"There is no reason to scream: horror-uzhas!"

A new Covid-19 wave will come to Russia? With the "Indian" strain? Explains the microbiologist Konstantin Severinov

What should you really be afraid - explains the microbiologist Konstantin Severinov

- Another rise in the incidence in the world is really the third wave of pandemic?

- According to official information, in Russia in recent weeks everything is stable, there is no new wave. In many countries, the third wave has already been. If we consider what happened in March-April-May last year, the first wave, then there was an autumn rise, and then-the rise of the end of winter-the beginning of the spring of 2021.

- So the fourth has gone now? Or how should they be considered?

- I'm not sure that the numbering is important in this case. There is a simple situation: according to official statistics not only in Russia, but also in other countries, then

The vast majority of people with coronavirus have not yet been ill.

The number of countries in which vaccination has reached such a level as to talk about collective immunity is very small. With the exception of Israel, these are still united Arab Emirates and Butane, it seems. In the UK, they are selected for a 50 percent level of vaccination, in the USA they will soon approach it. In other countries, it is very, very far away. Therefore, there the virus can continue its victorious procession, since there is no direct action from it.

The most characteristic example is India, where, apparently, everything is very bad.

In Argentina, now the highest peak of incidence. The most unpleasant thing is that each next peak is above the previous one, but this should happen where most people have not become ill or not vaccinated.

- I watch the schedules of the daily number of cases on the site of the University of John Hopkins, and the picture in which each new peak is even worse, is visible everywhere, except for those countries that you have listed as vaccination leaders.

- Otherwise, it cannot be. In the USA, for example, three waves have already passed, and apparently there will be no fourth. They have more than 10 percent of the population have become ill and more than 40 percent injected. Therefore, the number of people who can be infected during the next wave has become much less than before. So, the wave itself will be lower.

- Why in other countries, without such a level of vaccination, each new surge is stronger than the previous one? The virus is angrier?

- No, not angrier. It’s just that none of the peaks was covered by a fairly large number of people. The number of those who have not yet been ill are still much larger than the number of emirable. At the same time, the geography of the spread of the virus with each wave expands. And the number of illnesses on the plateau between the waves is also growing. For example, now, in an atmosphere of relative benevolence and “plateau”, in Russia every day almost as much will be infected as at the peak of the first wave a year ago, when there was a hard locone, which is not now. It looks like a jumping ball that is different, and not for decaying.

“And it will continue so until we all get out?”

- Or we will not nevertheless blink.

- Or every new wave should be accompanied by the same measures as they were a year ago, that is, a complete locaun?

“But this cannot last long.” Everyone has accumulated fatigue from these measures.

- Now in Russia is it really a plateau and is it all right? As far as I know, in different cities, doctors began to intensively prepare for the same third - or fourth - wave, which will be worse than the previous ones.

- Recently, 400 people per day have been dying, 9 thousand are getting sick. Let us believe the statistics that we have been ill for the year - or were diagnosed as positive in coronavirus - 4 million people. Let's believe that we have 6-7 million people have passed vaccination, a full course or not - it does not matter.

In any case, with all the assumptions, all this is together - a maximum of 15 million people. And the country lives in 145 million people.

So, if these figures are true, then most of the population is not ill and not vaccinated, and these people can get sick. And with a high probability they get sick.

- Do you think that Russian official statistics can be believed? Somewhere else in the world are there such neat graphs so that about the same number of people get sick every day?

-Well, look: in October, November and December, our “schedule” was-oh-th. If you think that a certain evil mind is trying to hide the true situation, then why do you believe the “bad graphics” and do not believe the “good”? Why, then in the fall of 2020, these “villains” considered the “acceptable” number in 30 thousand cases a day, and now they are “enough” nine? It seems to me that conspiracy thinking is unproductive. Perhaps specific numbers are different, but the order of values ​​is important. I think you can be sure that the incidence is less now than it was autumn.

- Now doctors have talked about the new terrible “Indian” strain of coronavirus, which allegedly came to us. How are such fears justified? And how much should you be afraid of the mutations of the virus?

- It seems to me that the attitude towards all new variants of coronavirus is similar to the attitude to maniacs.

Here was Chikatilo, then the Tushino maniac, then some other ... And people are very afraid of every new one, in particular, because they quickly forget about the past. In fact, viruses always mutate. They evolve on us and in a sense with us.

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- What is this “Indian” mutation. What is this coronavirus?

- In general, almost the same as it was. Imagine you are a virus.

- Easily.

- And now you find a person, he inhales you. You find yourself in the nasopharynx of this unfortunate, infect some cage there and it produces offspring in several hundred viruses. They infect other cells, each also produces offspring, the infectious process begins. But at the same time, the offspring will genetically differ from the “parent” virus. Not like our children differ from us, but some differences at the level of the RNA of the RNA of the virus genome will be.

