What Scientists Know About the Coronavirus Variant Spreading In the UK (nbcnews.com) 125
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: Several European countries have banned flights from the U.K. over fears about a new coronavirus variant that has forced millions of people in Britain to cancel their Christmas plans. Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and Italy all announced restrictions on U.K. travel. Others will likely follow suit as scientists warned that the new strain spreads more quickly than its predecessor. [...] U.K. health officials first identified the new variant, which British scientists have called "VUI -- 202012/01," in mid-September, Maria Van Kerkhove, the Covid-19 technical lead for the World Health Organization, told the BBC on Sunday.
Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, warned in a statement Saturday that it the virus considered to be spreading more quickly. But he said there was no evidence so far to suggest that the new strain is more potent in terms of severe illness or death. "Our working assumption from all the scientists is that the vaccine response should be adequate for this virus," Patrick Vallance, the U.K. government's chief scientific adviser, said at a news briefing Saturday. But Ravindra Gupta, a professor of clinical microbiology at the University of Cambridge, said he was concerned that the virus is on a pathway to become resistant to vaccines. "Whilst it may not be actually resistant, it may not take so many changes after this for it to get there," he said. However, Clarke said that different versions of flu vaccines are required every year and that he did not see why it could not be the same for the coronavirus. The report notes that the new variant "has so far been identified in Denmark, the Netherlands and Australia," adding that more sequencing that can be done will be helpful to determine if this variant is circulating elsewhere.
Gupta said the new strain should be cause for concern in the U.S. and other countries. Warning that the virus could mutate again, he said, "people need to step up their surveillance."
Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, warned in a statement Saturday that it the virus considered to be spreading more quickly. But he said there was no evidence so far to suggest that the new strain is more potent in terms of severe illness or death. "Our working assumption from all the scientists is that the vaccine response should be adequate for this virus," Patrick Vallance, the U.K. government's chief scientific adviser, said at a news briefing Saturday. But Ravindra Gupta, a professor of clinical microbiology at the University of Cambridge, said he was concerned that the virus is on a pathway to become resistant to vaccines. "Whilst it may not be actually resistant, it may not take so many changes after this for it to get there," he said. However, Clarke said that different versions of flu vaccines are required every year and that he did not see why it could not be the same for the coronavirus. The report notes that the new variant "has so far been identified in Denmark, the Netherlands and Australia," adding that more sequencing that can be done will be helpful to determine if this variant is circulating elsewhere.
Gupta said the new strain should be cause for concern in the U.S. and other countries. Warning that the virus could mutate again, he said, "people need to step up their surveillance."
Captain Oblivious (Score:4, Insightful)
"Gupta said the new strain should be cause for concern in the U.S. and other countries. Warning that the virus could mutate again, he said, "people need to step up their surveillance."
If the new and improved strain of coronavirus is indeed more infectious than the one that has already spread through the world's human population, I suppose it's realistic to assume we'll all be getting acquainted with this variety, tambien.
Re:Captain Oblivious (Score:5, Interesting)
If the new and improved strain of coronavirus is indeed more infectious than the one that has already spread through the world's human population, I suppose it's realistic to assume we'll all be getting acquainted with this variety, tambien.
Whether you make friends with the virus or not is a choice. At this stage, it's 100% clear that anyone sane should make the choice not to; to close off their borders completely to travel other than basic supplies and to lock down seriously until reaching zero-COVID. There's already another equivalent mutated variant which has evolved separately in South Africa. In the US and other places with high infection there is much less genetic surveillance than in the UK. That means that probably multiple variants already exist there and there may easily soon be ones which are able to evade existing vaccines and anti-body treatments. If that also includes evading the bodies own defences, something that wasn't previously thought likely but now seems more possible, then that means the entire epidemic can start again, possibly multiple times.
Re:Captain Oblivious (Score:5, Interesting)
there may easily soon be ones which are able to evade existing vaccines
I am way out of my depth on the biology here but everything I have read has indicated the vaccines target parts of the virus that are pretty directly involved in processes that allow it target human cells. If those parts are lost in a mutation the virus would probably not be viable anymore as an infectious disease.
I have not seen anything to suggest there is much fear among immunologist community COVID-19 is likely to mutate in a way that would threaten vaccine effectiveness or even natural immune response in recovered populations.
If you have source saying otherwise, I'd be interested to read it.
Re:Captain Oblivious (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's be absolutely clear - there's little visible evidence of immune response evading versions of the virus in the wild yet that I know of. Note, though, that the variant in the UK evaded one of the three checks used in UK PCR tests which were luckily able to be easily adjusted. I suppose an immune evading virus could be out there but isn't being found in tests yet?
This preprint (== not yet peer reviewed / read with caution) has demonstrated immune evading viruses triggered by the use of neutralizing antibodies [medrxiv.org] which is a serious concern. That means both the treatment Trump got and also convalescent plasma taken from people who have been infected.
