This week Fred and I dive into SARS-CoV-2 variants, what they are, what they mean and how they work. We discuss why some of these variants appear to be more infectious and review the ongoing stream of news around variants and how you should interpret this news and its impact on your businesses, employees, students and yourself
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Raw Transcript
Nick van Terheyden
Hi, this is Dr. Nick on the incrementalist here with incremental insights for better business better health.
Fred Goldstein
And I’m Fred Goldstein with accountable health here helping companies look at their overall employee health improvement programs and how they can reduce costs, as well as improve the outcomes for their employees.
Nick van Terheyden
So not a week. And, gosh, I think the trending topic these days seems to be variants and the big concern about whether variants are going to escape, or what is the impact going to be? Fred, I know you’ve been looking at it, what have you found?
Fred Goldstein
Yeah, it’s really an interesting topic, you talked about what’s going on with these variants, you know, you’ve got the B 117, you’ve got the variance from Brazil, etc. And an interesting article came out, called structural impact on SARS, covi to spike protein by d 614. g substitution. It was written by I believe this name, and if I pronounced it incorrectly, my apologies Joon Chang, who’s at the division of Molecular Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital in Boston, and a large group of co authors, including folks from Harvard and Codex bio Solutions, Inc. It was published in Science, March 16. So very recent, and it discusses this substitution that they saw that is now in all of the variants. And we know that these variants spread more rapidly, or appear to be more contagious or infectious. And so they looked at this change of a Spartak acid by glycine at the position 614 in the spike, and everyone talks about those spike proteins, and how they bind to the cell two, then ultimately infect the cell and get this replication going. And so they wondered, does this have something to do with that, and what they found was really fascinating. So in the original aspartic acid version, about 50% of the time, the spike itself collapses before it’s able to bind. So if you think about this, like a key going into a lock, that key has to fit. And that’s what the spike protein does, it fits on the ace, two, and then it after it fits, it then fold or bends together, and then is allowed to inject into the cell. Well, what happens with this is about half the time under the D variant, the the spike proteins collapse, so half of the proteins on that, that virus are not out to be able to bind in the G variant, you get about 90% of the proteins are rigid, they’re able to stay up and go in as a key, and then fold and inject into the cell. So a really interesting reason for why they think these variants are more contagious and spreading faster. And they talk about the fact that this also leads to their belief that the vaccines developed by Pfizer, Madonna, which target this spike protein, you know, they may have to look at modifying them slightly because of this variant. But they would be better at binding because more of the spike protein is out and available on top of the virus.
Nick van Terheyden
You know, I I’m listening to you, Fred. And all I can think of is I want to go to the fantastic journey, if you remember that movie, where they minimize the went into the little ship. And but I want to go down to that sub molecular level. Because if you see any of these three dimensional images, that’s the thing about proteins, you know, it’s a string of these, Amiens that are put together, but they bind up and you know, small change can completely change the shape. And that’s exactly what’s going on here. And we’re starting to learn more about that shape. And in fact, if you go back enough number of years, not not that long, we didn’t really have a good sense of that three dimensional structure, we really sort of struggle getting to that, we’ve now got the tools to be able to see it. In fact, there’s imagery that allows us to show that and that’s what’s going on with these variants. They’re sort of changing, you know, individual proteins in some of these fights. And, you know, again, for the image, that’s the the image that everybody associates with this virus. I think it was used for probably six months, at least for every news outlet that, you know, colored thing that came from the CDC. It’s those pieces poking out. It’s one of the reasons that we’ve got the naming of this, you know, the Coronavirus, and I think the important thing is understanding that now starts to help us in terms of combating it, so obviously we have to stay on top of it. I think from a translation standpoint, what does that mean for me relative to These variants, does it mean that they’re more transmissible? So I think the fact that it locks in better and is able to get into the cell says it’s able to get in so it’s more effective. And how do we combat that? Well, in the case of some of these vaccinations, they attack different parts. And, you know, if they’re not attacking the part where this mutation occurs, they have a tendency to be better at countering it, because that change doesn’t affect that locking mechanism for the vaccine. Now, from a standpoint of businesses, individuals thinking about this, here’s what I would say about variants, ignore the clickbait headlines coming from our wonderful media who continue to sort of variants, it’s the end of the world variants, it’s not the end of the world, I think we just go through the cycle, here’s the thing about the immune system that I would say, probably the most important to remember, for the majority of people is, it’s really complicated. And we don’t fully understand the two basic elements of this, and what the impact of these things are. And that’s good news, because it’s not just a single response by the body, it is a very response from these two different humoral systems. And to be clear, it’s not just two responses within that are all these cascades of different activities, you know, killer cells, attachment cells, you know, the T cells, B cells, memory cell, all of that stuff, which, you know, God bless the people that really understand this all the way into the detail. But mostly, because of that wide range of x, you know, responses, the variants have a tendency to be combated by those different responses. And that’s good news, in my view.
Fred Goldstein
Yeah. And I just add one quick point that you made about this whole clickbait deal with these. Remember, at the same time, those non pharmacological interventions that you always talk about, have an impact they work. So keep doing that, keep wearing your mask, keep distancing, keep washing your hands, watch out for indoor activities, yes, this binds stronger to the cells has more ability to bind. But, you know, these are things we should continue to do as employers. And I know, also in the UK, that you delved into an article in cell magazine, apparently, that disgust variants as well. So what did you find?
Nick van Terheyden
Yeah, so that seemed to imply that, you know, the the variants were causing more challenges for the immune response created by the vaccine. So vaccine induced humoral, immunity was not as good. So they were escaping. But again, that’s only a single part. And it’s a grouping. And it vary depending on the different variants. So, you know, I would just sort of take that in the context of all the other things, I think you’re exactly right. If you walked away with one message as part of this, it’s that the non pharmaceutical interventions help us and you know, to that point, what I’m hearing and reading currently with all these people going, whoo, let’s go spring break, oh, my God, let’s go party. Just really troubling. I know, everybody wants to get out God, I do my family do my friends do. But we just have to hold on longer. So that we can move out of pandemic get to endemic or even complete suppression, and you know, disappearance of this, and that requires npis or non pharmaceutical interventions, please stay the course, folks.
Fred Goldstein
I just want you to come in. And one more thing, Nick, and you’ve mentioned this before, although these variants may have, you know, have an impact on current vaccines, the new MRI, and a technology allows us to do what?
Nick van Terheyden
Well, that’s the beautiful thing is that new platform that we haven’t had before. And we can say, oh, there’s a new variant. Well, we’ll create a vaccine. And there’s a model within the FDA for those approvals. That’s exactly what we do with the flu vaccine. And it’s relatively fast in terms of production. So we’ve got some really great tools.
Fred Goldstein
Wow. Fantastic. So again, it’s been another great week. Nick, your medical comments are always spot on. I always enjoy hearing them and learning from you. So this is Fred Goldstein with accountable health. Thanks so much for listening. And if you’d like more information, please go to our websites and take a look and contact us.
Nick van Terheyden
And this is Dr. Nick on the incrementalist here with incremental insights for better business, better health.
