the snout swabs outing seems pretty direct going from here to now to now but before it ends here its outing may continue as part of a mapping of genomic cycles it’s being used by scientists all around the world to track the advent of sars cov2 variances here’s how it slogs remember that no exchange you took if it was a pcr test around five to ten percent of them end up here in laboratories set up to conduct genomic sequencing genomic sequencing is a process used to analyze the genetic makeup of viruses kind of like creating and then assembling really large baffles the sarsko v2 genome is about 30 000 footings long it’s an rna single stranded positive rna virus and that length if you merely typed out the a’s u’s and g’s and c’s is about the same length as the us constitution and proposal of rights all viruses like cyrus cov2 constantly derive as they mimic those changes in the genetic code are announced mutants a variant has one or more of these mutations laboratories continuously analyze the genome of cyrus kov2 to keep track of discrepancies that pose threats to public health a lot of the laboratory testing itself is you know moving a lot of tubings around the example of contagion gives you a good sense of what that process kind of looks like on the back end blue is virus and the gold is human and the crimson is the viral affection protein we have tools like neck tighten and microreact and others that allow us to settled string data into place and time for stellars cov2 most labs use an coming called amplicon sequencing which means that small overlapping pieces of the genome are amplified by pcr same sort of approach that is used for testing they are sequenced and then strong bioinformatic pipeline and algorithms are used to then situated those cases back together and compare them to other genomes the sequencing is done by a mix of academic and clinical laboratories along with regional nation and federal agencies within two weeks from this whiz the cycle is available in public databases while lab makes will tell you if you’re positive or negative they most likely won’t tell you what variant “youve had” but is there any path to find out i think you can probably make an educated guess if you were infected over the summer and fall in the united states the high-pitched likelihood really based on the viruses that were circulating is that you have a delta virus genetic sequencing often concentrates on the spike protein since it’s appropriate tools the virus uses to penetrate cadres and spread illnes genomic sequencing observers mutations and allow scientists to assess how evolving discrepancies might affect existing medicines if a variant rises it’s classified by the cdc into four categories variant being checked variant of interest variant of concern and variant of high-pitched consequence let’s take a look at omicron which falls into the variant of concern list omicron does look pretty different from both delta as well as many of the viruses that croaked before it was first identified by public health research groups in botswana and south africa specifically dr moyo and the team at the botswana harvard assistances institute partnership it has an accumulation of 32 substantiated mutations in the spike protein which sounds like a lot because it is it has that deletion at residue 69 and 70 which lead to that sgtf or sg and target omission marker that is often used to understand where and how it’s transmitted that was important with some of the early cases of omicron chiefly because a lot of what we’ve been seeing in the united states over the course of the summer and early precipitate was delta which absence that mutation so when you started to see an increasing number of these sgtf collapses gave you a good expres of how much omicron you’re seeing across your test even when you didn’t have the sequencing data in hand with variability of concern the existing therapeutics vaccines and medications all still work to stop the viruses spread but it may not be as effective the next category variability of high cause is the most serious now we haven’t seen a variant of high-pitched repercussion yet homocrine is still much work transmissible than other reported variances it registers evidence of immune invasion even among injected individuals and it’s hitting numerous communities and healthcare systems hard-boiled the specific risk categorization shouldn’t mean that we treat any of these viruses with any less seriousness the rise of brand-new discrepancies too implores the question what should we call them well the answer depends on who you ask the pango classification method looks like b1 17 there are next sprain classifications that are more like a reputation typhoon type approach so those would be like a 21 a or 21 b they have usually a year and then a note all of these can be a mouthful and so the who over the course of last spring and summertime brought together a group to help name and mark come up with a consistent nomenclature organisation for variances in the best interests and variances of concern the refers have to be specific they have to be distinctive they have to be easy to stress and search for in variou usages and most importantly they shouldn’t be associated with a specific place or people if “youre thinking about” viruses like marburg germany norwalk from ohio all of this really is viruses that are associated with the places where they were firstly marked sometimes somewhat negatively so the who made a decision greek letters it’s hard to imagine the course of this pandemic without genomic sequencing even if you’ve never heard of it before it’s played an important role in monitoring and adapting to the pandemics global scale i think one of the biggest instructions at least from the viewpoints of genomic surveillance is that open data and rapid data sharing is an unbelievably useful tool for public health and pandemic response the potential for world public health is really exciting but there are a lot of hindrances that we have to overcome how do we draw all these different types of data together how do we are genuinely obtain the tests that we need to collect in a timely behavior so that we can get the information that we need when you go to a test site and get your nose swab you’re really helping to understand transmission dynamics so that’ll help us understand not only the virus that infected you personally but also recent developments in your neighbourhood neighborhood in your district and in all regions of the country