The antibodies target specific parts of the antigen rather than the whole thing (normally multiple different antibodies targeting different areas). This makes it possible to adjust the spike protein a bit without changing the bit which is effective. The EU paper [europa.eu] at least suggests that there is small evidence of a threat.
Most of the stuff around this specific variant seems to be on the VUI – 202012/01 / B.1.1.7 Wikipedia page [wikipedia.org]
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The issue is not that the current vaccine won't be effective against this mutated covid-19 virus, it's that this mutated variety spreads far more easily. This means more people getting infected more quickly which in turn means an even higher case load at hospitals which are already at capacity [nytimes.com]. This in turn will most likely mean more deaths.
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Whether you make friends with the virus or not is a choice.
Whether you engage in behavior known to be risky is, to some degree, a choice. (I still have to go to work, cash my check, go shopping, etc.) But some bad actor can still slip it past your defenses, since they are not absolute.
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Whether you engage in behavior known to be risky is, to some degree, a choice. (I still have to go to work, cash my check, go shopping, etc.) But some bad actor can still slip it past your defenses, since they are not absolute.
That's true, but there's still a societal choice being made there, which is why I was talking about border closure before. In some societies like South Korea, New Zealand or Australia they try to find these people who are endangering you and stop them. In other societies like the UK they wonder around endangering others unhindered. The result is that people who live in New Zealand are free to go to the pub, to meet new partners, to drive off to the vineyards and have a great meal with friends and some of u
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Re: Captain Oblivious (Score:1)
How did you catch it? Iâ(TM)m a frontline worker interacting with hundreds of people a week. We follow the guidelines and nobody in our shop has caught it.
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How did you catch it? IÃ(TM)m a frontline worker interacting with hundreds of people a week. We follow the guidelines and nobody in our shop has caught it.
My university is doing contact tracing (unlike The White House) and they have found that more than 80% of all infections were spread when both people were not wearing a mask. Which is why The White House refused to do contact tracing.
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Any idea how? Parcel or something? Person who came into your space at a shop? How did you verify that it really was SARS-COV-2? There are some shocking cases in China, caught from a multi-day old shipping container brought from a plane from the USA and verified with genome analysis, still they are very rare.
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"which is why I was talking about border closure before. In some societies like South Korea, New Zealand or Australia"
Australia and New Zealand don/t have borders, the only7 way you can get there is by plane or boat.
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In that case, the border is the coastline.
Try telling the [Australian] Maritime Border Command or Maritime New Zealand that those countries don't have borders, and see how it goes. Bonus points if you're running illegal goods into the relevant country at the time...
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Sounds like the basic issue of defensive driving. Is driving "safe?" Yes and no. But the driver really is the main deciding factor. You have a fuckton of influence over whether or not you get into collisions, despite the fact that shit does happen.
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Every time I go out I see people behaving in a risky fashion. Up here in Humboldt I see an awful lot of noses sticking over masks, people sneezing in their hands, that kind of shit. I minimize my trips out, but there still are some.
Re:Captain Oblivious (Score:5, Interesting)
At this point the UK is too far gone for a complete border lockdown to be of much use. What would help is testing at the border, but really the main thing we need is to get the basics sorted out.
- Clear rules
- Working Test & Trace system
- Cancel Christmas
Instead we get mixed and confusing messages, Test & Trace ruined by cronyism and incompetence, and the expectation of a 3rd wave in the new year because people aren't taking it seriously now.
Re:Captain Oblivious (Score:4, Interesting)
At this point the UK is too far gone for a complete border lockdown to be of much use. What would help is testing at the border, but really the main thing we need is to get the basics sorted out.
- Clear rules
- Working Test & Trace system
- Cancel Christmas
Instead we get mixed and confusing messages, Test & Trace ruined by cronyism and incompetence, and the expectation of a 3rd wave in the new year because people aren't taking it seriously now.
Mostly agreed, all the things you say are basic pre-requisites. Travellers coming from the outside, however, who aren't part of the integrated track and trace network are vastly underrated as a source of problems though. They introduce completely new random infection which comes to areas of society where there is none. Due to that the reach groups in society with no immunity and they spread asymptomatically for longer before someone recognises that there is a problem in the area. Failure to lock down borders was what brought disease from abroad into the UK at the start of the year, spread disease from the UK to holiday destinations in the early summer and brought disease back from those holiday destinations into the UK during Autumn. Even in the cases where there was supposed to be a quarantine, nothing was enforced and the people had to travel to their homes together with the general population.
The reasons for these failures are exactly our government's cronyism and incompetence, as you say.
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> The reasons for these failures are exactly our government's cronyism and incompetence, as you say.
The reasons are because no-one would follow the required rules. Look at the beaches in the UK in the early bank holiday weekends this year. Government saying "don't go to beaches" but they were pack. Councils closed car parks so rather than taking the hint people parked on the roads. Councils closed public toilets so rather than taking the hint people just crapped in other peoples gardens.
