So why in God's name is the US not banning travel from UK to stop new strain?

Banning international travel to stop or slow a pandemic is dumb. Our “experts” in the media told us so.

 

Exactly. Those were travel restrictions, not a ban, with a page-long list of exceptions. A real travel ban is what Uruguay did. Borders 100% closed by air, land, or sea. Nobody comes in. No exceptions. No flights. This allowed Uruguay to be one of the countries with the smallest total number of Covid-19 cases and deaths. However regarding these new strains, it's probably too late. There's probably already community transmission of them, given that cases found in the US occurred in people who hadn't traveled.

 

That was the B.1.1.7. The South African one, the 501.V2, is more concerning in terms of evading the vaccine. The main issue here is not these strains being more lethal, but rather, resulting in a bigger burden for the healthcare system which THEN will make the entire situation more lethal.

Saying that it's all the fault of the media and the fearmongers won't change certain virological realities. You can comfort yourself as much as you want by thinking this is all the media (for what? I though the election was already over; weren't Covid-19 supposed to disappear on Nov 4th???), but yes, the situation is concerning.

If (and fortunately for now it's still an if) an aggressive strain evades the vaccines, yes, we can tweak the mRNA vaccines in 6 weeks, but the problem is, how to get production capacity, ingredients, vials, syringes, distribution, inoculation, basically redoing it all over again while running against the clock in a race with a very fast-moving strain. No, this is not good. Fingers crossed, but yes, I'm worried.

 

Great, now there is a new strain emerging in Nigeria, P681H. Not much is known about it, yet. The situation is still being looked at. Nigeria did have a 52% increase in infections over the last 4 weeks.

 

I hate to say this, but it's too late. Banning travel will not work at stopping the spread of the mutated virus. It's already here in the US.

 

No evidence of that, for the B.1.1.7. Not significantly worse, but not better either. If anything, a small trend to be more deadly.

https://assets.publishing.service.g...cal_Briefing_VOC202012-2_Briefing_2_FINAL.pdf

28-day case-fatality rate of the previous strain in England = 0.73%
28-day case-fatality rate of the new B.1.1.7 strain in England = 0.89%

(Clarification: Variant of Concern 202012/01 is one and the same; that's another way to name the B.1.1.7 strain).

 

This thread is about the UK. You talked about China. Irrelevant.

 

I've never understood that argument. So if a thousand people come in and they are infected with the new strain and they spread out all over the country, this will not be worse?

 

A while back I read up on the idea viruses mutate to become less deadly. The only really definitive study is of a DNA virus in rabbits, but the principles apply here. It’s common sense the virus isn’t operating in a vacuum. The host has genetic variability that can be “selected” as well. So we end up with a back and forth battle for survival where nothing is predictable except change. Here are some links if anyone is interested. It’s really fascinating.

https://www.virology.ws/2019/03/21/rabbits-and-viruses-an-iconic-example-of-natural-selection/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3464225/

 

Possibly due to the proof that this mutation is already HERE in a few states? This is a virus and just like all others, it will continue to morph and slide to make itself survivable. Typically, this leads to a weakening over time but even if it changes to be more deadly, it's a VY RUS. It cannot be destroyed by any means other than total lockdown until the last infected person is gone. There are fewer than 2 million dead, worldwide but nearly 200 million are on a path to imminent starvation.
For some perspective, the H1N1 of 1918-1920, killed between 50-100 MILLION worldwide.
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/reconstruction-1918-virus.html

The deaths and disabilities brought on by this virus are horrible and one can both agree with the reality of the virus and the consequences compared to others without being "anti-science"

 

Biden's problem to deal with

Besides, the new strain isn't more dangerous. It just is more readily spread.

 

Yeah, who knows? So far no one has even isolated "a" Covid-19 virus. Until they can actually isolate a specific virus, everyone is just spinning their wheels. China had an outbreak of atypical pneumonia, not categorized elsewhere, and now it seems doctors are just lumping any unspecified cases of pneumonia as "Covid-19". The whole world panicked. Until and unless scientists can isolate a specific "Covid-19" virus, not just fairly common strands of protein bits, it's just a catch-all at this point.

People are starting to get FOIA releases, and no one has isolated "Covid".

 

I don't know much about the South African strain, unlike the England strain, as it's been less studied than the England variant. It is called B.1.351, a.k.a. 20C/501Y.V2 or to be short, 501.V2. Unlike the B.1.1.7, it does not contain a deletion at 69/70 but does contain other mutations in the S protein. In this post here, I had talked about the 69/70 deletion and its implication for diagnostic tests; the South African variant lacking that, I guess we can't use this shortcut to diagnose it:

http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/be-very-afraid.581537/#post-1072336237

Here is what I do know about it:

On December 18, 2020, the South African government reported the emergence and rapid increase of a new variant designated 501.V2. The new variant was detected by the Kwazulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform (KRISP), through routine genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 from samples collected from over 50 different health facilities in Eastern Cape, Western Cape and Kwazulu-Natal.

It has multiple changes in the spike protein, including amino-acid modification N501Y which is also present in the VOC 202012/01 (a.k.a. B.1.1.7). Phylogenetic analysis of 2,589 SARS-CoV-2 whole genomes from South Africa collected between March 5th and November 25th identified 190 sequences of the variant from samples collected between 15 October 15th and November 25th.

This analysis indicates that the variant emerged in early August in Nelson Mandela Bay, located on the coast of the Eastern Cape Province. By early November, it was the dominant variant in the Eastern Cape and Western Cape Provinces. Preliminary results indicate that this variant is associated with a higher viral load and faster spread which may be related to higher transmissibility. No evidence is available yet on whether the infection severity is different.

