A study on some samples from the 1st & 2nd Wuhan generation of the virus found mutations that vary up to 270 fold in infectivity between two of them, using an in-vitro test. So if we could test people with that sort of detail, we could better predict who might be in the most danger:
"In short, our study provides direct evidence that mutations currently occurring in the SARS-CoV-2 genome have the functional potential to impact the viral pathogenicity..."
...
"To assess the mutational spectrum of these 11 viral isolates, ultra-deep sequencing of the isolated viral genomic RNA was performed...
...
In total, 33 mutations were identified (including 10 mutations observed in
mixed-populations), and 19 of these mutations were novel, according to the comparison with 1111 genomic sequences..."
...
144 And as revealed by this study, 6 of the identified mutations would have been ignored if
145 using the consensus sequences for analyses. Taken together, despite only 11
146 patient-derived isolates being analyzed in this study, we observed abundant mutational
147 diversity, including several founding mutations for different major clusters of viruses now circulating globally."
Also of note: "three of our viral isolated were extracted from stool samples, indicating that the SARS-CoV-2 is capable of replicating in stool samples (Woelfel et al., 2020)."
The newspaper article explains more, but does not link correctly to the research paper being talked about:
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/sci...tions-affect-deadliness-strains-chinese-study
The article is here:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20060160v1
Patient-derived mutations impact pathogenicity of SARS-CoV-2
Hangping Yao, ... Lanjuan Li
19APR20
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.14.20060160
The article mentions only Li, who is the last-named author, which makes the paper harder to find... maybe because she is the famous one: "Li was the first scientist to propose the Wuhan lockdown, according to state media reports."
"In short, our study provides direct evidence that mutations currently occurring in the SARS-CoV-2 genome have the functional potential to impact the viral pathogenicity..."
...
"To assess the mutational spectrum of these 11 viral isolates, ultra-deep sequencing of the isolated viral genomic RNA was performed...
...
In total, 33 mutations were identified (including 10 mutations observed in
mixed-populations), and 19 of these mutations were novel, according to the comparison with 1111 genomic sequences..."
...
144 And as revealed by this study, 6 of the identified mutations would have been ignored if
145 using the consensus sequences for analyses. Taken together, despite only 11
146 patient-derived isolates being analyzed in this study, we observed abundant mutational
147 diversity, including several founding mutations for different major clusters of viruses now circulating globally."
Also of note: "three of our viral isolated were extracted from stool samples, indicating that the SARS-CoV-2 is capable of replicating in stool samples (Woelfel et al., 2020)."
The newspaper article explains more, but does not link correctly to the research paper being talked about:
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/sci...tions-affect-deadliness-strains-chinese-study
The article is here:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20060160v1
Patient-derived mutations impact pathogenicity of SARS-CoV-2
Hangping Yao, ... Lanjuan Li
19APR20
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.14.20060160
The article mentions only Li, who is the last-named author, which makes the paper harder to find... maybe because she is the famous one: "Li was the first scientist to propose the Wuhan lockdown, according to state media reports."
