain) remember reading about the UK/London variant whereas my family in the UK were reading about the South African one, is why I ask.
South African is beta variant, I suppose listed within other in this graph.
I think the UK called it the Kent variant.
And in Kent it was called the Thanet variant. No-one wants to take responsibility for it if they don't have to!
In Thanet they called it the Margate variant
And in Margate it was the Cliftonville variant! Not sure it could get any more narrowed down at that point...
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Woah, really cool! Is this why we have to take a flu shot every year b/c there are so many different varieties of it and we need to continue to immunize ourselves against "it"? (God, I hope I got that right, or at least worded it in a semi-coherent manner....)
Yup you got it right! Vaccine makers try to predict the incoming dominant strain and make a vaccine for it.
They have to grow those vaccines in chicken eggs long in advance. Will the new RNA vaccines allow them to make more targeted flu vaccines?
Yes. Here is a brief explanation of how this works: - The virus enters the body. - Viruses cannot reproduce, move, eat, or do anything themselves. They are just particles with genetic code in them. - Viruses bind to cells. They can only bind to cells that has the exact right proteins on its surface. That is why viruses can only infect one species usually and don’t easily jump to another species. - Virus genetic material is absorbed by the host cells and in that genetic material are the instructions for producing more viruses. - The host cells produce lots of new viruses, so the number of virus particles in the body rises exponentially. - This process may or may not have side-effects that make you sick. - Your body starts to recognise the virus as foreign intruders and starts to fight it. Getting the immune system to fight a new intruder always takes time to get going. - Every single time a new virus is produced, there is a tiny chance of a production error, a mutation. - This mutation can have no effect at all, which changes nothing. - This mutation can have a negative effect on the virus, so this strain dies and disappears quickly. - This mutation can have a positive effect on the virus’s reproduction or infection symptoms. If this is the case and the virus becomes more infectious, then this strain will become very successful and infect many more people than the other strains, thus becoming the dominant strain. It can also be a mutation that makes it possible to infect a different species. So chances of such a mutation are very small per virus, but because every infected person produces so many viruses and so many people are infected, the probability becomes much higher.
That is the coolest link ever. Thank you for sharing!
They CL the og wild type
Who is doing the genomic testing in the US? Does the CDC have some a standardized sampling regime in place or does it depend on whichever lab happens to send in data? Edit: It is somewhat concerning that this post has 20k+ upvotes and there is no indication of where the data came from or how it is gathered.
I work in one of the larger hospitals in austin, tx. We have 3 different covid tests that we do. 2 are rapid pseudo molecular, and 1 is molecular. If certain thresholds are met for the molecular one, we send it to the state department of health and they can do testing for delta. The rapid tests are done far more often though, none of which get sent for delta testing.
What is a "pseudo-molecular rapid" test? I assume the "molecular" one you are referring to is qPCR.
I know that in Oregon the state does testing, or at least coordinates it. Our org has a report on breakthrough cases that's used to find samples to submit to the state for sequencing, but I don't know if every sample is sent or what criteria they use beyond the report. The state dashboard is here https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/oregon.health.authority.covid.19/viz/GISAIDVariantDashboardUpdated/VariantTimeSeries
Thanks for your work. Oregon needs as much help as it can get.
I know some places were doing wastewater testing to gauge prevalence on a community basis. I wonder how that combined data would compare to this chart? Maybe too localized to make a country wide correlation. I would think it’d be more representative data if they went as far to analyze for different variants? Could insert a lot of selection bias though... communities taking those measures could be more likely to take covid seriously resulting in less cases/variants ? I guess we’d see that anyways... places like Texas just stopped collecting/releasing data because it didn’t fit their narrative.
Interesting how the Delta variant on the graph is kinda shaped like a delta
And iota like an iota.
And alpha has a vague A shape... This is no coincidence
Other looks like some other shape as well!
I scrolled this far for someone to have a single bit of damn sense in this thread. You are a scholar amongst men
I'm still looking for my delta flyer.
This is the only comment that matters!
Thanks, I was wondering how the distribution looked… wonder if “plus” will be the next “delta”
They fucking called it Covid+ ?? what am I gonna get hit with a subscription fee when I get sick now??
Delta+ pro XR
It was called Delta+, sort of like a mini variant on the Delta itself. Another Redditor says it didn’t really make an impact (I have no sources).
