Miracle in Japan (COVID Youtube link)

[dneal]

Yep, a YouTube link. Don't watch if you don't want, but this one is really interesting.

Japan experienced a surge of Delta, and now they have nearly no cases.

Lots of things could have led to the drop:

- Ivermectin approved for use (12 days later, case rate plummeted)
- Japanese geneticists discovered the virus' error correcting protein (NSP14) that checks replication has mutated (mutation A394V), causing replication error - causing a "self-extinction" problem for the virus.
- More people in Asia (and Japan is not particularly genetically diverse) have an enzyme (APOBEC3A) that attacks RNA viruses.
- Mutation A394V has been found in 24 other countries (a good thing, presumably).

Most interestingly, and something I didn't know; SARS-1 is now extinct (doesn't even exist in a lab), and disappeared in 2003.

Worth 17 minutes of your time, IMHO.