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| Topic - Corona/CoViD-news Posted: 01 Sep 2024 at 11:05pm By Dutch Josh 2 |
 < aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="menu" aria-label="More" role="" ="-175oi2r r-1777fci r-bt1l66 r-bztko3 r-lrvibr r-1loqt21 r-1ny4l3l" -testid="caret" ="" style="text-align: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-family: inherit; align-items: stretch; border-width: 0px; border-style: solid; border-color: black; display: flex; flex-basis: auto; flex-direction: column; flex-shrink: 0; list-style: none; margin: 0px; min-height: 20px; min-width: 0px; padding: 0px; : relative; : 0; overflow: ; justify-: center; cursor: pointer; outline-style: none; user-: none;"> Lots of talk about the XEC variant lately. It's a fast variant, but I want to emphasize two things.
First, I don't think XEC is much faster than the dominant KP.3.1.1. Germany is the only country w/enough seqs for a reliable growth estimate & it's pretty modest & uncertain. 1/6 - A variant w/such a small growth advantage (assuming it's accurate) takes months to grow to dominance. And such modest advantages do not result in any noticeable change in case levels, so I don't expect XEC to have any real impact. By the time it would become dominant... 2/6 - ...it's almost certain that some other, more dramatic evolutionary event will have taken place, whether that be another chronic-infection-derived saltation variant or simply further stepwise spike mutations on top of current variants. 3/6 - 2nd important point: XEC's spike is nearly identical to KP.3.1.1's spike, so there's no real concern about immune escape here.
There are only 2 differences:
#1. KP.3.1.1 has ∆S31 & XEC has T22N. But both introduce glycans & have near identical effects on growth. 4/6 - #2. XEC has F59S, which KP.3.1.1 lacks. This is the most likely source of XEC's slight growth advantage over KP.3.1.1, but it's not in an antigenically important region & has never been a major factor in any previous variant.
Meanwhile, they share 63 AA spike mutations. - In summary, I see XEC as a notable and important variant but not one likely to have a major real-world impact. Others feel differently, and I could be wrong. We probably won't know for several weeks yet. 6/6 DJ, part of the problem may be in lack of testing=lack of sequences... Andrew Urquhart @wolfeagle1989 · Replying to @wolfeagle1989 6 more XEC samples: 6 Netherlands, 2 Noord-Holland (NH), 2 Utrecht (UT), 1 Gelderland (GE), and 1 Overijseel (OV) (totals NH 3, UT 3, GE 2, OV 1, Netherlands 11). Global XEC total samples now 112 with 109 individual. DJ, In NL XEC may (still) be in the KP.3 variant "cluster"... https://outbreak.info/location-reports?xmin=2024-03-02&xmax=2024-09-02&loc=DEU or https://outbreak.info/location-reports?xmin=2024-03-02&xmax=2024-09-02&loc=DEU German variant overview not updated since mid-July ??? https://outbreak.info/situation-reports?xmin=2024-03-02&xmax=2024-09-02&pango=XEC or https://outbreak.info/situation-reports?xmin=2024-03-02&xmax=2024-09-02&pango=XEC this info only goes till early august...(only 38 times detected in 12 countries...but there is hardly ANY testing...so not much info...) DJ, the basic sort of CoViD testing is virus-parts in sewagewater...However here also high levels may not mean a lot of people catch (symptomatic) CoViD... https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-p-scores-average-baseline?time=2023-12-31..2024-07-21&country=USA~GBR~NLD~FRA~DEU~SWE or https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-p-scores-average-baseline?time=2023-12-31..2024-07-21&country=USA~GBR~NLD~FRA~DEU~SWE NL still -in 2024- has higher excess deaths than a lot of other western countries. Only France and Germany had lower than average "normal" deaths for a few times...NL excess deaths in between +10 to +20%....Does Sweden simply not report excess deaths ? "CoviD is over" because "it is no longer in the news"....Do not test-do not tell-stupidity... A lot of CoViD deaths are "hidden" in statistics for hearth/kidney/brain(stroke) deaths... Excess deaths also include heatwave deaths...only NW Europe did NOT have a heatwave this summer !
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