The governme
Re:Captain Oblivious (Score:5, Insightful)
> The reasons for these failures are exactly our government's cronyism and incompetence, as you say.
The reasons are because no-one would follow the required rules. Look at the beaches in the UK in the early bank holiday weekends this year. Government saying "don't go to beaches" but they were pack. Councils closed car parks so rather than taking the hint people parked on the roads. Councils closed public toilets so rather than taking the hint people just crapped in other peoples gardens.
The government hasn't covered itself with glory - but please don't blame them for people stupidity.
When you say "nothing was enforced". What do you want the government to do? Machine gun thousands of people on a beach? They won't do it a second time if we kill them all first time out
I'm precisely and 100% going to blame them for people not following the rules. There is not a choice between do nothing or machine gun people. In between the two are warnings and communication, fixed penalties, rewards for good behaviour, court appearances, community service, self isolation, house arrest, hotel confinement, imprisonment and solitary confinement. Using those in appropriate ways starting with lower level ones will
The choice to let Dominic Cummings off with his Barnard Castle trip [wikipedia.org] was outrageous. Even if there was a decision that the Prime Minister could not do without him and the police were unwilling to prosecute, the government should have made him make e.g. a £20,000 donation to a children's mental health charity as a simple sign that this is wrong and people will not get away with it.
The UK Police have been basically telling people they won't enforce rules [walesonline.co.uk] and that they won't be invasive [bristolpost.co.uk]. Even if it's true, it's not the business of the police to decide how actions should happen in a crisis and so the government should be making sure that police officers that undermine enforcement are subject to disciplinary action - I'd personally fire the police chief's involved and take their pensions. It's the government's responsibility in any case.
Far more free and democratic societies than the UK, like New Zealand, have set up road blocks to stop people travelling to and from restricted areas [nzherald.co.nz]. In Australia fines for self isolation breaches are typically around $50,000 [theguardian.com] rather than a verbal warning.
So in total, yes, I do blame the UK government for "people stupidity".
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Your level of understanding is childish.
I'm precisely and 100% going to blame them for people not following the rules. There is not a choice between do nothing or machine gun people. In between the two are warnings and communication, fixed penalties, rewards for good behaviour, court appearances, community service, self isolation, house arrest, hotel confinement, imprisonment and solitary confinement.
You seem to forget that the Government was criticised for not locking down, criticised for locking down, criticised for not locking down hard enough and criticised for destroying the economy by locking down too much.
You seem to forget the public outcry when Derbyshire police used drones to harass people that weren't breaking the law.
You seem to forget that half the country was sceptical of the need to lock down in the first place and any attempt to introduce it sooner
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Your level of understanding is childish.
Given this level of commentary I will be editing considerably. As they say, peoples own words are often very telling.
You seem to forget .. .blahhha
You seem to forget the public outcry when Derbyshire police used drones to harass people that weren't breaking the law.
You seem to have completely misunderstood here. The problem in Derbyshire was that a completely safe, even encouraged activity - going outdoors for exercise away from people - was being publicly shamed. It is completely possible for the police to both simultaneously do too much in one direction and not enough in another. Thinking in terms of black and white - "police action good" / "police
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You're full of shit and just not worth my time, but for the benefit of anybody else reading:
Actually at the time he was there he simply was not allowed to leave London a) due to the restrictions in place at the time (please state which exception he was following)
The one explicitly articulated in law as 'exceptional circumstances', as clarified by the deputy chief medical officer for England, Dr Jenny Harries, who said: "Clearly if you have adults who are unable to look after a small child, that is an exceptional circumstance."
She said this the day after lockdown began, long before Cummings left London due to his fear that he and his wife would both be incapacitated and unab
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You're full of shit and just not worth my time, but for the benefit of anybody else reading:
Detailed specific reasoning gets this. I find your lack of self awareness truly funny. And the funniest thing is that they never actually put their child in their parent's care since they continued to do the care themselves. You aren't just funny, you are dishonest too.
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If the government was trusted people would do as asked.
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At this point the western world is too far gone. You can introduce whatever rules you like - you'll either be too restrictive so people won't follow or be not restrictive enough so they won't do any good.
The new variant is already outside of the UK; maybe it started in the UK or maybe the UK was just the first country to identify it and go public about it.
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That has been the case with lock downs since the very start. There is little evidence to suggest they did much at all the control the spread.
The reality is too many people and to many activities were deemed 'essential' and we just don't have the infrastructure to enable large potions of the population to even obtain necessities without cramming on public transport in cities, and the entire town being at the local wallmart or dollar store in the country. I am talking US obviously but when I visited the UK t
Re:Captain Oblivious (Score:4)
That has been the case with lock downs since the very start. There is little evidence to suggest they did much at all the control the spread.
Actually there is much evidence that hard lockdowns can totally reverse an increasing case load rather quickly, with two caveats - first is the worse the spread is before you start, the longer it takes to get the numbers back down, and secondly, a hard lockdown is exactly that. No non essential businesses, no gyms, theatres, sports, no barbers, no eating in restaurants, no socializing outside your household, no travel, remote learning, etc. Obviously a lockdown with all sorts of exceptions is not going to be nearly as effective.