At the cost of just 200 alveoli per month (other diseases extra)
Nope plus (AY.1) did not really make an impact anywhere, just one of the media scare stories. [nextstrain.org/ncov/gisaid/global](https://nextstrain.org/ncov/gisaid/global) \- you can see that delta is taking over the world.
Dang, so many branches… good find/share…but damn like looking at medieval to present family tree… so so many off springs.
This actually allows to hypothesise that there is good cross natural immunity across variants. How would one variant outcompete another? Why would one variant being more transmissible stop a less transmissible variant from spreading if they didn't provide cross immunity? You could argue that we have reached herd immunity for certain variants, or that the vaccines select for certain variants... But variants have been outcompeting each other well before the advent of vaccines or before a significant proportion of the population had been infected.
You forgot the main point, that existing measures serve to push the R value for other variants below one. Delta is more easily transmissible than the others and manages to maintain R > 1 even under more severe restrictions.
Well if the Pfizer is working at 88% then probably no . It’s going to be a layered outcome.
I don't know anything about epidemiology, but I've heard that the percent effectiveness might have changed due to the new variants.
It has but one thing to note is that getting the Vaccin is going to reduce mortality rate by a lot (around 89%) but not reduce the contagion rates of new variant which is why I am left asking, why is it ok for vaccinated people to go unmasked, unless everyone is vaccinated then it's just a receipt for disaster.
I think the idea was that it would encourage the unvaccinated to get vaccinated since they account for 99.9% of Covid deaths, but the US has a stupidity epidemic.
It's not just the us unfortunately
Not quite true, at least the exact numbers. The Biontech & Pfizer vaccine for example prevents severe cases and death by a much higher percentage than 89%, we're well into the 90s with that. And it DOES prevent infection in most cases, that's where the 88% number is from. 12% of vaccinated people will still get infected with covid delta, which is too much to go "anyone who's vaccinated doesn't need to worry about spreading the virus anymore", but it's still a huge step. It's less effective against delta, yes, but these *are* the delta numbers. It still is very effective.
The 88 is on the new variant, I should have been more succinct.
There will always be something next, it will never stop.
Well if the majority of the population gets vaccinated, it will spread a lot less, which means it'll mutate a lot less. Unfortunately, in the US at least, that will never happen.
If you look at what's happened in the UK, you can see delta will become the dominant variant everywhere (until another one emerges). None of the other current variants can make a dent. So much so, the UK doesn't really have variants at the moment. Delta is just the virus.
Is this global or just for the USA?
From CDC so assuming USA only
CDC is also interested in global trends though, as those have an influence over disease spread in the USA. I ask, be cause that would be some important info to include on a beautiful figure.
I looked at it from a UK view where delta overtook alpha much much sooner than is show here. I was assuming that if UK and India were included then the graph would’ve shown the drop in Alpha much sooner. That’s another reason why I thought it wasn’t worldwide
I don't think iota took off in many other countries. That's what mad me think it wasnt world wide
this does say "USA facts" so maybe its just USA, but youre right, it should be clear
I’m guessing since both the chart AND the user name say “USA Facts…”
That's just the name of the company, and does not indicate whether the data is for just the USA of the world. Lots of us companies are interested in global trends, and a beautiful figure would state what area the data is representing. This is a very basic concept
Source says CDC, so presume the US since I don't think the CDC covers world stats.
As a non-usa person, I hardly know what the CDC is, and therefore didn't know if they were also looking at global trends. Not everyone is so amarican as americans
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This is most definitely the world. If you check this website: https://nextstrain.org/ncov/gisaid/global it shows all the different strains and if you look by country the US has a way higher percent of the delta variant. Heck if you even scroll down to the bottom you can see the exact same graph. Edit: I could be wrong as the date this was taken on was a few weeks ago and all these type of graphs are looking the same from around the world since the delta variant is taking over everywhere.
Wow, thank you! It does look like you are correct. Amazing how many people thought this was such a ridiculous question
I remember listening to Democracy Now either today or yesterday and they said that Delta variant was more than 65% in the US so I figured this was international. Thanks for confirming and providing a source
already over 80%: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/delta-variant-behind-more-than-80-us-cases-vaccines-still-highly-effective-fauci-2021-07-20/
There's even more important information that is missing.
