That was quick. Will be in the rest of the Europe in no time as well.
SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
- Start date
Typical. What good have Belgium ever done for anyone?
Probably is everywhere already.
Likelihood it’s probably already in the U.K. definitely in other parts of Europe, France and Netherlands most likely. So do we close flights like we did to South Africa?
Yeah, you are right - only a question of discovering it. This needs a Greek letter name as well. I guess it will be the Epsilon variant?
It is really depressing, though. Seems like we will never get out ahead of this thing.
Well that was quick. Europe acted too slowly once again
tbf people were warning about this, by not vaccinating 3rd world countries we’d likely see new variants emerge from there..
Also, just my own thought, but South Africa might be the first country with the ability to sequence and detect new variants that this new one hit, it’s possible it’s been raging in bordering countries for a few weeks or months without people realising.
Yeah the person having it in Belgium wasn't in SA but Turkey and Egypt. So it's spreading properly already
The panic and fear went from 0-100 immediately with this didn’t it
Whoops. A damned clever one too, thanks for the reply earlier Jo.
South Africa now plunged into isolation and economic disarray when this variant is probably all over Europe as well. People calling for the scientist who decided to announce the new variant to be held personally liable 
Honestly though, it is obvious this is all over the world - hopefully travel restrictions on South Africa will be lifted.
Honestly though, it is obvious this is all over the world - hopefully travel restrictions on South Africa will be lifted.
Well i hope that he beats it soon and fully. Poor little fella.
I got word from my sons school today that a kid in his pod is covid positive and his parents had sent him in whilst knowing he was positive. Disgusting! We actually got our son tested on Monday this week as he had a bad cough but it was negative. Thankfully it’s almost gone
What to potentially spread it around more?South Africa now plunged into isolation and economic disarray when this variant is probably all over Europe as well. People calling for the scientist who decided to announce the new variant to be held personally liable
Honestly though, it is obvious this is all over the world - hopefully travel restrictions on South Africa will be lifted.
That’s actually reassuring…. if only because when people didn’t panic or take it seriously it really did screw the world wave 1 and then again late 2020 early 2021, so maybe now we’re all panicking it will actually just be nothing. Like the Brazilian strain which didn’t lead to much.
Travel stocks have plummeted pre market, kinda strange because they went up heavily on Wednesday. Yesterday US markets was closed due to thanks giving. Could be an overreaction, could be those that know making moves. Will have to see how mainstream investors reacts at 2:30pm U.K. time.South Africa now plunged into isolation and economic disarray when this variant is probably all over Europe as well. People calling for the scientist who decided to announce the new variant to be held personally liable
Honestly though, it is obvious this is all over the world - hopefully travel restrictions on South Africa will be lifted.
It's already spreading, will be all over the world within 2 months (if it isn't already), but only Southern Africa will be banned from travel and tourism.
As mentioned by many scientists, South Africa has been punished for providing forewarning - kind of incentivizes countries to not do the research if it is going to result in punishment, especially lower income countries.
Disclaimer: I'm obviously biased as I'm South African.
They’ve banned another 5 countries near South Africa. It’s really the only logical thing until they understand more. Ignoring science
1) provides political protection if it becomes worse case scenario
2) if it doesn’t then no one cares and ban removed.
Theoretically you’re right but this happened before with Beta. When Delta became dominant in SA and displaced Beta (talking 95%+ of cases), SA required long quarantine periods - particularly in UK - for several months. It’s easy for a country to be put on a travel ban, but it takes a lot more for it to be removed.
I understand why other countries have done it, but I think there is a big risk that lower income countries will stop researching due to political and economic pressure.
I think the key part of that story is it was from a sample dated 11th November - from Egypt. Now they know what to look for we’ll probably find it’s in lots of countries already and has been spreading for months.
Is it more infectious or deadly ?
This is interesting. The other day AZ CEO was claiming/speculating that the reason hospitalisations are not as servere in the UK as they are in Europe (I don't know if this is true?) is that the AZ vaccine is superior to the mRNA vaccines when it comes to T-Cells in the elderly. I mean he would say that but in the event that this varient is at work in Europe already then it might add some weight to this theory.