We chose entirely the wrong policy with lock downs form the start. We should have moved to isolate and protect the most vulnerable, making the funds and resources available to effect that
That simply won't work. If you allow the virus to become endemic in your population there is absolutely no way to keep it from getting in everywhere no matter how hard you try to keep it out, and that is not even considering the enormous strain on health care systems even with the many restriction already in place.
These policy decisions are going to leave a permanently altered societal landscape, and likely not one changed for the better.
Any policy decisions are going to leave a permanently altered societal landscape regardless, and certainly not one changed for the better. It is a once in a century pandemic, that it is going to fuck things up drastically is a given no matter what.
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secondly, a hard lockdown is exactly that.
I don't think you're disagreeing with the GP. I think their claim was along the lines of saying the US/UK are incapable of implementing a hard enough lockdown to be effective. Which may be true in parts of the US, but, for example, NYC got the virus down to contact-traceable levels for a while and was semi-open.
>
Every time the UK implemented a hard lockdown it worked and the level of virus infection started dropping. The March lockdown ended up almost eliminating the virus and if it had been continued one month longer then probably the UK could have got to the same level as South Korea, if not New Zealand.
Re:Captain Oblivious (Score:5, Interesting)
... to lock down seriously until reaching zero-COVID.
This is practically impossible.
The new mutation, which has shown an unusual high number of changes, is assumed to be coming from one individual with a weakened immune system. It is possible for somebody to have the virus, perhaps even without having any symptoms, where the immune system fails to kill it, thus the virus lives on in this person and keeps mutating over time. It was previously thought that a person's immune system would fight off the virus in a couple of weeks and self-isolation for two weeks would be the solution. But there have been reports of cases where the virus lived on for 6 weeks and longer. One woman is said to been carrying the virus for almost 9 months.
So unless you quarantine every single person, run a test on each and then kill off any virus found in the person's body, will you not be able to completely get rid of it.
The lockdowns only help to reduce the spread, especially since Christmas is a popular holiday. But life will have to go on afterwards and no government is going to imprison the entire population.
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North Korea is not a trustworthy source.
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You don't have to quarantine everyone before running tests, even when they're asymptomatic [mit.edu].
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The new mutation, which has shown an unusual high number of changes, is assumed to be coming from one individual with a weakened immune system. It is possible for somebody to have the virus, perhaps even without having any symptoms, where the immune system fails to kill it, thus the virus lives on in this person and keeps mutating over time
Given that millions of people have been infected and this mutation has only happened once, the chances of a mutation happening twice in the same person seem infinitesimal.
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"Gupta said the new strain should be cause for concern in the U.S. and other countries. Warning that the virus could mutate again, he said, "people need to step up their surveillance."
If the new and improved strain of coronavirus is indeed more infectious than the one that has already spread through the world's human population, I suppose it's realistic to assume we'll all be getting acquainted with this variety, tambien.
I'm not sure what you mean by "spread through". The UK has lockdowns because the Government group believes and models it as NOT having spread to everyone. If it has spread to most people then lockdown would be pointless.
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If it has spread to most people then lockdown would be pointless.
Lockdowns are pointless in so far that there is always a small percentage of people who simple don't give a shit. The lockdowns however help to reduce the spread and to lower the number of cases. So when then a new mutation spreads faster then we either have a suddenly larger group of people ignoring lockdowns for unknown reasons, or a new and unknown mechanism that allows the virus to spread faster, or the virus itself has become more effective in spreading itself. So far do we have no evidence of a sudden
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So far do we have no evidence of a sudden gross negligence by the public,
Not a sudden one, no.
nor are there more rats or whatever running around
...except in NYC
Re:Captain Oblivious (Score:5, Interesting)
There is not "one strain" elsewhere; there's a vast number of strains. The new strain in question (B.1.177) is argued to be more infectious than most others currently in the UK, but then again, many strains over the course of 2020 have been argued to be more contagious or virulent, but not much has been upheld on later examination (there are lots of complicating factors such as founder effects, happening to be found in areas where people are behaving in a manner more likely to spread it, the demographics of the given area, etc). That said, I do think this case has been more strongly supported by evidence than many of the others we've had. In particular, N501Y and 69-70del have independent evidence suggesting that they're associated with increased transmissibility, although it also contains a mutation (ORF8) that is associated with reduced ability to spread.
(In Iceland, the so-called "French strain" has been argued to be more contagious than other strains we've had previously... but again, the data is always noisy).
Speaking of strains referred to by their origin: we don't even actually know that B.1.177 is actually even from the UK. It just happens that the UK, like Iceland, does a lot more genetic sequencing of strains than most other countries; most countries do little to none. It's possible that the UK is just the first place where it started to be tracked.
