@macbergleton said:

@Gallium said:

Have you or one of your post docs seen any indication of a lambda wave building on the back of the current delta wave?

Second, it appears lambda protection by the current mRNA vaccine is potentially below 40%, are we inevitably headed to overflowing hospitals and lockdowns sometime over the next 6 months?

Appreciate you spending the time to provide front line insights.

Not much data yet. Concerns are borne out of a preprint from Chile, which used an antibody neutralization assay--they make fake COVID viruses by putting the different variant sequences in an HIV-1 virus, then infect cells that are engineered to produce luciferase (the stuff that makes fireflies glow) if the ACE2 receptor, where the spike protein of COVID binds, is activated. Antibodies from vaccinated people were less effective against the pseudo-lambda than the pseudo-alpha or pseudo ancestral strain. Thought provoking, but inadequate to make many firm conclusions. We have seen lots of similar early studies not really bear fruit in the epidemiologic studies. Alpha (the UK variant) had similar findings, but we then learned that in real people the vaccines held up just fine.

Also not clear that it is more "fit" than delta--in other words, can it outcompete delta like delta outcompeted alpha and the ancestral strain? Let's hope we don't get any more troubling than delta.

So in terms of actual monitoring of DNA/genetic sequence changes of what is currently circulating, how much of a lag time are we dealing with?

In other words, how long does it take to actually sequence enough infected individuals for sampling and actually see the changeover between strains?

Implication here is that delta (or lambda to come) can circulate for 2-3 weeks or even longer before detection, essentially spiraling out of control before it can be identified.

My sense is that everyone is desperate for the economy to get to Labor Day.