Slack / Private Message Drop — page 456

Here's the paper from David Ho - B.1.351 not looking good: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.25.428137v2.full.pdf [2021-01-26 17:22:22] [Kristian Andersen] How people can look at this data and conclude that "it'll be totally fine for vaccines - all good news", I simply don't understand. Either it's delusional or it's because we have now (yet again) turned to wishful thinking. There is little doubt in my mind we'll have to update the vaccine. Will B.1.351 kill them completely? Very likely not - however, there's going to be a hard hit to the efficacy because of this. [2021-01-26 17:22:34] [Eddie Holmes] I thought not... [2021-01-26 17:23:01] [Eddie Holmes] Fucker as you say... [2021-01-26 17:24:36] [Kristian Andersen] The Moderna paper yesterday (which looks more promising) they literally took the serum at the very peak (a week after the booster) so the data would look better. In this paper they wait a few weeks and see a more worrisome effect - similar to the observations from RSA. In any case - it sounds like Moderna is already working on an updated design, so that's the right thing to do - I just hope that work gets fast-tracked. [2021-01-26 17:27:03] [Robert Garry] [thread - ID: 2021-01-26 16:38:37] @Kristian Andersen Of course, I'll send when I get back to the office computer. [2021-01-26 17:36:25] [Eddie Holmes] Indeed! Sounds like an update is needed ASAP. [2021-01-26 17:44:07] [Kristian Andersen] I don't necessarily think it needs to get into people ASAP, but the whole process absolutely needs to be started ASAP - it's not a simple "six week and we're done" process. Better have this ready to go over the summer. [2021-01-26 17:46:21] [Eddie Holmes] Totally agree. [2021-01-26 18:04:05] [Kristian Andersen] Just looking at that CamboBat paper - very interesting. One thing they miss - that mismatch in the key RBD residue where CamboBat has "P" and the PangoCoV and SC2 have "F" (and SC1 / RmYN02 have "L") the "pre"-SARS CoVs from e.g., civets ALSO have "P". Pretty interesting. [shared file(s): Screen Shot 2021-01-26 at 5.59.43 PM.png, Screen Shot 2021-01-26 at 6.03.31 PM.png] [2021-01-26 18:09:33] [Eddie Holmes] Oh cool! It's really not much of a paper.