Variant of Concern/ Variant of Interest

[odyssey06]

And no evidence of increased risk of severe illness.

I wonder if the variant had been found in Germany, what our reaction would have been. Can't see the rest of Europe rushing to impose travel bans before scientists had the chance to do their job.

If you wait for the evidence it's closing the stable door after the horse has bolted... this is a time when the precautionary principle can be justified.

We have treaty obligations with Germany in terms of free movement ... plus official channels where we and other European governments could press Germany to take action itself. We have neither with South Africa. And realistically given the extent of movement between Germany and other European countries, it's a different situation entirely... It likely would be too late by the time it was detected. South Africa vis a vis Botswana or Japan would be a reverse situation.

 

[Sunny]

Its already in Belgium and probably by local transmission. Have we banned travel with Belgium? Thousands of people have travelled from South Africa to the UK in the past two weeks. Glad to know treaties are more important than stopping the spread of covid.

I have no issue with travel restrictions but they won't work. The variant has already left Africa. South Africa did a brilliant job identifying and reporting the variant and they have been completely ostracised. Good luck getting the next country to be transparent.

Even the WHO have said we need to calm down. There is no evidence to suggest that this variant is any more deadly or the vaccines are any less effective against serious illness. And yet, reading reports today, we might as well all just run for nearest dark cave.

On the one hard, you have Governments trying to convince people to get vaccinated and take boosters and then you have complete scaremongering that this new variant means that it is all pointless. Let them look at the variant and the vaccines and see what is happening. Some of the reporting today is just ridiculous.

 

[Paul O Mahoney]

And no evidence of increased risk of severe illness.

I wonder if the variant had been found in Germany, what our reaction would have been. Can't see the rest of Europe rushing to impose travel bans before scientists had the chance to do their job.

But the whole of the EU has imposed travel bans, I think now there is enough evidence to at least get ready, hopefully it's not as dangerous as feared but labs will busy trying to ascertain that.

 

[Paul O Mahoney]

Its already in Belgium and probably by local transmission. Have we banned travel with Belgium? Thousands of people have travelled from South Africa to the UK in the past two weeks. Glad to know treaties are more important than stopping the spread of covid.

I have no issue with travel restrictions but they won't work. The variant has already left Africa. South Africa did a brilliant job identifying and reporting the variant and they have been completely ostracised. Good luck getting the next country to be transparent.

Even the WHO have said we need to calm down. There is no evidence to suggest that this variant is any more deadly or the vaccines are any less effective against serious illness. And yet, reading reports today, we might as well all just run for nearest dark cave.

On the one hard, you have Governments trying to convince people to get vaccinated and take boosters and then you have complete scaremongering that this new variant means that it is all pointless. Let them look at the variant and the vaccines and see what is happening. Some of the reporting today is just ridiculous.

The Belgium case has been traced to a person flying in from Egypt.

Last year Europe was very slow in preventing the original variant from getting into Italy and we all know what happened.
Travel bans are a blunt instrument but no government is going to sit idly by and do nothing.

Biontech and Pfizer and the other vaccine manufacturers are already studying the new variant and we should have some indication of how transmisable it is and how it affects the vaccines in 2 weeks

If anything the rollout of boosters will increase but we need to wait for the data, the main concern apparently is the mutations on the spike protein of the virus have increased and it's not known what the effects are.
It might be nothing but early evidence is suggesting higher transmission.

 

[joe sod]

But the whole of the EU has imposed travel bans, I think now there is enough evidence to at least get ready, hopefully it's not as dangerous as feared but labs will busy trying to ascertain that.

Chris Whitty the UK cmo is of the opinion that this is actually less dangerous than the delta variant and widespread scepticism that it can jump the vaccine anyway, hopefully this is looking like a damp squib.
I have no problem with them imposing precautionary travel bans on the affected african countries once they dont start jumping to reimpose general travel bans in Europe.
Also a concern that the government or nphet will use this as an excuse to impose more restrictions generally or to close down hospitality again. However I think the money issue is becoming much more important now, the government know they cannot afford to restrict the economy anymore after spending 40billion euros already on Covid

 

[Paul O Mahoney]

Chris Whitty the UK cmo is of the opinion that this is actually less dangerous than the delta variant and widespread scepticism that it can jump the vaccine anyway, hopefully this is looking like a damp squib.
I have no problem with them imposing precautionary travel bans on the affected african countries once they dont start jumping to reimpose general travel bans in Europe.
Also a concern that the government or nphet will use this as an excuse to impose more restrictions generally or to close down hospitality again. However I think the money issue is becoming much more important now, the government know they cannot afford to restrict the economy anymore after spending 40billion euros already on Covid

There was a Prof on BBC earlier saying that the hysteria needs calming, he did however agree with travel bans now as a defence until the details of the variant are known.
He also is of the view that the vaccines will still provide protection and the booster even more protection.

I think everyone needs to wait and see what the scientists find out over the coming weeks.
Obviously that's not going to stop certain quarters spreading unsubstantiated analysis.

