natural selection Archives

What Makes SARS-CoV-2 More Infectious.

12 February 2022

The Role Of The RBM:ACE2 Interface. A little over a year ago, we set out how increased infectiousness meant greater vulnerability, i.e. a new variant may be more infectious but it is also more susceptible to destruction by the innate immune response. The chances are that most people now know what a structural spike protein […]

How Low Is The SARS-CoV-2 Mortality Rate?

13 September 2021

We All Grew Up With Coronaviruses, As Did All Our Ancestors. To understand the relevance of mortality rate, you have to appreciate that coronaviruses first became pathogenic to humans in the range 12,000 – 10,000 years ago, as a consequence of the first interaction between humans and livestock that occurred in the early Holocene. Mankind […]

Why Delta / B1.617.2 Is NOT A Problem.

6 July 2021

Just What Is Different About Delta? B1.617.2/Delta is apparently still spreading. This is unsurprising given that it has been occurring globally for over eight months. At least the WHO has finally applied a nomenclature to the main SARS-CoV-2 variants, adding to the existing PANGO and Nextstrain designations. This validates something we first highlighted four months […]

The ‘Third Wave’ That Has Been Here All Along.

24 March 2021

B1.1.7 v B1.1.28 v B1.351. As we have previously explained, SARS-CoV-2 neither thinks nor acts geographically. Yet the misleading designation of SARS-CoV-2 variants on a geographical basis continues to dominate media coverage and government obsession, with the putative ‘third wave’ being down to either the Brazilian variant or the UK variant dependent upon whether you […]

Why Geographical Naming Of Variants Is Wrong.

5 March 2021

B1.1.28 and B1.351 – They Are All ‘Johnny Foreigner’ Variants To The Government. In recent months, the government has made much of the emergence of new ‘killer mutations of death’, obsessing about ‘South African’ and ‘Brazilian’ geographical variants. Before going further, one should refer to these variants by their correct designations: the Brazilian variant is […]

More Infectious Equals More Vulnerable.

28 January 2021

Infectiousness And Infectivity Are Not The Same. Infectiousness is how easily a pathogen can spread and infectivity is the level of disease severity it can cause. We explained this in more detail earlier this month in response to the UK government’s regular – and one would predicate deliberate – confusion of the two. S-VoC / […]

The lack of sunlight. Yet another reason why lockdown has made the situation far worse.

6 July 2020

This is something about which we have been writing for months and now with every passing day, there is an increasing body of evidence that shows lockdown was not only ineffective – and therefore unnecessary – but also that it made the situation worse. Worse as in it was responsible for the deaths of thousands, […]