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COVID-19

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I’ve been reading about the 1918 flu. A lot of the same things that we are going through now. We really do learn from our mistakes in history. It’s important not to repeat them.
 
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Up here in Mass. they are trying vaccinate and contain the surge in cases

Most are non mask wearing family and friends gathering under the same roof and eating/drinking

I cannot believe the behavior of some people, lost a lot of faith in humanity over the last 4 years, just pure cruelty with glee

5000 a day coming, tired of all the winning yet?
 
Boxing Day is usually a busy bustling day that brings people out in droves to shop the after Xmas sales and return gifts. But Ontario is locked down so everything is closed. The first two cases of the UK variant have been discovered here. This is a picture of the normally crowded streets yesterday.
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As you will see the U.S has a very high count of covid cases unfortunately. I wish we had a count like some other countries.

it’s shows how selfish some people are or folks that are willing to believe stories other than science. We needed to work harder as a whole together. Have a goal of saving lives - love, empathy, thoughtfulness and national pride.
 
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Last number sent to me was this morning. I have become Authorized Representative for one of my patients that has been placed in a
long term care facility. As his representative, they send me daily Covid updates.
The positivity rate last week was as high as 21.38%
Almost one out of 5 people.
That is the reason.
Selfishness is not only measured by generosity Vs. Greed.
It is also not considering how your actions are affecting others.
At least pretend!
Wear a mask to keep people from wanting to throttle you, even if you don't give a damn!
 
This is what the Syney Test match loo will be like,

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I find it hard to believe that Cricket Australia are going ahead with the Sydney Test match with the latest 'outbreak' there as so many other places are pretty well safe and Covid free.
 

First U.S. Case of Highly Contagious Coronavirus Variant Is Found in Colorado

The fact that the infected man had no travel history raises the worrisome possibility that the variant is already well established in his community — and perhaps elsewhere in the United States.

By Carl Zimmer and Bryan Pietsch
Dec. 29, 2020

The first United States case of the more contagious coronavirus variant that was initially discovered in Britain was found in Colorado on Tuesday, Gov. Jared Polis said, raising the worrisome possibility that the variant is already well established in the patient’s community — and perhaps elsewhere...

The variant was detected in a man in his 20s with no travel history, Mr. Polis said. The man was in isolation in Elbert County, southeast of Denver, he said.
Dr. Hanage said the newly reported case “should not be cause for panic.” But, he added, “it is cause to redouble our efforts at preventing the virus from getting the opportunity to spread,” he said.
Scientists are worried about variants but not surprised by them. It is normal for viruses to mutate, and most of the mutations of the coronavirus have proved minor. There’s no evidence that an infection with the variant — known as B.1.1.7 — is more likely to lead to a severe case of Covid-19, increase the risk of death or evade the new vaccines.
But the speed at which the variant seems to spread could lead to more infections — and therefore more hospitalizations.

“There is a lot we don’t know about this new Covid-19 variant, but scientists in the United Kingdom are warning the world that it is significantly more contagious,” Mr. Polis said...
It’s not clear where B.1.1.7 arose. Britain has the biggest system for sequencing the genomes of coronaviruses, which may be why the variant was first found there. Cases of the variant have been identified in more than a dozen countries around the world. Health officials in Ontario, Canada, said on Saturday that they had identified two cases of the variant in a couple with no known travel history or exposure.
It’s not yet clear why B.1.1.7 transmits more easily. The lineage has accumulated 23 mutations since it split off from other coronaviruses. Researchers are investigating some of the mutations to see if they allow the viruses to invade cells more readily or make more copies of themselves.

Because the United States sequences far fewer genomes than Britain does, American scientists suspected that the variant might already have been in the country undetected. It appears they were right.
Dr. Hanage said that the United States would have to improve how it monitors the genetic sequences of circulating viruses to track their spread. It is conceivable that the new variant might have fueled recent outbreaks in the Midwest and Rhode Island, for example, but scientists do not know because public health officials have not been tracking the viruses carefully enough across the entire country.
“The United States is hobbled by the inconsistency of its approach,” he said. “Unless we turn on the lights, we won’t know it’s there.”

The United States is also vaccinating its citizens more slowly than expected. That could become a problem if the variant in Britain were to spread more widely in the United States as well.
“You need to be able to get whatever barriers to transmission you can out there as soon as possible,” Dr. Hanage said.
 
