Coronavirus 7: Ring in Delta Plus and then Omicron Takes Over

[Smash!]

From how it looks now we soon can change the thread title to „Ring in Omicron“  or „Omigod another variant!“

 

Edited November 26, 2021 by Smash!

[Coconut Flan]

And we're only on page three of Delta and who knows what Omicron will be like.  Hopefully the idea that some of the mutations may cancel others will hold.  

[Dandruff]

Why tf hasn't the US revised travel restrictions?  Sooner may be massive life-saving degrees better than later.

[Ozlsn]

 

New strain in Israel already.

The variant was discovered in a person who returned to Israel from Malawi. Two cases of other returnees from abroad were also suspected to be infected with the variant, the ministry said. Genetic tests are being carried out to determine whether the other two people are also infected. All three people are in quarantine.

All three people were vaccinated, and the Health Ministry said that the details of their vaccination are being verified

Canada has also implemented border restrictions

[Ozlsn]

This article in Science is a couple of months old but gives a good overview of what the thinking was around the then known variants of concern, and what the worries were about new variants. 

Spoiler

Although it’s impossible to predict exactly how infectiousness, virulence, and immune evasion will develop in the coming months, some of the factors that will influence the virus’ trajectory are clear.

One is the immunity that is now rapidly building in the human population. On one hand, immunity reduces the likelihood of people getting infected, and may hamper viral replication even when they are. “That means there will be fewer mutations emerging if we vaccinate more people,” Çevik says. On the other hand, any immune escape variant now has a huge advantage over other variants.

In fact, the world is probably at a tipping point, Holmes says: With more than 2 billion people having received at least one vaccine dose and hundreds of millions more having recovered from COVID-19, variants that evade immunity may now have a bigger leg up than those that are more infectious. Something similar appears to have happened when a new H1N1 influenza strain emerged in 2009 and caused a pandemic, says Katia Kölle, an evolutionary biologist at Emory University. A 2015 paper found that changes in the virus in the first 2 years appeared to make the virus more adept at human-to-human transmission, whereas changes after 2011 were mostly to avoid human immunity.

It may already be getting harder for SARS-CoV-2 to make big gains in infectiousness. “There are some fundamental limits to exactly how good a virus can get at transmitting and at some point SARS-CoV-2 will hit that plateau,” says Jesse Bloom, an evolutionary biologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. “I think it’s very hard to say if this is already where we are, or is it still going to happen.” Evolutionary virologist Kristian Andersen of Scripps Research guesses the virus still has space to evolve greater transmissibility. “The known limit in the viral universe is measles, which is about three times more transmissible than what we have now with Delta,” he says.

 

[Dandruff]

U.S. is implementing travel restrictions due to Omicron starting Monday:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/new-virus-variant-detected-in-south-africa-prompting-global-travel-restrictions

[Smash!]

Switzerland imposed a travel ban as well!

Does anyone know why the WHO sometimes leaves out letters in the Greek alphabet when naming Variants of Interest and Variants of Concern? On Twitter everyone was assuming the name‘s gonna be Nu and on the press con  they announced it was Omicron.

We have as the current Variants of Concern Alpha, Beta (South Africa), Gamma (Brazil) and Delta. Epsilon and Zeta are left out, as is Theta. Eta, Iota and Kappa are former Variants of Interest that got downgraded to Variants under Monitoring. Lamda and Mu are the current Variants of Interest.

[WiseGirl]

Well fudgie puppies. COVID we did not need a new variant.  Hopefully these companies can figure something out sooner rather than later. I'm getting my booster Monday.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/26/pfizer-biontech-investigating-new-covid-variant-jj-testing-vaccine-against-it.html

[Ozlsn]

Spoiler

 

I guess the prognosis in terms of disease severity is still TBD, with luck it's less severe which is still not great but at least may stop the hospitals being overwhelmed again as happened with Delta. 

[Smash!]

 

[Ozlsn]

I suspect it's wider spread than we've realised. Still wondering about disease impact.

[Howl]

5 hours ago, Ozlsn said:

I suspect it's wider spread than we've realised. Still wondering about disease impact.

Cat is absolutely out of the bag.  Interesting tweet here, and other have noted as well.  South Africa has a very robust monitoring system and sequenced the genome early on.  There is no evidence at this point that the variant ORIGINATED in South Africa. The variant already has global reach and has been noted in multiple countries. 

By the way, Graeme Codrington is the author of the embedded text in the tweet above. 

All good that SA is sequencing and identifying, BUT their VAX rate is low: South Africa delays COVID vaccine deliveries as inoculations slow

Appalling that the US is not doing all that it can to track what type of COVID is occurring where in our country. 

If this variant is indeed bringing down triple vaxxed people, the willfully unvaccinated are so totally, completely f**ked.  And so are innocent people living in countries with vaccine insufficiency or desperate countries where there is simply no vaccine for anyone. 

I'll just keep on keeping on, masking up and avoiding my fellow humans disease vectors.  It's the new normal. 

I saw a tweet with a link to an article along the lines of, "Covid expected to fade away in 2022."  WTAF?  Hospitals in various areas are still being overwhelmed by waves of COVID patients. 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 27, 2021 by Howl

[Smash!]

