Covid-19 News

Quote from Mark U

One only has to look at places that didn't lock downs or have mask mandates, etc, yet their numbers also are going down.

Their numbers were much higher in the first place. The numbers are going down partly because many people are wearing masks and locking themselves down. They still have the 10th highest per capita death rate. It would be a lot higher if they had gotten the pandemic in the early months when New York got it. The high numbers of death put the fear of God into many people in North Dakota. They are not all idiots there.

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

There is absolutely, positively, no doubt whatever that masks greatly reduce the likelihood of getting the disease. Statements to contrary are ignorant, unscientific, stupid and dangerous. They are no better than saying washing your hands does not reduce the likelihood of getting disease.

Granted, there are many idiots in North and South Dakota. See:

Quote from Fm1

Common asthma drug can reduce COVID hospitalizations by 90% — study

Oxford University researchers say steroid budesonide, inhaled as a treatment for respiratory disorders, effective when administered to patients within a week of first symptoms

That's great news!

Several other steroids have shown promising results.

Where Canada Stands in Vacination.

Quote from JedRothwell

There is absolutely, positively, no doubt whatever that masks greatly reduce the likelihood of getting the disease.

In case of an FP98 mask I fully agree. They are now mandatory in Austria and parts of Germany - since a long time for people older 80.

Indoors - sitting along somebody just having first symptoms - cloth & surgical mask give no real protection. You just can sit there a few minutes longer for containing a potentially lethal dose.

Quote from JedRothwell

That's great news!

Several other steroids have shown promising results.

Yes, with vitamin D on top of the list.

Brazil says Amazon COVID-19 variant three times more contagious

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

A coronavirus variant identified in the Brazilian Amazon may be three times more contagious but early analysis suggests vaccines are still effective against it, the country’s health minister said on Thursday, without providing evidence for the claims.

Under pressure as the variant hammers the jungle city of Manaus with a devastating second wave of infections, Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello sought to reassure legislators that the surge of recent months was unexpected but coming under control.

He also told a Senate hearing that Brazil would vaccinate half its eligible population by June and the rest by the end of the year – an ambitious target as the country has barely guaranteed doses for half the population.

Brazil began immunisations with vaccines made by China’s Sinovac Biotech and Britain’s AstraZeneca about three weeks ago. Pazuello did not explain how their effectiveness against the Manaus variant was analysed.

“Thank God, we had clear news from the analysis that the vaccines still have an effect against this variant,” Pazuello said. “But it is more contagious. By our analysis, it is three time more contagious.”

The Health Ministry, which has not provided information about any such analysis, did not immediately respond to a request for more information.

The Butantan Institute in Sao Paulo, which has partnered with Sinovac to test and produce the Chinese vaccine, said in a statement that it had begun studies regarding the Manaus variant but would not have a conclusion for two weeks.

I'm all for early treatment but this treatment leads to mutations in patients. UK researchers watched as a patient treated over 64 days who came in with the D614 strain watched as it mutated to N439k strain with the B117 mutation. Now it's in widespread use.

Mayo Clinic using new treatment for COVID-19 patients

https://www.weau.com/2021/02/1…atment-covid-19-patients/

EAU CLAIRE, Wis. (WEAU) - More than 700 people in the Chippewa Valley have received monoclonal antibody COVID-19 treatments from Mayo Clinic Health System.

Since the FDA approved an emergency use authorization for the treatment in Nov. 2020, the health system has been using it to treat high-risk virus patients.

Monoclonal antibody treatments are designed to keep people out of the hospital. According to the FDA, they are proteins made in a lab designed to mimic the immune system’s ability to fight off harmful pathogens such as viruses.

Mayo Clinic Eau Claire physician assistant Lori Arndt said they’re meant to kick start the immune system.

How COVID Affects Your Heart, According to a Cardiologist

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

How does COVID-19 impact the heart?

One way COVID affects the heart is that it can cause myocarditis, or an inflammation of the heart muscle, which can cause different kinds of symptoms, including chest pain, abnormal heart rhythms, and even reduced heart function.

Another way that we're seeing COVID affect the heart is by causing significant arrhythmias. People come in with heart rhythms that cause their blood pressure to drop, or cause them to feel palpitations, or even cause them to require CPR.

