0:00
Welcome to ANI In The Air, Wondrous Wednesday where I talk about something wondrous.
0:07
So I wanted to talk about the virus variants and their evolution.
0:12
So with evolution, you know, the idea is survival of the fittest basically in each population.
0:24
You know, there'll be some changes from one generation to another and the ones that can
0:29
survive the best will be the ones that reproduce and therefore will be the ones present or
0:39
so in the next generation.
0:40
If they are better, then they will continue along that fashion.
0:44
Now the virus variants, they basically evolve from our temps, whether our natural immune
0:55
system doing this or the medical system, vaccines, antibody treatments, etc., you know, going
1:06
after and killing the original virus version.
1:11
And so as the dominant strain gets killed off by these treatments, the more rare variants
1:26
get a chance to thrive if they get to avoid that attack.
1:33
That's basically the idea of it.
1:42
One of the things that can dramatically help this process is individuals with a malfunctioning
1:52
immune system that get treated by, you know, antibody treatments.
1:59
And so those treatments will damp down the original virus, but because the immune system
2:08
is not helping, it's not enough to kill it all.
2:12
And it's just kind of like this stasis system where, you know, the viruses keep reproducing
2:21
just enough to stay alive.
2:24
And after, you know, millions of reproductions, they come up with a variant that avoids those
2:35
treatments.
2:36
And, you know, that is what some suggest has actually happened, that, you know, basically
2:44
it's not clear whether the actual variants that have gotten out in the wild have done
2:49
this, but they've certainly seen the variants in patients that they were treating who had
2:55
weakened immune systems.
2:58
So, you know, so one version of this is you have one individual where the virus can reproduce
3:07
over and over again until it gets the right version.
3:11
And another version is you just have so much reproduction across the population that eventually
3:18
something comes from somebody, you know, it's the same numbers, whether it's across a population
3:26
or just one individual where they have tons more going on.
3:32
So, but in any event, that does seem to be the case with the virus variants.
3:42
And apparently it has a lot to do with the spike because the vaccine and the antibodies
3:49
are targeting the spike thing that it uses.
3:53
And so the variants that are successful reduce the spike, I believe, thereby evading the
4:05
attacks by the immune system.
4:08
But then, you know, it is less effective, I guess, at getting in the cells, but it can
4:14
still be effective, just enough to keep going.
4:20
And then there are other variants, I think they're different, that are just more transmissible
4:29
for whatever reason.
4:31
And so, you know, this is evolution in action, basically.
4:36
The virus has encountered a hostile force against it and through sheer reproduction
4:45
of numbers, and we're talking quite a bit of reproduction for a virus.
4:49
I mean, thousands, if not millions in any particular individual getting out and being
4:59
able to reproduce, it doesn't take long for a one in a million chance to actually happen
5:06
when you're doing that.
5:10
So that is a wondrous Wednesday.
5:15
The COVID-19 virus is still with us.
5:22
We're all hopeful that the vaccines will enable the transmission to stop before there's a
5:30
variant that evolves that will avoid the vaccine, because that would make us sad.
5:37
I mean, eventually, there will be probably variants that do that, and then we'll need
5:42
the new vaccine.
5:44
However, since just like the flu, once they kind of developed the first vaccine and proved
5:50
that it's relatively safe, then they can tweak their vaccine to create what we need in the
6:01
future much more quickly.
6:05
So hopefully that is what will happen, and I guess we shall see.
6:10
So hope you enjoyed this little bit about kind of how the end of this pandemic, hopefully
6:21
it's the end and not some kind of middle, kind of plays out from an evolutionary perspective.
6:27
It's what many expected, and we'll just have to see how it goes, how the rates happen.
6:38
Alright, well, have a good one and I'll see you when I see you.