It's fascinating to see how knowledge evolves over time. So far most of the emphasis has been on the spike protein and its cleavage mechanisms. Now we start to see that may even be a relatively minor factor compared to the nucleocapsid.<p>It is quite important to understand all these things if we are seeing new variants arise and need to assess how dangerous they are likely to be. Most especially since vaccines are based on the spike protein on the premise that it is essential to the infectiousness. But what if a variant can arise with a highly compromised spike protein yet compensate enough to still be highly infectious due to other factors?<p>The most interesting thing is to think about where the other empty spaces in our knowledge are that are yet to be filled in - what will we know this time next year that will have us saying "previously we thought ...."
Let’s try in a (safe) lab to make it more infectious, you know for science !
Hey, while we are doing this why not try on MERS, immagine the number of citation I could get for this !<p>Let’s think for one second the cost of a leak to the world population.<p>It seems to me that we are doomed to self destruction if we don’t get wiser fast.
From the description it seems like the nucleocapsid protein mutation is something that would make the virus more effective in any given host. Whereas a spike protein mutation would be specific to the host since that is a part of the virus that interfaces with the host cell. In that case I would expect such a protein to already be very optimized (even in a lab leak scenario). Am I missing something here?
for general edification:<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus_nucleocapsid_protein" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus_nucleocapsid_prote...</a>
> But because it is stripped of the virus’ RNA genome, it can’t hijack a cell’s machinery to replicate and burst out of the host cell to infect more cells. “It’s a one-way ticket. It doesn’t spread,” says Charles Rice, a molecular virologist at Rockefeller University.<p>Did these people not take Jurrasic Park seriously? Life finds a way!
What I find most shocking about all of this is that we can't even publicly or openly discuss things anymore because even if it is no longer done, there is surely still a latent deterrent effect from all the censorship and public persecution of anyone who was not willing to tow the regime message.<p>When a culture of fear and intimidation sets it, it is extremely dangerous and usually in my experience even terminal for things like organizations and companies.