The widely-reported case of “Flurona” in Israel refers to a person being infected with both influenza and COVID simultaneously. This case opens a very odd range of possibilities.
Gene swapping is one of those possibilities, and it’s hardly a reassuring thought. Viruses can swap genes when they infect a cell. Two of the world’s most infectious diseases swapping notes could be a serious problem.
Important please note: This op-ed article is entirely speculative. The pity of it is that speculation is about all that’s available on this subject. There are absolutely no reported cases of gene swapping between COVID and influenza at this point. Nor is there any realistic scenario for what happens if the viruses do swap genes.
Background
The twin infection includes a not-much-noted issue or several:
- Influenza, which virtually disappeared two years ago, is back. Nobody’s cheering.
- A patient diagnosed with both of the two most infectious viruses of all time isn’t good news for anyone.
- The global viral load for Omicron is super-saturated with millions of infected people able to spread it. Infection rates are literally through the roof in the US and elsewhere. The US is seeing unprecedented rates of spread.
- That means there are a lot of possible conjunctions of influenza and COVID in flu season.
- Influenza and COVID both target humans for transmission.
Nothing like a fun read of pretty gruesome news, is there? Covering it’s not that much fun, either. I’ve now had the Johns Hopkins page up since it started back in 2020, and there aren’t too many giggles so far.
Gene swapping between viruses – The unguessable super lottery
A slightly simple synopsis here – Viruses use DNA and RNA from infected cells to replicate. During this somewhat slapdash process, they can pick up new materials which may cause mutations. So if another virus is present, a swap is always at least theoretically possible.
These gene swaps may not achieve anything at all worth mentioning. They may be counterproductive, “dud” swaps. You’d need a pretty patient supercomputer and exceptionally good data to predict what might happen.
Viruses, however, use numbers to develop successful mutations and these successful mutations happen at incredible speeds. Omicron pushed Delta, the previous horrifying super-infectious strain of COVID, out of the way in a few weeks, worldwide. The successful strains then mutate, producing new variants, and a dominant variant emerges.
This also poses a few problems for immunology. Omicron developed from a single viral strain. What happens if the next virus comes from two separate viral strains? Mutations could be nothing like previous strains of COVID.
There would be an inevitable gap between analysing the new strain and vaccine or other immunization developments. Not to be too alarmist, but put simply – If anyone remembers, last year’s flu shot didn’t work on this year’s flu. In this case, even the starting point for immunization for a very different virus would have to start from scratch, in theory.
When B movies get ugly
Gene-swapped mutated forms of COVID, or influenza, or both, could get very ugly. In a B movie, a terrible threat to the world is found by the hero and the science is ignored.
In this case, however, the science has a real Tyrannosaurus bite to it:
- Both these viruses are specialized to target the respiratory tract.
- They’re both highly efficient as well as highly infectious.
- There are tens of millions of people with spectrums of respiratory health issues worldwide. These people are, and could easily be sitting ducks and spreaders for a really penetrant future virus.
- That’s all without even mentioning immune-compromised people.
- Add time lag for immunization, and the infection rate snowballs.
- The medical logistics are again hit by a statistical avalanche.
This is the classic scenario for a real “pneumonic plague’. The world’s two best and most lethal viruses are quite capable of delivering that on their own. Together, who knows? It’s unknowable, at the moment.
Some (highly qualified) good news
The big plus here is that none of this is incomprehensible. Any effective gene swaps will be detected, fast. A genome can be mapped fast, too. RNA vaccines and replicant suppression technologies are developing and up and running, thanks to COVID. The science can do the job and do it quickly, if this does become an issue.
Now the qualifiers:
The main reason COVID became such a problem was political ignorance and interference.
In the US and elsewhere, COVID is now endemic thanks to that inexcusable, utterly irresponsible, incompetence.
Sabotaging lockdowns and misrepresenting proper immunization is ENTIRELY responsible for the current unspeakable mess. The people responsible should be jailed.
That includes former President Peasant and his merry vermin. Not a single word of sympathy has come from these pigs for the 800,000 plus dead Americans, to this day. What heroes.
This is basic epidemiology we’re talking about – If you don’t want to get a potentially lethal virus, don’t allow it to spread. It’s truly a no-brainer.
