Coronavirus COVID-19 Thread

SoloFlyer

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- Spain: Following yesterdays arrest of man who intentionally infected his colleagues, Judge charges him with intentionally causing injury, and was released awaiting trial: "[after his previously reported actions, which included visiting a gym after work]...his PCR test came back positive. His colleagues were then tested, with five returning positive results. They in turn infected family members, including three infants, police said. At the gym the man visited, three people tested positive and also infected family members." Total of infected was 22 from one man.
Wait...so they released him after intentionally infecting people? Is he still contagious? This sounds very stupid to me.
 

NaffNaffBobFace

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Wait...so they released him after intentionally infecting people? Is he still contagious? This sounds very stupid to me.
As the chain of infection went through his colleagues and the Gym attendees to their families and even 3 children, I suspect he has long since recovered, hold on I'll see if I can find a news article with some details...

Here we go, it indicates the police began investigating at the end of January after a hot-spot outbreak in the town of Manacor:

 
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Aramsolari

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As the chain of infection went through his colleagues and the Gym attendees to their families and even 3 children, I suspect he has long since recovered, hold on I'll see if I can find a news article with some details...

Here we go, it indicates the police began investigating at the end of January after a hot-spot outbreak in the town of Manacor:

Gotta bring back tar and feathering for these people.
 

NaffNaffBobFace

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COVID Catharsis Corner - Reports from around the world from today, Monday 26th of April:

- World: 147,312,053 confirmed cases and 3,112,019 confirmed deaths.

- India: Sees another world record high new daily cases at 352,991, a fifth day in a row of record highs.

- Google/Microsoft: Companies offer India supplies and funding to help support during the crisis.

- China: Indicates it is in communication with its bordering country India as to how it may be able to help out saying it “stands ready to provide India with necessary support and assistance to get the epidemic under control.”

- EU: Starts process of suing AstraZeneca over vaccine contract and supply.

- UK: Prime Minister denies that in October he said "I'd rather see bodies piled high in the thousands rather than see another lockdown" or words to that effect after a leak suggested there was hesitance to enact another set of restrictions as another wave of the virus took hold. When asked by a news paper if he had said it, he responded: "No, but again, I think the important thing, I think, that people want us to get on and do as a government is to make sure that the lockdowns work, and, and they have."

- Nepal: Sees surge of cases with both UK and Indian variants detected.

- Pfizer: Work on a COVID antiviral pill named PF-07321332 has entered human trials with a pool of 60 volunteers. If successful and no adverse side effects found, it may be able to be rolled out by the end of the year to treat anyone with COVID symptoms, stopping it from progressing into a severe illness.

- South Africa: To resume rollout of Johnson and Johnson vaccine.

- Thailand: Prime Minister fined 6,000 Bhat ($190) for not wearing a mask in a meeting.

- UK: Opens up vaccination to anyone aged 44 and over.

- Portugal: Reports zero COVID deaths for the last 24 hours, the first time since August 2020.

- WHO: World Health Organization indicates the pandemic disrupted access to routine vaccinations for conditions like measles and others, and has called for attention to get things back in order in that regard. “If we’re to avoid multiple outbreaks of life-threatening diseases like measles, yellow fever and diphtheria, we must ensure routine vaccination services are protected in every country in the world,”

- Kazakhstan: Domestically developed vaccine called QazCovid-in, still in third stage trials, to be rolled out with the Health Minister receiving his first of two jabs on live TV.
 

NaffNaffBobFace

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COVID Catharsis Corner - Reports from around the world from today, Tuesday 27th of April:

- World: 148,097,788 confirmed cases and 3,125,150 confirmed deaths.

- US: As take up of vaccines begins to fall, West Virginia announces plans to offer people between the age of 16 and 35 a $100 savings bond as an insensitive to get vaccinated and will be also offered to anyone between those ages who have already been vaccinated, too.

- US: Miami, and a fee-paying school bans any teacher who has been vaccinated claiming they might "pass something on" to the students.