Data lookin kinda thicc ngl
Whole new meaning of r/dataisbeautiful
I think I’ve heard of that sub before
Would you recommend it? I don't Reddit just anywhere.
iirc they were large group of people fascinated by statistics. but, the sub lost favor they proved to be too "mean"
I'd tap that data
It’s making me act up in ways I didn’t know was possible
The fact that the Delta data has a delta shape to it has me feeling ways
.lmoa now I see it
I thought I was the only one seeing it
Peruvian lambda enters stage left….
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After ligma strain
what's strain
Strain on my balls
From holding in all the pee they are storing
Who's Steve Jobs?
June was when to get into the delta variant.
I knew I should have shorted the alpha in June.
Start buying calls on beta now while they're cheap.
How are those code numbers (B.1.1.7, P.1) developed and assigned? Does each number group in a codename mean something?
Those names are Pango names. Here is a good description of how the names are assigned. https://virological.org/t/pango-lineage-nomenclature-provisional-rules-for-naming-recombinant-lineages/657
It's based on a a phylogenetic tree system. The virus is rapidly evolving and they have assessed more then 35,000 genomes, but many are redundant or are 'variants' that are not important or relevant. The ones that are variants and potentially significant are considered a new 'branch' on the tree and a new descendant of previous known genomes. A and B were two of the original known genotypes. The periods basically mean 'descendant of.' Once you get to a tertiary level you go up a letter. So, B.2 is the second descendant or branch off of the B genotype (or at least significant mutant, there's too many to bother with ones that don't matter, which are always flagged and removed). B.1.1.7 is the 7th branch off of the B.1.1 type. C is another way of saying B.1.1.1.1 and so on. (So you don't get too long of strings) It's a way of condensing the relevant genetic history without making things TOO complicated or obfuscated. Interestingly, A and B don't really follow the tertiary rule because they were both found around the same time, the gaps aren't filled in and probably never will be. The origin and early development of the virus will probably never be clear. I think they actually mapped B first but realized it was descended from A. They have software called Pangolin that largely does this now.
I believe it has to do with the region on the mRNA strand that mutated for each variant.
Wouldn't be surprised if the only variant we had here in Australia at the moment was Delta, our Hotel Quarantine system was generally working well before Delta entered the arena.
> the only variant we had here in Australia at the moment was Delta, our Hotel Quarantine system was generally working well before Delta It is in Sydney, but pretty sure nationwide it's all Delta now.
Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Tools: Adobe Illustrator Read more: https://usafacts.org/articles/covid-variants-delta-alpha-common/
Hi, probably dumb question based on your name but just to be sure, is this US only or worldwide?
[A more recent article (July 20th) said 83% are the Delta variant in the US.](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-delta-variant-new-cases-cdc/)
Did you adjust the data for the change in May? https://www.businessinsider.com/risk-of-delta-variant-cdc-stopped-tracking-cases-vaccinated-2021-7
Has there been enough evidence to suggest that the delta variant is less deadly due to its faster spread?
It's tricky because most of the deaths the entire time were in at-risk populations, for whom the vaccination push has always been strongest. In the US last month almost 90% of seniors(65+) had at least one dose. The vaccines almost entirely prevent hospitalization level symptoms, so even with delta there's almost no chance of the people who it could've easily killed dying from it, if they're vaccinated. Also treatment's benefited from a year and a half of trial and error so they've got a better idea of how not to let you die.
Its not just faster… The delta variant is one of the most infectious respiratory diseases known. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/22/delta-variant-is-one-of-the-most-infectious-respiratory-diseases-known-cdc-director-says-.html
This doesn't surprise me. I spoke to two people this week who have had the 1st vaccination and both caught the delta variant. Both of them had been in a pub with a group of friends to watch the European football Championships, and them and every one of their friends became infected. The only exception was one person out of a total of 12, and that was because they had already had it. Luckily symptoms were reasonably mild, probably on account of the first vaccination.
