***NON-POLITICAL COVID-19 Discussion Thread***

[JakeF]

A couple of reminders...

Originally Posted by Bwana

Once again, don't come in this thread with some kind of political agenda, or you will be shown the door. If you want to go that route, there is a thread about this in DC.

Originally Posted by Dartgod

People, there is a lot of good information in this thread, let's try to keep the petty bickering to a minimum.

We all have varying opinions about the impact of this, the numbers, etc. We will all never agree with each other. But we can all keep it civil.

Thanks!

Click here for the original OP:

Spoiler!

Apparently the CoronaVirus can survive on a inanimate objects, such as door knobs, for 9 days.

California coronavirus case could be first spread within U.S. community, CDC says
By SOUMYA KARLAMANGLA, JACLYN COSGROVE
FEB. 26, 2020 8:04 PM

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating what could be the first case of novel coronavirus in the United States involving a patient in California who neither recently traveled out of the country nor was in contact with someone who did.

“At this time, the patient’s exposure is unknown. It’s possible this could be an instance of community spread of COVID-19, which would be the first time this has happened in the United States,” the CDC said in a statement. “Community spread means spread of an illness for which the source of infection is unknown. It’s also possible, however, that the patient may have been exposed to a returned traveler who was infected.”

The individual is a resident of Solano County and is receiving medical care in Sacramento County, according to the state Department of Public Health.

The CDC said the “case was detected through the U.S. public health system — picked up by astute clinicians.”

Officials at UC Davis Medical Center expanded on what the federal agency might have meant by that in an email sent Wednesday, as reported by the Davis Enterprise newspaper.

The patient arrived at UC Davis Medical Center from another hospital Feb. 19 and “had already been intubated, was on a ventilator, and given droplet protection orders because of an undiagnosed and suspected viral condition,” according to an email sent by UC Davis officials that was obtained by the Davis Enterprise.

The staff at UC Davis requested COVID-19 testing by the CDC, but because the patient didn’t fit the CDC’s existing criteria for the virus, a test wasn’t immediately administered, according to the email. The CDC then ordered the test Sunday, and results were announced Wednesday. Hospital administrators reportedly said in the email that despite these issues, there has been minimal exposure at the hospital because of safety protocols they have in place.

A UC Davis Health spokesperson declined Wednesday evening to share the email with The Times.

Since Feb. 2, more than 8,400 returning travelers from China have entered California, according to the state health department. They have been advised to self-quarantine for 14 days and limit interactions with others as much as possible, officials said.

“This is a new virus, and while we are still learning about it, there is a lot we already know,” Dr. Sonia Angell, director of the California Department of Public Health, said in a statement. “We have been anticipating the potential for such a case in the U.S., and given our close familial, social and business relationships with China, it is not unexpected that the first case in the U.S. would be in California.”

It is not clear how the person became infected, but public health workers could not identify any contacts with people who had traveled to China or other areas where the virus is widespread. That raises concern that the virus is spreading in the United States, creating a challenge for public health officials, experts say.

“It’s the first signal that we could be having silent transmission in the community,” said Lawrence Gostin, director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law. “It probably means there are many more cases out there, and it probably means this individual has infected others, and now it’s a race to try to find out who that person has infected.”

On Tuesday, the CDC offered its most serious warning to date that the United States should expect and prepare for the coronavirus to become a more widespread health issue.

“Ultimately, we expect we will see coronavirus spread in this country,” said Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. “It’s not so much a question of if, but a question of when.”

According to the CDC’s latest count Wednesday morning, 59 U.S. residents have tested positive for the new strain of coronavirus — 42 of whom are repatriated citizens from a Diamond Princess cruise. That number has grown by two since Messonnier’s last count Tuesday, although the CDC was not immediately available to offer details on the additional cases.

More than 82,000 cases of coronavirus have been reported globally, and more than 2,700 people have died, with the majority in mainland China, the epicenter of the outbreak.

But public health leaders have repeatedly reminded residents that the health risk from the novel coronavirus to the general public remains low.

“While COVID-19 has a high transmission rate, it has a low mortality rate,” the state Department of Public Health said in a statement Wednesday. “From the international data we have, of those who have tested positive for COVID-19, approximately 80% do not exhibit symptoms that would require hospitalization. There have been no confirmed deaths related to COVID-19 in the United States to date.”

CDC officials have also warned that although the virus is likely to spread in U.S. communities, the flu still poses a greater risk.

Gostin said the news of potential silent transmission does not eliminate the possibility of containing the virus in the U.S. and preventing an outbreak.

