Covid-19 new variant... 70% more infectious...?

[TOM4CWB]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-55382212
The World Health Organization (WHO) has said it is in "close contact" with UK officials over the emergence of a new variant of coronavirus.
The new variant is spreading more rapidly than the original version, but it is not believed to be more deadly.
Along with the UK, the same mutation of the Covid-19 virus has also been detected in the Netherlands, Denmark and Australia, the WHO told the BBC.
There is no evidence to suggest the new variant reacts differently to vaccines.
In the UK, large parts of south-east England, including London, are now under a new, stricter level of restrictions in a bid to curb the rapidly spreading virus.
New variant: How worried should we be?
Tracking the global pandemic: Where has been hit hardest?
What is tier four and who is in it?
On Sunday, the Netherlands introduced a ban on passenger flights from the UK until 1 January because of the new variant.
The move comes after tests carried out on samples taken in the Netherlands earlier this month revealed the same new variant of coronavirus as that reported in the UK.
Pending "greater clarity" on the situation in the UK, the Dutch government said that further "risk of the new virus strain being introduced to the Netherlands should be minimised as much as possible".
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The Dutch government also said it would work with other European Union member states in the coming days to "explore the scope for further limiting the risk of the new strain of the virus being brought over from the UK".
Speaking to the BBC's Andrew Marr programme, WHO epidemiologist Maria van Kerkhove said that specialists had been "following mutations across the world since the beginning of the pandemic".
What do we know about the new variant?
The WHO said that it was in contact with UK officials over the new variant.
It said the UK was sharing information from ongoing studies into the mutation, and that the WHO would update member states and the public "as we learn more about the characteristics of this virus variant [and] any implications".
Although there is "considerable uncertainty", UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the new variant may be up to 70% more transmissible than the old one.
But officials say there is no current evidence to suggest the new variant causes a higher mortality rate or that it is affected any differently by vaccines and treatments.
"I think this is a situation which is going to make things a lot worse, but there are some really optimistic things if you look once we get the vaccine out, assuming the vaccine works against this, which at the moment is the working assumption," said England's chief medical officer, Prof Chris Whitty.
Mutations of the virus are frequently identified, Dr Van Kerkhove said, adding that it was important to understand "what these variants do and how they behave".
What is happening around the world?
In the UK, the planned relaxation of Covid rules to allow households to mix over the Christmas period has been scrapped for large parts of south-east England - affecting nearly 18 million people - and cut to just Christmas Day for the rest of England, Scotland and Wales.

media caption"Tier 4 residents must stay at home" as PM announces tighter restrictions
Italy has ordered a nationwide lockdown over much of the Christmas and New Year period. The country will be under "red-zone" restrictions over the public holidays, with non-essential shops, restaurants and bars closed, and Italians only allowed to travel for limited reasons.
The Netherlands and Germany have imposed lockdowns until January. In Germany, Christmas will see a slight easing, with one household allowed to host up to four close family members.
Austria is set to enter its third lockdown after Christmas. From 26 December, non-essential shops will be shut and movement outside homes restricted.
Sweden has recommended wearing face masks on public transport during the rush hour, reversing its earlier guidance.
France's President Emmanuel Macron is in a "stable" condition after testing positive for coronavirus, his office said on Saturday. He is still experiencing symptoms, such as coughing and fatigue, but they are not preventing him from working, it said.

[farmaholic]

One might expect some vaccine resistance and mutations over time. It's nature's way.

[TOM4CWB]

One might expect some vaccine resistance and mutations over time. It's nature's way.

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55312505

It will take experiments in the laboratory to figure out if this variant really is a better spreader than all the others.
The other issue that is raising scientific eyebrows is how the virus has mutated.
"It has a surprisingly large number of mutations, more than we would expect, and a few look interesting," Prof Nick Loman from the COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) Consortium told me.
There are two notable sets of mutation - and I apologise for their hideous names.
Both are found in the crucial spike protein, which is the key the virus uses to unlock the doorway into our body's cells in order to hijack them.
The mutation N501 (I did warn you) alters the most important part of the spike, known as the "receptor-binding domain".
This is where the spike makes first contact with the surface of our body's cells. Any changes that make it easier for the virus to get inside are likely to give it an edge.
"It looks and smells like an important adaptation," said Prof Loman.
A doctor with the Covid vaccine
IMAGE COPYRIGHTPA MEDIA
image captionMass vaccination will put a different kind of pressure on the virus because it will have to change in order to infect people who have been immunised
The other mutation - a H69/V70 deletion - has emerged several times before, including famously in infected mink.
The concern was that antibodies from the blood of survivors was less effective at attacking that variant of virus.
Again, it is going to take more laboratory studies to really understand what is going on.
Prof Alan McNally, from the University of Birmingham, said: "We know there's a variant, we know nothing about what that means biologically.
"It is far too early to make any inference on how important this may or may not be."
Mutations to the spike protein lead to questions about the vaccine because the three leading jabs - Pfizer, Moderna and Oxford - all train the immune system to attack the spike.
However, the body learns to attack multiple parts of the spike. That is why health officials remain convinced the vaccine will work against this variant.
This is a virus that evolved in animals and made the jump to infecting people around a year ago.
Since then it has been picking up around two mutations a month - take a sample today and compare it to the first ones from Wuhan in China and there would be around 25 mutations separating them.
Coronavirus is still trying out different combinations of mutations to properly nail infecting humans.
We have seen this happen before: The emergence and global dominance of another variant (G614) is seen by many as the virus getting better at spreading.
But soon mass vaccination will put a different kind of pressure on the virus because it will have to change in order to infect people who have been immunized.
If this does drive the evolution of the virus, we may have to regularly update the vaccines, as we do for flu, to keep up.

