Melissa's Musings(My opinionated view of life)

New COVID-19 Variants May Evade Vaccine Protection | Time : Experts are studying new variants against which most people may not have much immunity—even if they're been vaccinated or have had COVID-19.

Powerful New Antibody Neutralizes All Known COVID Variants : “We hope that this humanized antibody will prove to be as effective at neutralizing SARS-CoV-2 in patients as it has proven to be thus far in preclinical evaluations,” says Frederick Alt, Ph.D., of the Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital, who co-led the research.

How months-long COVID infections could seed dangerous new variants : Tracking SARS-CoV-2 evolution during persistent cases provides insight into the origins of Omicron and other global variants. What can scientists do with this knowledge?

BA.2 Is Here. Does Anyone Care? - The Atlantic : The United States could be in for a double whammy: a surge it cares to neither measure nor respond to.

Coronavirus: As BA.2 subvariant of Omicron rises, lab studies point to signs of severity - CNN : The BA.2 virus -- a subvariant of the Omicron coronavirus variant -- isn't just spreading faster than its distant cousin, it may also cause more severe disease and appears capable of thwarting some of the key weapons we have against Covid-19, new research suggests.

UK, Germany and Italy detect Omicron variant cases, Israel closes borders | Reuters : Britain, Germany and Italy detected cases of the new Omicron coronavirus variant on Saturday and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced new steps to contain the virus, while more nations imposed restrictions on travel from southern Africa.

Delta-like SARS-CoV-2 variants with enhanced transmissibility may cause a more severe pandemic : A SARS-CoV-2 variant with traits similar to that of the Delta variant-;enhanced transmissibility and an ability to infect people who had previous infections/vaccination-;will cause a more severe pandemic with more infections and breakthrough infections/reinfections than variants with either trait alone, according to a mathematical model created by researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Neutralization of the SARS-CoV-2 Mu Variant by Convalescent and Vaccine Serum | NEJM : Correspondence from The New England Journal of Medicine — Neutralization of the SARS-CoV-2 Mu Variant by Convalescent and Vaccine Serum

Mu COVID Variant, Which Could Be Resistant to Vaccines, Now in Almost Every State

What's the Mu variant? And will we keep seeing more concerning variants?

WHO monitoring new coronavirus variant named 'Mu'

C.1.2 Variant, Most Mutated COVID Strain So Far, Detected in Nine Countries : Scientists noted that the newly-discovered variant seems to have an unusually high mutation rate and more mutations of other variants of concern, such as Delta.