A single line often inverts meaning once you see what it
answers, so neighbouring messages are always shown.
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Logically, I would say that a lower rate of evolution must also reduce the rate of antigenic drift (particularly if a lot ofthe mutations in SARS-CoV-2 are APOBEC related). But, that said, I agree with your points. What you ought toknow is that my original submission looked absolutely *nothing* like what I submitted. Nothing. I never had a sectionon reinfection for a starter. The Editor re-wrote everything. It was torture. Just torture. My original statement on the vaccines said: "SARS-CoV-2 is in the evolutionary slow lane for an RNA virus. This is good news because it means that the virus will find it just a bit harder to 'escape' from any future vaccines or antiviral drugs if and when they are developed". So, not quite the same.
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Well, whatever the editor did the product is still very good :wink:. That's funny about the reinfection part, because I _did_ find that a little out of place - and the concern here isn't asmuch that people are reinfected with a more dangerous virus, it's just the fact that they're reinfected in the first place... (which, as you - or the editor... - say is what we'd expect - but we don't yet know how frequent reinfections are (on this point, I'm concerned - very. But I'm a pessimist)).
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(and by concerned, I mean that I think after a few months, a good proportion of people are probably going to be susceptible - I wouldn't be surprised if we're at ~50% being susceptible after 6-9 months...)
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Exactly! I didn't want any of that in but she insisted! It was a fight. I added a bit saying that there were too few casesof reinfection to conclude anything but she said it was too vague.
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2020-09-11 22:39
Edward C. Holmes
I had bits about the possible evolution of seasonality and more emerging coronaviruses in the future but they were all axed. It was brutal.
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One for the memoirs anyway.
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Hah - well all that stuff can be used for the next OpEd in 6 months when we have answers to all these various questions! :beer:
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Totally!