Japan confirms first cases of mu coronavirus variant (2023 Update)

Wow, just like Hollywood comes up with movie sequels.

Alternatively, if denied enough opportunities to replicate, may mutate to a less "noticeable" variant to ensure its survival among a population that dropped the hammer, hard, on its more virulent forms.

Don Y snipped-for-privacy@foo.invalid wrote in news:sgtta1$7mo$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:

Less noticable? Sorry, but those brains they ain't got.

It would be a hybrid variant.

Am 03.09.21 um 23:16 schrieb snipped-for-privacy@decadence.org:

No. The "The µ variant"

Oh, yes there IS something to prevent it (or at least make it unlikely); the immune response to the first infection will have at least SOME effect on later ones. Since we're talking about overlapping multiple infections, there's definitely no 'decay' of the first immune response when confronting the second microbe to arrive.

That has actually happened with some viruses, but it's usually in a setting where people are being treated with antiviral medication. Less virulent means smaller replication rate, so I don't see that weaker virus surviving in host with a high replication rate strain. Then the basic chemistry of going after ACE2 receptors is unlikely to change. Any new emerging virus will be a top dog of existing viruses. So that means they will only be worse.

This is why they want to keep people boosted. A very rough statistic is that people totally naive with respect to the virus, no prior exposure of any kind, take a full two weeks to start mounting an effective response. Vaccinated people in a dormant immune state, meaning it's been long enough for immune activation and antibody titers to relax, typically mount an effective response in 96 hours. I can't find any published data yet, but I'm guessing a boosted person with a fully activated immunity, even though not specific to the variant, will start producing an effective response specific to the variant in under 48 hours. The body stops producing antibodies for the old strain and changes over to antibodies that attack the variant. These numbers will apply to reasonably healthy people under age 55. All bets are off when you get older and sicker. For those older and sicker people they have the mABs to fall back on in the meantime.

Interesting as "µ" is pronounced "mee" -- "The me variant"? But, never a "you" variant!

Or it could just be wiped out if we vaccinate enough people and take effective measures to contain the spread. But that's not so likely as we have too many who promote defiance of efforts to limit the spread of the virus for no particular reason.

There is no pressure on this virus for a less virulent form. That would require separate testing for the different forms and a lot of ignorance on the part of anyone involved in the decision making process. All variants of the virus continue to mutate. If we allowed a less virulent form to roam wild it would continue to mutate to more virulent forms. I think it is hard to make a vaccine that only works against the more virulent forms, so they all get whacked. It's a pretty silly notion that we can fight only the more virulent forms somehow.

Replication *rate* doesn't necessarily factor into it.

If the virus doesn't "make itself known" to the host, then it will likely not be treated and, thus, able to replicate. Such a strain could replicate rapidly and STILL not be acted against.

E.g., Do you know your HPV status? What motivation do you have to check it? So, you're potentially a silent carrier.

Likewise, if asymptomatic with covid, you'll likely not bother getting checked or treated. Yet, can still be infectious.

Strains that manifest with "bothersome" symptoms will drive their hosts to seek treatment. At the extreme, society will quarantine those people and, thus, deny that *strain* an opportunity to reproduce.

Anybody wanna guess when the Andromeda strain is due?

Except our most effective methods are to PREVENT infection by distancing, masks, vaccines, etc. Even if a strain produces no symptoms as a rule rather than the exception (not likely actually simply by the nature of the disease) spreading would still be prevented by the methods we use against all of Covid. Only quarantine would be different.

This is no different from the fact that even vaccinated people can catch and spread the disease and is a great reason why we need to keep up our efforts of distancing and masks. I visited my brother last week and he said in Maryland they had removed the requirement of wearing masks indoors, in public if you were quarantined. What idiots!

We are a year and a half into this pandemic and governments continue to believe we can take halfway measures against this disease. We have morons leading us and we are morons for following them.