I feel like I’ve been had. All the tv show and movie pandemics come out of nowhere like a freight train.
This thing is more like a horror movie where the killer just keeps coming back in a new sequel, but bigger and badder.
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Travel bans have been consistently worthless against COVID. In all probability any new variant will already be worldwide by the time it’s detected. It’s already present in SA, Malawi, and Egypt, difficult to imagine Nu-COVID hasn’t made its way to Europe Asia and America by now.
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Yeah that’s true, sort of speaks to why international travel during a raging global pandemic is a bad thing. At least an effective travel ban going forward would prevent further seeding, but these aren’t even that.
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Yeah small sample size but one of the things to note about the Hong Kong cases were vaccinated, asymptomatic, but massive viral load when PCR turned positive on day 8. Will have to see if symptoms come, but maybe part of the evolution here is somehow better asymptomatic/presymptomatic spread? Not sure if that is even scientifically possible.
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Eh, this was debatable even for delta. Possible the R0 for fully vaxxed pop was above 1, still is tbd.
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It was quoted 24hrs ago as being in Asia (HK) and 6hr ago in Europe (Belgium), so yes, difficult to imagine.
BioNTech testing jab against new variant - Reuters
Image caption: Scientists are questioning if the new variant can bypass the immunity offered by vaccines
The joint makers of the widely used Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine are assessing how effective their jab is against the new Covid-19 variant recently discovered in South Africa, according to the Reuters news agency.
“We understand the concern of experts and have immediately initiated investigations on variant B.1.1.529,” Reuters quotes BioNTech as saying.
The German company will have more insight in two weeks time at the latest, when it receives further data from laboratory tests, according to Reuters.
The firm said the variant “may require an adjustment of our vaccine” if it spreads globally and is found to be capable of escaping immunity.
On assessment of the B.1.1.529 variant, scientists have found it to be the most heavily mutated version of Covid-19 discovered so far.
World leaders have reacted with concern, with several limiting travel from the southern African region.
I mean, there were probably other cases in Europe and Asia that didn’t get detected.
US could impose flight ban - Fauci
US infectious disease chief Dr Anthony Fauci says a ban on flights from countries that have detected the new variant is a possibility, but that more needs to be known before strict measures are imposed.
“We need to get the facts,” he tells CNN, adding that there is “no indication” that it has yet reached the US.
He warns, however, that “there’s a lot of travel”, and says the US is working with scientists in South Africa to discover more.
He goes on to say that while the reports on the new variant throw up a “red flag”, it’s possible that vaccines might still work to prevent serious illness.
“Until it’s properly tested… we don’t know whether or not it evades the antibodies that protect you against the virus.”
Compared with…
More red flags than we ever planned for - scientist
The new coronavirus variant has “many red flags - more than we would’ve expected or ever planned for”, says Sir Peter Horby, professor of emerging infectious diseases at the University of Oxford.
He says the European Commission’s recommendation that EU countries stop travel to and from nations where the variant has been found is a “reasonable precautionary measure” while scientists investigate.
However, he adds it’s important that we demonstrate “solidarity” with affected countries as they have been “admirably transparent about this problem”.
“We shouldn’t overly penalise them, we should really put in place as strong measures as we can to help them support them to control the spread of this virus,” he says.
Good thing I opted for travel insurance this time.
Feels like things are gonna be bad again
Yeah, the pfizer pill appears much better and more promising.
Still haven’t seen any reporting on severity of the new variant. Think that’s the key. If it’s more transmittable but way less bad, that moves us closer to endemic.
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Just noticed Moderna’s stonk ticker is “MRNA”.
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Still tbd but the thought is that these sort of mutations would be more likely to make this more lethal. We have already had some variants with some immune evasion just got smoked by delta
Also more transmissable is usually worse for society than an equal amount of more severity was my understanding, is that wrong?
Still? Likely you’ll be waiting at least a few weeks - there is a lag between contracting and death with covid and the mutations were only spotted within last 3 or 4 days - we’re still waiting for the lab based analysis from the desktop studies. Then we’ll need a week or two to question any findings.
We know the viral loads are considerably higher from the Hong Kong, Israel and Belgium cases - not sure that implies too much about severity though.
Have there been any deaths from the new variant?
There have been no reported deaths in relation to the new variant, James says.
But he urges caution on this, saying scientists have only been studying this new variant over the past week or so. He explains that it takes a long time for a positive case of Covid to translate into a hospital admission and sadly a death - so it will be something we have to watch over the coming weeks.
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Ya, sorry. I get that it takes time.
It was more of - let’s not get super “we’re all going to die” vibes until we find out a bit about lethality.
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That horse has sailed.
Fair enough. Not like we know that many non-lethal variants of covid though, age dependent of course. I don’t think Delta was that much more lethal than Alpha, just the transmittability that much higher that it caused more death. It seems fairly clear that Nu is way more transmissable (to me… other than the non-vaxxed belgian 20 something not transmitting to her family…yet)
Travel bans are useless. They’re purely political moves.
The person from Belgium got it traveling from Egypt via Turkey. It’s probably already all over the place. The surge over the last month in East/Central Europe has been unreal.
Czech Republic now 2nd most infected country in the world. Only its neighbor Slovakia is further ahead. I have a feeling that a lockdown is inevitable.