The third is heart failure syndrome. COVID can affect the heart cells themselves, and cause heart function to become reduced, so people have symptoms like shortness of breath, fluid in the lungs and swelling of the feet.

What is the biggest concern for people with known heart issues if they're diagnosed with COVID?

People with underlying heart disease or impaired vasculature — meaning they have pre-existing diabetes or high blood pressure or obesity — those people are at increased risk. They should look out for chest pain, shortness of breath, feeling lightheaded, feeling like they're near fainting, or actually fainting. Those are things that should warrant going to the emergency room, or certainly calling your doctor.

COVID has emerged as a virus that really affects the blood vessels in the body — and obviously, the heart is sort of the biggest blood vessel of all. We know that it affects the blood vessels in the brain and causes strokes and causes clots to form in the blood vessels of the lungs. It causes rashes to form in people's hands due to the clotting of the small blood vessels in the skin. It causes kidney failure from the same mechanism affecting the vasculature of the kidneys. And the heart is the same.

The coronavirus is going to stick around forever. Get ready for the new normal.

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

Several mutations that scientists have identified in rapidly spreading variants are particularly worrisome. They raise concerns that these strains will be more contagious or be able to at least partly evade protection provided by vaccines and by prior infections.

Let's be clear: No one knows how the next phase of the pandemic will play out. Is a new strain already spreading undetected or lurking around the corner? How effective will these vaccines be in the long run? And just when can we think about returning to schools and offices, or getting together with older relatives again?

Some of the nation's top infectious-disease experts are hesitant to offer predictions.

Four other human coronaviruses are already endemic in our population, meaning they circulate perpetually but don't hit pandemic-level peaks. For the most part, these viruses cause only mild symptoms associated with common colds.

Scientists had always feared a new coronavirus might come along that would be deadlier but still highly transmissible.

Enter SARS-CoV-2.

"It's safe to say we're not going to eradicate it entirely," said Dr. Becky Smith, an infectious-disease specialist at Duke Health. "Too many people in the world have it. It's too efficient at transmitting."

The virus is also zoonotic, meaning it can jump back and forth between animals and humans. Even if we managed to eradicate SARS-CoV-2 in humans, animals could reintroduce a similar infection to our population - perhaps with an even deadlier mutation.

To this day, smallpox is the only infectious disease that has ever been eradicated in humans. It has no animal reservoir, so it must spread from human to human to survive.

A recent study suggested that SARS-CoV-2 would most likely become endemic within five to 10 years, eventually resembling a common cold that infects people during childhood. That scenario hinges on the notion that pediatric cases will remain mild. If a new mutation makes the virus deadlier in kids, coronavirus shots may become required for young people, similar to vaccines for polio or measles.

Still, Mike Osterholm, a leading infectious-disease expert, said it would be nearly impossible to make a yearly coronavirus vaccine available to every person on Earth.

"It is going to be with us forever," Osterholm, who directs of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said of the virus. "It is something we can't eradicate from humans."

New Research Finds Most People Are Naturally Armed Against the COVID-19 Coronavirus

https://scitechdaily.com/new-r…the-covid-19-coronavirus/

The majority of the population can produce neutralizing antibodies against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in severe cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), according to a study published today (February 11, 2021) in the open-access journal PLOS Pathogens by Michael Mor of Tel Aviv University, and colleagues. Moreover, the results support the use of combination antibody therapy to prevent and treat COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by SARS-CoV-2, has had a profound impact on global public health. Neutralizing antibodies that specifically target the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein are thought to be essential for controlling the virus. RBD-specific neutralizing antibodies have been detected in convalescent patients – those who have recovered from COVID-19. Some of the recoverees tend to have robust and long-lasting immunity, while others display a waning of their neutralizing antibodies. The factors associated with an effective, durable antibody response are still unclear.

To address this gap in knowledge, Mor and colleagues used molecular and bioinformatics techniques to compare B-cell responses in eight patients with severe COVID-19 and 10 individuals with mild symptoms, 1.5 months after infection. Very ill patients showed higher concentrations of RBD-specific antibodies and increased B-cell expansion. Among 22 antibodies cloned from two of these patients, six exhibited potent neutralization against SARS-CoV-2.