“There are few enough cases that we should at least try,” he said. “Most of us are not optimistic that that will be successful, but we’re still in the position to try.”

[dirk digler]

US restricts travel to 8 countries. I hope this new variant is all hype

[Chiefnj2]

A lot of countries are acting quickly to stop travel because of the variant

[TLO]

Originally Posted by Chiefnj2

A lot of countries are acting quickly to stop travel because of the variant

Not certain how much of an impact that is going to have. If it's really that much more transmissible, it has probably leaked to the rest of the world already.

Just wanting to see data on how the vaccine holds up against it.

[TLO]

Minister of Health of South Africa: There is NO EVIDENCE that the Nu variant evades our current vaccines. https://t.co/SrgQFR5EyR

— Chise ���������� MFF (@sailorrooscout) November 26, 2021

[O.city]

The four people they detected this from in Botswana were asymptomatic and had been double vaccinated

Seems like it’s working as it’s supposed to

[TLO]

Originally Posted by O.city

The four people they detected this from in Botswana were asymptomatic and had been double vaccinated

Seems like it’s working as it’s supposed to

That's what the early returns seem to be everywhere I look. Encouraging for sure.

[Sure-Oz]

Hopefully the new variant isn't bad. I'd rather they be overly cautious when something like this arises and ban travel atleast temporarily.

[TLO]

Of note: The 4 cases of new variant identified in Botswana were incidentally detected in well people tested before air travel, and South African Medical Association chief said - so far - symptoms seen are "mostly mild symptoms, and we haven’t seen a spike in hospital admissions." pic.twitter.com/KwiraY3V0u

— Scott Gottlieb, MD (@ScottGottliebMD) November 26, 2021

[TLO]

Originally Posted by Sure-Oz

Hopefully the new variant isn't bad. I'd rather they be overly cautious when something like this arises and ban travel atleast temporarily.

It certainly has my attention. We should know a lot more in a week or so.

I'm very hopeful the vaccines will hold up, and I think for the most part they will.

We just have to play the waiting game while the scientist do their work and hope.

[TLO]

This is troubling though

Growth rate (in absolute terms and relative to Delta) will be become clearer in the following days, but at the moment, I believe we're looking at a variant that potentially has significant immune evasion and that appears to be spreading rapidly. 15/16

— Trevor Bedford (@trvrb) November 26, 2021

[Sure-Oz]

Originally Posted by TLO

It certainly has my attention. We should know a lot more in a week or so.



I'm very hopeful the vaccines will hold up, and I think for the most part they will.



We just have to play the waiting game while the scientist do their work and hope.

Yeah, hopefully so. They need to find ways for the world to get more people vaccinated so these variants don't keep happening and slow it down. Everyone should be working hard to get more vaccines out there esp in those high risk areas.

[Sure-Oz]

Thread

https://twitter.com/PeterHotez/statu...EPtlBO9uQ&s=19

[KS Smitty]

This is today's article from IFL Science, provides quite a bit of info, such as is available.

It’s official: there’s a new variant of COVID-19 out, and it’s a doozy. B.1.1.529 – it’s due to get a Greek name today, which is likely to be Nu – has the potential to spread like wildfire, and experts are split on just how worried we should be.

In times like this, information moves quickly – so we’ve compiled a quick Q&A about the most important things we know right now.

What do we know so far about B.1.1.529?

Not much. The variant was detected very recently, and so far has only been confirmed in fewer than 100 cases. Most of those have been in the South African province of Gauteng, though some cases have surfaced in Botswana. One case was detected earlier in the week in Hong Kong, and the first cases have now been confirmed in Belgium and Israel, all in travelers from countries in Africa.
We do know that the variant has an astonishing number of mutations, described by one expert as “horrific,” but precisely what those mutations will mean is yet to be known.
The World Health Organization began a meeting this morning to determine the significance of the new variant, as well as name it, but they warned that it may be weeks before we know how transmissible and vaccine-resistant the virus is.

What makes it so concerning?

All viruses mutate and evolve over time, and SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is no exception. Most of the changes that occur don’t make much difference, but sometimes they create what’s known as a “variant of concern”. This is when the virus mutates in a way that changes things like how easily it can be transmitted, how vaccine-resistant it is, or how well scientists can detect its presence.
The mutations that set B.1.1.529 apart are worrying scientists for a couple of reasons. Firstly, there’s just so many of them: 50 mutations overall, more than 30 of which are located on the spike protein. That could be a problem because the spike protein is the bit that most vaccines target.
What’s more, ten of the mutations are in the receptor binding domain – the bit of the virus that first makes contact with our cells and starts off the infection process. That’s five times as many mutations as the Delta variant has in the same place – and the Delta variant is so transmissible that it currently makes up 99 percent of cases worldwide.

