Covid-19 News

Quote from Alan Smith

THREAD NOW OPEN.

Avoid personal attacks, ad-homs, and so on. Just be nice, and please remember that this thread is for NEWS, not for posturing.

LATEST NEWS. UK SCREWED.

I am sorry. I think we imprissoned the first people from the UK at the airports.

Does anyone know how they measured the "70% increased spread rate"? The regular PCR test does not test for different mutations and at least in germany in 3 out of 4 cases it is not clear where you got infected. So I see no easy way to measure the spread rate and of course the news does not cover the uncertainty of this value. For me it reads like another of these panic reports like the "cluster 5" mutation story from denmark that led to the wipe out of all minks but was irrelevant and nobody has heard of this anymore.

New coronavirus variant: What do we know?

https://news.google.com/articl…=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen

Why is this variant causing concern?

Three things are coming together that mean it is attracting attention:

It is rapidly replacing other versions of the virus

It has mutations that affect part of the virus likely to be important

Some of those mutations have already been shown in the lab to increase the ability of the virus to infect cells

All of these come together to build a case for a virus that can spread more easily.

Fact checking

Flights from UK canceled; health minister says new coronavirus variant ‘out of control’

https://ktvz.com/news/2020/12/…s-variant-out-of-control/

The new strain of coronavirus, which prompted the UK government to impose a Tier 4 lockdown in London and southeastern England and tighten restrictions for all of England over the festive period, is "out of control," Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on Sunday.

New strain of COVID-19 is driving South Africa’s resurgence

https://apnews.com/article/int…40a17fa5c82f2ecd14ba9921b

The new variant, known as 501.V2, is dominant among new confirmed infections in South Africa, according to health officials and scientists leading the country’s virus strategy.

“It is still very early but at this stage, the preliminary data suggests the virus that is now dominating in the second wave is spreading faster than the first wave,” Professor Salim Abdool Karim, chairman of the government’s Ministerial Advisory Committee, said in a briefing to journalists

US army scientists examine new UK coronavirus variant to see if it might be resistant to vaccine

https://news.google.com/articl…=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen

While there's always a worry that a vaccine won't work if a virus mutates significantly, the Walter Reed scientists still expect the vaccine will be effective against this new variant, said Dr. Nelson Michael, director of the Center for Infectious Diseases Research at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.

"It stands to reason that this mutation isn't a threat, but you never know. We still have to be diligent and continue to look," Michael said.

Quote from Alan Smith

With these kind of viruses, everybody expects mutations.

The good news -- if you want to call it that -- is that this mutation can probably be prevented by the vaccine with the same efficacy as the previous virus. That's what experts are saying so far. I think they are not sure of that yet.

Quote from Alan Smith

so there is no reason to suppose that it is an 'escape mechanism', like those that give rise to antibiotic resistance in bacteria where they are a response to a specific threat posed by an antibiotic.

If I understand the reports correctly, the spike protein surface feature on the virus that the vaccine targets has not changed. So the vaccine still works. That is the preliminary conclusion of the people at Walter Reed and elsewhere, based on a computer model of the virus from the DNA. Apparently the spike protein is stable across many mutations. Thank goodness!

It is amazing how much they can tell these days with DNA analyses, supercomputers and so on. That is one of the reasons they were able to develop the vaccine so quickly. Not because they "cut corners."

The surface features of influenza targeted by vaccines mutates quickly, so the vaccine has to be reformulated every year, and it has to target 3 or 4 variations. Researchers are trying to develop a vaccine that will target some feature that is common to all influenza viruses, and that does not mutate quickly. That vaccine would prevent all forms of influenza, and it would last for many years. Maybe a lifetime. I believe progress toward that goal has been spurred by the intense effort and funding devoted to COVID-19.

Preliminary genomic characterisation of an emergent SARS-CoV-2 lineage in the UK defined by a novel set of spike mutations

https://virological.org/t/prel…et-of-spike-mutations/563

Summary

Recently a distinct phylogenetic cluster (named lineage B.1.1.7) was detected within the COG-UK surveillance dataset. This cluster has been growing rapidly over the past 4 weeks and since been observed in other UK locations, indicating further spread.

Several aspects of this cluster are noteworthy for epidemiological and biological reasons and we report preliminary findings below. In summary:

The B.1.1.7 lineage accounts for an increasing proportion of cases in parts of England. The number of B.1.1.7 cases, and the number of regions reporting B.1.1.7 infections, are growing.

B.1.1.7 has an unusually large number of genetic changes, particularly in the spike protein.