Boxing Day is usually a busy bustling day that brings people out in droves to shop the after Xmas sales and return gifts. But Ontario is locked down so everything is closed. The first two cases of the UK variant have been discovered here. This is a picture of the normally crowded streets yesterday.
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We are locked down just as hard here in uk....
But no one gives a shit.. there are people everywhere....
Busier than ever out there...
 
This and the UK nodes makes me wonder how effective vaccinations will be , and I have a felling there are more untracked out there.

Also concerned about the vaccines but read that the 23 mutations in the spike protein are probably not enough to significantly affect antigenicity. But eventually, as mutations accumulate, we will need new vaccines, as we do with influenza. Also, the pharma companies producing the vaccine are almost (haven't looked it up) certainly following up with study participants to learn how long immunity lasts. If the variant(s) successfully evades the immune system, then you'd expect these tens of thousands of participants to start getting infected, which we'd be reading about already.

And for once Australia did not miss out!

Congratulations! Correct if wrong, but isn't the South Africa variant distinct from the UK variant? You could have all three! So could the US, for that matter, considering how little genomic surveillance we do. They could even have originated here. Yet another "benefit" of so little response at the federal level - we'd never know. Ignorance is bliss - let more responsible countries take the heat.

We are locked down just as hard here in uk....
But no one gives a shit.. there are people everywhere....
Busier than ever out there...

As a bachelor who was already socially isolated, the pandemic hasn't changed behavior much at all. But it's understandable that people with more full lives would be fatigued at this point, IMO. Getting as many as possible vaccinated ASAP is probably the only realistic way forward.
 
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More on variants and vaccines. Wonder how many unknown variants are circulating in the US, with our vast number of cases and negligible genomic surveillance? From The Scientist:

South African SARS-CoV-2 Variant Alarms Scientists

An additional mutation in the spike protein of the coronavirus may help it elude antibody recognition, and scientists are investigating if current vaccines will protect against it.​

This additional research comes as British health secretary Matt Hancock says he is more concerned about the South African variant, known as 501.V2, as it relates to vaccine efficacy than the UK variant, known as B.1.1.7.

“One of the reasons they know they’ve got a problem is because, like us, they have an excellent genomic scientific capability to be able to study the details of the virus,” Hancock tells BBC radio, referring to a conversation with a South African health official. “And it is even more of a problem than the U.K. new variant.”

501.V2 carries a mutation in the spike protein called E484K, which is not present in the UK strain, Francois Balloux, the director of the University College London Genetics Institute, says in a statement. “The E484K mutation has been shown to reduce antibody recognition,” he says, which may help the virus bypass immune protection provided by prior infection or vaccination. However, he says that the mutation is not sufficient for the variant to bypass the protection provided by vaccines.

John Bell, a University of Oxford immunologist who is on the UK’s vaccine task force, tells Times Radio that he thinks vaccines would work on the UK variant but there is a “big question mark” about 501.V2, as there is still sparse evidence about it.

Experts say mutations of the virus are to be expected. “Viruses mutate and new strains will emerge,” James Naismith, the director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute, says in a statement. “The so-called South African strain has a number of changes, and scientists are working flat out to understand their significance. Some of the changes are quite significant and thus scientists are paying a lot of attention. We do not yet know enough to say more than this.”

In the unlikely scenario that the variant significantly lowers a vaccine’s efficacy, Bell estimates that it would take four to six weeks to develop a modified vaccine. “We’re now in a game of cat and mouse,” he tells Times Radio. “These are not the only two variants we’re going to see.”
 
Restaurant owners were too anxious to re-open.
The ones that opened, not following routine cleaning procedures.. laziness!
Defiant "no maskers" puffing their chests and demanding their freedoms.
They all got cocky due to Nations lowest % previously attained.
MOSTLY, I blame it on 2 factions;
  1. Greedy business owners
  2. "Right to die" "Right to not wear mask" individuals.
 
Restaurant owners were too anxious to re-open.
The ones that opened, not following routine cleaning procedures.. laziness!
Defiant "no maskers" puffing their chests and demanding their freedoms.
They all got cocky due to Nations lowest % previously attained.
MOSTLY, I blame it on 2 factions;
  1. Greedy business owners
  2. "Right to die" "Right to not wear mask" individuals.
Wow, dude. Sounds the same as here, as time passes, people are getting more complacent and desperate, this is a really dangerous combo IMO.:mad:
 
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