Seems the hospitals are still less busy than last year https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9043583/NHS-data-su...
London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain
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Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain
#12British Medical Journal (BMJ) page about the new variant: https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4857
It has 17 mutated bases (is that a lot? or typical?) Of particular concern is the mutated spike protein which "may, in theory, result in the virus becoming more infectious and spreading more easily between people."
Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain
#13You know it must be serious because Boris has been extremely resistant to imposing restrictions this entire time, and he knows how much people were looking forward to their Christmas. Apparantly it's around 70% more infectious, although I'm not sure how that's calculated. I guess we all just have to hope this doesn't affect the efficacy of the vaccines. Apparently the spike protein is affected, although it sounds lik…
He hasn’t been extremely resistant at all, the facts speak to the exact opposite.
I agree; I'm not somebody who would have voted for him, but he's had some really tough decisions to make, and whether or not he's made the right call or dragged his heels at times, he's clearly been prepared to upend his own ideological leanings when needed and I respect him and the government for that.
Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain
#14You know it must be serious because Boris has been extremely resistant to imposing restrictions this entire time, and he knows how much people were looking forward to their Christmas. Apparantly it's around 70% more infectious, although I'm not sure how that's calculated. I guess we all just have to hope this doesn't affect the efficacy of the vaccines. Apparently the spike protein is affected, although it sounds lik…
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Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain
#15As has been pointed out in an earlier article about the "new strain"[1]: "Let's not be hysterical. It doesn't mean it's more transmissible or more infectious or dangerous." That there are new strains of COVID-19 has been covered over, and over, and over, and over again on the This Week in Virology podcast[2] (which usually has 4 to 6 virologists on it every week discussing COVID-19 news), and they've always had the s…
That's old news, unfortunately. The latest data suggest that it is significantly more transmissible. "Up to" 70% more, according to the UK government's press conference. This is big.
Luckily, it doesn't seem to be more dangerous in terms of hospital admissions.
Statement from Chris Whitty, UK's chief medical advisor to the government: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/statement-from-chief-medi...
Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
He hasn’t been extremely resistant at all, the facts speak to the exact opposite.
I agree; I'm not somebody who would have voted for him, but he's had some really tough decisions to make, and whether or not he's made the right call or dragged his heels at times, he's clearly been prepared to upend his own ideological leanings when needed and I respect him and the government for that.
As a 23 year old I personally cannot wait to pay for it. Nothing makes me happier than a nice big fat tax bill at the end of the year for the rest of my life.
Surely, considering the actual lethality of this, a better approach would have been education. Educate people of the risks, let them isolate if they want to, and let everybody else get on with it.
Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain
#17At some point natural selection should run its course. Without countermeasures a virus looses lethality over time, these countermeasures select for virus strains which transmit even under extreme counter measures easily. Basically the opposite of what one would hope for.
> Without countermeasures a virus looses lethality over time, these countermeasures select for virus strains which transmit even under extreme counter measures easily. How do you explain smallpox, which has remained highly lethal for a very long time, during much of which we didn't really have countermeasures available?
The naive explanation is that its mutation rate is low.
Also the evolving to be less lethal is very much a shorthand, and my impression is that it is a description made specifically to influenza, though it’s not entirely limited to that virus.
Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain
#18You know it must be serious because Boris has been extremely resistant to imposing restrictions this entire time, and he knows how much people were looking forward to their Christmas. Apparantly it's around 70% more infectious, although I'm not sure how that's calculated. I guess we all just have to hope this doesn't affect the efficacy of the vaccines. Apparently the spike protein is affected, although it sounds lik…
Boris just says stuff day to day. best just to ignore him completely because the next day he’ll be saying something different.
Three days ago he said it would be inhumane to cancel Christmas. Today he said the data from the last 72 hours forced a change.
Johnson is an oaf, but covid has kept him fairly serious. His waffling bumbling act was dropped.
Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain
#19British Medical Journal (BMJ) page about the new variant: https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4857 It has 17 mutated bases (is that a lot? or typical?) Of particular concern is the mutated spike protein which "may, in theory, result in the virus becoming more infectious and spreading more easily between people."
> Mutated spike protein
Hm. Let’s hope the vaccine still works.
Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain
#20Shouldn’t new strains be more contagious but less deadly?