What is going on? How can increased levels of Omicron virus replication be associated with reduced disease? How did so many mutations in the receptor binding domain of Omicron arise, apparently spontaneously? Why do the evolutionary tree plots show that Omicron represents a separate branch from currently circulating viruses? How could so many mutations which confer vaccine resistance suddenly appear?
https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/has-omicron-shifted-receptor-binding
Botswana (and Southern Africa in general) does not have a very high vaccination rate, so why would a vaccine-resistant virus strain develop in this region. Did someone engineer and release yet another virus? Lots and lots of questions. Very few answers. And then this new press release from the University of Hong Kong arrived today, showing that Omicron replicates more highly in conducting airway cells (bronchus), and less in lung cells. I think that the paper above provides with some important clues that could help us make sense out of this puzzle...
This is why this new finding from a team at Hong Kong University is so significant. Because it indicates that what may be most important about Omicron may not be the ability to evade vaccine-induced immunity, but that it has shifted its preferred tissue target for infection and replication to the upper airway instead of deep lung. That could explain why it is more infectious, replicates to higher levels, and yet causes less severe disease.
Let’s hope that is our best gift this Christmas.
3 comments:
My money is on the hypothesis that Omicron developed from Cov-2 passing through animal hosts. During which time, the animal host lung tissue being less compatible than those of humans, the economy of nature meant it started to abandoned this form of entry as it conferred little advantage. Then virus in one of the surrogate animal hosts reinfected man. If this is so, one wonders if it was a good idea to euthanise a whole mink farm in Europe after it was found they had Cov-2. The arrogance of modern medicine thinking it knows better than nature and can out-smart it is astounding.
This could explain why there has been no detection of Omicron variants between the Cov-2 clade of March until Omicron popped up out of nowhere in October. I prefer to start with the simplest explanation first.
There is a speeded up plot of the spread of variants on twitter which illustrates this sudden appearance well.
https://twitter.com/TheChiefNerd/status/1466529366133723137
Poster ‘Proud European from Austria.’ in the comments below TheChiefNerd runs through the list of possibilities and as far as I can see covers all bases: reverse-zoonosis & re-introduction, chronically infected (possibly immuno compromised.), unobserved evolution (because of lack of sentinel sequencing) OR any thinkable combination are all possible/can't be ruled out.
Mean while, MSM is warning us that the light we see at the end of the tunnel is that of another locomotive coming our way. Well, I’m going to have a merry Christmas and make up for last year.
Hmm. I'm just getting over bronchitis that started as a scratchy throat and proceeded very slowly to a productive, bronchial cough. No fever or nasal congestion. Negative at-home rapid test just before the bronchitis stage but I'm wondering if these tests can even spot omicron? Friend (in another town that I haven't seen) also has bronchitis.
Now I wonder if an antibody blood test can help confirm whether I've had it. We can't get T-detect in Canada.
I am loathe to line up with symptomatics for a PCR, especially near the end of my illness, but would like to know.
This is interesting. I recovered from complicated covid with pneumonia with the help of Dr Nass back in November. Felt perfectly fine for a couple weeks. Then starting Friday Dec 10 I developed a sore throat that led to losing my voice completely (laryngitis) and a productive cough. Urgent care said it was a random virus and they wouldn’t test me for covid because of how recently I had just recovered. There’s a lot of bronchitis and upper respiratory stuff going on right now. I’m so curious about all of this...
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