There are so many questions as we ramp up beyond 2 million inoculations a day. Exactly when can we be truly “normal” again? July 4th? This year? What is “normal”? What changes are permanent? Do we even remember how to behave in non-pandemic environment anymore? What to renters do when the moratorium on rent ends… about all that past accrued rent? How do businesses actually restart? When and what is “safe”? The list is long. And the biggest of them all – one that generates significance as people, businesses and states actually and falsely believe that it is now OK to open everything and stop the preventative measures – how real and how dangerous are the COVID-19 variants that exist or that mutate in the future that will resist the existing vaccines?
Melissa Healy, writing for the March 12th Los Angeles Times, writes this cogent summary for us all: “For a virus in search of new ways to spread and sicken, this convergence of events is a moment of unique opportunity, and new research underscores the peril.
“Two studies published this week [second week in March] in the journal Science explore some of the circumstances that are known to give rise to new genetic variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus… In both a mathematical modeling exercise and a genetic deep dive into 1,313 coronavirus samples, researchers show that worrisome genetic changes to the virus are most likely to take root and spread when infection rates surge, when many people have only partial immunity, and when the virus is made to work harder to find its next victim.”
In short, this means that where the preventative measures are not taken (including during post-inoculation but pre-immunity moments) or in communities where too many people refuse the vaccine, that creepy little virus explodes and gets it way. Since all communities are truly linked, the failure in any one region to reach a healthy stasis remains an incubation ground that impacts the rest. There is this natural proclivity of organisms to try and survive and reproduce, from viruses to human beings. Herd immunity, massive environmental change and mutations gone awry can take pare down or even eliminate that risk, but it is a constant battle until those thresholds are reached. Otherwise, we just may have to adjust to some form of COVID being with us for a while – a world of continued caution and probable booster shots for the variants.
Healy adds some details: “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention projected in late January that the U.K. coronavirus variant known as B.1.1.7 would overtake existing strains in the United States by late March. At that point, the CDC projected, B.1.1.7, which is roughly 50% more transmissible and is thought to be more virulent, would drive a resurgence of U.S. infections.
“That grim projection would probably have been less stark had the CDC foreseen the dramatic rise in vaccinations. With more than 98 million doses administered as of Thursday, 25% of American adults have received at least a first dose of vaccine, and 13.3% have been fully vaccinated.
“Meanwhile, the seven-day moving average of new coronavirus cases has plummeted from a high of 249,360 on Jan. 11 to 62,555 as of March 5. Many state governments have seized on the decline to roll back public health restrictions.
“Dr. Rochelle Walensky , director of the CDC, has sought to walk this tightrope between hope and fear. The prospect of new viral variants, and of the conditions that foster their emergence, has been her central message to the public… ‘The more virus that’s circulating, the more variants that are possible,’ Walensky said on MSNBC. ‘And those variants can emerge and diminish the effect of the vaccine. So while we’re vaccinating people, we want to make sure there’s less and less virus circulating that doesn’t put our vaccine efficacy at risk.’
“March and April ‘are critical periods here,’ Walensky added. It’s a race between vaccines and variants, and a rapid vaccine rollout is the nation’s most potent counter to threats like the U.K. strain. Mask-wearing, social distancing and limits on gatherings ‘give us a fighting chance to get vaccine to as many people as possible’ before cases surge again and create conditions that are ripe for the emergence of new variants, she said.
“The new research in Science bears out her concerns… In one of the studies, researchers from Oxford University led an effort to watch ‘evolution in action.’ They collected and genetically sequenced a series of viral samples from Britons who tested positive for coronavirus infection between March and June 2020. Their goal: to see up close how the virus changed as it moved from person to person and household to household.
“This work revealed that mutations that threaten the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines or medicines arise only rarely in any single individual. When they do, they are rarely passed on in a sustained chain of transmission.
“But the story was different for mutations with the potential to make the virus more transmissible or more virulent… Like the ‘escape mutations’ that erode vaccine efficacy, these genetic changes tended to get bottled up at their source. But their sheer volume made transmission of some mutations more likely, the authors said. These changes were happening ‘with sufficient frequency that even a rare transmission event … could result in rapid spread.’
“Drop that prospect of ‘rapid spread’ into a situation in which masks are coming off, diners are filling restaurants and fitness instructors are shouting encouragement to their students, and both the ignition and the fuel for a feared new wave are laid in place, experts said.” As I watched Joe Biden’s speech to the nation on March 11th, as he desperately tried to depoliticize a medical problem and stimulate a call for national unity, I was reminded of the COVID minimizers in Texas and other red states and the fact that the recovery stimulus did not generate a single Republican Senate vote despite polling showing the bill’s approval with well over 70% of all Americans. It would such a shame if attitude trumped medical science in our battle to end this pandemic.
I’m Peter Dekom, and maybe, just maybe, this opportunity to end this horrific plague might begin to bring us just a little closer together… or simply to accept a new normal where ignorance and false dogma continue to kill tens if not hundreds of thousands more Americans.
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