Science around mutant COVIDs in India and cognitive bias of our medical science!

 

COVID mutants/variants in India are being discussed and stretched beyond all permissible limits of science by our medical system and as a result, the pandemic has caused irrevocable fear among people where fear dominates over actual threat posed by the virus.  Even if COVID virus openly and loudly announces to Indians today that the virus has decided to leave not just India but the planet called earth itself, still many Indians refuse to believe and will remain adamant with the fear of COVID.  Our medical system also may not allow COVID virus to leave India and even if happens so, the ghost of COVID they might use to further the fear of people so that our medical system can profit eternally.

The scientific story spun around the mutants or variants of the virus is nothing but the cognitive bias of our medical system sandwiched by utter ignorance and cut, copy & paste the western knowledge approach of our Indian medical science to a great degree. 

Mutation of the virus during any pandemic situation is quite common.  Mutation is a sign of evolutionary calibration attempt of the virus to adjust with the new host. 

The genes responsible for replication of virus and the gene responsible for the infectivity are not the same among large number of viruses.  Therefore variants in general noticed with COVID virus need not be approached with great fear or caution.   

The best example is Chikungunya virus which undergoes single mutation E1A226V during pandemic which is established today, happening for the purpose of adjusting in the alternative host – mosquito and such mutation has no consequence to man in terms of greater pathogenicity of the virus.  

In avian influenza virus, ACHSN1 mutation increases the virus transmission from man to man but is not linked with its pathogenicity or virulence.  In Ebola, the single mutation GP-A82V is definitely linked with its greater pathogenicity. 

Mutation in layman’s language is change that is occurring in the virus. Since the virus nothing a genetic material coated with lipid or protein, all such changes can occur only at genetic level whereas in higher animals, many such changes can express at phenotype level as well, like fur colour etc.

The question to be asked is why the virus undergoes rapid change?  Is it to cause deadly infection in man or to enhance its spread across the host?  Imagine a virus undergoes mutation to become deadly, and then what would be the consequence?  The host may cripple down when such deadly pathogen infect and eventually the sick person would get isolated from the main-stream population due to the severe medical condition.   And for the virus, such a host is bane because such host may not allow greater transmission of the virus to others due to compulsive isolation of the host from main-stream population. 

Therefore mutation has to be seen in two different dimensions.  Mutation happening for own existence of the virus in the given host or otherwise called as adaptation linked mutation and the other being how to escape the immune defence of the host (escape from death) and hence the virus tries to become rigid in the given host, i.e., viral mutation at the gene responsible pathogenicity.

COVID is a new virus.  It means, for us the virus is new and so is for virus, we are new.  Imagine a new pathogen (?) invading a new host and vice versa, what would be the host-parasite interaction? 

The cognitive bias of our medical science is quite obvious.  We cannot blame our medical system fully for that.  Because we focused fully on patient care and treatment and completely left the science out of COVID theatrics, no funding or support is given to basic scientists to learn about the virus, both from the viral per se as well as at genetic level.  

Thanks to such support not given to basic science to learn a lot about the virus in Indian context, our medical science has adopted the cut, copy and paste approach by juxtaposing the wisdom generated by western medical world to Indian situation, obviously the cognitive bias to take place. 

Our Indian medical system instead of observing even the subtle differences about COVID in India, are restlessly looking for what the western medical science is reporting about their observations by marvellously forgetting the population dynamics of India.  Obviously the outcome is war cry over mutants/variants. 

The mutation or adaptive change in any life form can happen so naturally or also due to constant trigger or acute necessity.  The adaptive changes when happens so naturally, such adaptive changes will be quite accommodative, near friendly and towards co-existence with the host (ecosystem).  But if such changes or mutation is forced upon the virus, such changes can be aggressive, resistant and difficult to deal in future because the forced changes are always come with greater learning to overpower the host than go friendly and harmoniously with the given host.  This is all about evolution in general.  In simple term, we are causing rebel-ish change in the virus.

When we introduce vaccines are we not forcing the virus to change?  Are we not forcing the virus to shift from possible adaptive mutation to pathogenic mutation?  We should remember that when a greater threat is posed upon any species, the species need not go extinct but instead it can also become a super killer/super survivor.  Look at the adaptation of mosquito or rat or other species of vermin. Mosquito larva survives these days even in very high chemical pesticide rich water. 

Is our vaccine strategy in the pandemic period against a new virus wise is the question the Nobel laureate, French virologist has raised recently.  

Despite complete vaccination, still people have got the infection and some had even died also.  Ironically our science has also given its ugly explanation to the above.    Need of hour is some ‘relaxed’ time and space for the new virus and humans to adjust with each other and not lockdown and quarantine.