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> we don't even actually know that B.1.177 is actually even from the UK. It just happens that the UK, like Iceland, does a lot more genetic sequencing of strains than most other countries; most countries do little to none. It's possible that the UK is just the first place where it started to be tracked.
At last - thank you for pointing out the obvious that people are overlooking
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If you look at the phylogenetic tree back from the virus, it has close relatives a long way back that come from the UK. A big branch off to Denmark, some small branches to Australia and Belgium for sure, but each of those is preceded by small branches in the UK. It looks quite clearly like the virus originated in the UK.
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If the new and improved strain of coronavirus is indeed more infectious than the one that has already spread through the world's human population, I suppose it's realistic to assume we'll all be getting acquainted with this variety, tambien.
True, what matters however is by how much we can slow its spread before hospitals become overloaded again and to buy ourselves some time until the vaccines come into effect.
We won't be getting rid of this virus just as we never got rid of the flu. We will always be chasing after new mutations. This is part of its curse.
Re:Captain Oblivious (Score:5, Insightful)
I suppose it's realistic to assume we'll all be getting acquainted with this variety, tambien.
That's only a realistic assumption in a country with incompetent leadership and a stupid population. I for one think only a handful of people will "get acquainted" with it in Australia, and anticipate no one will in New Zealand, Thailand, or many other places that effectively no longer are suffering from an epidemic at a local level.
Evolutionary Pressure - Free Science Lesson! (Score:2)
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For everyone that has kids doing remote learning, this is a great story to show how evolutionary pressure works, and how rapidly it can occur.
(In this case...)
Lies. Clearly China released this updated form of Wuflu in retaliation for Trump discovering their massive hacking operation here in the US that was totally them and not Russia.
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Well, I'd give you the funny mod if'n I ever had a mod point to give, but what actually struck me was that yours is the only mention of China in the discussion (so far).
There was (at least) one comment about the difficulty facing non-authoritarian governments when people don't like to follow rules. However New Zealand is at least a proof of concept that it can be done. South Korea was barely mentioned, but their heavy-testing response seems to be falling short (and I still blame the religious loonies). Much
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30 more days and then what will you do?
Have you at least updated your resume?
I don't think this deserved a -1 mod. I think it's even funnier that someone thought the grandparent was a serious comment and I really sympathise that it's impossible to tell who's joking and who's just completely crazy nowadays.
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Not perfect. This variant has gained too many mutations too fast. It hasn't gained these mutation as it jumps between people (in a classic evolution for children fashion). The leading theory is that it spent a long time in a immunocompromised person, churning up a huge number of mutations before making the jump to the wider population.
Well, I can't see what point you're making or what you mean by "as" in the phrase "It hasn't gained these mutation as it jumps between people".
As far as I can see it has acted completely normally in evolutionary terms: a population with variation has accumulated and one variation has allowed it to jump hosts faster than other variants, resulting in its representation in the population growing.
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Anti-evolutionists claim it's "intelligent re-design" in a Wuhan lab. Those "students" are a lost cause.
Current scientific knowledge about the new variant (Score:1)
Re: Current scientific knowledge about the new var (Score:1)
TL;DW for the low bandwith / little time people?
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In a one line summary, "correlation is not causation".
Otherwise it's a long and seems to me good intro to the genetics of the virus with the summary that mutations happen often and that there isn't enough evidence to support the current level of panic. It's hard for me to judge and I would tend to trust scientists closer to the actual infections and with access to the full UK data, on the other hand he's clearly seen panic like this before which turned out to be much less than it was hyped up to be.
I'd reco
Official docs (Score:5, Informative)
The B.1.1.7 mutant already got upgraded from "VUI" (variant under investigation) to "VOC" (variant of concern).
Official investigation reports from the UK agency:
https://www.gov.uk/government/... [www.gov.uk]
Report from the ECDC:
https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/sit... [europa.eu]
Also note that there has been spotting a similar variant in south africa, where similar spike protein mutations seem to have evolved convergently:
https://www.nicd.ac.za/wp-cont... [nicd.ac.za]
"could mutate again" (Score:1)
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Viruses do survival of the fittest many orders of magnitude faster than animals, it is interesting. I wonder if we'd have been able to stop this virus if it was as deadly as SARS1 and as covert as SARS2. We would have tried a lot harder if the death rate was 100x higher I expect. IMO this virus is gunning for people with impaired immune systems, I think the death rate could of been 10x lower if governments had been paying attention to the science and not purely obsessed with vaccines and the economy. Resear
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I wonder if we'd have been able to stop this virus if it was as deadly as SARS1 and as covert as SARS2.
Oddly I suspect we'd have done much better.
The same measures put in place to constrain the spread of this one would have worked so much better - people would actually follow the guidance if the virus wasn't so benign that you need a test to find out if you even have it.
Herd immunity (Score:5, Informative)
The question is not whether this new strain is more deadly to an infected individual. It seems it is not the case. The problem is it seems to be more contagious. Meaning society will need an even better proportion of it's population to be vaccinated to get herd immunity and eradicate the virus.
