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"Importantly, viral evolution is not a one-way street: Omicron did not evolve from Delta, and Delta didn’t evolve from Alpha — it is more random and unpredictable than that."
A good high-level summary on virus evolution on 11:05 - Jan 11 by bluelagos
"Importantly, viral evolution is not a one-way street: Omicron did not evolve from Delta, and Delta didn’t evolve from Alpha — it is more random and unpredictable than that."
Can you explain that phrase Stokie?
(in laymans terms) Cheers
I think he's trying to say that there are many mutations of every variant and that these can then "recombine" to create other variants which aren't really direct links to the initial variant. It's looks like Omicron was a recombination of many variants which then retained the mutations from a number of those variants rather than a progression to a weaker form of Delta. Essentially it's not a linear march of progress in evolutionary terms which an animal improves over time to it's environment, it's a more random process than that.
If you think of a straight street where the houses progress in an orderly fashion through time with Victorian at the start up to new builds at the end. That is a linear progression of styles, one to the next, but then imagine lots of side alleys which go off and round the back with crazy random houses on them and then they rejoin the street further down with a whole new style of architecture and a completely different type of house. That house isn't really related to the march of styles along the street, it's a distinct evolution of a different idea but there it is on the street.
To be honest, I think that is a totally rubbish analogy but no time to think of a better on at the moment. I'll try to come up with one later.
SB
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A good high-level summary on virus evolution on 11:57 - Jan 11 with 821 views
A good high-level summary on virus evolution on 11:21 - Jan 11 by StokieBlue
I think he's trying to say that there are many mutations of every variant and that these can then "recombine" to create other variants which aren't really direct links to the initial variant. It's looks like Omicron was a recombination of many variants which then retained the mutations from a number of those variants rather than a progression to a weaker form of Delta. Essentially it's not a linear march of progress in evolutionary terms which an animal improves over time to it's environment, it's a more random process than that.
If you think of a straight street where the houses progress in an orderly fashion through time with Victorian at the start up to new builds at the end. That is a linear progression of styles, one to the next, but then imagine lots of side alleys which go off and round the back with crazy random houses on them and then they rejoin the street further down with a whole new style of architecture and a completely different type of house. That house isn't really related to the march of styles along the street, it's a distinct evolution of a different idea but there it is on the street.
To be honest, I think that is a totally rubbish analogy but no time to think of a better on at the moment. I'll try to come up with one later.
A good high-level summary on virus evolution on 11:05 - Jan 11 by bluelagos
"Importantly, viral evolution is not a one-way street: Omicron did not evolve from Delta, and Delta didn’t evolve from Alpha — it is more random and unpredictable than that."
Can you explain that phrase Stokie?
(in laymans terms) Cheers
Sorry to interrupt the conversation but have you read George’s Marvellous Medicine by Roald Dahl? To me, the evolution of a virus reminds me of that.
George mixes one set of ingredients to a certain effect and is then asked to do it again, which results in a different outcome - he misses something out so it’s a variant of the original. He does it again but something else is missing - again, a variant of the original. The base remains the same each time but something else isn’t, whether it being down to mixing or timing, and therefore the impact on the body is different (though far more extreme in GMM than with Covid!) And the changes are random, there’s no logic to what is missed every time.
A good high-level summary on virus evolution on 11:21 - Jan 11 by StokieBlue
I think he's trying to say that there are many mutations of every variant and that these can then "recombine" to create other variants which aren't really direct links to the initial variant. It's looks like Omicron was a recombination of many variants which then retained the mutations from a number of those variants rather than a progression to a weaker form of Delta. Essentially it's not a linear march of progress in evolutionary terms which an animal improves over time to it's environment, it's a more random process than that.
If you think of a straight street where the houses progress in an orderly fashion through time with Victorian at the start up to new builds at the end. That is a linear progression of styles, one to the next, but then imagine lots of side alleys which go off and round the back with crazy random houses on them and then they rejoin the street further down with a whole new style of architecture and a completely different type of house. That house isn't really related to the march of styles along the street, it's a distinct evolution of a different idea but there it is on the street.
To be honest, I think that is a totally rubbish analogy but no time to think of a better on at the moment. I'll try to come up with one later.
SB
Think you have misrepresented evolutionary theory a bit at the end of your first paragraph - it is not so much a 'march of progress' as random mutations finding a best fit (i.e. 'survival of the fittest' is not that the strongest or most well developed necessarily survive, it is that the organisms that best fit the circumstances are most likely to survive, even if they seem weird and unlikely to those who were dominant in the previous set of circumstances.)
But this may not apply to COVID-19 as, far as I understand it, the jury is still out on whether a virus is a living thing or just a chance agglomeration of cellular matter.
YouTube put this short video into my recommendations, and I have been keen to sign up to the ZOE app for dietary reasons as well as knowing two or three people who are providing data to their COVID-19 studies, you may find it timely and informative. I didn't know that there are twenty symptoms of Omicron for a start:
.... in light of what you have posted and the seemingly time limited effectiveness of vaccines on variants do you have any real world suggestions on how we carry on as a functioning society going forward. Is it just a case of muddling through as the severity of each variant becomes apparent. Pretend you are answering somebody else if it helps...
"They break our legs and tell us to be grateful when they offer us crutches."
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