Will the new variant be more transmissible than previous variants?

We don’t know for sure yet – but we can deduce some information from the data already available.
First, we can look at the number of cases detected so far: “we’re seeing in South Africa … they were at a very, very low point, with a very low amount of cases being detected a day,” Susan Hopkins, chief medical adviser of the UK Health Security Agency, said on BBC Radio 4's Today program this morning. But that quickly changed, and “in a shorter period than two weeks they … more than doubled their epidemiology picture,” she explained.
The R number of the new variant – remember that’s the reproduction rate, or the average number of people one infected person will pass the virus to – is being reported as two, Hopkins pointed out, which is “really quite high.” Any virus with an R number above one will spread exponentially, and although the virus currently only has a low number of confirmed cases, experts suspect that up to 90 percent of cases in Gauteng may be this new variant.
“We’ve not seen levels of transmission like that since right back at the beginning of the pandemic, because of all of the mitigations and steps we’ve taken,” Hopkins said. “So that would cause a major problem if you had that high transmission with this type of virus in a population where it may evade the immune responses that are already there.”
We can also look at the mutations themselves. Although some of the mutations are completely new to scientists, some have already been seen in previous variants. One such mutation, N501Y, was first found in the Alpha variant, and its effect does seem to be to make the virus spread more easily. Another, P681H, is suspected to help the virus replicate faster and increase immune resistance.

Will our vaccines still work?

Again, we don’t know yet. The variant has spread very rapidly in South Africa, but local vaccination rates are only around 24 percent – that’s less than one in four.
Echoing the message sent out by the WHO, one anonymous member of South Africa’s COVID-19 committee told the Telegraph that it would be “weeks and weeks” before we get a clear idea of how the new variant will fare against current vaccines. And Hopkins agreed, telling Today that “it will take weeks rather than days to find the full information.”

Is there any good news?

Well, at the very least there’s some less-bad news. Firstly, one of the new variant’s mutations happens to make it very easy to test for – “we can detect it very quick,” explained Tulio de Oliveira, director of the University of Stellenbosch’s Centre for Epidemic Response & Innovation, in a press statement yesterday. “And this will help us to track and understand the spread.”
It’s also “worth emphasizing this is at super low numbers right now in a region of Africa that is fairly well sampled,” pointed out virologist Tom Peacock in a series of tweets about the variant. “However, it very, very much should be monitored due to that horrific spike profile.”
There’s also the fact that the new variant seems to have been detected fairly early. That means it may be easier to contain, epidemiologist and director of University College London's Genetics Institute Francois Balloux told the BBC.
“It's annoying, it's problematic, but it's not like a new pandemic,” he said, adding that we shouldn’t expect to lose “entire immunity” against the new variant.
Even if B.1.1.529 is confirmed to be more transmissible, it would not “bring us to square one,” he said, noting that the new variant “could be a setback,” but “not a complete start again of the whole thing.”

What can we do?

On a country-wide scale, quite a few things are already happening. South Africa itself is convening a council this weekend to advise on lockdown measures, and a number of countries including the UK and those in the EU have restricted travel to and from countries in Southern Africa such as South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Eswatini.
Although many lawmakers have stated this is simply the “principle of maximum precaution” at work, South Africa has called such measures “rushed,” pointing out that the WHO is yet to advise on travel restrictions.
On a personal level, though, the advice is simple: get vaccinated if you haven’t already, and get a booster shot if you have.
“The full significance [of the new variant] remains uncertain,” de Oliveira cautioned. “The vaccines remain the critical tool to protect us from severe disease.”

[TLO]

Originally Posted by KS Smitty

This is today's article from IFL Science, provides quite a bit of info, such as is available.

It’s official: there’s a new variant of COVID-19 out, and it’s a doozy. B.1.1.529 – it’s due to get a Greek name today, which is likely to be Nu – has the potential to spread like wildfire, and experts are split on just how worried we should be.

In times like this, information moves quickly – so we’ve compiled a quick Q&A about the most important things we know right now.

What do we know so far about B.1.1.529?

Not much. The variant was detected very recently, and so far has only been confirmed in fewer than 100 cases. Most of those have been in the South African province of Gauteng, though some cases have surfaced in Botswana. One case was detected earlier in the week in Hong Kong, and the first cases have now been confirmed in Belgium and Israel, all in travelers from countries in Africa.
We do know that the variant has an astonishing number of mutations, described by one expert as “horrific,” but precisely what those mutations will mean is yet to be known.
The World Health Organization began a meeting this morning to determine the significance of the new variant, as well as name it, but they warned that it may be weeks before we know how transmissible and vaccine-resistant the virus is.