A very rough calculation tells me if Rt is the reproduction number and 1- 1/Rt is the proportion of vaccinated people we need to have herd immunity. The rt i hear about the most often is 3.33, that makes a herd immunity at 70%
If the Rt is multiplied by 1.7 our herd immunity will demand A bit more than 82,3% of vaccinated people. Much harder to obtain.
Disclaimer, i am obviously not an immunologist. The rule of thumb is more contagious means we have to vaccinate more.
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Will we actually eradicate it, or will large-scale vaccination simply isolate the virus into vaccination-resistant populations?
I keep thinking that this is going to be an illness that will wind up eradicated long term only partially by vaccination, and the rest through contagion in recovery in more socially isolated fringe populations.
I don't know a single person so far who has said they won't get vaccinated. Obviously this is limited by my own social network, but this probably also means that continued in
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Isn't there a practical maximum the contagion level can get? What's the highest rating for regular cold/flu viruses? There's been a lot out there before, they just weren't deadly enough to warrant quarantines.
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Measles has an R0 value around 15 where SARS-COV-2 is generally figured to be between 2 and 3. This could be lots more contagious.
Simple Solution: Ship the cargo, not the drivers (Score:2)
The drivers park their trucks (lorries) on the ferry at the port of exit. But then exit the ferry.
On the port of arrival, a new driver takes over the delivery of the truck (lorry).
Problem solved.
Get the delivery of goods . . . but not drivers . . . working again!
Re:Simple Solution: Ship the cargo, not the driver (Score:4, Funny)
So one driver covids up the cab of the truck and then another driver gets in it and touches everything? Great fucking plan there, sparky.
How about the trailers are loaded onto the ferries, and then hooked up to a different truck at the other end?
Or, you know, we use intermodal shipping containers? Then the containers can be loaded onto a container ship...
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I think OP meant "trailers" instead of "trucks", because that's the overwhelming majority of the traffic across the Channel (across Europe really). Containers aren't used as much.
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Sure, but they could be.
A container on a trailer is only a little heavier than a box trailer, which actually surprised me but seems to be true. About 8k lb for a 40' container and another 8k lb for trailer as opposed to 15k for a box trailer.
Sorry for using pounds, I don't think in kilos :)
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But on arrival in Calais you would first you have to blast the truck with whatever it takes to sterilize it.
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But on arrival in Calais you would first you have to blast the truck with whatever it takes to sterilize it.
Well, if it's killed by garlic, pretension, or hypocrisy then there's nothing to worry about.
Re: Simple Solution: Ship the cargo, not the drive (Score:1)
Yeah, that sure will help with all the well-preserved chilled/frozen Covid in the cargo hold. --.--
Closing borders just delays the inevitable (Score:2)
Sooner or later the new variant will get into other countries. Week long incubation times, asymptomatic cases, tests not being 100% will allow one unsuspecting infected person to go to another country and be a nucleus of new cases. The only way of making this less likely is to quarantine everybody coming from the UK for a fortnight; this has what places like New Zealand have done but if much harder to do in mainland Europe.
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True, it delays the inevitable, but we also must prevent hospitals from becoming over-loaded and to buy time until the vaccines come into effect.
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It already has been found in other countries. Closing the borders is just a political stunt to dispalay that you are being tough on Covid.
Closing the well for one villager, (Score:1)
after half the town drank from it already. (Like at least the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, say the numbers.)
Great. That will be of much use ...
The right thing to do would be to close all borders, even between regions, and a complete lockdown. Everything else just means whatever you did *plus* a lockdown later wjen it didn't work. So just security theater.
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I'm 72. If I die, I die. I'm not going to cripple you, everyone else and all your progeny for a couple more years of my old life. I can't think of anything more selfish.
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I'm 72. If I die, I die. I'm not going to cripple you, everyone else and all your progeny for a couple more years of my old life. I can't think of anything more selfish.
Why not just kill yourself now, just in case? By not doing all you can to ensure the health of others, you're just being selfish, right?
No, you say? That's a tacit admission that everything between that and nothing is a shade of grey, not black or white.
An analysis by a virologist ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Here is a video by Vincent Racaniello [youtube.com], a virology professor at Columbia University. He is the author of a text book on the subject, as well as a virology course on Youtube (highly recommended, although it could be too deep for those without a biology/biochemistry background).
In a nutshell, he downplays the variant, and says the data that says it spreads faster are epidemiological rather than biological. He recommends certain experiments be done before we conclude that it is faster spreading, and whether it is more or less virulent.
My own view is that this variant is already out in many countries since it originated in September. It had 2.5 months or more to spread, and will be found in many places.
We should assume the worst, and be cautious, rather than wait for definitive scientific proof one way or the other. We assumed many things in this pandemic that wasted precious time. Let us not do this again, and err on the side of caution.