- US: Rules for face mask wearing outdoors relaxed for anyone who has been fully vaccinated but are still required in public spaces where required: “The release of these new guidelines is a first step at helping fully vaccinated Americans resume activities they had stopped doing because of the pandemic, while being mindful of the potential risk of transmitting the virus to others,”

- Canada: Reports countries first death of a person from blood clotting after taking Oxford/AZ vaccine.

- Ireland: Passes Johnson and Johnson vaccine for use in the over 50's.

- Spain: Last months test concert attended by 5,000 (played by the band Love of Lesbian) who were screened for COVID before attending and obeyed restrictions such as and wearing FPP2 filter masks, reports only six attendees went on to report contracting COVID-19.

- Brazil: Launches inquiry into governments handling of the crisis.

- UK: Government refuses to launch inquiry in to handling of the crisis stating those who would need to provide evidence would taken away from their vital work responding to the pandemic at this time.

- UK: Those of the age of 42 and over invited to make appointments for vaccination.

- UK: Group of MP's state the 93,000 fines handed out during the pandemic to this point for breaching COVID rules should all be reviewed to make sure they were fair.

- Iran: Detects 3 cases of South African variant.

- Fiji: After seeing no local transmission for a whole year, the outbreak which has forced the Capital city into Lockdown is confirmed to be the Indian variant.

- Australia: Olympics team to receive vaccinations ahead of traveling to the event.

- Long COVID: Researchers early findings on data from 500 children admitted to a COVID hospital in Moscow between April and August indicate almost a quater of them were still experiencing symptoms between seven and nine months later with the most common symptoms being fatigue, sleep disturbances and sensory problems.
 
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NaffNaffBobFace

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India Is What Happens When Rich People Do Nothing

Yeah I’m really worried about what’s happening in India. It’s an absolute perfect storm. Gonna affect vaccine availability.

The sheer population and infection rate dwarfs every country that went through previous waves. I think one of these writers calls it more of a Wall than a Wave. Holy shit.
It's bad but not totally unexpected. We've been waiting in this thread for ages for it to take hold in somewhere like India and now it has... and wow it's grasp is so, so strong.

I had a thought, call it a precognition, which does not make me smile in regards to the situations in India and Brazil and probably other places too with very high numbers...

Even if the vaccination program could ramp up and get 100% of doses produced by the Serum Institute a day into people, the number of live active cases and the number of rolling new infections is now so vast, and the number of vaccines in active use so small - only two that I know of, the Oxford/AZ vaccine (called Covishield there) and the domestically produced Covaxin, that the virus has the upper hand in being able to create variants which may be able to adapt to the vaccine defenses they have...

A dangerous mutation could occur in a country with only one case, but other measures like social distancing to quell asymptomatic spread, and quarantine of those who have tested positive, can and probably already has stopped at least one mutation which could have caused the whole world to burn... but the very high transmission and seemingly uncontrolled spread in India and Brazil and probably a few other places very much risks a fluke mutation being able to slip through and become the new dominant variant...

I think what I'm concerned about has already sort of happened with the South Africa variant and the Oxford/AZ vaccine where South Africa isn't using the Oxford/AZ vaccine as its current version was found to only have an efficiency of 10% against that type of the virus. The difference in this case was the SA variant was there before the Ox/AZ vaccine got to rollout in the country. Imagine if 80% of South Africa had been vaccinated, they'd gone back to normal and then the variant had emerged?

I fear there will be an occurrence on a huge scale, perhaps India, perhaps Brazil, perhaps somewhere else, where Vaccination is shown not to be a silver bullet in the worst way possible by bypassing a portion of the population who assume they have immunity from a vaccine the virus has adapted to... yes, artificial immunity via vaccination is a powerful part of a packet of measures, but all the measures need to be taken in their entirety, like a course of antibiotics, until after the illness is over or we risk it returning with a resistance to the things which were previously effective.



While looking up the name of Covaxin just now, I see reports the Russian SputnikV has been approved and will be rolled out from May 1st, so a small bonus assuming it works in a different enough way from the others to offer another type of immune response the virus would have to mutate through, but still a big personal concern with the number of live infections and transmissions being so high.
 