[farmaholic]

This Covid thing is about a year old now if we go by reports that Wuhan was the epicenter.

[dmlfarmer]

One might expect some vaccine resistance and mutations over time. It's nature's way.

Every case is a new opportunity for a mutation to occur. The more we minimize infections until vaccines build herd immunity, we lessen the risk of mutations. On the other hand, if we allow the disease to go unchecked in order to build herd immunity we increase mutation risk. Even allowing a segment of society such as school children to transmit the disease simply because they do not get as sick or die, increases the mutation risk. We now have vaccines that will stop the current virus. We do not know if they will stop a mutation.

[farmaholic]

My hope would be that current vaccines would make any future mutations easier to treat or lessen their symptoms.

[dmlfarmer]

My hope would be that current vaccines would make any future mutations easier to treat or lessen their symptoms.

I would hope for that too, but no guarantee of that. Weed resistance occurs when a mutation makes the weed less susceptible to a product. If you continue to use that same product, the resistance continues to spread across the field. Why do you think a virus mutation would be any different?

[biglentil]

Watch from an interview this summer as Bill and Melinda Gates smirk when he says pandemic 2 "that will get attention this time." Sick individuals.

https://youtu.be/VpnbNzHLVyo

Is this their much more deadly 2nd manufactured b$owe@pon variant they will call "Covid-21" as per Turds leaked memo?

[farmaholic]

I don't know how quickly the viral mutations occur, I'm thinking it could be fairly quick because replication is probably very quick. Think mice and cattle...... over a year now many offspring does a cow have versus a mouse....then the exponential affect on top of that. As mentioned I hope the vaccines make the mutations easier to treat or lessen their symptoms. CDC likely have experience with other viral infections and mutations and development for those vaccines, it may likely be an ongoing work in progress.

In the Spanish Flu, I bet many died from secondary bacterial infections even if the patient could have fought off the virus.
1928 the first true antibiotics were developed to fight bacterial infections, hopefully one day there can be such an antiviral drug.

Thank goodness for science, technology and knowledge or Covid related deaths could be higher.

[jazz]

1928 the first true antibiotics were developed to fight bacterial infections, hopefully one day there can be such an antiviral drug.

There are antiviral drugs. They are used to keep HIV in check for decades now. They knew a vaccine wouldnt work on that disease and never even got a start on one.

And there are a handful of other the****utics with the same potential including the ones the media try to shoot down.

But instead we put our faith in a vaccine hail mary that looks to be obsolete before it hits the street, just like the flu vaccine which is already several mutations behind when you get it.

Fighting childhood diseases aint the same as fighting lifelong afflictions. Measles and polio and smallpox and all those classes of diseases are a different game all together. They have known this since the 60s.

Sounds like the gods of science got it wrong again.

[Taiga]

Completely predictable, the orchestrators of this fraud have seen how successful it has been, they will never give up their control now. It will be ‘pandemics’ forever now, wonder vaccines to soon come that are very costly, etc. The ‘new normal’ they talk about.

[SASKFARMER]

The new super strain of Covid in the UK might be one we have to get scared of. Its mutated and all the ****ups JT did with the first this could be the one that really causes problems.

Maybe the liberals that scammed all the money will get it. Just saying what goes around comes around.

[farmaholic]

How many years passed ftom the onset of AIDS until they had the effective antiviral drug?

To me containing AIDS should have been easier than the respiratory Covid virus, with the former mentioned virus....keep your pecker in your pants, or when in doubt wrap your spout, stay monogamous( which might be mistaken as monotonous) and keep elicit drug needles out of your body. .....easier than an airborne virus.

[burnt]

Science isn't wrong - ever. Those who use it for their agenda are the problem.

And when we have those who are drunk on the deadly co-cktail of politics and corrupt or pseudo- "science", we see scattershot approaches to dealing with a disease that may well be engineered to benefit big pharma.

Why, even here among this stunning array of medical experts, we see those who cannot differentiate between mutation and natural selection - even on the ground level, so to speak. :-)

But this we may need to assign to a demonstration of proud and profound ignorance.

It seems strange that so many overlook the significant contribution that would be made to combating the Wuhan Flu by the mass distribution of thera-peutics, an approach that would do more to stop the advance, transmission and hence, mutation of the virus than any vaccine could do in this event.

[SASKFARMER]

no free willy?