Europe in general needs to concentrate on the situation it finds itself in now, as it appears to be out of control.

 

[Sunny]

But the whole of the EU has imposed travel bans, I think now there is enough evidence to at least get ready, hopefully it's not as dangerous as feared but labs will busy trying to ascertain that.

The whole world has imposed travel bans even though the WHO advise against them. South Africa have done the world a favour with the work they did identifying and reporting the variant. The world responded by cutting off a number of African Countries. It is an emotive response that is not backed by science.

South Africa has 3,500 cases of covid with a population of 59m people. There has been a large increase in the past 7 days which could be due to the variant but they don't know. South Africa also only has 40% of their population vaccinated so we have no idea how effective the vaccines are against this variant.

Thousands of people have arrived in Europe in the past week alone. This variant did not appear yesterday. Travel bans just delude people that we can stop this from spreading. We can't. All the travel ban will do is make the next country who identifies a variant of concern very reluctant to report it.

The Belgium case has been traced to a person flying in from Egypt.

Last year Europe was very slow in preventing the original variant from getting into Italy and we all know what happened.
Travel bans are a blunt instrument but no government is going to sit idly by and do nothing.

Biontech and Pfizer and the other vaccine manufacturers are already studying the new variant and we should have some indication of how transmisable it is and how it affects the vaccines in 2 weeks

If anything the rollout of boosters will increase but we need to wait for the data, the main concern apparently is the mutations on the spike protein of the virus have increased and it's not known what the effects are.
It might be nothing but early evidence is suggesting higher transmission.

The case in Belgium was detected in a woman who traveled from Egypt through Turkey. So how is the ban on African Countries effective in that case? She was also unvaccinated, presented with symptoms and tested positive 11 days after she arrived back. So she could easily have caught it locally and they admit that. They don't know. Also none of her household have so far tested positive.

Of course we should be concerned. Of course we should introduce restrictions and increased surveillance but blanket travel bans don't work. And we need to give them time to figure out what is happening.

 

[Sunny]

Here is a question that I can't find the answer to. Pfizer have said they will have a new version of the vaccine within 100 days if needed. Why didn't they create a new version for Delta variant? As fas as I know we are still using the vaccine created for Alpha variant.

Not making accusations or starting conspiracies. Just occurred to me.

 

[Paul O Mahoney]

Here is a question that I can't find the answer to. Pfizer have said they will have a new version of the vaccine within 100 days if needed. Why didn't they create a new version for Delta variant? As fas as I know we are still using the vaccine created for Alpha variant.

Not making accusations or starting conspiracies. Just occurred to me.

I believe they said the efficacy was the same but they recognized that it wanes over time thus the booster.

Apparently the virus DNA isn't that complex but the spike protein that is uses to infect us,can and does mutate, but some of those mutations do not harm us and the piece of the spike that r infects us was the same in both Alpha and Delta and that's the piece the vaccines nullify.

This is from memory so don't take it as fact.

 

[Sunny]

I believe they said the efficacy was the same but they recognized that it wanes over time thus the booster.

Apparently the virus DNA isn't that complex but the spike protein that is uses to infect us,can and does mutate, but some of those mutations do not harm us and the piece of the spike that r infects us was the same in both Alpha and Delta and that's the piece the vaccines nullify.

This is from memory so don't take it as fact.

Makes sense. Thanks. Just one of those random questions that popped into head in the middle of the night!

 

[odyssey06]

The whole world has imposed travel bans even though the WHO advise against them. South Africa have done the world a favour with the work they did identifying and reporting the variant. The world responded by cutting off a number of African Countries. It is an emotive response that is not backed by science.

South Africa has 3,500 cases of covid with a population of 59m people. There has been a large increase in the past 7 days which could be due to the variant but they don't know. South Africa also only has 40% of their population vaccinated so we have no idea how effective the vaccines are against this variant.

Thousands of people have arrived in Europe in the past week alone. This variant did not appear yesterday. Travel bans just delude people that we can stop this from spreading. We can't. All the travel ban will do is make the next country who identifies a variant of concern very reluctant to report it.


The case in Belgium was detected in a woman who traveled from Egypt through Turkey. So how is the ban on African Countries effective in that case? She was also unvaccinated, presented with symptoms and tested positive 11 days after she arrived back. So she could easily have caught it locally and they admit that. They don't know. Also none of her household have so far tested positive.

Of course we should be concerned. Of course we should introduce restrictions and increased surveillance but blanket travel bans don't work. And we need to give them time to figure out what is happening.

Fair points but by limiting numbers maybe it will give contact tracing more chance with the cases identified so far.

 

[Paul O Mahoney]

The BBC are now showing Boris, Whitty and Valance giving a briefing on the new variant as 2 cases have been identified.

It's a long time since one of these were held. Message essentially the same wait until scientists have a look, but it does look like the spike protein has changed significantly, but they don't know what effects on the vaccine will be.

