Slack / Private Message Drop — page 161

[2020-09-11 22:30:12] [Eddie Holmes] Logically, I would say that a lower rate of evolution must also reduce the rate of antigenic drift (particularly if a lot of the mutations in SARS-CoV-2 are APOBEC related). But, that said, I agree with your points. What you ought to know is that my original submission looked absolutely *nothing* like what I submitted. Nothing. I never had a section on 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. [2020-09-11 22:34:28] [Kristian Andersen] 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 as much 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)). [2020-09-11 22:36:22] [Kristian Andersen] (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...) [2020-09-11 22:37:34] [Eddie Holmes] 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 cases of reinfection to conclude anything but she said it was too vague. [2020-09-11 22:39:00] [Eddie 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. [2020-09-11 22:39:30] [Eddie Holmes] One for the memoirs anyway. [2020-09-11 22:40:25] [Kristian Andersen] 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: [2020-09-11 22:41:42] [Eddie Holmes] Totally! [2020-09-12 06:58:41] [Robert Garry] Great job on the OpEd Eddie - the brilliance shines thru even with a heavy-handed editor. [2020-09-12 07:15:59] [Robert Garry] I'm a little more optimistic that immunity, natural or vaccine, will impact the spread of SARS-CoV-2. As Kristian knows [please keep this to the channel] we've found a fairly high level of serorxty to several SARS-CoV-2 proteins, N, S, RDB in Sierra Leonean samples going back several years. Some of the samples neutralize SARS-CoV-2 pseudovirus. Probably a related betacoronavirus, but not a known seasonal CoV [HKU-1 or OC43]. May help