People need to stop calling it a “rushed vaccine”. The platform has been under development and testing for 10 years. This actual vaccine from Pfizer and Moderna existed in March and was designed in January. The only thing they’ve been doing with it since then is testing it.
https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-should-we-be-worried-about-the-new-coronavirus-mutation-12161566 COVID-19: Is the new coronavirus mutation worse than first thought? The strain, known as VUI-202012/01, may be up to 70% more transmissible - and brings an "unusually large number" of changes. A new variant of COVID-19 in the UK that is believed to be behind the faster spread of infections in southeast England has been described as "a real cause for concern". But it is not the first time the virus had mutated since the start of the pandemic and it may not even be the first time a mutation - or a change in the virus' genetic material - has altered how infectious it is. Is it more transmissible? Yes. It seems so. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the new variant strain, VUI-202012/01, may be up to 70% more transmissible and could increase the R number by 0.4. The latest figures suggest that this strain is responsible for 43% of new infections in the South East - rising to 59% of new cases in the East of England and 62% in London. Professor Chris Whitty, England's chief medical officer, said: "Those have gone up very, very fast over the last few weeks." Sir Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific adviser, added that "an unusually large number of variants" - 23 different changes - have been identified with this new strain. Following preliminary modelling data and rapidly rising incidence rates in the South East, the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG) now agrees that the new strain could spread more quickly. Professor Whitty said he had alerted the World Health Organisation to its existence - and would be concentrating on analysing data related to the mutation's spread. As he announced the introduction of Tier 4 restrictions for large swathes of London and the South East, Boris Johnson told the country: "When the science changes, we must change our response. "When the virus changes its methods of attack we must change our method of defence - and as your prime minister, I sincerely believe there is no alternative open to me." Professor Whitty urged people not to travel outside these areas, as there was a "significant risk" of passing it on. Does it make people more ill? Professor Whitty said there was "no current evidence to suggest the new strain causes a higher mortality rate or that it affects vaccines and treatments", but work was under way to confirm this. However, Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, a medical research charity, said in a tweet, that its existence was still "worrying and a real cause for concern". He added: "Research is ongoing to understand more, but acting urgently now is critical. There is no part of the UK and globally that should not be concerned. As in many countries, the situation is fragile." Does the new strain respond to the vaccine? The COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) consortium said it is difficult to predict whether any given mutation is important when it first emerges, but agreed that the biggest concern was any changes that lead to an increase in reinfections or vaccine failure. But Professor Whitty said that, as of now, there was no evidence to suggest the new strain affected vaccines and treatments. He added "urgent work" was under way to confirm this and warned that it was "more vital than ever" that people continued to take action to reduce the spread of the virus. So far, experts have not found any variants that could make a vaccine less effective, and the virus has been slow to mutate. Professor Whitty said it would be "surprising" if it had an effect on the vaccine. Federico Giorgi, a researcher at the University of Bologna who co-ordinated a study into strains of COVID-19, told Science Daily: "The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus is presumably already optimised to affect human beings, and this explains its low evolutionary change. "This means that the treatments we are developing, including a vaccine, might be effective against all the virus strains." What are the different strains? So far, there have been at least seven major groups, or strains, of COVID-19 as it adapts to its human hosts. The original strain, discovered in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December last year, is known as the L strain. It then mutated into the S strain at the beginning of 2020, before being followed by the V and G strains. Strain G has been most commonly found in Europe and North America - but because these continents were slow to restrict movement, it allowed the virus to spread faster and therefore mutate further into strains GR, GH and GV. Meanwhile, the original L strain persisted for longer in Asia because several countries - including China - were quick to shut their borders and stop movement. Several other less frequent mutations are grouped together as strain O. In Denmark, authorities became worried about a strain of the virus found in 12 people related to mink farming. They feared the mutation could hamper the effectiveness of a vaccine because it had happened in the spike protein, and as a result the government ordered a mass cull of up to 17 million animals and a month-long lockdown for people living in the northwest of the country. What are the most common strains around the world? G strains are now dominant around the world, particularly in Italy and Europe, coinciding with spikes in outbreaks. A specific mutation, D614G, is the most common variant. Some experts say this variation has made the virus more infectious, but other studies have contradicted this. Meanwhile, earlier strains such as the original L strain and the V strain are gradually disappearing. Analysis by the Reuters news agency shows that Australia's quick reaction to the pandemic and effective social distancing measures have eliminated transmission of the earlier L and S strains in the country, and that new infections are the result of G strains brought in from overseas. In Asia, the strains G, GH and GR have been increasing since the beginning of March, more than a month after they started spreading in Europe.