Bioinformatics analysis suggests that most people would be capable of readily producing neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 in severe cases of COVID-19. Moreover, combinations of different types of neutralizing antibodies completely blocked the live virus from spreading. According to the authors, these antibody cocktails can be further tested in clinical settings as a useful means to prevent and treat COVID-19.

“Even with a vaccine at our doorstep, arming clinicians with specific anti-SARS-CoV-2 therapeutics is extremely important,” the authors add. “Combinations of neutralizing antibodies represent a promising approach towards effective and safe treatment of severe COVID-19 cases, especially in the elderly population or chronically ill people, who will not be able to so easily produce these antibodies upon infection or vaccination.”

One infected person in the UK may have changed the course of the pandemic across the world

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

In an article on Wired UK, Matt Reynolds reported that this theory that all the changes happened in one person is what many scientists now believe is most likely. While most coronaviruses tend to pick up one or two mutations a month, the Kent variant had 17 changes, all of which had appeared at once.

Coronavirus has the ability to change and mutate in every single person it infects.

It has the potential to become more deadly, more infectious and even become more resistant to the vaccines we are relying on to steer us out of this pandemic. In the vast majority of cases, the biology of Sars-CoV-2 means the changes happen slowly or fail to have any material impact. But in some cases, the virus can "hit the jackpot" and alter to such an extent that it is able to evolve into a new, more transmittable form.

Quote from Fm1

More trouble brewing

UK coronavirus variant on course 'to sweep the world,' leading scientist says

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

"In the future, I think the key is going to be if something (a variant) is particularly problematic with the vaccines," she told the BBC's Newcast podcast.

The group that Peacock heads was created in April and brings together highly respected experts and institutes to collect, sequence and analyze genomes of the virus as part of the U.K.'s pandemic response. To date, it has tracked the genetic history of more than 250,000 samples of the virus.

The consortium first detected the more infectious mutation, formally known as B1.1.7, in Kent in southeast England in September through retrospective analysis of virus samples.

Click here to view interactive content

Viruses mutate all the time, but experts become concerned when a virus mutates to become more transmissible, as in this case, or more deadly. The higher infection rates associated with the variant identified in the U.K. are likely to lead to more hospitalizations and, sadly, more deaths. As a result, containing it has become a priority.

The variant spread quickly throughout the southeast of England and London, and has now become the dominant strain in Britain. It has also been detected in more than 80 countries, according to the World Health Organization's latest count, sending health authorities scrambling to isolate cases, although it's believed that this more virulent strain is already widely in circulation.

It's difficult to know the exact origin of the mutation, and given the work of the consortium it was likely to find new variants in the U.K. Other countries that have advance genome sequencing of the virus, like Denmark and South Africa, have also discovered variants. Peacock, a professor of public health and microbiology at the University of Cambridge, said sequencing coronavirus variants will be required for at least 10 years.

So far, there have been over 107 million coronavirus cases and over 2.3 million deaths around the world, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Mutation mutating

Aside from the variant of the virus first seen in southeastern England, two new variants have appeared in a cluster of cases in Liverpool and Bristol that scientists are monitoring.

The mutation in Bristol has been designated a "variant of concern" by Britain's New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group

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Yet another CNN inspired headline,

The sky is falling, we’re all gonna die.

What exactly does “sweep the world” mean?

Further down in the article we find that it is only “a variant of concern” .

Quote from Fm1

The coronavirus is going to stick around forever. Get ready for the new normal.

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

Several mutations that scientists have identified in rapidly spreading variants are particularly worrisome. They raise concerns that these strains will be more contagious or be able to at least partly evade protection provided by vaccines and by prior infections.

Let's be clear: No one knows how the next phase of the pandemic will play out. Is a new strain already spreading undetected or lurking around the corner? How effective will these vaccines be in the long run? And just when can we think about returning to schools and offices, or getting together with older relatives again?

Some of the nation's top infectious-disease experts are hesitant to offer predictions.

Four other human coronaviruses are already endemic in our population, meaning they circulate perpetually but don't hit pandemic-level peaks. For the most part, these viruses cause only mild symptoms associated with common colds.

Scientists had always feared a new coronavirus might come along that would be deadlier but still highly transmissible.

Enter SARS-CoV-2.