What makes it so concerning?

All viruses mutate and evolve over time, and SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is no exception. Most of the changes that occur don’t make much difference, but sometimes they create what’s known as a “variant of concern”. This is when the virus mutates in a way that changes things like how easily it can be transmitted, how vaccine-resistant it is, or how well scientists can detect its presence.
The mutations that set B.1.1.529 apart are worrying scientists for a couple of reasons. Firstly, there’s just so many of them: 50 mutations overall, more than 30 of which are located on the spike protein. That could be a problem because the spike protein is the bit that most vaccines target.
What’s more, ten of the mutations are in the receptor binding domain – the bit of the virus that first makes contact with our cells and starts off the infection process. That’s five times as many mutations as the Delta variant has in the same place – and the Delta variant is so transmissible that it currently makes up 99 percent of cases worldwide.

Will the new variant be more transmissible than previous variants?

We don’t know for sure yet – but we can deduce some information from the data already available.
First, we can look at the number of cases detected so far: “we’re seeing in South Africa … they were at a very, very low point, with a very low amount of cases being detected a day,” Susan Hopkins, chief medical adviser of the UK Health Security Agency, said on BBC Radio 4's Today program this morning. But that quickly changed, and “in a shorter period than two weeks they … more than doubled their epidemiology picture,” she explained.
The R number of the new variant – remember that’s the reproduction rate, or the average number of people one infected person will pass the virus to – is being reported as two, Hopkins pointed out, which is “really quite high.” Any virus with an R number above one will spread exponentially, and although the virus currently only has a low number of confirmed cases, experts suspect that up to 90 percent of cases in Gauteng may be this new variant.
“We’ve not seen levels of transmission like that since right back at the beginning of the pandemic, because of all of the mitigations and steps we’ve taken,” Hopkins said. “So that would cause a major problem if you had that high transmission with this type of virus in a population where it may evade the immune responses that are already there.”
We can also look at the mutations themselves. Although some of the mutations are completely new to scientists, some have already been seen in previous variants. One such mutation, N501Y, was first found in the Alpha variant, and its effect does seem to be to make the virus spread more easily. Another, P681H, is suspected to help the virus replicate faster and increase immune resistance.

Will our vaccines still work?

Again, we don’t know yet. The variant has spread very rapidly in South Africa, but local vaccination rates are only around 24 percent – that’s less than one in four.
Echoing the message sent out by the WHO, one anonymous member of South Africa’s COVID-19 committee told the Telegraph that it would be “weeks and weeks” before we get a clear idea of how the new variant will fare against current vaccines. And Hopkins agreed, telling Today that “it will take weeks rather than days to find the full information.”

Is there any good news?

Well, at the very least there’s some less-bad news. Firstly, one of the new variant’s mutations happens to make it very easy to test for – “we can detect it very quick,” explained Tulio de Oliveira, director of the University of Stellenbosch’s Centre for Epidemic Response & Innovation, in a press statement yesterday. “And this will help us to track and understand the spread.”
It’s also “worth emphasizing this is at super low numbers right now in a region of Africa that is fairly well sampled,” pointed out virologist Tom Peacock in a series of tweets about the variant. “However, it very, very much should be monitored due to that horrific spike profile.”
There’s also the fact that the new variant seems to have been detected fairly early. That means it may be easier to contain, epidemiologist and director of University College London's Genetics Institute Francois Balloux told the BBC.
“It's annoying, it's problematic, but it's not like a new pandemic,” he said, adding that we shouldn’t expect to lose “entire immunity” against the new variant.
Even if B.1.1.529 is confirmed to be more transmissible, it would not “bring us to square one,” he said, noting that the new variant “could be a setback,” but “not a complete start again of the whole thing.”

What can we do?

On a country-wide scale, quite a few things are already happening. South Africa itself is convening a council this weekend to advise on lockdown measures, and a number of countries including the UK and those in the EU have restricted travel to and from countries in Southern Africa such as South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Eswatini.
Although many lawmakers have stated this is simply the “principle of maximum precaution” at work, South Africa has called such measures “rushed,” pointing out that the WHO is yet to advise on travel restrictions.
On a personal level, though, the advice is simple: get vaccinated if you haven’t already, and get a booster shot if you have.
“The full significance [of the new variant] remains uncertain,” de Oliveira cautioned. “The vaccines remain the critical tool to protect us from severe disease.”

Good info here.

[loochy]

You people know that this will never stop, right?