There are interesting publications in Times of Covid (published in an Elsevier journal!) 🤣

Which Saint to pray for fighting against a Covid infection? A short survey

[SassyPants]

43 minutes ago, Smash! said:

There are interesting publications in Times of Covid (published in an Elsevier journal!) 🤣

Which Saint to pray for fighting against a Covid infection? A short survey

I could get on board with praying, as long as it’s accompanied by full vaccination, masks, hand washing, social distancing and testing as indicated.

[Dandruff]

4 hours ago, Howl said:

If this variant is indeed bringing down triple vaxxed people, the willfully unvaccinated are so totally, completely f**ked.  And so are innocent people living in countries with vaccine insufficiency or desperate countries where there is simply no vaccine for anyone.

The willfully unvaccinated are f**king themselves and putting everyone else at risk.  Meanwhile, every moment the powers-that-be spend pondering what to do is a potential win for the virus.  AFAIC, the willingly unvaxxed should be taxed and banned from public places (which, actually, might help save them) until things calm down.

[Ozlsn]

6 hours ago, Howl said:

All good that SA is sequencing and identifying, BUT their VAX rate is low: South Africa delays COVID vaccine deliveries as inoculations slow

One of the local reasons for vaccine hesitancy (along with the usual misinformation suspects) is that they were using astra-zeneca which in South Africa appeared not to be effective against Delta (despite being so elsewhere). This may have been linked to high numbers of people living with HIV, although it could also be cold chain or distribution issues (or all of the above). One interesting discussion now is whether there was a delta variant with what looked like a silent mutation circulating there, and whether that mutation was slightly less silent than previously thought.

Another thing about vaccine distribution is that the "dump and leave" approach from high income to low income countries won't work. Donating vaccines is good and should continue, but you still need to work with the governments of those countries and their health care systems for distribution to occur - and frankly covid may not be a huge priority compared to various other diseases or political issues (sibling is working in Ethiopia, covid not on anyone's minds there right now). Australia has donated vaccines to PNG, but distribution is a huge challenge, even without idiots who should know better spreading rumours and misinformation and the 2% vaccinated rate reflects that. Fiji has a much smaller territory, and good healthcare networks, and was able to get vaccines out much more effectively. Short version: we also need to get better at wealth redistribution and cooperating effectively with each other. Sigh. 

[FiveAcres]

Seems like an authoritative overview of the new variant with some good graphics:

https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/new-concerning-variant-b11529

And this quote from the article is a real kick in guts:

Quote

The rate in which these cases are spreading are far higher than any previous variant. Disease modeling scientist Weiland estimated that B.1.1.529 is 500% more transmissible than the original Wuhan virus. (Delta was 70% more transmissible). John Burn-Murdoch (Chief Data Reporter at Financial Times) also found that B.1.1.529 is much more transmissible than Delta. 

 

[Dandruff]

I needed to get groceries and figured today would be less chaotic than a typical Saturday, due to Thanksgiving.  Seemed about a normal weekday's crowd.  Found myself buying extra chicken to freeze and a few other items I normally would have waited on.  Between the cold weather, weekend of people co-mingling, and Omicron I'm not sure how comfortable I'll feel shopping as regularly as I have been.  I figure Omicron will be identified in the US within the next few days, though I'd like to be wrong about that.  Am also wondering whether there's going to be another round of panic buying.  At any rate, I should be OK for at least a few weeks in case things hit the fan.

[adidas]

Australia has two confirmed cases of Omicron 😢 both were fully vaxed too. I’m worried. 

[Smash!]

Thread by a leading African Infectious Diseases Specialist 

 

[WiseGirl]

Updated NYT article.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/live/2021/11/28/world/covid-omicron-variant-news.amp.html

Guess who is getting her booster tomorrow? 

Need to get the flu shot too.

[Smash!]

@WiseGirl Yay for the booster!

Got mine two days ago, the first day everyone (minimum 6 months after 2nd dose) was eligible to get it. Felt soo relieved especially with Omicron popping up about in every country who look for it. Had cold like symptoms all day but it wasn‘t too bad.

German virologist Christian Drosten gave an interview in a tv show. If he gives interviews (beside his podcast) then you know things might get (really) bad. He says it‘s very early to have a full picture but they fear Omicron might be the first immune escape variant that infects people who previously had Covid. He says despite preliminary data Omicron has a different feel than Alpha or Beta Delta (reading between the lines I think he is really worried). But the current European surge is Delta which means get vaccinated, get boostered.

Edited November 29, 2021 by Smash!

[WiseGirl]

So this is showing up in my  newsfeed.  I'm taking it with a grain of salt.

"Mild" cases never seem to be the norm with this virus.  After all, this is only one doctor.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/29/omicron-covid-variant-symptoms-heres-what-we-know-so-far.html

"Covid symptoms linked to the new omicron variant have been described as “extremely mild” by the South African doctor who first raised the alarm over the new strain."

[Knight of Ni]

Just this weekend my sister in law used Colin Powell as an example for why the vaccine doesn't work. I was and am so fucking disgusted. 

 

[SassyPants]

Getting my booster today❤️🙏