Konstantin Severinov, professor at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology and Rutgers University in the USA, head of laboratories at the Institute of Genetics at the Kurchatov Institute and the Institute of Gene Biology, Russian Academy of Sciences, spoke on Michael Nucky's YouTube channel about the characteristics of the virus and how dangerous this option is .
“The only data that suggests that the omicron is worth seriously looking at is that in some regions of South Africa it very quickly, in just a few weeks, displaced the delta.
When it is said that one virus has supplanted another, in fact, this means that people with suspicion of infection get into the laboratory, they take PCR tests and it turns out that it is lucky that this particular virus can be distinguished at the level of a simple PCR reaction from the original delta virus.
So it turned out that there is some kind of outbreak, namely, that there are fewer and fewer “delta” variants in patients, but these new variants of the virus began to appear more and more.
And the displacement of the "delta" happened in a very short period of time. For comparison: in fact, the "delta" appeared back in October 2020, and created problems for the whole world, well, by June, probably.
The Indian outbreak was in March 2021, that is, it took several months for the "delta" to become a force, and then quietly supplanted all previous variants of the virus across the planet.
So, the new version, apparently, if all this is not some kind of error, such a statistical outlier, very quickly replaced the "delta", and therefore has some serious advantages.
If so, then this process should be repeated wherever carriers of the new virus find themselves and begin to transmit it to other people.
... So and not so. Not entirely wrong.
The vast majority of mutations that naturally and inevitably arise during infection, they will be a degraded copy of the parent virus and will not bring any benefit to the viral particles, such particles, on the contrary, will soon disappear. Rarely will there be more successful options.
Today "delta" is the most successful option, it is globally widespread, that is, most people who are now infected with the virus, they get "delta".
"Delta" is characterized by a certain set of mutations that he already has, he acquired them sometime earlier.
... If all people become infected with the "delta", then the process of accumulation of mutations, of course, is going on in them, but these additional changes in the genome will accumulate against the background of those mutations that are characteristic of the "delta".
Therefore, the specialists involved in this expected that the new variant of the virus that would emerge would be a kind of add-on over the "delta", if you like, "super-delta".
So, specifically with this new version, this did not happen.
It turned out that this new variant is not an improved copy of the delta, but as if it appeared out of nowhere, on the one hand, and on the other hand, it has a huge number of mutations, that is, the total number of changes in the genome of this virus relative to the Wuhan variant is approximately twice that the number of changes that are characteristic of the "delta".
It seemed to appear out of nowhere. If we have a huge number of mutations, we must imagine that first one appeared, which slightly improved the properties of the virus, then against the background of this first mutation a second, third appeared ... Such a sequential process of improving the function, in this case, of the virus, from the point in terms of the effectiveness of infection.
And here everything happened as if by a miraculous coincidence.
There was no, there was, there was nothing, there was a "delta" all around, and here such a wonderful new virus appears, which is not a "delta", but, nevertheless, contains a large number of mutations.
We return to the paradigm of Darwinian evolution. If many mutations have arisen and they arise sequentially, then there must be intermediate stages, which means that it would seem that it was possible to trace all this, not yet complete, set of mutations, which ultimately led to this handsome man.
But this is not there. And it will probably never be found.
This raises the question: where did he come from like this, all ready? How could he make these 50 changes to be like this.
Well, one of the ideas that is confirmed by independent observations: apparently, this virus is the result of evolution in the body of one person.
Namely, you have to imagine one person whose immune system was somehow suppressed - suppressed, he or she was infected with a virus, not a "delta", but some even earlier version, and if the person, whose immune system is working normally, would recover, and the virus would disappear, it would be suppressed by the immune system, then here for a long time, maybe several months, the person was sick, infected, was a carrier of this virus, but the immune system is this virus pressed, but could not completely get rid of him.
This is a situation of selection, when those variants of the virus, which for some reason are better, begin to be selected, bypassing the actions - not very effective, but still sensitive - of the immune system. And since this process goes on for a long time, a person cannot recover or die, which, perhaps, would be better for us, as humanity, then new options with a multiple number of mutations are slowly being selected in him, and then, for some then the stage, this virus is transmitted. A healthcare professional, a family member, et cetera, et cetera.
Apparently, something similar happened here, so we do not see any intermediate options.
They were selected, as in a flask, in one person.
... The spike protein contains over a thousand amino acid residues. Protein is made of amino acids, like words are made and letters, and it is a very long "word" of over a thousand letters.
In this new version, as a result of mutations, a couple of dozen amino acids have been changed, but not more. So, in any case, the protein remains the same and the antibodies will recognize it to some extent.
Both the "delta" and the "gamma", and all the previous variants also had changes in the S-protein.
The question of how much less effective our immune system will recognize this virus, or how much less effective antibodies are for this virus, the cellular response generated as a result of the S-protein vaccination of the original Wuhan variant is an experimental question. I am sure that within a week or two we will find out the answer.
This is done as follows: in the laboratory you need to get an isolate, a variant, well, physically get this virus, build it up, and then add it to the blood samples of people vaccinated with Pfizer, Sputnik, whatever. This blood should contain antibodies that recognize the virus, at least the original one.
After mixing the virus and a blood sample, you wait for a while, and then you ask whether there is a lot of the virus left or not, and if less, then by how much, and at what speed the virus is being destroyed. These are fairly simple experiments and will be done very soon.
The mere fact of a large number of mutations does not mean that our immunity will less effectively deal with this virus . "
The entire interview with Konstantin Severinov can be viewed here.