Re:An analysis by a virologist ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Here is a video by Vincent Racaniello [youtube.com], a virology professor at Columbia University. He is the author of a text book on the subject, as well as a virology course on Youtube (highly recommended, although it could be too deep for those without a biology/biochemistry background).
In a nutshell, he downplays the variant, and says the data that says it spreads faster are epidemiological rather than biological. He recommends certain experiments be done before we conclude that it is faster spreading, and whether it is more or less virulent.
My own view is that this variant is already out in many countries since it originated in September. It had 2.5 months or more to spread, and will be found in many places.
We should assume the worst, and be cautious, rather than wait for definitive scientific proof one way or the other. We assumed many things in this pandemic that wasted precious time. Let us not do this again, and err on the side of caution.
I don't know about there being any risk of "waiting for definitive".
If anything, this whole thing has been a case of panic, fear, and rushing to decisions which had barely any real data. It wasn't a, gee we have tons of data and should not wait for perfection, it was more like, our data and modelling is utter rubbish but let's rush ahead with massive changes which will have many predictable and detrimental consequences. If I recall, the analogy Ioannidis uses is that of an elephant jumping off a cliff because it encountered a mouse.
John Ioannidis Warned COVID-19 Could Be a “Once-In-A-Century” Data Fiasco. He Was Right [fee.org]
What is difficult is that the best and smartest are naturally a minority, whereas the masses and governments are a mixture of sweeping emotional decisions and multi national corporations and vested interests. There's also a few nutter conspiracy theorists too, just because there always are. But the best science was ignored early on. There are people who correctly calculated the severity of this virus, quite early on. There are many who ignored those calculations, opting instead for doomsday predictions. And now we are embarking on a mass vaccination programme where normal medical risk assessments are being ignored, because "panic!" and "profit!" and "political ineptitude" and "urgent crisis!"
If people want to gamble, fine, just don't pretend this is being done to normal standards of evidence. When key influencers in the medical world say this is all perfectly safe, think, how on earth could they know that with such certainty? If this has a reaction in 1 in 10,000, how would they know? If it has a long-vaccine reaction, in 2 years, how could they know that? As one expert pointed out, the "long covid" argument is exactly the one usually made by anti-vaxxers to try to discredit vaccines which are known to be pretty safe, the ones which have been widely used for many years. Now apparently there is "long covid" and it's another reason to panic towards taking a vaccine which can't have possibly had enough testing, and that risk has to be weighed against the risks of real covid, which should now be far better understood for what they are.
And no, sigh, I am not a Trump supporter or even anywhere near that continent. This isn't about politics. I post one link, and please everyone just take that as a starting point. If you are closed minded and believe this is a simple pro/against or stupid/smart or selfish/selfless situation, then I guess any nuance will just get ignored. It is a complex situation, with many players, and possibly many agendas, and scientists are not omniscient, and they are not going to tell the absolute truth if someone has influence over them, because everyone fears for their job and funding, and everyone works in silos anyway, and pharma has a lot of power, and politicians have to appe
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On the other hand, 13K people per day are definitely dying.
No doubt there will be lots of retrospective finger-pointing, there always is.
Just curious (Score:2)
Did UK tweak with Corona Virus genome in the laboratory?
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Licking stamps? Realy?
Here in the UK, the stamps are all self adhesive.
Re: Licking stamps, envelopes (Score:2, Funny)
The glue is tasty
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US stamps are self-adhesive too.
My question is, has the new mutation changed the spike protein? This is what the two leading vaccines are now targeting.
Re:Licking stamps, envelopes (Score:5, Interesting)
US stamps are self-adhesive too.
My question is, has the new mutation changed the spike protein? This is what the two leading vaccines are now targeting.
Yes, the mutations have changed the spike protein in multiple ways, but it's just changes to small parts of it so most of the structure is intact. This means that the vaccines are still expected to be effective with the current set of changes. That's still not brilliant because it shows that the spike protein can change so presumably it can change more and also because it shows that there's some mechanism out there that can cause targeted mutations much faster than was predicted by virologists / immunologists.
Re:Licking stamps, envelopes (Score:4, Insightful)
That's still not brilliant because it shows that the spike protein can change so presumably it can change more and also because it shows that there's some mechanism out there that can cause targeted mutations much faster than was predicted by virologists / immunologists.
The rate of mutations is also likely to increase with the number of infected hosts. If you keep your numbers down you reduce the opportunity for new strains to develop.
Influenza would probably mutate faster as well if ten times as many people got flu every year. Another reason why keeping it under control now increases your chance of keeping it under control in the future.
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The rate of mutations is also likely to increase with the number of infected hosts. If you keep your numbers down you reduce the opportunity for new strains to develop.
Influenza would probably mutate faster as well if ten times as many people got flu every year. Another reason why keeping it under control now increases your chance of keeping it under control in the future.
