Coronavirus

[eljr]

What does Dude mean?

It is the singular of Dudes.

 

[GO-NAD!]

So, a quick update. The fact that things were going adrift in Kent was actually noticed in September. However it has taken over two months to really understand what has been going on. What is also known now is that those that have this new strain have a much higher viral burden. This is also a factor in increased spread.

Because of this there is now intensive investigation going on to see if this infection may actually be more serious. There is so much background noise in the chaos, that this will be hard to discern. Also I can not find out how easy it to find out which individuals have which version of the virus. I doubt at this time it is easy to recognize.

Also attempts are under way to monitor the vaccine roll out and study vaccine failures. This is obviously urgent, as the vaccines may already need editing.

For this reasons I don't think anyone can be certain this crisis will be over mid next year.

Meanwhile this new mutant strain has been found in Denmark and Holland. That gives further credence to the mink link. One case has been reported in Australia. They have taken draconian measures in the region it was discovered.

Nations are reacting quickly in Europe to cut travel from the UK. There is talk of closing the Eurotunnel. It is closed to Belgium now. So far Belgium, Holland and Italy have banned travelers from the UK. Germany will likely ban travel soon. Israel has imposed a strict 14 day quarantine in designated hotels under supervision for UK arrivals.

The US is hampered by a lack of leadership currently. Urgent efforts ought to be underway in all regions of the US to look for this strain. Also we need to have robust surveillance for vaccine failures and see if they are related to this mutant strain. So far all I see are Dumb tweets from Dumpf. Every day is a day sooner to his exit. Tomorrow only 30 days before he is escorted out of the White House.

I just read that for people not living in Tier 4 areas of England so-called "Christmas Bubbles" will be reduced from 5 days to 1 day. What good will that do? One day is plenty of time to transmit a virus.

 

[TLS Guy]

I just read that for people not living in Tier 4 areas of England so-called "Christmas Bubbles" will be reduced from 5 days to 1 day. What good will that do? One day is plenty of time to transmit a virus.

Agreed.

 

[Dude#1279435]

What does Dude mean?

A man, a guy.

 

[TLS Guy]

A man, a guy.

To me Dude has always had a hillbilly connotation attached to it. At least I think it does in the Midwest.

 

[Mr._Clark]

Meanwhile this new mutant strain has been found in Denmark and Holland. That gives further credence to the mink link. One case has been reported in Australia. They have taken draconian measures in the region it was discovered.

Nations are reacting quickly in Europe to cut travel from the UK. There is talk of closing the Eurotunnel. It is closed to Belgium now. So far Belgium, Holland and Italy have banned travelers from the UK. Germany will likely ban travel soon. Israel has imposed a strict 14 day quarantine in designated hotels under supervision for UK arrivals.

Reuters is reporting that a patient in Italy has the new strain found in the UK. It seems like it will be almost impossible to contain this strain.

Italy has patient with new strain of virus found in Britain

Italy has detected a patient infected with the new strain of the coronavirus also found in Britain, the health ministry said on Sunday.

www.reuters.com

 

[Old Onkyo]

To me Dude has always had a hillbilly connotation attached to it. At least I think it does in the Midwest.

Surfer lingo on the West Coast.

 

[eljr]

Reuters is reporting that a patient in Italy has the new strain found in the UK. It seems like it will be almost impossible to contain this strain.

Italy has patient with new strain of virus found in Britain

Italy has detected a patient infected with the new strain of the coronavirus also found in Britain, the health ministry said on Sunday.

www.reuters.com

I am sure it is already seeded around the globe.

 

[TLS Guy]

I am sure it is already seeded around the globe.

He apparently came from the UK.

 

[Swerd]

I just saw this article on CNN.

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

Scientists at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research expect to know in the next few days if there's a concern that the coronavirus vaccines might not work against a mutated variant of the virus that's rapidly spreading in parts of England, according to the institute's top vaccine researcher.

www.cnn.com

"Scientists at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research expect to know in the next few days if there's a concern that the coronavirus vaccines might not work against a mutated variant of the virus that's rapidly spreading in parts of England, according to the institute's top vaccine researcher."

