India's 2nd covid wave still rising. However, some states have been mostly spared *seems like* so far - Tamil Nadu, Telengana specifically. Undercounting yes, but no huge reports of hospitals overburdened (yet). However, vaccine wastage also huge here

businesstoday.in/current/econom… Events like death of a famous loved actor Vivekh haven't helped at all, though docs have said he had preexisting conditions.

Any wastage is unacceptable in current circumstances, let alone 10%+. We need to do better.

@sujithrao @vinodscaria @bani_jolly @mercy_rophina @Arvinden3 @AfraShamnath @SridharSivasub3 @PrinSciAdvGoI I did oversimplify that bit, my apologies. I'll explain.

By virulent, I meant disease causing ability. So less virulent=less severe disease. Why did I say that? A virus just wants to survive and transmit. It needs hosts to do so, can't do it on its own. (1/) @sujithrao @vinodscaria @bani_jolly @mercy_rophina @Arvinden3 @AfraShamnath @SridharSivasub3 @PrinSciAdvGoI Consequently, something that starts out as very virulent will, as it mutates and "evolves", a variant *can* emerge that transmits equally/better but causes less severe disease, thus allowing it to continue "living" and spreading and do it "better"

Now, there's one other way (2/)

A #virology evolutionary hypothesis on this one - it is *likely* less virulent, more transmissible than B.1.1.7/B.1.617

Less mutations head to head in multiple ORFs, yet seemingly rapid increase in prevalence in face of competing B.1.617.

Thoughts? @thattai @dylanhmorris

https://twitter.com/vinodscaria/status/1384375736643952640

Mutations in B.1.1.7 and B.1.617, both well established, lineages would have been fixed for some benefit. For nature to choose *not* to fix them in B.1.618 implies some benefit of losing them. Of course, protein allostery incredibly hard to predict a priori, but Occam's razor..

It is indeed impossible for anyone to predict how the 2nd wave in India will play out, when it'll peak etc.

Worth trying still, not so much for scare mongering but for maybe some idea of what's ahead. Brazil had a similar catastrophe, except earlier, and can be instructive I use Brazil because it's similarly developing country, vast tropical climate, but also because the peaks and interval between waves has some uncanny similarities, especially in deaths
Wave 1 - peak 6Sep20 IN, 9Jun20 BR (~3mo)
Start wave 2 - 6Mar21, 9Nov20 BR (~3mo)

Reflecting on some career panels I participated in, networking was the buzzword that came up repeatedly. But what IS networking? How/why to do it?

A thread on what/how with some personal examples; I'll get to the why later (1/)

@AcademicChatter #careers #phdlife #altac Networking, to me, most simply is making new *friends* who will _eventually_ help you *professionally*. It is those you you share something in common professionally (same industry, same kind of work etc) in contrast to personally (went to same college, like same music etc) (2/)

While this is indeed a hugely mutated form of #SARSCoV2 when compared to the "original" sequence from the Wuhan patient, its a bit exaggerated to say this as evidence of any evolutionary rate. Tanazania, and all Africa's, level of infections is likely far underdetected after all

https://twitter.com/K_G_Andersen/status/1375292808278372358

With little understanding of the level of underdetection, could be easily be a couple immunocompromised hosts + few transmissions. Or The 18907 V->F is in nsp14 and might impact Rdrp proofreading. All said, any claims on immune evasion/transmissibility are only hypotheses now

Colour me biased but very little has been said about India and it's absolute squashing of (reported) cases in media overall, Western and otherwise, afaik. It's quite something for a densely populated state to reach 100k/day then go down this well, clearly lots to learn (1/) Sure there's underreporting, but if you argue that, then the peak looks even worse which makes this even more amazing IMHO. No more huge reports of any hospitals being stressed, so this just has to be real (2/)

For anyone, just *anyone*, again asking if immunity to CoV2 persists, hope this assuages all fears. An astounding yes is the answer. Absolutely just as one would have expected.

https://twitter.com/ScienceMagazine/status/1346849035563528195

Wish the media brouhaha over waning immunity and antibody titers by immuno armchair experts could have been avoided. All that mental stress, public confusion, for what? Just let science do it's job. Please.

Same goes for new variants and "vaccines will be ineffective" and more.

@Billy__Grove @KernNoris @KrutikaKuppalli @itosettiMD_MBA @Moderna Mutations are completely random, there's no rhyme or reason behind them. Only the ones that are similar/better than original will survive, rest will be completed out (Darwin's survival of fittest). (1/) @Billy__Grove @KernNoris @KrutikaKuppalli @itosettiMD_MBA @Moderna But what can happen over time as a virus gets more virulent, which is to it's advantage one would think, is that at one point, it'll become so virulent, ie disease causing, that the host would become sicker sooner so transmission to next individual becomes lesser likely (2/)

A (very long) thread on testing, the current scenario, and what ails us from testing more.

TL;DR version - unlikely to be able to do mass-scale testing w status quo. Need to experiment w currently avl test, or develop radically new tests. (1/n) The WHO mantra has been "Test, test and test"+"test, track and trace". Test=genetic test btw, not serology. Great idea, and I'd say thats how China, Korea managed to keep the lid on. BUT they caught it early, so worked. Why are other countries struggling to ramp up tests? (2/n)

Starting a thread for new #SARSCoV2 ideas that we have been brainstorming amongst friends. Calling for inputs, suggestions and help getting someone to try developing in the lab if it makes sense.

First one now is a yeast/bacteria based diagnostic test

#sciencetwitter One main constraint in current RTPCR/serology tests is supply of physical materials (RNA extraction reagents etc) and trained personnel. Need POC quick tests. What about a microbe that gives a colorimetric readout? Interested? Read on..

With the ongoing Covid-19 situation, there are some questions repeatedly going around:
-"How did China, Korea etc manage to create a test for a completely novel virus so fast?"
-"Why are rest of the world so slow?"
-"What happened in the US with the first test being faulty?" I am going to try to explain the test here. Buckle up for some #scicomm

To answer these questions, we first need to understand how the test works. It tests whether the genetic material unique to the virus is present in the patient sample.