Three of these mutations have potential biological effects that have been described previously to varying extents:

Mutation N501Y is one of six key contact residues within the receptor-binding domain (RBD) and has been identified as increasing binding affinity to human and murine ACE2.

The spike deletion 69-70del has been described in the context of evasion to the human immune response but has also occurred a number of times in association with other RBD changes.

Mutation P681H is immediately adjacent to the furin cleavage site, a known location of biological significance.

The rapid growth of this lineage indicates the need for enhanced genomic and epidemiological surveillance worldwide and laboratory investigations of antigenicity and infectivity.

Israeli who died from second bout of COVID-19 confirmed to have different strain

https://news.google.com/articl…=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen

man who died several weeks ago while suffering from a second bout of the coronavirus has been confirmed to have been infected with two different strains, leading to his fatal illness the second time around, a report said Sunday.

It is the first such case in Israel in which a reinfected patient has died.

COVID-19: New strain found in Italy, Denmark, Netherlands, Australia and Gibraltar

Sky News economics editor Ed Conway said that it is "plausible" this means the mutant strain is already widely circulating across the globe, but Britain is best placed to detect it.

https://news.google.com/articl…=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen

The GOP political war against public health and science continues. On Dec. 12, the day after 3,500 people died of COVID-19, a newly elected Congressman, R. Good, held a rally in which he praised people for not wearing masks, and said there is no pandemic. He said it is great, "to look out and see your faces . . . This is a phony pandemic. It is absolutely a virus, but it is a virus, not a pandemic."

GOP Rep. Jim Jordan tweeted advice contrary to Fauci and other public health experts:

"Don’t cancel Thanksgiving. Don’t cancel Christmas.
Cancel lockdowns."

https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/…lon-reality-check-vpx.cnn

In Florida, the GOP governor is even worse the governor of Georgia. He is doing to more hide information, deceive the public, and kill people. He ordered the health department to remove information about COVID-19 and delete tweets related to it. Shortly before the election, he ordered the health department to stop reporting backlogged deaths:

"Throughout most of the fall, the state reported dozens or hundreds of these backlogged deaths every week. But from October 24 to November 7, the state reported a total of just four deaths that had taken place more than a month earlier.

The reported drop in deaths wasn't because the state had caught up on its backlog -- it went back to reporting dozens of month-old deaths during the week after Election Day and in the weeks that followed. The temporary decline painted a rosier picture of the pandemic in Florida as voters were going to the polls."

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/17…d-florida-invs/index.html

Quote from Fm1

B.1.1.7 has an unusually large number of genetic changes, particularly in the spike protein.

Three of these mutations have potential biological effects that have been described previously to varying extents:

Mutation N501Y is one of six key contact residues within the receptor-binding domain (RBD) and has been identified as increasing binding affinity to human and murine ACE2.

Yikes!

Quote from JedRothwell

Yikes!

70% more infectious and larger viral load

Quote from Fm1

70% more infectious and larger viral load

If the two new vaccines do not work as well, we are in huge trouble. This could be dreadful.

There has been a spike in cases in UK despite all the efforts they have made in recent weeks. See:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/

Explainer-The new coronavirus variant in Britain: How worrying is it?

https://news.google.com/articl…=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen

DOES THE NEW VARIANT AFFECT TESTING?

To some extent, yes.

One of the mutations in the new variant affects one of three genomic targets used by some PCR tests. This means that in those tests, that target area, or "channel", would come up negative.This has affected the ability of some tests to detect the virus," said Robert Shorten, an expert in microbiology at the Association for Clinical Biochemistry & Laboratory Medicine

MedinCell mission

Quote from Fm1

The new variant, known as 501.V2, is dominant among new confirmed infections in South Africa, according to health officials and scientists leading the country’s virus strategy.

At top expert from UNI Bologna (not LENR..) explained on BBC that the lock region shows some change. But this region is not used - targetet by vaccines. No change in overall symptoms (so far...) was his conclusion.

The last answer is no conclusive at all and shows a lack off knowledge in pharma kinetics. If a virus has a stronger lock that make him attach faster or sticky earlier then he will also spread much faster inside the body hence antibodies have less time to intercept him. Inside the body we have two time constants. 1) Time to complete a replication 2) time to infect (travel to) a new cell.

In the worst case the time to react on Symptons will be cut by 1/3. Some old people dies within three days of first symptoms if we start tom see even faster death than we can estimate the effect.

Thus: Buy your personal Ivermectin. Ask a friend with an horse. Eraquell is safe for humans too.

On serious symptoms you have to react fast! 4 .. 6x normal dose first day to stop viral replication in cell.