Here, perhaps, the allusion to Prince Vladimir will be useful - remember Alexei Tolstoy? “From love, he shared the whole earth for children. The service was bad, and the children, seeing that, let's hang each other. ” Viral "kids" begin to fight for the cells of the very poor fellow whom you, the same virus, infected. Part loses to its brothers: while they were looking for a suitable cage, the more nimble have already managed to go inside and even make offspring. Such success can be associated with the presence of some changes in the genome of specific viruses. As a result, someone wins, someone loses.

It turns out that over and over again, “kids” win with changes in the S-protein gene, increasing the affinity of the virus to our cells. This is understandable, because such a virus more effectively infects new cells.

Well, at the same time, a certain number of mutations are recruited - up to twenty compared to the initial option that entered the person.

The longer such a virus lives in a person, the more he mutates and the more effective it becomes. And the virus lives in a person, the longer, the longer a person does not recover, but does not die. On a quickly recovered person, the virus may simply not have enough time to evolve. Like a blossomed person. Well, it is impossible to evolve on the deceased, because he is buried three feet in the ground.

There is a certain layer of people who are sick for a long time. And in them, as in large flasks, there are the evolution of viruses, over time more adapted escapist viruses are selected. They are escapists in the sense that as a result of evolution, they “learned” to penetrate the cells faster and, possibly, more effectively slip away from counteracting the immune system, that is, became more adapted. The owner releases these viruses out - to the nannies, nurses, and doctors. And new options begin to travel around the region, and then they are spread around the world.

- You told how the new strain turns out. Is it possible to say what is its novelty for us, potential owners?

- Certainly. You can come to India, although now I would not advise, go to the Covid Hospital, detect the genome of the patient taken from the patient, and make sure that in this genome, this is almost 30 thousand letters of the RNA, there are differences from the initial - the Pryansky - reference option.

- You are talking about the virus itself again. And I want to understand that he will cause a person. It will be stronger, for example, the lungs will amaze. Or something else will “learn” to do.

-The virus actually does not evolve in order to voluntarily annoy the conditional Ivan Ivanovich. He does not fight with a person, but with his sweet "relatives", as we just discussed.

The virus has no goal to harm the owner, the only goal is to leave as much offspring as possible. For him, a person is just a large number of cells that can be infected.

And each virus seeks to take a cage before another virus. Because another virus will not enter the infected cage. It looks like a bike about a philosopher and physicist running through the forest from a bear. The physicist at some point says: you know, everything is pointless, I calculated, we cannot run faster than a bear. And the philosopher answers him that I do not need to run faster than a bear, I need to run faster than you.

And the British, Brazilian, and Indian options - and there are probably a large number of “Russian options” that we simply do not know about each other, because they arise in similar situations, select one principle in the process of breeding inside sick people. All these options have mutations in the S-Bel gene, which allows a changed virus to better contact our cells. It is not yet clearly shown that one of these options is more pathogenic. But many, more contagious, are able to spread faster. This is understandable: since viruses compete with each other, the one that spreads faster gets an advantage. The virus options will be determined the more, the more infected people in the country and the better diagnosis is established in it. The variant of the virus, imported from the outside, may be more successful than those that circulate, for example, in our country, and then it will displace them over time. Or maybe the other way around: he will not be able to compete with the natives and will meet in isolated cases, and then it will disappear altogether.

- They have their natural selection right in us.

- That's right. Natural selection. But so far there is no reason to believe that the available vaccines do not act on these viruses.

“But there is no exact data on what they act.”

- Maybe they act a little less effectively, but enough to prevent the disease or reduce its severity. That's why

Vaccination still remains the only answer to what is happening.

- Your colleagues, virologists, have such a theory: as the virus is evolution, the virus weakens, each new strain weaker than the old one. Because the task of the virus is not to kill us, but to learn how to live with us.

- This is a common opinion about the evolution of the interaction of the parasite and the owner. In this case, the hosts are you and I, and the parasite is a virus. There are different success strategies for a parasite. And there is a feeling that for a very large time, parasites tend to become more “soft”, to bring less harm to the owner, to coexist with him. But this is precisely on large segments of time, and we are talking about the segment of only one and a half to two years.

On the other hand, there are counter examples. One of them likes to cite Alexei Kondrashov, a very deep evolutionary scientist: the Ospa virus did not show any tendency to reduce infectiousity. He, as he killed everyone in a row, continued to kill, until he was taken out at all. They brought out, I want to notice, vaccinations.

-And yet, since we are now afraid of the “Indian” strain: what is known about him?