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

We should know their results in a few days. Meanwhile the new strain of SARS-CoV-2 is rapidly outgrowing it's parent strain.

 

[TLS Guy]

From what I can find out from what experienced virologists are saying in the UK, this virus, strange as it may seem, did actually arise in Swale most likely on the island of Sheppey.

Apart from Sheerness itself, which is still a relatively small town, the island is largely rural. I have a picture of it here looking over the Swale.

It seems a most unlikely place for a new and troublesome strain of this new virus to come from. But the experts insist it did.

So this is the consequence of uncontrolled community spread. This has somewhat been accelerated by the misguided notion of trying to achieve herd immunity.
So with this amount of community spread, a rapidly reproducing and spreading virus has been given every opportunity to evolve and cause worse mayhem, and actually threaten the very continuation of life as we have known it. The longer this goes unchecked the more opportunities there will be for more and very possible worse mutations. Science will not be able to keep up with this. To truly understand decode and quantify the significance of this mutation has taken enormous work and effort from a lot of highly skilled and specialized individuals. Already we are in their debt. Yes, we are, and will always be indebted to them.
Already this new mutation may require the vaccines to be edited.

There is no other option other than limiting opportunities for people to mix and spread this virus. There is NO other option. If communities and nations don't listen and take this advice, then we will get further and worse events other than this latest mutation delay getting to the goal we want. There is no other route to herd immunity other than vaccination.

If people keep spreading this virus, then we may never achieve the goal everyone desires.

I have as you might expect spent a lot of time today watching BBC TV direct from the UK. Porton Down have been very busy, with work from the UK around the world.
There have been numerous mutations to trace. When uncontrolled spread started in Swale and rapidly start to spread in September, Porton Down actually had the new strain, but apparently there were many others, and it took a month to determine the likely culprit. It took until Friday afternoon to be absolutely certain of the infectivity of this strain and give certain warnings to the government. This against a background of mutant strains of varying degree from around the world.

The chief virologist of the WHO said that Porton Down have been a vital resource and said this was the best unit for viral identification and decoding in the world.

There are ongoing studies to determine any change in pathogenicity of the virus, by comparing outcomes of patients with this strain to others. They will also be monitoring the effectiveness of vaccine to this new strain as they rule out. They can not rule out that vaccines may need editing.

One thing that was really stressed, is that ALL countries now need to make enormous efforts to limit community spread.

The consequences of this problem in the UK a piling up fast. Most countries in Europe have banned all travel to and from the UK, including Ireland. The French have asked the EU close it borders to the UK. All freight by sea and rail is under a 48 hour suspension. Eurostar has been shut down. This is train service that uses the channel tunnel. The are UK citizens now stranded in continental Europe. The most serious consequence is that food shortages may occur very quickly. Most food travels to and from the continent via the port of Dover on trucks, that cross the channel by ferries and via the tunnel on rail shuttle from Folkstone.
How this is going to be resolved I have no idea. The virus is already on the continent, but the countries are working frantically to stop the spread.

Of course here in the US Trump does nothing. Governor Cuomo has called today for no travel at all between the US and the British Isles. Of course in this he is correct. On this, the US does need to take immediate action.

Further action is needed on California. In my opinion something is not right down there. That is my view is an area of far to high a spread and the faster we find out why the better.

 

[GO-NAD!]

From what I can find out from what experienced virologists are saying in the UK, this virus, strange as it may seem, did actually arise in Swale most likely on the island of Sheppey.

Apart from Sheerness itself, which is still a relatively small town, the island is largely rural. I have a picture of it here looking over the Swale.

It seems a most unlikely place for a new and troublesome strain of this new virus to come from. But the experts insist it did.

