yeah but those (apart from monodispersity -- but that feels like it'd require more substantial mutations in M&E to occur) are all differences in infectivity (viral particle able to enter cell & replicate) not transmission (viral particle going from point A to B).
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Replying to @wanderer_jasnah @zeynep and
Physically smaller infectious units might be more susceptible to target barrier defenses. Increased resistance to those defenses could increase the relative importance of airborne transmission.
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Replying to @Merz @wanderer_jasnah and
Not written as clearly as I'd like. LMK if not clear.
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so what i think you're saying (correct me if i'm wrong) is you propose that smaller/"aerosol-sized" particles could potentially be more likely to be inhibited by i.e. mucus/pulmonary surfactant so resistance to that would lead to more efficient aerosol infectivity?
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Replying to @wanderer_jasnah @Merz and
thing is, i'm skeptical such a change in resistance could occur via changes in the fusion protein alone (& Omicron mutations are extremely concentrated here). that being said this would be easy to test: is there a dependence on particle size in infectivity & if yes how strong?
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Replying to @wanderer_jasnah @Merz and
(feels like this data should exist *somewhere* for at least D614G Wuhan-Hu-1).
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Replying to @wanderer_jasnah @Merz and
i don't disagree such things are *possible* -- but it's far more *likely* transmission characteristic changes are due to the same things as in past variants: increased fusogenicity (this time much more cell-type dependent than before) & higher % of viable viral particles.
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Replying to @wanderer_jasnah @zeynep and
I agree that those changes are important. The immune evasion alone makes previously infected or twice-vaccinated hosts humorally naive to the point that omicron might be a legit new serogroup. The cell specificity data need to be replicated.
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agree w/you on this being a new serogroup, but in that case how much of *not* observing similar spread w/Delta *was* high seropositivity that was protective? saw some pretty vertical epi curves back then too, just burning out a lot sooner.
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