Corona Virus Updates Part 6

Odd. First post didn't show up, so this is a duplicate.

originally posted by: Rich Z

Just out of curiosity, what animals ARE now at the top of that list?

My guess would be cats. The downside is that they are mobile, and move easily between the indoors (where a person may be infected and transmit it to their ACE2 susceptible pet) and the outdoors where cats easily transmit infection among themselves. But cats are also notorious for getting over infection quite fast, meaning they wouldn't likely be infectious for long.

Then of course, there are mink and mink farms.

People hear a lot about bats, but from what i've seen, only fruit bats are really susceptible and they pose little risk in either direction as far as humans are concerned few people spend time with bats and vice versa.

Pigs too, though we hear a lot about them in the news (likely because they are consumed), pigs have incredibly high defense against infection.

Seems we may, get a new vaccine
Canadian-made, plant-based COVID-19 vaccine sees positive Phase 3 results

I say may as still needs to go thru government review and depending if the the small company is brought by a large pharma investment group we might see the it out in the world.

Could be a good investment - Medicago if the get the same liability exempts of the big companies.

Biopharmaceutical company Medicago and drug maker GlaxoSmithKline reported Tuesday positive efficacy and safety results from the Phase 3 trial of their plant-based COVID-19 vaccine.

Medicago, which is headquartered in Quebec, reported in a news release that their Phase 3 placebo-controlled study -- conducted in more than 24,000 subjects in six countries who are 18 and older -- reported an overall vaccine efficacy rate of 71 per cent against all variants of SARS-CoV-2 which were circulating at the time of the study.

“Vaccine efficacy was demonstrated in an environment dominated by SARS-CoV-2 variants unlike most published Phase 3 efficacy trials for currently licensed COVID-19 vaccines that were conducted when only the ancestral virus was circulating,” the release states.

Just a little intermission to raise out Christmas spirit...


Rainbows
Jane

a reply to: TheAMEDDDoc

The Forbes Guy has a couple of very interesting Articles, the first one which has some info on the Cold virus I mentioned on the previous page :

Omicron: The Sum Of All Fears

Additionally, there is an insertion at position 214 which adds three amino acids to the genome. Some have speculated that this insertion is related to recombination with human cold-causing coronaviruses, specifically HCoV-229E. We offer a more likely alternative, suggested by Dr. Roberto Patarca, which is that the change is potentially due to internal recombination and translocation of a segment in the (-) strand of the 5’-untranslated region (UTR) of SARS-CoV-2 that would also explain other insertions at the same position 214. We note that this is a frequent site for insertions in other viruses.

In our previous article on Omicron’s possible origins, we noted the potential of cross-species infection of SARS-CoV-2 resulting in new and aggressive mutations. One study by Johnson et al. revealed dozens of mutations found in wastewater samples likely originating from rats or dogs. Several mutations found in those samples are in positions mutated in Omicron, including K417N, N440K, S477N, E484A, G496S, Q498R, N501Y, and others. This mass overlap may indicate that Omicron may have formed some or all of its mutations in a non-human animal before reinfecting human populations in Africa.

A couple of pics from the article with their subtext :

"Incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infections by variant of concern. Note the rapid rise of Omicron as compared to the original, Beta, and Delta variants."



"Amino acid mutations in Omicron. Those in boxes are shared with the respective previous variant of concern. Mutations in blue are in the Orf1ab (NSP) replicative transcription complex. Mutations in red are in the S protein. Mutations in pink are in the structural proteins. There are roughly 30 unique mutations in Omicron."


Well worth the short read.

Second Article :
What Is The Meaning Of Omicron?

Also a good read, very short.

a reply to: MonkeyBalls2

Thanks for the update!

I’ve heard a couple of experts say that omicron is causing infectees to become ill quicker than previous iterations. Today an expert was noting this in regards to omicrons mass spreading events, with 90% of those attending likely to be infected.

Maybe I’m being a dummy, but it wasn’t clear to me whether these experts simply meant the new cases curve is far steeper (which your graph confirms by a huge margin), or if they meant that symptoms are appearing faster, meaning they’re diagnosed sooner.
The latter, if true would lend to the steeper curve. But the former (if there’s faster emerging symptoms in infectees) were the meaning then that’s good news, since it means the infected can isolate before infecting as many other people as would’ve been infected by previous variants. I’d have thought that this would lead to a curve that rises quickly at first, but then falls just as quickly.

These are the late night babbling of a fool - I’m just trying to find a silver lining.

a reply to: McGinty

I think it's more the case that Infections are rampant for Omicron, much more so than Delta, or any before it.
What we do have now though, is that when someone is detected as having Covid, their close contacts etc have to take a test too.
I don't think too many people are having a worse time than with delta.
It would seem to resemble a cold, as in symptoms of Tiredness, runny nose and cough.
Maybe more people are getting tested anyway, and so we're picking up more of the cases.
Seeing as people have to have tests frequently if they're not vaccinated, even if they are for international travel, it could come from that.