Face masks are back on the agenda

 

[Paul O Mahoney]

I'll attempt to pass on what a doctor from SA just said on BBC breakfast.

Firstly she noticed young men presenting (Nov 11 to 18) with extreme fatigue, and a sore throat, and the other normal symptoms, but overall " very mild" symptoms.
After testing and speaking to other doctors they agreed that this was something different and sent samples for further testing. This variant seems to have very similar properties as the Beta Variant from last year, which was replaced quickly by Delta.

No Doctor had referred any case to hospital for further treatment and most people recovered after 3/4 days.

It was recognised that the new variant is highly transmisable and this became the first concern.

She went on to say that those vaccinated seemed to suffer the same symptoms but even milder than those unvaccinated and she had about 50/50 in her practice, making her to say that vaccines still offered some protection. She didn't elaborate on that.

Then her caveat, she said the scientists will need more time to fully evaluate and she said while her experience so far showed mild symptoms that may not be the same as the variant transmits through the population of SA.

I suppose this is only one Doctors view but it's from the front line. She didn't seem overly concerned but the "wait and see" again seems to be the message.

That Doctor is actually the Chair of the South African Medical Board, she was just on Andrew Marr show saying the same thing.

 

[Paul O Mahoney]

The UK Health Secretary, Javid, can't answer a question on this issue without the jingoism, he said the UK were first to recognise the new variant, first to restrict travel.........and on and on.

 

[Purple]

Apparently the virus DNA isn't that complex but the spike protein that is uses to infect us,can and does mutate,

Small point, but the virus doesn't have DNA. It has RNA. The mRNA vaccine specifically targets the Protein spike that allows the virus to break the hosts cell membrane so mutations to that are, I would think, worrying.

 

[Paul O Mahoney]

Small point, but the virus doesn't have DNA. It has RNA. The mRNA vaccine specifically targets the Protein spike that allows the virus to break the hosts cell membrane so mutations to that are, I would think, worrying.

My bad RNA ,should have proof read. Delta's spike had 10 mutations from Alpha but the vaccines still had relatively good results especially on deaths, This variant has 30 mutations and the question of whether it can " vaccine escape " is still unknown.

Its known that it's highly transmisable and as SAs population is young the effects on older people and those with underlying disease isn't known yet either.

It's a waiting game now, if this does have the ability to " vaccine escape " we know both Moderna and Pfizer/Biontech can get new vaccines in 100days .

It's all up in the air now and both of those producers are already evaluating.

 

[Purple]

My bad RNA ,should have proof read. Delta's spike had 10 mutations from Alpha but the vaccines still had relatively good results especially on deaths, This variant has 30 mutations and the question of whether it can " vaccine escape " is still unknown.

I sound really picky now but there have been over 12,000 identified mutations of Covid19. Mutations that have a material impact on behaviour are called Variants. There are over 4000 of those. The major Variants are called Strains. there's been 5 of them.

 

[Paul O Mahoney]

I sound really picky now but there have been over 12,000 identified mutations of Covid19. Mutations that have a material impact on behaviour are called Variants. There are over 4000 of those. The major Variants are called Strains. there's been 5 of them.

I thought it was more but yeah mutations will continue to happen, but it's the mutations that can affect us are the ones that we need to understand and try and control. In this situation the spike all other mutations appear harmless.... for now.

Its highly probable that one day a virus will develop and we will be defenseless, as I said elsewhere humanity is living a charmed existence , and stop encroaching on parts of the natural world we shouldn't be in.

 

[Purple]

stop encroaching on parts of the natural world we shouldn't be in.

It must be kind of hard to listen to though, for those people in the Amazon and elsewhere, when we start telling them not to cut down their forests. The obvious retort is "where the hell are your forests?"
It's a bit rich for is to tell poor people that they can't have what we have because it's damaging the environment and causing diseases to spread to humans. I don't see us volunteering to have far less, or even making a material change in our behaviour, in order to facilitate those changes we are insisting they make.

 

[Paul O Mahoney]

It must be kind of hard to listen to though, for those people in the Amazon and elsewhere, when we start telling them not to cut down their forests. The obvious retort is "where the hell are your forests?"
It's a bit rich for is to tell poor people that they can't have what we have because it's damaging the environment and causing diseases to spread to humans. I don't see us volunteering to have far less, or even making a material change in our behaviour, in order to facilitate those changes we are insisting they make.

But the so called "poorer " countries have all the resources that the western world needs and until some kind of equity is found the exploitation will continue.

I'm still hopeful, naive perhaps, that out this a better way will be found.

Vaccine ingredients will be lyopholised soon according to some sources and this would enable it to be stored for future use. But the pandemic is only one piece of the jigsaw, food, shelter and education for poorer countries is the long term solution.

Off topic a bit, The nuns of the good shepherd are stock holders in Tesla, and are trying to get Musk to pay royalties for the billions of dollars in cobalt and lithium extracted from DRC (Congo) , it failed to be accepted by the Board at last AGM but they aren't stopping in their quest.