COVID-19 News, Info, Discussion /// Tracking the Spread of the Virus and its Effects /// October Lockdown for UK (pg. 774)

33 cases of ANOTHER new Covid variant are found in UK: Scientists identify strain linked to travel from Nigeria with the same mutation as South African and Brazilian versions that makes jabs 'slightly less effective'

The strain, called B.1.525, has been spotted 33 times already but experts say this could be an underestimate

[link to www.dailymail.co.uk (secure)]

Yes, vaccines don't prevent the person from infection, which is what runs the risk of the virus mutating. However, governments are being led to believe that the vaccine does reduce the viral load which in turn would make the virus less contagious. If that R rate goes below 1 after the return to normality then all well and good. But if that R rate stays above 1 then it's running that risk that a vaccine proof mutant will emerge - i.e. not even tweaking the existing vaccines would work on it. A very real concern.

It's gone. Didn't quite catch him in time. He arrived just after I logged off.



Last Edited by CoronaCoaster on 02/16/2021 09:59 AM

Could be something to do with this

Schools are not a major source of transmission of coronavirus, the Public Health Agency (PHA) has said.

[link to www.bbc.co.uk (secure)]


Although it's hard to keep up with what they're saying these days. It seems like you have one week where it's reported schools ARE a major source of transmission then the next week they aren't a major source of transmission. Hard to know what to believe!

Last Edited by CoronaCoaster on 02/16/2021 09:30 AM

Yeah, I remember the Israelis saying before that their second wave was helped by transmission in schools.

Third wave starting in Sweden?

https://twitter.com/_/status/1361688480389222407

Concern growing in Africa on the ebola outbreak

https://twitter.com/_/status/1361692795900026881

Last Edited by CoronaCoaster on 02/16/2021 10:09 AM

Variant Watch UK

A bunch of SA variant cases detected since last update.

Only one further case of the UK variant with the added e484k mutation has been detected.

42 cases of the B1525 variant detected which haven't yet been officially added to the list yet. Interestingly, most of these are from the Bristol/South-West area where the b117 +e484k case cluster was detected recently.

https://twitter.com/_/status/1361696269211697155

https://twitter.com/_/status/1361697443927187459

Today, UK cases fell again. But worryingly, looking at the 7-day average this is the least they've fallen in terms of percentage since early January. So watch this space perhaps... I've been seeing stories today and the past few days which suggests the cases on the continent of Europe seem to have stopped falling and started to increase in some countries. Maybe the UK is about to follow suit?

https://twitter.com/_/status/1361707673943736323

Last Edited by CoronaCoaster on 02/16/2021 11:34 AM

White House Covid Advisor gives warning on b117 variant

https://twitter.com/_/status/1361714499590397953

https://twitter.com/_/status/1361714868638810117

Last Edited by CoronaCoaster on 02/16/2021 11:43 AM

The ZOE app estimates the number of daily UK cases. It is not an official measure of recorded cases in the UK like the UK Gov's daily reported numbers that I quoted above, but ZOE is showing cases have started to increase in the UK following weeks of decline.

https://twitter.com/_/status/1361628899613040640

Last Edited by CoronaCoaster on 02/16/2021 11:57 AM

A team of scientists has used artificial intelligence (AI) to work out which animals the next coronavirus strain could come from.

Dr Marcus Blagrove, a virologist from the University of Liverpool, UK, who was involved in the study, says: "One way [new coronaviruses] are generated is through recombination between two existing coronaviruses - so two viruses infect the same cell and they recombine into a 'daughter' virus that would be an entirely new strain."

The researchers were able to plug biological evidence into an algorithm that taught a computer how to spot viruses and host species that were most likely to be a source of this recombination.

The team "asked" their algorithm to find biological patterns to predict which mammals might be susceptible to known coronaviruses, which revealed links between 411 strains of coronavirus and 876 potential mammal species.

[link to www.bbc.co.uk (secure)]

[link to abcnews.go.com (secure)]

Quote: Earlier this month, the Slovakian government announced the fast-spreading coronavirus variant first found in southern England had become dominant in the Central European country. The pronouncement came after health authorities sequenced all the positive samples nationwide from one day.

The British variant was detected in 74% of them, which Health Minister Marek Krajci called “an unbelievable high number.

Researchers have also found that the variant dominant in the U.K. is also more deadly than the original virus.



Taking a glance at the worldometers charts for Slovakia it does appear there is substance to what they say about the UK variant being more deadly.

In November, December, January before b117 became dominant in Slovakia, virus cases were higher than what they are right now, but deaths were lower. When the b117 became dominant the deaths went up.

[link to www.worldometers.info (secure)]

It's already been mentioned many times recently how the scientists believe the b117 variant to be more deadly. Here's a look at the case fatality rate math in UK from the b117 variant compared with older variants. It's a very rough estimate of how much more deadly the variant is. The math clearly shows that there is a significant increase in mortality with the b117 variant.

To select data from the period with the older variants I used start of July to start of December 2020. Testing numbers weren't great at the start of the pandemic, so I took a date from a few months into the Pandemic when testing was at a good enough standard -- July. Also, from July onward seems like a good time to choose because since that time there was better knowledge on how to treat patients through intensive oxygen treatment rather than ventilators and more widespread use of dexamethasone drug which helps reduce deaths. I used December as the end date because that's when the new variant started to kick in.


What I found is between July and the beginning of December 2020, when older variants were dominant, there was 1.38 million cases and roughly 20,000 deaths. This works out at 69 cases per death


From the beginning of December to present, when the b117 variant has been taking over to become dominant, there has been about 2.4 million cases and 58,000 deaths. This works out at 41 cases per death. A significant increase in the case fatality rate.

https://imgur.com/Aw0xsYO

https://imgur.com/SbnvssX

UK's daily telegraph reports the national lockdown is unlikely to be eased significantly until daily Covid cases are in the hundreds, compared with more than 10,000 a day now

A senior Whitehall source said: "For any significant relaxation of lockdown, household mixing and reopening pubs, case numbers have to be in the hundreds, not thousands.

[link to www.telegraph.co.uk (secure)]


In the projection early April is suggested as the date for when cases go below 1,000 cases per day. I have strong doubts that the UK will have cases as low as in the hundreds per day. Ever.

https://imgur.com/kmAVfQN

Last Edited by CoronaCoaster on 02/16/2021 05:16 PM

Stillborn foetus in Israel very likely to have died of Covid, doctors say

The foetus was infected through the placenta

https://twitter.com/_/status/1361782699220824065

Jesus... Fears of mutated sarscov2 from people being infected with more than one variant at once, appear to be justified...

The UK and California variants of coronavirus appear to have combined into a heavily mutated hybrid, sparking concern that we may be entering a new phase of the covid-19 pandemic

https://twitter.com/_/status/1361743551206457345

Last Edited by CoronaCoaster on 02/16/2021 06:01 PM

Italy's Health Minister Roberto Speranza said Tuesday in Perugia that new COVID variants had pushed up the contagion curve in the central region of Umbria before other Italian regions.

"We must carefully monitor what is happening in Umbria," he said

[link to www.ansa.it (secure)]

I agree. I’m still wondering if we will have a natural rise in late Feb/March, just as we did last year when there were no ‘lockdown’ measures in place. It’s one of the times of year when seasonal illnesses peak (September & December being others). Hopefully not!