[JohnH (OP)]

Just curious, with such high infection rates particularly in the UK, are there no new variants emerging. Our identification ability is second to none, so I am very surprised that no knew strains are being reported. Have we scaled back on this?

[Colin2B]

Probably the press getting hooked on COP26 and the government sleaze and bored with Covid (after all everyone thinks it’s over!)
Latest variant was picked up in October, but Delta is still the dominant form and some of the others have very low measured infections.

[alancalverd]

That's Darwin for you. After a while, species either separate and occupy different sub-environments, or one variant dominates.'Twas ever thus.

[wolfekeeper]

The new antivirals will probably be helping. A lot of the previous variants were thought to crop up when people had covid for long periods without dying. It gave the virus a chance to mutate. Now they can just dose them up in hospital with antibodies and antivirals, and they will clear the virus much more quickly.

[Petrochemicals]

Where oh where is a medically trained expert moderator when you want one?

As a pure guess, corona has made the easily mutatable changes it can, there may have been other variants, deadly or transmissible but the combination of both is something the corona virus is struggling to achieve. If mutations where so easily achievable by viruses they would have wiped everything off the planet by now.

If you think about eugenics and the practice of selective breeding, it works for a while, but many traits are lost.

[evan_au]

WHO is monitoring quite a few variants.
But to displace Delta, it has to be more transmissible than Delta and/or be able to bypass existing immunity to Delta.
See: https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/covid-19/variants-concern

[set fair]

I think Delta multiples, sheds and infects a new host before the immune memory kicks in, hence anyone can be infected and infect someone else regerdless of vaccination status or previous infection, if the circulating antibody level and covid specific T-cell level is too low to quickly stop an infection with Delta . Delta can do this almost as easily whether the antibodies are specific to Delta or not, it's incubation period is so short that it doesn't need resistance to circulating antibodies, it just needs there not to be enough.

[evan_au]

Delta ... infects a new host before the immune memory kicks in

COVID has a gene which suppresses the immune system for about 5 days after infection. Meanwhile the virus replicates and sheds for about 2 days without the victim being aware of it (if they become aware of it at all).
- It's a stealth virus...

The original paper reporting on the ability of Ivermectin to suppress COVID in vitro suggested that:
-  Ivermectin suppresses the ability of proteins to enter the cell nucleus.
- This prevents the virus interfering with the normal immune response to viral infection.
- It's a pity that the dose required too high to be used in a living animal
- Presumably the nucleus needs to be continually aware of what is going on in the cell, so it can control normal cellular functions efficiently. Ivermectin probably interferes with these normal cellular regulation functions, too.

See: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7129059/    and caption on Figure 1G.

[Colin2B]

To add to what @evan_au says, the mutation allows the virus to produce a higher load of viral particles in the body so it is more than 2 times as contagious as other variants. A study from China showed that the viral load was 1,000 times more than that of previous coronavirus strains.
Delta’s incubation is around 4 days, compared to the 5.6 days in other strains, but there is a wide variation between individuals.

[set fair]

COVID has a gene which suppresses the immune system

Dear God where do you get thie rubbish from?

[evan_au]

COVID has a gene which suppresses the immune system

Interferon is part of the innate immune response, which warns the body of a viral attack, and further triggers protective actions by the immune system.
- It is interferon which gives the classic "cold/flu" symptoms of fever, runny nose, and feeling "blah".
- SARS-COV-2 suppresses the interferon response, which means that people don't know that they are infected, and go about their normal lives.
- The original SARS virus was controlled more easily, because people ran a high temperature when they were infected, and they felt bad, so they stayed away from others. Infra-red cameras at airports picked up incoming infected passengers.
- SARS-COV2 (and MERS, another Coronavirus) block interferon production, so they are harder to control.
- Fortunately, MERS was not nearly as transmissible as SARS-COV2 Delta variant, so it did not turn into a pandemic

So the percentage of people who think "I don't need a COVID vaccine, because I have a strong immune response that will protect me" don't realize that this virus subverts your immune system so it can infect you freely (and your friends and family and colleagues....).

See, for example: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41556-021-00712-y

the SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein represses the antiviral type I interferon response

See, for example, https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2020.580641/full

CoVs including SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV encode multiple proteins which antagonize (interferon) signaling

[set fair]

No mention of a "gene which surpresses the immune system" in either article. It's poteins which which do that.

[Petrochemicals]

So the percentage of people who think "I don't need a COVID vaccine, because I have a strong immune response that will protect me" don't realize that this virus subverts your immune system so it can infect you freely (and your friends and family and colleagues....).