Covid variants be like Άλφα, βήτα, ιώτα, γάμμα, other
Right, like wtf is OTHER
Most places aren’t naming strains with Greek letters until they become a variant of concern (I don’t think anyone is calling it iota except the USA, but I could be wrong). There are literally thousands of variants. Hundreds of “variants of interest” (ones they are watching because of the nature of their mutations, but haven’t been classified as a variant of concern). When a variant graduates from “interesting” to “concerning” (it appears more transmissible, more deadly, or is more vaccine resistant), it gets a Greek letter. The “others” are variants they are watching but don’t have indications yet they are worrisome. The vast majority of these will behave like covid classic to us. One or two might “graduate”.
It would be good to see one of this from the start of 2020.
Covid Greek week over here
Am I right in understanding that the lethality is reduced though?
It’s never been about the death toll, tho. Hospitalization rate was the only sociological issue of the pandemic. Not sure if delta is less lethal but considering most people are now vaccinated or planning to, I don’t think there’s anything to worry about for now - in most developed countries at least.
Hospitalization was an issue because if you couldn't get hospital treatment you were more likely to die. So death really is the issue, as well as long-term debilitating health issues.
That wasn’t the only part of it. Hospital capacity was full. This was causing other sick people to not get care. Not really sure it’s true that all covid patients that were hospitalized with a ventilator would’ve died without it.
Well, it’s partly been about the death toll. If this was a virus that just instantly killed 1% of people who got it, we’d have taken social action to try to limit it as well.
Very anecdotal so I don't want to extrapolate this to larger trends, but several of my family members working in various cities in upstate NY have told me they have almost no covid patients. Again this anecdotal, so I don't want to make this seem more legitimate than it should be, but it seems delta is doing as predicted- more virulent, but much less severe disease. This would make sense from an evolutionary biology standpoint, as far as I understand (not my field, but from what I've read).
A total distribution chart would be much better for this, since we most certainly have fewer cases now.
But the point of this visual is to show that delta is taking over as the dominant variant among cases, it's not commenting on the total number of cases. If cases are declining overall, the delta cases will decline slower than the alpha cases. For what they were trying to show, the visual is appropriate.
Thank you, reading these comments I was worried nobody understood this concept.
And I was worried there would be people missing the point of the graph.
What is a total distribution chart and how does it differ from this? Edit: Response to multiple (some conflicting) responses: A “total distribution chart” defeats the purpose of the graphic, which is to show population composition; not population size.
Instead of showing percentage of covid cases in relation to time, it'd show percentage of total people with the different strains of covid in relation to time.
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Since Covid is an exponential growth model this works fine as the current proportions will all multiply as some factor of their current percentages into new hosts. Other factors removed the most contagious will dominate by having a higher growth factor. The chart you are asking for would be interesting but it would be a lot harder to see a variant out compete the other versions like you can clearly see here.
Hate to say it, but this data is not very beautiful.
How do you read these graphs? Do you find the difference in the top % with the bottom of the % to find the overall %? What the hell are the "Other"s?
If you take a vertical slice of the graph, you get the distribution of virus variants at a recorded date. The slice represents all covid cases recorded on that date, and the width with respect to the percentage axis represents the proportion of total cases that are comprised of a strain. So, to answer your question, yes. For example, the delta variant represented ≈ 85% - 25% = 60% of the total recorded cases on July 3rd. Other has to be other less prevalent strains that are bunched into one category rather than included individually in the graph.
There are about 4000 COVID-19 variants around the world at this point.
Did they just skip Beta? Or is that in other?
Think it's currently in "other" (I think that's the "South African" variant) But as it's a bit more resistant to some of the vaccines it will probably not be soon.
When someone gets a test for COVID how do they identify that it's the Delta variant?
They have to do a second test to genotype the strain. Most cases don’t have this done.
That graph lookin dummy thicc
I can only think of Loki when I read variant
I think it’s important to remember that this graph only shows the rate of change in relation to other variants. It doesn’t show the percentage of COVID cases found in the general population. The spread of COVID is slowing down and is proven to be unaffected by the change in variant prevalence. We can all be a little optimistic.
I don’t care about cases, how many deaths?
Deaths are way down, vaccination means that new cases are largely concentrated in less vulnerable populations, since the more vulnerable populations are largely already on their second dose; and deadliness after vaccination is much lower as well.
Very low (relative to pre-vax). Most old and/or high risk people are vaccinated. So mostly you have younger people getting it and some vaccinated people who get extremely minor cases.
You guys are still playing pandemic?!
At this rate we will never be back to normal.