Yeah, definitely. Apparently the UK has the most genetic sequencing being done of any country, partly because it has high infection rates, but mostly just because we're doing more sequencing. Considering there have been a few interesting variants in the UK and now this one which has notable important changes, you wonder what things actually look like in the US where much less sequencing is being done with many more cases. Are there some interesting changes hidden in some out of the way but rich rural area
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Faggots in gravy with mash followed by suet pudding and custard is perfectly healthy.
Re:to all the idiots... (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know where people got this ridiculous notion that "germs tend to mutate down to less deadly, less spreadable, less dangerous forms," which is ridiculous misinformation spread in early 2020.
In short, the argument boils down to that the less deadly versions of diseases take longer to kill you, so you tend to come into contact with more people, and it has more opportunities to spread. If a virus mutates to become more deadly, odds are better than it will kill the host before they spread.
Umm have you heard of survival of the fittest?
Yes, and I understood it too, unlike you. "Fittest" doesn't mean "most badassed". It means "most suitable for conditions". If the conditions include needing a host to stay alive until you can spread, then the most suitable for conditions is a variant that doesn't kill the host before that happens.
in the human environment it will adapt down to be less deadly if it kills so many humans that it no longer has enough hosts to replicate. So...that would be bad and is not going to happen.
If the humans come into less contact, then it will take on average longer to spread, so it is advantageous to be less deadly. So you would expect places with the most effective methods against covid to breed more contagious and/or less deadly strains, while places with the least control are most likely to breed more dangerous strains.
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The general claim is that germs tend to mutate down to less deadly. The part about 'less spreadable' is new to me.
The part about less deadly seems a pretty loose correlation to me.If variant B kills much faster than A then A will outcrowd B. If variant B is more infectuous(or for a longer time) than A but also more lethal things can move either way.If there is a crossover bit coming from another species as with COVID-19 anything can happen too, including increased lethality.
Re: to all the idiots... (Score:1)
They ALSO mutate to less danferous variants. Simply becaise of evolutionary pressure. They can't spreas if the hosts don't survive.
But calling people idiots before even making an argument sure got you what you wanted, did it? Take a long ard look in the abyss mirror, mate.
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Cite one instance.
Re:Enough is enough. Time for a real debate. (Score:4, Insightful)
We’ve spent too much time doubling down on random decisions and now we’re bankrupt
We're not bankrupt.
Where is the science in this “science?
It's busy producing a vaccine.
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Nobody on either side
What are you talking about, sides? There is no debate here. It's a pretty normal virus.
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The topic: was the last year of panic and paralysis justified?
This question is a leading question. Can you speak like a scientist and phrase the topic of your debate with neutral phrasing?
Show you can think.
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You're not interested in debate. You're interested in pushing your viewpoint.
Logic fail. You didn't show you know how to think.
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If you want to have a reasonable debate, you need to be able to state the question being debated in neutral terms.
If you can't then it's just people talking past each other.
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Where is the proof that this Year of Science is better, smarter and more competent than the animal immune system, rather than a naive subversion of it?
Because we have proliferated so successfully we have created whole new classes of problem. We know conclusively that more people die when hospitals are overloaded and cannot handle the number of cases. That's what these lockdowns are about. You cannot prevent all cases, but you can reduce them to the point that they do not overload the health care systems.
The animal immune system hasn't been our only practical line of defense since the first vaccine was developed.
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We chose one virus out of an infinity of options
I'm only seeing one virus that is overwhelming first world health care systems at the moment.
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That was the threat in March, yeah. Where did it actually happen? In any case, wouldn't it have been better to have spend our time and money increasing ICU capacity? We didn't, at all, anywhere.
You don't seem very well informed.
Right here, today, in my Canadian province, our ICUs are running at 168% normal capacity. There is a limit to how many spaces can be added, because doctors and nurses to staff them are a finite resource. As a result, we are pulling health care workers from anywhere possible to work in critical care. This means that all elective surgeries have been cancelled - if you need cataract removal or a knee replacement or such right now, you are SOL. There will still be a huge ba
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I think when this is all over, there will be a lot of analysis and reflection (and debate) on what what was effective and what could have been done differently. Hindsight is always 20-20 and we have a wide variety of responses and results to look at from a global perspective. I think, in my country at least, our politicians (of all stripes from the left wing NDP to the middle Liberals and the right wing Conservatives) have tried to walk the fine line between keeping business open and people employed, and
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I've seen many people, even around here, suggesting selective lockdowns. I have to agree with your second point though - if you allow this virus to become endemic in your population, there is nowhere to hide and it will get in everywhere. Even with the lockdowns it has proven difficult to keep it out of many places notwithstanding the extensive precautions in place. I'm also quite convinced that if we just allowed it free reign our health care systems would indeed collapse, even with lockdowns many of ou
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Government's mandate is presumably delivered by the electorate, limited by our constitutions, vetted by our independent judiciaries, and hopefully guided by the best available science. Judging strictly by polling, a significant majority in my country seem to be reasonably satisfied by the actions of the various diverse governments in most jurisdictions. Where provincial elections have been held during the pandemic - which are seen by many as referendums on the response - all the incumbents have been return