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Mutated Covid-19 strain confirmed in Japan as case tally hits record high

japantimes.co.jp

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Re: Mutated Covid-19 strain confirmed in Japan as case tally hits record high

#71

Post by bumbada »

Threeve303 wrote: post #46

What happens if the world gets into a situation where the virus mutates rapidly and we find the vaccines becoming less effective? We assume the drug companies will be able to adapt the vaccine quickly to the new variants. If this happens then it creates a few problems.. One problem is having to continuously distribute a new vaccine to people indefinitely. Another problem is only certain countries are capable of manuf…

We have over 80 different COVID vaccines today if you look at the COVID vaccine tracker. Next year it will be at least 120.

In Spain alone they have 3 different vaccines that are not even in phase 1, but will be next year.

There will be at least 5 totally different technologies against it. There are "slower to market" technologies than RNA but stronger and proven.

Also the weather is going to get better in the North Hemisphere soon.

Re: Mutated Covid-19 strain confirmed in Japan as case tally hits record high

#72

Post by sharken »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #63
GregarianChild wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copy Taiwan. No country has been dealing better with Covid than Taiwan. No lockdown, and > 200 days without new Covid case [1]. Taipei had daily direct flights from Wuhan, and the Diamond Princess mooring near Taipei. They told the world early on [2] how they did it. Summary: Border closure, contract tracing, testing and controlled quarantine for those testing positive . It's worth reading [2] to realise how swiftly,…

So essentially big brother the country for a disease where the average case fatality is a person who is 80 years old with 2 co-morbidities. Where under 55 years old age group (80% of the population) had more deaths by car accident than Covid deaths. Doesn't sound rational to me.

Or acceptable in the free world, fact is that the virus has only successfully been contained in big brother countries and island states.

The rest of the world can not (and should not) try to replicate the same behaviour.

Re: Mutated Covid-19 strain confirmed in Japan as case tally hits record high

#73

Post by m-ee »

bjornsing wrote: post #58
m-ee wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some actual lab work? I’m not a biologist so I can’t give you specific assays. The TWiV team might, I’ll submit a question. If you look at the data behind the NERVTAG report it’s extremely noisy, and is circumstantial. Nothing in there directly measures the viruses ability to spread.

The UK is a giant lab right now and the results of the experiment are in: https://twitter.com/mugecevik/status/1341094871822680067?s=2... What could explain that data other than increased transmissibility?

We’ll have to wait for actual science to come in to answer that. They’re just making inferences from epidemiology and gene sequences. None of this actually does anything to confirm their hypothesis.

Re: Mutated Covid-19 strain confirmed in Japan as case tally hits record high

#75

Post by GregarianChild »

sharken wrote: post #72
nickthemagicman wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So essentially big brother the country for a disease where the average case fatality is a person who is 80 years old with 2 co-morbidities. Where under 55 years old age group (80% of the population) had more deaths by car accident than Covid deaths. Doesn't sound rational to me.

Or acceptable in the free world, fact is that the virus has only successfully been contained in big brother countries and island states. The rest of the world can not (and should not) try to replicate the same behaviour.

What do you find objectionable about Taiwan's Covid response, taking into account its success, not to mention the cost (in a general sense) of quarantining whole countries (which means restricting the freedom of millions of health citizens), and then not being successful, unlike Taiwan?

In 2020, my mother (and millions of other citizens) spent more time at home quarantined than she would have spent in prison, had she committed a serious crime (other than extremely serious stuff like murder) as a first-time offender. Had the quarantine been as successful as Taiwan's policy ...

Re: Mutated Covid-19 strain confirmed in Japan as case tally hits record high

#76

Post by octoberfranklin »

Threeve303 wrote: post #46

What happens if the world gets into a situation where the virus mutates rapidly and we find the vaccines becoming less effective? We assume the drug companies will be able to adapt the vaccine quickly to the new variants. If this happens then it creates a few problems.. One problem is having to continuously distribute a new vaccine to people indefinitely. Another problem is only certain countries are capable of manuf…

> Another problem is only certain countries are capable of manufacturing the vaccine.

In virological warfare "that's a feature, not a bug".