Friends colleagues and family who likewise have spurned the vaccination.

No mention of a "gene which surpresses the immune system" in either article. It's poteins which which do that.

Where are the proetins produced, by what?

[set fair]

No mention of a "gene which surpresses the immune system" in either article. It's poteins which which do that.

Where are the proetins produced, by what?

In the ribodomes by the ribosomes.

There are several proteins in CoV2 which dirupt with the interferon response.

[Petrochemicals]

No mention of a "gene which surpresses the immune system" in either article. It's poteins which which do that.

Where are the proetins produced, by what?

In the ribodomes by the ribosomes.

There are several proteins in CoV2 which dirupt with the interferon response.

How are the ribodomes and the  ribosomes created?

[set fair]

No mention of a "gene which surpresses the immune system" in either article. It's poteins which which do that.

Where are the proetins produced, by what?

In the ribodomes by the ribosomes.

There are several proteins in CoV2 which dirupt with the interferon response.

How are the ribodomes and the  ribosomes created?

How do ypu think the ribosokes ae created?

[evan_au]

No mention of a "gene which surpresses the immune system" in either article. It's poteins which which do that.

SARS-COV2 is an infectious pathogen.
- If the proteins that suppressed the interferon/immune response were just stored as proteins, they would be used up when the first cell got infected.
- In fact, these immune-suppressing proteins are coded by genes in the viral RNA
- So that as soon as the human cell gets infected, these viral proteins are churned out by the ribosomes, get into the human cell nucleus, and suppress interferon production.

The viral RNA also gets copied, packaged into new virions, which are released to infect new cells, before the human immune system catches up with the fact that it has a raging infection
- Unfortunately for some people, their immune system then goes into overdrive, attacking everything in sight (a "cytokine storm").

PS: There are some proteins that are "self-replicating", such as the prions which cause mad-cow disease, and perhaps some of the protein masses seen in some neurodegenerative diseases. But it is the viral RNA which codes for the replication of proteins in COVID-19.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prion

[set fair]

No mention of a "gene which surpresses the immune system" in either article. It's poteins which which do that.

SARS-COV2 is an infectious pathogen.
- If the proteins that suppressed the interferon/immune response were just stored as proteins, they would be used up when the first cell got infected.
- In fact, these immune-suppressing proteins are coded by genes in the viral RNA
- So that as soon as the human cell gets infected, these viral proteins are churned out by the ribosomes, get into the human cell nucleus, and suppress interferon production.

You're just digging yourself deeper, you try preset yourself as some kind of expert when you're not.

COVID has a gene which suppresses the immune system

is like saying covid had a gene which allows it to replicate.

[Petrochemicals]

No mention of a "gene which surpresses the immune system" in either article. It's poteins which which do that.

Where are the proetins produced, by what?

In the ribodomes by the ribosomes.

There are several proteins in CoV2 which dirupt with the interferon response.

How are the ribodomes and the  ribosomes created?

How do ypu think the ribosokes ae created?

I do not know what they are, but I think that the corona virus influences them somehow? Please clarify upon them.

[set fair]

No mention of a "gene which suppresses the immune system" in either article. It's proteins which which do that.

Where are the proteins produced, by what?

In the ribodomes by the ribosomes.

There are several proteins in CoV2 which disrupt with the interferon response.

How are the ribodomes and the  ribosomes created?

How do ypu think the ribosokes ae created?

I do not know what they are, but I think that the corona virus influences them somehow? Please clarify upon them.

Ribosomes are organelles in our cells which synthesis  proteins, Viruses highjack them to produce their proteins. Some viruses also do a good job of stopping them making our own proteins others try to do it on the quiet.

Interferons are messenger proteins, a subset of cytokynes. All vertebrates have them. We have more than twenty different interferons. As far as we're concerned here with covid, their purpose is to invoke various processes (in the cell, in neighbouring cells and white blood cells) to prevent the virus replicating.

Every virus that can infect us has to combat  interferon. Some of their methods are very ingenious and most viruses have multiple methods. Having a relatively small genome, viruses are very economical. The nucleocapsid membrane protein is a structural protein , holding the cell membrane together but additionally it can be released on its own into the host cell where it will antagonize type 1 interferon. It's common for viral proteins to multitask.

Sars CoV-2 doesn't have "a gene which suppresses the immune system", rather it  some genes which code for proteins which have the sole purpose of suppressing the immune response and has parts of other genes which code for parts of structural proteins which suppress the immune system. This is not just normal for viruses, it's essential.