Aw shit, here we go again.
Will it be called Echo?
Will it be called Echo?
So he's posting a load of concerning information re the new variant and vaccine efficacy and then three tweets later oh by the way we don't know if these people even have symptoms.
Well he didn’t have to mention symptoms if he just wanted to worry people.
I hope it’s named something as I’m getting lost in all these variant numbers
I’ve heard on WHO video it gets a Greek name once classed as variant of interest or concern. Also lots of people calling it “Nu” variant don’t know if it’s just new in South African accent or the Greek name.
“Nu” will be the greek name if gets officially categorised as a Variant Of Concern (VOC) which seems inevitable.
Well yeah. It's concerning information with a very important caveat. Maybe he should've lead with it but at least he included it.
It is just worth noting that we really don't know how worried to be. There are massive causes for concern because of the quantity and the nature of the mutations but not all mutations work out as destructive as they look.
The UK for example has been monitoring a delta mutation AY42 which looks to have a transmission advantage over the original delta, that is to say: the proportion of delta cases with mutation is growing. However the React-1 study that tracks cases in more detail is seeing more cases with mild symptoms and fewer severe/hospitalised cases. That's also still seen as early data, despite the fact that tens of thousands of cases are involved - because you need a lot of cases to see real patterns in hospitalisations, particularly among younger age groups.
It's right to be concerned, it's wrong to assume worst case. I'm particularly worried that assuming the worst will become another reason for vaccine hesitancy, or delaying boosters because people get trapped in a mindset of "none of them work" or talk about "waiting for a better one". That kind of thinking could kill hundreds of thousands this winter for no gain at all.
So, why is South Africa a hotspot for mutations? First Beta, then another in August and now this one. Is it just random?
Probably doing more sequencing than other countries, finding variants that could have started elsewhere.
It's likely Africa in general because they have low vaccination rates.
But why would SA be doing more sequencing? Surely first world countries are streets ahead?
If that's the case then why didn't the virus mutate more in the first wave when no-one was vaccinated?
A word from Pfizer who have been developing alpha and delta targetted vaccines. Basically they're going to to send those out for clinical trials to check their process for developing modified vaccines (even though we didn't actually need them for Alpha and Delta).
They believe they can go from target identified to vaccine doses available in under 4 months if they have to.
They believe they can go from target identified to vaccine doses available in under 4 months if they have to.
Tweet
— Twitter API (@user) date
You're absolutely right of course. Data on outcomes needs to come out as fast as possible to make any determination on that (probably a couple of weeks?), but it's still worth noting (and emphasising) that this strain appears to be able to evade multiple vaccines enough to infect the vaccinated. This was previously unknown given the low vaccination numbers in South Africa.
South Africa is far more widely connected to the world than most of Africa, though, and has two major global cities in Jo'Burg and Cape Town. It's also, despite all the poverty, the most industrialised and advanced country in Africa. It's a weird mix of global interconnectivity, good infrastructure, densely populated cities, wealth, and extreme poverty combined with low vaccine rates, a bit like India, actually, where Delta came from.
I’ve generally stayed out of this thread so apologies if I’ve misunderstood. I think it’s normal for people to be concerned. Covid impacts us all in different ways, some far more significantly than others for a huge variety of reasons, so personally I think it’s better to stay away from judging people based on their level of hysteria when potentially negative news comes out.
I would say two things though. One is that scientifically this variant presents more risks vs current vaccines than others. Let’s not forget also that Delta did have a significant impact, just thankfully not on the vaccine.
Second is that I don’t think anyone, but certainly not me, are questioning what science and vaccines can achieve. I’m very confident that any variant will eventually be mitigated by vaccination. The issue here is more about timing. If our current vaccine isn’t as effective against this new variant, it will take time to update our vaccination. The issue is what happens in that time frame. Not that I think it’ll never be mitigated.
It did we just didn't know as much at first. The European variant that caused most of the first wave has only small differences to the Wuhan original, but it was different. Alpha and beta emerged in the following 6 months.