So this is the consequence of uncontrolled community spread. This has somewhat been accelerated by the misguided notion of trying to achieve herd immunity.
So with this amount of community spread, a rapidly reproducing and spreading virus has been given every opportunity to evolve and cause worse mayhem, and actually threaten the very continuation of life as we have known it. The longer this goes unchecked the more opportunities there will be for more and very possible worse mutations. Science will not be able to keep up with this. To truly understand decode and quantify the significance of this mutation has taken enormous work and effort from a lot of highly skilled and specialized individuals. Already we are in their debt. Yes, we are, and will always be indebted to them.
Already this new mutation may require the vaccines to be edited.

There is no other option other than limiting opportunities for people to mix and spread this virus. There is NO other option. If communities and nations don't listen and take this advice, then we will get further and worse events other than this latest mutation delay getting to the goal we want. There is no other route to herd immunity other than vaccination.

If people keep spreading this virus, then we may never achieve the goal everyone desires.

I have as you might expect spent a lot of time today watching BBC TV direct from the UK. Porton Down have been very busy, with work from the UK around the world.
There have been numerous mutations to trace. When uncontrolled spread started in Swale and rapidly start to spread in September, Porton Down actually had the new strain, but apparently there were many others, and it took a month to determine the likely culprit. It took until Friday afternoon to be absolutely certain of the infectivity of this strain and give certain warnings to the government. This against a background of mutant strains of varying degree from around the world.

The chief virologist of the WHO said that Porton Down have been a vital resource and said this was the best unit for viral identification and decoding in the world.

There are ongoing studies to determine any change in pathogenicity of the virus, by comparing outcomes of patients with this strain to others. They will also be monitoring the effectiveness of vaccine to this new strain as they rule out. They can not rule out that vaccines may need editing.

One thing that was really stressed, is that ALL countries now need to make enormous efforts to limit community spread.

The consequences of this problem in the UK a piling up fast. Most countries in Europe have banned all travel to and from the UK, including Ireland. The French have asked the EU close it borders to the UK. All freight by sea and rail is under a 48 hour suspension. Eurostar has been shut down. This is train service that uses the channel tunnel. The are UK citizens now stranded in continental Europe. The most serious consequence is that food shortages may occur very quickly. Most food travels to and from the continent via the port of Dover on trucks, that cross the channel by ferries and via the tunnel on rail shuttle from Folkstone.
How this is going to be resolved I have no idea. The virus is already on the continent, but the countries are working frantically to stop the spread.

Of course here in the US Trump does nothing. Governor Cuomo has called today for no travel at all between the US and the British Isles. Of course in this he is correct. On this, the US does need to take immediate action.

Further action is needed on California. In my opinion something is not right down there. That is my view is an area of far to high a spread and the faster we find out why the better.

Last night, the Canadian government suspended flights to/from the UK for a minimum 72 hours.

 

[eljr]

Another day and the USA is still the global epicenter of Covid.

 

[Swerd]

So this is the consequence of uncontrolled community spread. This has somewhat been accelerated by the misguided notion of trying to achieve herd immunity.

I agree completely.

Mutations, such as we've recently seen, are a natural consequence of multiple viral reproductions due to such wide spread infection. People who argued that allowing uncontrolled spread of this virus would lead to faster herd immunity are displaying their ignorance to the world. They clearly don't understand what they're talking about, and they shouldn't be able to set public policy – or even have a voice in that process.

 

[Out-Of-Phase]

A man, a guy.

Jeff Spicoli.

 

[Trell]

I have just learned that the WHO think the new virus mutation in the UK is related to the outbreak in mink in Denmark. That is interesting as the port of Sheerness handles a large portion of Scandinavian cargo. So that might well be why this problem first arose on Sheppey. The Danes handled the mink problem badly. They culled millions of mink, buried them in shallow graves. Their bodies swelled, and they got thrown up out of the ground. This episode also led to groundwater contamination with the virus.

The Danish Parliament has just voted to ban mink farming next year. How the farmers will be compensated is still unclear.

 

[Trell]

Last night, the Canadian government suspended flights to/from the UK for a minimum 72 hours.

Many (most?) EU countries has stopped travel to/from UK. Sweden has also stopped travelling to/from Denmark. I'm not sure how other countries handles travelling to/from Denmark.

