On Wednesday, September 27, 2023 at 12:35:02 AM UTC-4, Jan Panteltje wrote:
Anti-viral drug backfires: COVID drug linked to viral mutations that spread https://arstechnica.com/health/2023/09/covid-anti-viral-drug-is-actively-helping-sars-cov-2-mutate-and-evolve/
Merck's small-molecule molnupiravir linked to mutated viruses that spread in people.
The article says:
The findings indicate that "molnupiravir results in new mutations, increasing the genetic diversity in the surviving viral population," Theo Sanderson, lead author and postdoctoral researcher at the Francis Crick Institute, said in a statement.
They shouldn't even being using words like mutated and genetic diversity. They should be saying 'damaged' virus, because that's what it is.
All that means is the damaged virus retains enough functionality to survive along with the prevailing undamaged strains. There's no finding that 1) the damaged form is any more virulent, or 2) that it's even transmitted person-to-person. As Merck stated,
all they have are associations, and those associations are very sparse clusters and weak. The study is little more than survey of virus genomes and lacks any kind of clinical data whatsoever, mainly because it would be nigh impossible to find any.
The media report is pure entertainment.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)