I've heard from several people who have had this disease suffer from neurological issues such as memory loss, feeling fogging, dizziness, and weird dreams. In some cases for months after they've been infected. This might be how COVID-19 is causing those issues. https://www.opb.org/article/2020/12...TfGA4_FNtFHpNJWUVTXhrxcI-ZxAcZpUBhWaEuJF7fQik Northwest scientists answer questions about how COVID-19 affects the brain Scientists in Oregon and Washington may have solved one mystery at the root of some of the more puzzling symptoms of COVID-19. They’ve shown that small pieces of coronavirus can cross into the brain in a similar way that HIV does in its victims. This discovery could help explain why some people sick with COVID-19 experience long-lasting brain fog and fatigue, among other symptoms related to the central nervous system. When magnified, coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) looks like a ball with little spiky nodes all over the surface. Those spikes are made of proteins often referred to as the “S1 protein,” after one of the important components of the spike responsible for grabbing ahold of human cells. This the first step the coronavirus takes to harness healthy cells to make copies of itself and spread throughout the body. The researchers from the University of Washington School of Medicine and Oregon Health & Science University used lab mice to test if those S1 proteins could actually cross from the bloodstream into the brain itself. “Everything about the brain is special, including the blood vessels. They’re specially modified so they usually keep things out of the brain,” said UW Medicine’s Bill Banks. “Every once in a while, there’s something like a virus or bacteria or parasite that figures out how to trick its way (through) the blood-brain barrier to get in.” From their previous research the scientists knew a protein associated with the HIV virus could do this, and now they’re the first to show coronavirus S1 protein can do the same. “The viral protein can get in. That means that probably the viral protein is causing problems once it does get in. And it also means that probably the virus could get in a well,” he said. The researchers also found that the S1 protein enters the brain about 10 times quicker through the blood as it does through the olfactory nerve in the nose. This new understanding of how coronavirus works provides insight into why some people experience brain-related symptoms after becoming infected. “This study suggests that S1 in mice definitely can enter the brain and could cause immune-related problems, inflammation,” said Jacob Raber, a neuroscientist at OHSU. “It’s important to know because when you know how it works, you can start trying to treat it.” Neurologist Jennifer Frontera with NYU School of Medicine, who was not involved in the research, says there’s a lot of interest right now in figuring out how COVID-19 affects the brain. Focusing on how the S1 protein works only beings to answer those questions. “I think most people are interested in what the actual virus might do if it were to cross the blood-brain barrier,” she said. Frontera says it’s still too early to attribute long term neurological symptoms of COVID-19 to the presence of coronavirus or its S1 protein in the brain. But if the inference of the paper authors are correct, and the spike protein can cause inflammation in the brain, then some of what doctors are seeing in their patients starts to make sense. “When there is inflammation in the brain, we think about short and long term effects,” OHSU’s Raber said. “We’re concerned that the S1 protein in the brain might cause long term consequences and therefore have chronic effects as well.” The research was also able to show a possible genetic explanation for why men and women experience different susceptibility to coronavirus. Raber says their next step is to look at whether men, who as a group experience more severe symptoms of COVID-19, are more likely to experience the neurological effects of the disease. The research was published this month in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
What's up with this new UK strain? Legit? Hype? Is it here yet? Is it coming? I don't hear much talk about different strains here in the US (anymore), even though we have a few.
So the CDC voted for this strange non-binding plan nearly unanimously. I don't get it. 100 million people is essentially everyone over 55. 55 and older is roughly 92% of the deaths and a large majority of the hospitalizations. Everyone else can wait a few more months. Anyhow, deaths should be blunted pretty quickly over the next month or so. Maybe 6 or so months before things start normalizing is my guess.
No. Deaths are probably going to increase over the next month and beyond. Cases have been increasing and deaths lag behind the cases. The cold weather and the holidays will probably help the virus spread even more. Not enough people will get the vaccine in the coming weeks to make much of a difference anytime soon.
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-uk-canada-idUKKBN28V047 Canada halts passenger flights from UK amid worries over new virus strain
If they are rolling it out to nursing homes/long term care first then yes it should make a difference since that is 40% of deaths. That is only about 3 million people or so in total.
I can't tell yet honestly, but their caseload doubled in London in one week and scientists there are freaking out a bit. France, Germany, and Italy (and now Canada) said "thanks but no thanks" to Brits for a while.
Something is terribly wrong. Supposedly they knew of this new strain since September and had begun analysing in October. The news about it leaked to the press one week ago. So here I was naive thinking just another strain no big deal.It probably has spread all over the continent anyway by this point. But yet yesterday Johnson with a HUGE political cost decided to create new draconian tier of lockdown cancelling Christmas just for this strain. Half his own party is now about to start a rebellion against him. And today many countries like in a PANIC are cutting off the UK. I mean France even banned the lorries and in effect stopped trade! The situation was already a cluster**** what with already restrictions, Brexit stockpiling with 10 miles lorry lines at the border, now it is beyond dire. I don't care what the press says something is horribly wrong. The proof is in the pudding. Something - some new preliminary study or something must be known to the leadership and governments at the highest level and they react like that. I pray it is about higher transmissibillity and it's not about higher severity of symptoms or even god forbid that some vaccines won't work on it.
So far : Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Portugal, Denmark,Croatia, Germany, Italy, France, Finland, Bulgaria, Romania (what with all the romanian immigrants in the UK who will want to come back for Christmas that is significant too), Austria, Czechia, Sweden, Ireland! Turkey, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, El Salvador, Iran and Canada. An EU CRISIS meeting has been called for Monday and according to Germany officials who are the current presidency , all of the EU27 will apply a ban on the UK from tomorrow.
At a 70% higher transmissibility, I could probably understand this. They'd be shutting everything and locking down everybody and their mother if that got out of hand. Anybody know what the current US policy is for travel to/from UK?
The science that the press and the public is privy to is not the same as the governments are privy to. So far the scientists are saying "we don't know yet" but they have some preliminary results hence such sudden reactions by so many governments. Supposedly the brits will analyse this week if it is 70% more infectious. But yet what I don't understand is what's the point at this point? This strain is widely circulated for god knows how many months. More than 65% of the new cases in London are from this. It should already be all over the world now . It's not like London is some little village in Iceland. Thousands of people fly to and from there every day.