Whatever happens, even if the illness is much less than Delta, the problem is the numbers are much much higher in total.
Say only a third of the people with Omicron go to hospital, compared to Delta, but we have 10x the cases, that would still be a huge problem for Hospitals, who are also having to deal with all their usual influx at this time of year.

French numbers are skyrocketing, we have flown past our last spring maximum, and are rapidly heading past our last autumn maximum. We are about to enter new territory in case numbers.

We're at 733,241 cases as of yesterday, our highest peak was 837,605 last autumn/winter.
With 50K cases per day, we're going to fly right past that into uncharted territory.
It's what's causing Govt's all over to brick their pants, and plan more restrictions.

The upside, if there is one, is that a lot of people are going to probably catch Omicron, and get antibodies from it.
The big downside, is that lots of people are probably going to catch Omicron, and pass it on to people who are shielding, or can't be vaccinated for some reason.

We just don't know. The Govt's are mostly all reacting after the fact, rather than being proactive.
With hindsight, a full on complete lockdown for a month last spring when it reared it head may have saved a lot of lives, and cost a hell of a lot less to the economy, and jobs.
Hindsight's a bitch though....

Hospitalizations are going up in South Africa, as are the cases. No where near as much as before, but the number of infections is off the scale compared to the previous waves.

France as of last night (Worldometers France):


Here's the UK Worldometers for comparison, note that the scale on the left is much higher for the UK :

a reply to: MonkeyBalls2

That all makes sense and thanks for the extra graphs.

I was naively hoping that an added contributor to the curve might be symptoms emerging faster. But that’s based on often having radio4, or LBC playing in the background while doing other things and no doubt subconsciously conflating information. Bit of confirmation bias at work in my grey matter. Sometimes I think we all have far greater confirmation bias at play than we realise and if it could be suddenly switched off we’d find ourselves plugged into matrix pods 🤪

Something I heard on the radio this morning was a government scientists explaining why we need the booster jab for omicron. She first said that the antibodies wane over time. That makes a vaguely straight forward mechanical sense to my rudimentary laymen ideas about the mystical things that occur in our cells…

…But then she went on to say that another reason is that the newer antibodies from the booster will be ‘better quality’! Now she’s starting to sound like a detergent advert. Unfortunately at this point I had to leg it for an appointment, but that statement sounded just a bit like BS.

I imagine that in fact it’s true - they’re ‘better quality’, whatever that means - and there’s a valid, if complicated explanation. Or maybe not! But if not then she didn’t help to ease my increasingly triggered spidey sense telling to stay the frack away from Pfizer.

a reply to: McGinty

Personally, I don't think the booster will end up doing much good.
It would be better to get a jab in the arm's of those who haven't yet had a jab.
On the Guardian Live Feed today, they state that only 44% of 12-15 year olds in the UK are vaccinated.
I'd rather get as many of them vaccinated, than give a 3rd dose to people who may not need it as much (Healthy adults who have had 2 jabs already).
The third jab would only alleviate the symptoms, as I understand. It doesn't make any difference to the infectiousness, or the ability for it to spread, and be spread.

There are also lots of people in the World who haven't even had one dose, they should be the World's priority right now.

With respect to my previous post, comparing South African cases to France, it looks like France is in much worse state (As is the UK).
France's graph seems steeper, and with a whole lot more in daily cases.


I think France is in for a really crap Xmas...they keep on saying its a "Delta wave", but seeing the massive increase, I think it's more likely Omicron, but only the sequencing will tell.

On another note, the Guardian also has an article on the possible origins of Omicron, going the possible "HIV immunology-compromised host" angle.
Why uncontrolled HIV may be behind the emergence of Omicron

Going to give it a read in a bit, finishing weekly washing (it's not raining for once!!)

a reply to: MonkeyBalls2

TheAmeDDDoc mentioned the HIV immunology-compromised host theory several days back so it looks like he was on the money.

I agree that vaccines should be going to those who haven’t had any yet, rather than forever boosting the 1st world is a smarter move (maybe that endless booster revenue stream is preventing govs & pharma from distributing effectively to those regions - they don’t want to kill the golden covid goose).

I’m not in favour of jabbing kids with the experimental vaccine, but I’m well aware that completely contradicts my rational of getting the 3rd world vaccinated. I’d rather first peruse getting Africa and similar potential variant hothouses inoculated first. Who knows, that alone may well be enough to irradiate covid without having to jab kids.

a reply to: McGinty

I don't think the current vaccines can still be considered experimental, not the most used ones anyway.
Pfizer, Astrazenica, and to a much lesser extent Moderna, and further behind, Janssen (J&J).

Israel, and other countries, have used Pfizer on younger kids, even as low as 5 in Israel iirc.

I just wouldn't want the kids to keep having schools closed, missing out on their education.
Some will never get back to learning, and will end up worse off for it later in life.

I'd start to be more worried about the new wave of vaccines coming early next year. I'd like to know that they have been fully tested with 3-phase trials, but I can see them explaining how it's a modified version of a previous vaccine, so they don't have to do as many tests, or even skip whole trial phases all together.
Some stuff you shouldn't rush.
I'd also like the waivers against prosecution removed for the Vaccine companies.
If they don't have full faith in their products effectiveness and safety, they shouldn't be in this business.