Re: Mutated Covid-19 strain confirmed in Japan as case tally hits record high

#77

Post by enraged_camel »

IAmGraydon wrote: post #57
Threeve303 wrote: post #46

What happens if the world gets into a situation where the virus mutates rapidly and we find the vaccines becoming less effective? We assume the drug companies will be able to adapt the vaccine quickly to the new variants. If this happens then it creates a few problems.. One problem is having to continuously distribute a new vaccine to people indefinitely. Another problem is only certain countries are capable of manuf…

The vaccine creates broad protection against the virus’s spike protein structure. If the virus mutated enough to evade this protection, it would have to develop a structure so radically different that it would likely no longer be able to attach to the ACE2 receptor. What is going on right now is mass anxiety. The vaccine is out, so humanity is imagining how things could still go wrong. The easiest thing to imagine is…

>> What is going on right now is mass anxiety. The vaccine is out, so humanity is imagining how things could still go wrong.

Not enough anxiety, in my opinion. Tons and tons of people are still behaving as if everything is normal, or that they are somehow special.

Re: Mutated Covid-19 strain confirmed in Japan as case tally hits record high

#78

Post by starkd »

GregarianChild wrote: post #49
sigil wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What could we be doing differently beyond what we already should be doing? Are you referring to things like border closing?

Copy Taiwan. No country has been dealing better with Covid than Taiwan. No lockdown, and > 200 days without new Covid case [1]. Taipei had daily direct flights from Wuhan, and the Diamond Princess mooring near Taipei. They told the world early on [2] how they did it. Summary: Border closure, contract tracing, testing and controlled quarantine for those testing positive . It's worth reading [2] to realise how swiftly,…

that's because it's an island. All the islands are doing better than whole continents. You can't contain it unless you go full bore like the chinese - locking people into their homes.

Re: Mutated Covid-19 strain confirmed in Japan as case tally hits record high

#79

Post by tomxor »

jsnell wrote: post #20
sigil wrote: post #7

As discussed on TWiV yesterday, B.1.1.7 isn't a "strain," which has demonstrably different biological properties, but is still considered a "variant." https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-697/ Any biological differences are theorized solely from the genome at this point. In the episode, Racaniello is at pains to point out that genomic differences alone don't imply biological differences in say transmission, and things li…

TWIW has kind of painted themselves into the corner by insisting that anything except biological evidence is irrelevant. The evidence for B.1.1.7 being more transmissive is quite solid, and seems to be getting more so as time goes on. But no matter how strong the statistical data is, it could never be good enough for them. So their policy recommendation ends up as "do nothing at all until there is 100% certain non-ci…

> The problem is that action now is way more valuable than action in 1-2 months [...] If there is a substantially more transmissive variant around, that will make it much harder to buy that time.

But which action? I can see two class of possible cause that do not entirely overlap in response: A singular cause such as a strain; or fluctuations as the emergent behavior of a complex dynamic system. If incorrectly attributed to a localised strain, efforts may be ineffectively focused on creating division between larger populations while removing the public's focus on the more evenly distributed measures we are already employing.

> You need to be able to act on the balance of probabilities, not wait for perfect information.

How about the probabilities between the two class of above cause? We seem to have an innate bias towards inferring 1:1 causal relationships which makes a strain feel like a simple and attractive explanation. This bias fails miserably in the face of dynamic systems where behavior cannot usually be attributed to a single variable... IANAV, but the spread of infectious disease is without a doubt a complex dynamic system from which a significant degree of unpredictable behavior must emerge.

To be honest this problem is not even particularly unique to this situation... The world is vast and complex, yet people usually want simple explanations - particularly for undesirable situations, something tangible to blame, a villain... The media continually exploit this desire and I cannot help but feel this is another example. A strain (real or not) makes for an excellent villain and story VS "chaos" which is extremely difficult for any reporter to spin an accessible narrative into.

Re: Mutated Covid-19 strain confirmed in Japan as case tally hits record high

#80

Post by postalrat »

Threeve303 wrote: post #46

What happens if the world gets into a situation where the virus mutates rapidly and we find the vaccines becoming less effective? We assume the drug companies will be able to adapt the vaccine quickly to the new variants. If this happens then it creates a few problems.. One problem is having to continuously distribute a new vaccine to people indefinitely. Another problem is only certain countries are capable of manuf…

Mutations are always happening and produced the coronavirus that caused covid-19 as well as every other coronavirus you have caught in your lifetime.
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