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Bambooza

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I fear there will be an occurrence on a huge scale, perhaps India, perhaps Brazil, perhaps somewhere else, where Vaccination is shown not to be a silver bullet in the worst way possible by bypassing a portion of the population who assume they have immunity from a vaccine the virus has adapted to... yes, artificial immunity via vaccination is a powerful part of a packet of measures, but all the measures need to be taken in their entirety, like a course of antibiotics, until after the illness is over or we risk it returning with a resistance to the things which were previously effective.

Not to be the bump in the night but you do remember this virus is zoonotic and its when viruses jump species that they have the largest mutation potential.

.



So in the end the vaccine is not going to remove the risk of the virus from the population. Its best outcome is to help more people to have a less sever antibody reaction to the virus when exposed. In this those who do not want to or can't will just have to roll the dice on their own reaction to the current strain or future strains of the virus.
 
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NaffNaffBobFace

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COVID Catharsis Corner - Reports from around the world from today, Wednesday 28th of April:

- World: 148,894,033 confirmed cases and 3,139,309 confirmed deaths.

- WHO: Launches crowdfunding campaign for Covax vaccine sharing system called Go Give One, every $7 donated buys and deliveres one additional vaccine: https://gogiveone.org/

- India: Sees record high new daily cases at 360,960 and record high new daily deaths at 3,293.

- India: Passes 200,000 confirmed COVID deaths. The number of deaths over average has not yet been indicated but it is suggested that it will be higher.

- India: WHO indicates India accounted for 38% of last weeks new cases 5.7 million new cases.

- US: Dr. Fauci says the world has failed India.

- US: Uber announces addition to its app to allow users to book vaccination appointments.

- Mexico: To produce Russian SputnikV vaccine domestically.

- Pakistan: Sees record high new daily deaths.

- UK: Secures an order for an additional 60 million Pfizer shots to be used as boosters in the Autumn.

- UK: Data shows vaccine takeup in the over 50's has been incredibly high at over 95%.

- UK: Study by Public Health England of 57,000 contacts from 24,000 households reveals people who have had one dose of vaccine 38% to 49% less likely to pass the virus on than unvaccinated people. Peer review still due on that one though.

- Japan: It is revealed the country has only administered one fifth of the vaccines it has procured to this point and the rollout is described as "painfully slow"

- Assam: 6.4 magnitude earthquake damages hospitals treating COVID sick, hampering services.

- Vietnam: Authorities warn the population not to gather in groups during the upcoming public holiday as cases climb.
 
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NaffNaffBobFace

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Not to be the bump in the night but you do remember this virus is zoonotic and its when viruses jump species that they have the largest mutation potential.
Not a bad point, it can and will keep mutating, pets are catching it from their owners, there is likely a population of non-human carriers the virus came from in the first place... I admit went over the top in regards to it being gone gone, however as with some real world country examples like New Zealand if you can get it down to a level low enough it can then be contained and controlled in the areas it does pop up, maybe even just the streets it pops up in, and the rest of the world will be able to carry on as before with those certain areas out of bounds for two weeks...

As it's massively mutational was the situation in India ever the only the likely outcome? Would allowing 'Nature to take its course' have only ever resulted in a few hundred million, maybe a couple of billion, dead?
 

Aramsolari

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So in the end the vaccine is not going to remove the risk of the virus from the population. Its best outcome is to help more people to have a less sever antibody reaction to the virus when exposed. In this those who do not want to or can't will just have to roll the dice on their own reaction to the current strain or future strains of the virus.
Bit anecdotal here but my partner’s colleague (they’re all hospital nurses) caught the virus AFTER getting her second shot (Pfizer). She only found out about it from routine testing. Other than the stress from knowing she caught it, she only had very mild symptoms and was back at work in two weeks.

So I guess that means the vaccine is working. You can still catch it but you’re more likely to be asymptomatic, less of a spreader, and well......live.
 

Bambooza

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Not a bad point, it can and will keep mutating, pets are catching it from their owners, there is likely a population of non-human carriers the virus came from in the first place... I admit went over the top in regards to it being gone gone, however as with some real world country examples like New Zealand if you can get it down to a level low enough it can then be contained and controlled in the areas it does pop up, maybe even just the streets it pops up in, and the rest of the world will be able to carry on as before with those certain areas out of bounds for two weeks...