- It was first defined in October. Now up to 70 percent of the distinguished viruses in some areas of India relate to this strain. This means that the virus is more adapted, that it displaces the original version. Actually, this was the case with the "British" option. Unlike other well-known options, the “Indian” has an increased set of mutations in the S-Bely gene. Antibodies that occur after vaccination by the majority of widely used vaccines also interact with the S-Belk.

-But then the antibodies that arose after vaccination do not necessarily react to this s-mutant.

- The data on whether this version of the virus is able to bypass the immunity caused by vaccination, so far is not. But this, of course, will be investigated in the near future. I repeat that the effectiveness of antibodies, the production of which is caused by drugs based on the “standard” S-protein gene can be slightly lower in theory, but it will still be enough to prevent the disease or reduce its severity.

- Last time you said that vaccines based on gene technologies can be easily varied by “planting” just a new “filling” in them.

- Can. But so far it is not a fact that this needs to be done. There is no reason to shout “horror-uzhas” and grab a new vaccine. This may not be needed.

-Is the development of vaccination somehow somehow affect the evolution of viruses?

- Undoubtedly. Because the viruses are unstable, they are afraid of the influence of the external environment, sunlight and so on. Recently, the news was a description of the great discovery: if they warm them up to 72 degrees, they lose infectiousity ...

- You can still boil. Together with the owner, of course.

- If the virus cannot quickly move from an infected person to a healthy one, he will die, the line of infection will be stopped. This can be achieved by quarantine measures - a restriction of communication between people, or can be achieved by vaccination, after which people become immune to infection.

- Can this process go so that the virus in the process of evolution will “adapt” to vaccines, how bacteria adapt to antibiotics?

- The use of antibiotics for therapy and preventive vaccination is not the same thing. In the first case, the person first fell ill, a huge amount of bacteria developed in it - and it begins to be fed with antibiotics. At the same time, there are already so many pathogenic bacteria in a person that some of their options are resistant to medicine, they survive, despite therapy, multiply and, for example, kill the patient.

As for the virus, infection in most cases occurs by a very small number of infectious particles. We just introduced you to the virus. That is, there are a huge number of them inside the already sick person, but only a small number is distinguished and transmitted to the partners in communication or not suspecting passers -by. And if the one who was handed over to a hundred viral particles is resistant to them due to the presence of immunity, then the infection will be suppressed at the very beginning. If the virus had a mind, as the authors of some conspiracy theories think about it, he could have known ahead of time that he was dealing with a courteous person, and prepare. But he has no reason, he cannot do this and leaves the game.

- Can a specific strain be terrible only in “native” conditions, for example, “Indian” - only in India? Because there are people weaker there, the conditions of sanitary are worse or something else?

- No, this virus has already been found in two dozen countries and will spread on. Indians are actually exactly the same people like us. Maybe we eat less carry.

- It’s cold, and it's hot there.

- Only the virus develops inside a person, and we all have 36.6 degrees.

- And until we all vaccinated ...

“Or until everything we get ill.”

- Until we all vaccinated or will we get sick of these “waves” of Covid will go one after another, and the virus will mutate?

-If in some country there are already enough people acquired immunity, then after one of the large waves there will be more waves less and less, and then the infection will stop. The jumping “ball”, which we talked about at the beginning, will no longer go at all, but will begin to fade.

The more people are blossomed, the less the “meat” virus, in which it can develop and evolve.

And the protective effect of vaccination will be the stronger the more people are vaccinated. At the same time, in some “country of fools”, where most of the population will not want to vaccinate, there will be a reason to say that vaccines do not work, because the process will continue.

-How can you predict some attenuation if we do not know how much immunity lasts after illness or vaccination?

- This is really a problem. But soon we will still know it. So far, you can build models and make scientifically sound forecasts, there are specialists for this.

-Is there any way to convince anti-producers? I would not want to be in the "country of fools."

- Surely there is, we need to work with different people, look for approaches how to reach them. By the way, I have the feeling that many anti-Vaxers are somehow centrally regulated, or something ... maybe they are the same bots as those who are supposedly used for political purposes. Ведь это удивительно, что в своих комментариях они все говорят и пишут примерно одно и то же и используют примерно одни и те же вычурные ники.

— Я слышала очень разные объяснения отказов от прививки, даже экзотические. Например, один бывший комсомольский работник, а теперь православный человек объяснял мне, что вакцина сделана из абортивного материала, поэтому прививаться грех.

— Да, это один из стандартных мифов. Но кто-то распространяет такого рода глупости, вряд ли комсомолец это сам выдумал. Как правило, такие мифы повторяются совершенно дословно.

— Переубедить этих людей можно?

— Я не уверен. Особенно, если это не реальные люди. А с реальными людьми надо работать, говорить и убеждать, это в наших общих интересах.