 

[eljr]

I have just learned that the WHO think the new virus mutation in the UK is related to the outbreak in mink in Denmark. That is interesting as the port of Sheerness handles a large portion of Scandinavian cargo. So that might well be why this problem first arose on Sheppey. The Danes handled the mink problem badly. They culled millions of mink, buried them in shallow graves. Their bodies swelled, and they got thrown up out of the ground. This episode also led to groundwater contamination with the virus.

I read it was birthed in Africa.
Either way, why has the __________ know as Trump not stopped flights from Great Britain yet?

The guy stopped doing his job entirely months ago. If the 25th is not used today, we may as well repeal it, it is useless.

 

[Swerd]

I've got a few thoughts about the recent reports of mutations in the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. It certainly looks like that recent variant infects people at a higher rate, and is likely to become the predominant strain of the virus.

Will the existing vaccines work against this new variant?

1. Yes they should, until enough mutations take place to make the new mutant spike protein unrecognizable by the immune system, primed to recognize the old spike protein. How much mutation is enough? There isn't yet a clear answer to this question, but at present, it is thought that a lot of mutations would have to happen before this becomes a problem.
   
   
2. As far as I know, most of the approved vaccines or those still under development, are directed against the spike protein. (If I remember correctly, the Chinese vaccine, SinoVac, targets the entire virus, not just it's spike protein.) The sequence of the entire virus, including the spike protein was published by Chinese scientists in January 2020. That sequence was used to synthetically manufacture very large quantities of messenger RNA (mRNA) for the spike gene. In vaccine production, this was something new & different. It was this synthetic mass production of spike protein mRNA that made for the extremely rapid development of the recently approved vaccines. If the older biologically based methods were used, the development would have taken years, not months.
   
   It was one of the goals of the scientists behind this project to 'validate' this synthetic mRNA production as a generalized vaccine making process. If they can convince the FDA on this, this general synthetic method can be used in the future to produce new vaccines – without requiring a whole new set of clinical trials. It would not matter if the genetic sequence of the targeted gene in the vaccine changes to match more recent mutations, or if the same production method is used to produce an entirely new vaccine against a completely different virus. If this goal becomes reality, creating a modified vaccine to reflect the latest mutations in SARS-CoV-2 could be quickly done.

 

[Verdinut]

I've got a few thoughts about the recent reports of mutations in the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. It certainly looks like that recent variant infects people at a higher rate, and is likely to become the predominant strain of the virus.

Will the existing vaccines work against this new variant?

1. Yes they should, until enough mutations take place to make the new mutant spike protein unrecognizable by the immune system, primed to recognize the old spike protein. How much mutation is enough? There isn't yet a clear answer to this question, but at present, it is thought that a lot of mutations would have to happen before this becomes a problem.
   
   
2. As far as I know, most of the approved vaccines or those still under development, are directed against the spike protein. (If I remember correctly, the Chinese vaccine, SinoVac, targets the entire virus, not just it's spike protein.) The sequence of the entire virus, including the spike protein was published by Chinese scientists in January 2020. That sequence was used to synthetically manufacture very large quantities of messenger RNA (mRNA) for the spike gene. In vaccine production, this was something new & different. It was this synthetic mass production of spike protein mRNA that made for the extremely rapid development of the recently approved vaccines. If the older biologically based methods were used, the development would have taken years, not months.
   
   It was one of the goals of the scientists behind this project to 'validate' this synthetic mRNA production as a generalized vaccine making process. If they can convince the FDA on this, this general synthetic method can be used in the future to produce new vaccines – without requiring a whole new set of clinical trials. It would not matter if the genetic sequence of the targeted gene changes due to mutation, or because the same production method is used to produce an entirely new vaccine against a completely different virus.
   
   If this goal becomes reality, creating a modified vaccine to reflect the latest mutations in SARS-CoV-2 could be quickly done.

It's not that recent a variant. UK reported that they had been infested with it since March.