As it's massively mutational was the situation in India ever the only the likely outcome? Would allowing 'Nature to take its course' have only ever resulted in a few hundred million, maybe a couple of billion, dead?

A few million dead. This virus strain lethality is not high enough to reach into the billions. Still if the virus managed to infect everyone and 3% died from it it would total a world wide death count of 210 million. But infection mapping shows that once you get over 30% infection it becomes increasingly harder to infect the rest.

The advantage to nature taking its course is that nature is brutal. Either you are strong enough to survive and pass on your genes or you die and thus your weak genes are eliminated from the gene pool. This leads to the disadvantage of artificial immunity with vaccines in that you now have to continue to take them



As for non-human carriers like pets this is a non factor. When we talk about zoonotic pools we are taking mostly about the migratory animals like Birds and Bats.

The initial spread of WNV (West Nile virus) in the U.S. along the eastern seaboard coincided with a major bird migration corridor. The subsequent rapid movement of the virus inland could have been facilitated by the elliptical migration routes used by many songbirds.

Avian influenza strains do not usually replicate well in humans, but they can undergo genetic reassortment with human strains that co-infect pigs. This can result in new strains with a marked increase in virulence for humans. Wild birds can acquire enteropathogens, such as Salmonella and Campylobacter spp., by feeding on raw sewage and garbage, and can spread these agents to humans directly or by contaminating commercial poultry operations. Conversely, wild birds can acquire drug-resistant enteropathogens from farms and spread these strains along migration routes. Birds contribute to the global spread of emerging infectious diseases in a manner analogous to humans traveling on aircraft. A better understanding of avian migration patterns and infectious diseases of birds would be useful in helping to predict future outbreaks of infections due to emerging zoonotic pathogens.

In fact studies have been ongoing in regards to large distance migration birds like the Arctic tern which have a inter-hemispheric travel (Arctic circle to Antarctica), as well as other migratory birds that summer in the arctic circle before migrating back to their winter feeding grounds across the Americas, Asia and Europe.

I would also not use New Zealand as any sort of example we cannot mimic else where because of their unique isolated environment more so then Australia but both do not have the same sort of mixing of migratory birds and other species.

The second part of your question is once we get to a low level what's to prevent a new strain from popping up. You have to remember doctors are not looking or treating to the rare they are going to initially treat it as the common until such a time as they can rule out everything else. Once again New Zealand had the advantage that they were one of the last places to be infected so even though the world medical community reacted as fast as is reasonable it was to far spread for any other country to have the same success doing the same thing they did.

For a street level lock down to work you would need to do rapid testing daily and then lock down whole cities/areas if a single person reported positive. Of course as I mentioned before its not going to stop the virus as its in the birds, the bats, rats, and other animals so unless you are welling to exterminate all of the animals with in a 100 mile/160km range also near the infected person then its just not a reasonable solution.

So we either can let the virus run its course killing off the weak with in our population or we can step onto the treadmill of seasonal vaccine shots. Covid is not the first vaccine that requires booster shots. We have a yearly shot for the seasonal flu, boosters for a number of things.

 

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Bit anecdotal here but my partner’s colleague (they’re all hospital nurses) caught the virus AFTER getting her second shot (Pfizer). She only found out about it from routine testing. Other than the stress from knowing she caught it, she only had very mild symptoms and was back at work in two weeks.

So I guess that means the vaccine is working. You can still catch it but you’re more likely to be asymptomatic, less of a spreader, and well......live.
Not sure I would say less of a spreader but yes your body will have an easier time dealing with the infection which is a great outcome. And I am glad to hear your partners colleague had mild symptoms.
 

Vavrik

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I'm not going to speculate on the source of the virus except to say - they have pretty much ruled out bats and pangolins as the source of the human infections. They have not ruled out birds that I know of.
 
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Vavrik

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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7497757/#j_jvetres-2020-0050_ref_067 (last line of "Bat Coronavirus" section)
See also this. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-020-0771-4

There is another paper I had but can't find at the moment, it makes the same claims that the human strains of coronavirus do not appear to be descended from the same strains that infected animal such as bats or pangolins at the time of the discovery of the virus in humans. That there was an earlier strain in common.
 
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