#sars-2

How the splintering of Omicron could shape Covid’s next phase - STAT
▻https://www.statnews.com/2022/10/06/bq11-omicron-variants-splintering-covid-next-phase

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The immunity people have built up from vaccinations and infections will likely continue to offer strong protection against severe outcomes for most, particularly if they’ve stayed up-to-date with boosters.)

But the concern about these newest sublineages is not just that they could drive up cases once more. Already, some monoclonal antibody treatments were rendered useless and had to be abandoned as the virus evolved. And in some lab experiments, the remaining antibody therapies — bebtelovimab, as well as Evusheld — can’t stand up to some of the new variants. (Just on Monday, the Food and Drug Administration warned that Evusheld, which is given to immunocompromised people to bolster their protection as a pre-exposure therapy, can’t neutralize certain SARS-2 variants.) That could leave people at high risk for severe Covid even more vulnerable.

Peacock added one note: While it’s possible that the future #SARS-2 strains we’ll be dealing with will continue to be descended from Omicron, another Omicron-like event could occur. That is, a variant from a distant part of SARS-2’s family tree could appear suddenly and outcompete everything else in the landscape, just as the original Omicron did last year around Thanksgiving.

Le Covid-19, un virus capitaliste : entretien avec Rob Wallace
31 octobre 2020

►https://acta.zone/le-covid-19-un-virus-capitaliste-entretien-avec-rob-wallace

Depuis le début de l’épidémie de Covid-19, les gouvernements du monde entier plaident la surprise, généralement pour justifier les manquements de systèmes de santé exsangues, lessivés par des décennies de néolibéralisme. Il y a quelques jours encore, Emmanuel Macron a justifié de nouvelles mesures de restriction des libertés publiques par l’avancée « inattendue » de la propagation du virus sans pour autant conférer plus de moyens aux infrastructures hospitalières. Il n’en reste pas moins que les épidémiologistes radicaux alertent depuis des années sur les risques d’irruption de nouvelles pandémies.

Dénonçant le modèle de l’agrobusiness et son intégration dans les circuits du capitalisme mondialisé, Rob Wallace montre ici combien l’apparition du Covid s’inscrit dans la logique même du capital qui favorise la déforestation, met à sac les écosystèmes locaux et fait passer le profit avant toute chose. Il se livre également à une analyse impitoyable de la classe politique états-unienne et de son incapacité à prévenir la population du pays contre la contagion du virus, tout en indiquant combien les pressions exercées par les États et les multinationales sur les institutions internationales comme l’Organisation mondiale de la santé nous ont désarmés collectivement contre l’émergence de nouveaux virus, dont il y a fort à craindre que le Covid-19 ne soit pas le dernier.

#COVID-19 #SARS-2 #OMS #Etats-unis #agro_industrie

Four scenarios on how we might develop immunity to #Covid-19
▻https://www.statnews.com/2020/08/25/four-scenarios-on-how-we-might-develop-immunity-to-covid-19

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As Menachery sees it, the possibilities for the future when it comes to Covid-19 and human immunity break down as follows: sterilizing immunity, functional immunity, waning immunity, and lost immunity.

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“So far, anyway, the evidence supports functional immunity, but the only way to see how long that will last is to follow people over time and see if those responses diminish,” she said.

“The idea there is that, yes, your antibodies might wane, but your memory responses aren’t absent,” said Menachery, noting that when a primed immune system re-encounters the virus, production of antibodies would kick into gear.

Christian Drosten, who is another co-discoverer of SARS-1, describes a future that fits into this category.

“I clearly expect lasting and relevant immunity that is almost sterilizing immunity against #SARS-2 in almost every person infected with SARS-2,” Drosten, director of the Institute of Virology at Berlin’s Charité University Hospital, said via email.

“It may be possible to become infected again, without any change in the virus. The resulting infection will be mild or asymptomatic, with significantly lower levels of virus replication and onward #transmission.”

Drosten’s last point would be a big bonus. If people who are reinfected don’t generate high levels of SARS-2 viruses in their respiratory tracts and therefore don’t contribute much to the spread of the virus, Covid-19 may become, over time, not just less dangerous, but also less common.

“It may become a rare infection, although that is difficult to foresee given the size of the global population,” Koopmans said.

Another hopeful part of this scenario relates to young children, who are far less likely than adults to develop severe disease. Krammer expects that children who first encounter the virus when they are very young may end up being infected several times over their lifetimes, but those later infections won’t lead to severe illness, even when they are elderly.

#sars-cov2 #immunité #réinfection