Mastodawn

I have been worrying about this for days but don't have the spoons to dig in:

BA.3.2 lost its ability to bind tightly to ACE-2 receptors on cells [1]

Remember that Long COVID rates were much higher during Delta? Remember that Delta was much more prone to syncytia (not needing ACE2 at all) in part because it had reduced ACE-2 affinity?

syncytia formation via the highly fusogenic Delta spike promotes cellular senescence and extracellular cytokine release [2]

and I know I read (skimmed) a paper suggesting that this method of direct contact cell-cell transmission was driving Long COVID - aha here:

We propose the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 transitions to persistent infection, facilitated by syncytia formation [3]

[1] https://archive.md/HWOHt#selection-3205.38-3205.105
[2] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10785701/
[3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40535019/

#COVID #COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #CovidIsNotOver #BA32 #syncytia #syncytial

Show thread

John 2d ago

@datum

I read your post and made that face where you crunch your eyes closed because you're feeling pain but are too tired to react to it

Hoerger also recently said he's hearing that kids are getting much more severe acute cases than with previous strains.

Show thread

datum (n=1)2d ago

@johnzajac

Hoerger also recently said he's hearing that kids are getting much more severe acute cases than with previous strains.

If Michael Hoerger he or another happens to share citations to quantified kid illness, if you happen to think of this please do share the citation.

I'm all for on the ground reporting, but to change behaviours and convince HCWs takes a higher burden of proof than it should given the precautionary principle and, you know, half a decade of evidence to date. And the acute phase's severity is such a small % of the harm, but so over-valued in people's minds.

But still, "this variant is worse for kids" could be leveraged.

Show thread

John 2d ago

@datum

That's why I said "he's hearing" because he didn't have hard evidence and acknowledged that. The tone was "abundance of caution", not "I know this to be true!"

Sorry if I was unclear.

Show thread

John

@datum

Also 100% agree that the acute illness is not the story here.

This upcoming strain just has so many different mutations (from what I've read) that I've re-tuned in a bit to the discourse around its characteristics.