PARKING HERE FOR LATER - COULD THIS GIVE INSIGHT TO NEW VARIANT?
Published: 02 March 2021
SARS-CoV-2 501Y.V2 escapes neutralization by South African COVID-19 donor plasma
SARS-CoV-2 501Y.V2 (B.1.351), a novel lineage of coronavirus causing COVID-19, contains substitutions in two immunodominant domains of the spike protein. Here, we show that pseudovirus expressing 501Y.V2 spike protein completely escapes three classes of therapeutically relevant antibodies. This pseudovirus also exhibits substantial to complete escape from neutralization, but not binding, by convalescent plasma. These data highlight the prospect of reinfection with antigenically distinct variants and foreshadows reduced efficacy of spike-based vaccines.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01285-x
A QUOTE FOR ENCOURAGEMENT:
Gandhi Against the Empire
Instead of granting India independence after World War I, Britain continued its colonial regime and tightened restrictions on civil liberties. Gandhi responded by calling for strikes and other acts of peaceful civil disobedience.
During one protest assembly held in defiance of British orders, colonial troops fired into the crowd, killing more than 350 people. A British general then carried out public floggings and a humiliating “crawling order.” This required Indians to crawl on the ground when approached by a British soldier.
The massacre and crawling order turned Gandhi against any further cooperation with the British government. In August 1920, he urged Indians to withdraw their children from British-run schools, boycott the law courts, quit their colonial government jobs, and continue to refuse to buy imported cloth.
Now called “Mahatma,” meaning “Great Soul,” Gandhi spoke to large crowds throughout the country. “We in India in a moment,” he proclaimed, “realize that 100,000 Englishmen need not frighten 300 million human beings.