I fully agree with you that the rest of the World should be allowed to get vaccinated, should they so wish, before 1st World countries give more and more booster shots. Once the world is vaccinated, maybe this thing will die off. We won't know until we've vaccinated them all though, and at the current rate, it won't be for effing years...

I'd also like politics to F**k right off in the vaccine world, why is it that the Russian or Chinese vaccines, some of which have been peer reviewed in The Lancet (Sputnik), and given to millions of people, are still not validated for use in Europe, UK, or the rest of the "Western" world ?
Most likely money, but politics has got its nasty paws all over it I suspect.
These are the people that are still seeing "Reds under their Beds". Or have shares in Pfizer/Moderna/J&J...
Who knows.
I hope there's a whole load of inquiries into the handling of this all over the world, and the profiteering b'stards brought to justice (fat chance).

Must make another cup of tea and chill out lol

a reply to: MonkeyBalls2

They still haven't had the Bush dynasty answer properly for profiteering in WWII. Didn't they sell weapons, or the means to build them to the Nazis? I remember reading that on ATS years back, so it's not exactly gospel.

I'm out of my depth judging the validity of vaccine safety, except for the length of time between vaccination and observation. Mass rollout got underway around a year ago, with a probably a couple months observation on a test group before that. But whatever that duration is that's obviously the limit of their knowledge regarding after effects. Any judgements past that year and bit surely have to be estimates and so in that regard i see it as experimental. How exactly will MRNA additions, alterations or whatever may actually unfurl in our cells effect us past the time already observed.

If these vaccines had not been rushed into us due to a pandemic, then how long would they have been tested, guinea pigs observed before being sanctioned for general use on the public?

a reply to: McGinty

There is good evidence to suggest that this vaccine was ready to go in 2019. They were prepared.

a reply to: MonkeyBalls2

So do you have any information on the the new but not a VOC discovered in France?

In a tweet published this Thursday, December 9, the IHU Méditerranée infection, headed by Professor Didier Raoult, announces that it has discovered a new variant of Covid-19. For the moment, no additional information has been given.

Covid-19: the Marseille IHU, headed by Professor Didier Raoult, has discovered a new variant

seems like it is baptized and numbered as

"It was baptized variant IHU and deposited on GISAID (scientific sharing network, Editor's note) under the name of B.1.640.2." details the establishment in its tweet. To date, no additional information on this variant has been brought to our attention.

a reply to: anonentity

They've been working on mRNA vaccines for the best part of a decade.
It's only with the emergence of Covid worldwide that they have had the go-ahead to give it a try, as well as attenuated virus vaccines.
It seems to have worked pretty well so far, and they are now looking to use mRNA vaccines for many other diseases and viruses that were previously impossible to vaccinate.

a reply to: MonkeyBalls2

No mate this vaccine, with batch numbers and name.

For Covid.

a reply to: puzzled2

First i've heard of it.
Just did a google search for "B.1.640.2" and it came up with a few local websites (South of France).
This one from France3 Provence Côte d'Azur has a tiny amount of info, but that's all there seems to be for the moment.
It seems it was discovered on the 9th December.
All of the people infected are from the town of Forcalquier, in the Alpes de Haute Provence region.
12 confirmed Genome cases, and 3 possible PCR positives.
They say it's way too early to see if it's a "bad" strain, but it might be an ancestor of the "Congo-Brittany" variant that caused 150 cases in Brittany, and then petered out by itself.
They say that an inhabitant of Forcalquier recently came back from Cameroon, but it's still too early to confirm where the IHU variant originated.

The IHU hospital has discovered about 15 variants since summer 2020, the longest lasting one was called "Marseille 4".
They think that one came from a Mink farm.

Github has a tiny discussion about the splitting of the B.1.640 genome into two, with the one in Forcalquier being the minor variant.

I suspect the reason it hasn't been mentioned nationally, is that it isn't a Variant of Interest, or of Concern yet.
The info seems to be coming from Philippe Colson, who works at the IHU Marseille, I think (not sure).
They're better off not mentioning Didier Raoult, he's become a bit of a pariah over here.

a reply to: anonentity

Well, show me the evidence then

(Not being snarky, but you mentioned the 'good evidence').

The Forbes Guy has uploaded the second part of his "Omicron : The Sum of All fears" articles.

Entitled Understanding Omicron: Changes In The Spike Protein And Beyond And What They Portend Part 2

It goes into some detail about the mutations in Omicron, a bit above my understanding, but an interesting read none the less.

For reference, the first part is here : Understanding Omicron: Changes In The Spike Protein And Beyond And What They Portend
He seems to have changed the title to this instead of "Omicron : the Sum of All Fears" that is referenced a few posts above.

A pretty balanced (ish) view on the usefulness of Booster jabs in this article in the Guardian today, entitled : What makes boosters more effective than the first two Covid jabs?

Lots of use of the word 'Hope', and 'likely'.
Lot of that going around, until time lets us know which is correct, and by then it will be too late to do much about it than 'Hope'....(Have I said i'm a pessimist ?)

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.