"It's safe to say we're not going to eradicate it entirely," said Dr. Becky Smith, an infectious-disease specialist at Duke Health. "Too many people in the world have it. It's too efficient at transmitting."

The virus is also zoonotic, meaning it can jump back and forth between animals and humans. Even if we managed to eradicate SARS-CoV-2 in humans, animals could reintroduce a similar infection to our population - perhaps with an even deadlier mutation.

To this day, smallpox is the only infectious disease that has ever been eradicated in humans. It has no animal reservoir, so it must spread from human to human to survive.

A recent study suggested that SARS-CoV-2 would most likely become endemic within five to 10 years, eventually resembling a common cold that infects people during childhood. That scenario hinges on the notion that pediatric cases will remain mild. If a new mutation makes the virus deadlier in kids, coronavirus shots may become required for young people, similar to vaccines for polio or measles.

Still, Mike Osterholm, a leading infectious-disease expert, said it would be nearly impossible to make a yearly coronavirus vaccine available to every person on Earth.

"It is going to be with us forever," Osterholm, who directs of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said of the virus. "It is something we can't eradicate from humans."

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FM,

How is it possible that the virus sticks around for forever, or even a long time once when we’ve all been vaccinated?

(Arnold Horshak raises hand saying ooh, ooh, ooh, I know, Mr Kotter pick me.)

Because none of the so called vaccines are vaccines?

Quote from Fm1

"It is going to be with us forever," Osterholm, who directs of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said of the virus. "It is something we can't eradicate from humans."

Osterholm is a world-class expert, according to the other experts. No doubt he is brilliant. But he has been unreasonably pessimistic from the start of this pandemic. He said there is no way to stop a pandemic without a vaccine. He said that is like trying to stop the wind. It turned out you can stop it with internet-based case tracking and quarantine. He said it would take years to develop a vaccine. It took about 10 months. Now he says this one will never go extinct. The 1918 influenza went extinct quickly. If it does not go extinct naturally, there is now the prospect of a "pan-corona vaccine" that will prevent all forms of coronavirus, including the common cold.

Here is an interview with Osterholm on March 21, 2020 in which he made some of these pessimistic comments.

Quote from Roseland67

How is it possible that the virus sticks around for forever, or even a long time once when we’ve all been vaccinated?

(Arnold Horshak raises hand saying ooh, ooh, ooh, I know, Mr Kotter pick me.)

Because none of the so called vaccines are vaccines?

No, they are all vaccines according to EVERY EXPERT ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH. Except you, who apparently knows more than all the experts tied together.

Many diseases with vaccines to do not go extinct. There are three reasons why this can happen:

1. Not everyone is vaccinated.

2. The virus evolves quickly and keeps becoming resistant to the vaccine.

3. The virus survives outside the human body in close proximity to people, so it can re-infect the population from time to time.

Quote from Fm1

Coronavirus has the ability to change and mutate in every single person it infects.

As far as I know, that's true of every virus and bacteria. Some mutate faster than others. COVID-19 is not particularly fast, but it has infected more than 100 million people, giving it many opportunities to mutate. Suppose we cannot drive it to extinction in the human population, but we can greatly reduce the number of infected people, to a few million worldwide. That will reduce the number of mutations, and reduce the danger of a virulent new mutation emerging.

We cannot drive it into extinction in bats, because the bats will not line up and let us vaccinate them. They are uncooperative, like anti-vaccination people. With luck it will not cross over from bats to people again any time soon, and before it does, we may have a universal "pan-corona vaccine" which will nail it before it spreads far. That would be a great thing to have in any case, since it would eliminate the common cold. A cold seldom causes serious harm or death, but it is annoying, and it causes absence from work and misery. If I could get one vaccination that lasts a Iifetime to eliminate colds, I would do it.

Past Present and future Vacine Technology.

Quote from Alan Smith

Unless I'm mistaken about the study you mention this particular patient was post-transplant and taking immuno-suppresants. He was a petri-dish for mutations.

Could this kind of so far unexpected fast virus replications / mutations within ONE single "transmitter" a potential alternative answer to some interpretations this virus could be human-engineered only because naturally there is no possibilty at all this can happen in such a short time within humans? Maybe there are more of this kind of "petri-dishes" out there, since long?