So far more than 300 cases with the variant have been confirmed in South Africa. On December 22nd, two geographically separate cases of this new variant were detected in the UK. Both are contacts of symptomatic individuals returning to the UK from South Africa. On December 28th, one case of this new variant was detected in Finland in a returning traveler from South Africa.

Here are the S protein mutations initially found in the South African variant: D80A, D215G, E484K, N501Y and A701V. Here is what greatly concerns me: these were the 5 INITIAL S-protein mutations for the 501.V2. However, subsequent analysis showed that this variant has already acquired MORE S-protein mutations: L18F, R246I, K417N, and deletion 242- 244.

So in a short time, we went from 5 S-protein mutations to 9. This is concerning because as you all may know by now, the antibodies made by the vaccines attach to the S-protein.

There is currently not enough information available to determine whether the 501.V2 poses a possible risk related to vaccine match and effectiveness. The antigenic characterization of this new variant is ongoing, and results are expected in the coming weeks.

This is a relatively recent article on it, from 12/22/2020:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.21.20248640v1.full.pdf

By the way, let me introduce you all to this ugly baby, the infamous Spike Protein of the SARS-CoV-2. You can see the sites of the mutations I was talking about:

Say hello, S-protein. A little smile, please.

 

Absurd. What a bunch of baloney.

 

The B.1.1.7 was detected today north of Albany, state of New York. So we have found it now in four American states.

 

Yes. But you forgot to mention: in a time when we didn't have ICUs, ventilators, remdesivir, monoclonal antibodies, advanced treatment protocols like the MATH+, mRNA vaccines, various antibiotics to treat secondary infection, enoxaparin, methylprednisolone, etc. That is, apples and oranges.

Still, the H1N1 pandemic killed about 600,000 Americans (estimated). In 40 days, the way things are going, we'll be getting to 500,000 (and no, the vaccines won't have the time to stop it from happening, not yet). And it's not over yet. Not over here, and not over elsewhere. So, for now the "perspective" should be postponed. Once it's all said and done, we'll look again at the final numbers. Regardless of how serious the 1918-20 H1N1 was, the SARS-CoV-2 is ALSO very serious and the worst public health crisis in more than 100 years.

 

This is a memo from the African CDC about the South African strain:

https://africacdc.org/download/aler...ariant-with-multiple-spike-protein-mutations/

For lay people, this is an excellent Q&A document on the South African strain, put together by the very organization that first detected it:

https://www.krisp.org.za/news.php?id=460

 

Comparing anything to what has happened over 100 years ago is rather stupid.
!00 years ago people had a hygiene level, that would make our skin crawl.
My be twice a week a bathe, change of close. Running water ? Floor level toilets. No private toilets.
Daily sponge bath at best, not washing your hair.
Sewer only in the big cities and than not quiet.

That the Spanish flu spread like a wild fire in a environment like this, is no big surprise.
The hygiene conditions were hardly better, when the black plague hit Europe, in the middle ages.

Considering what we have today, daily showers and bathes, all kinde sanitizers, high quality washing machines and soap and so on and son and being a information society, as they claim.
This virus is way more serious and the death and casualties 100 years ago would have been 10 or 20 times.
If not more.

 

Dazing the peasants with words. LOL.

 

I like to watch or read completely whatever is presented before commenting, but I’m about halfway through the video and have a couple concerns already. The first is the claim human chromosomes contain 93 (I may have the number incorrect) identical primer segments to SARS-CoV-2 genetic material. Of course this is impossible because human chromosomes are composed of DNA and SARS-CoV-2 is an RNA virus. DNA uses the nucleotide thymine whereas RNA uses uracil instead.

Now they weren’t real clear as to whether they were referring to the material (genetic information) between the primers or the primers themselves. If they were referring to the genetic material between primers the above applies. If they are referring to the actual primers, not only does the above apply, but there’s the added problem that dissimilar genetic material excised because of the existence of identical primers in human chromosomes will be ignored in RT-PCR tests. So it doesn’t matter if it’s in the sample or not.

For these reasons the caffeine analogy they propose completely breaks down because there is only “caffeine“ in the SARS-CoV-2 virus, not in other pollutants as they claim.

The second problem I see is they completely ignore the fact the isolation technique they prefer is not modern technology. Because enveloped RNA viruses don’t retain their structural integrity well when centrifuged and filtered, the vero culture method they refer to is preferred because combined with freezing of the cultured virus better electron micrographs are obtainable.

In short, I haven’t had time to look into all their claims, but they don’t seem to be particularly well informed.

 

Which means more dangerous, no?

 

So you think that the only reason for the China travel ban was a lack of tests?

 

That mentions that back in March, Trump banned foreign nationals if they visited the UK "in the past 14 days." So people who visited in April were okay?

 

~ Here we see optimism regarding the effectiveness of vaccine therapy for original as well as new China virus :
▶ Vaccines will work against new coronavirus variants spreading through U.K. and South Africa, experts believe
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/covid-mutations-vaccines-effectiveness/2020/12/24/bcf3ea76-45ed-11eb-a277

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00502-w

~ Are you not impressed .. ?

 

My take from what they are saying is that if you take a nose swab (of snot) and the test is looking for particular pieces of Covid (a strand of protein grouping), then there may be the "sought for" protein patterns in the snot which is not Covid, but will show "positive". Essentially the protein grouping isn't unique to Covid, and until some scientist is able to isolate a "whole" Covid unit (not just pieces or markers), separate from everything else in the snot sample then there is no proof that this particular virus even exists. They haven't separated the virus from the multitude of other genetic materials in the snot.

Scientists have been able to isolate the herpes virus, the chicken pox virus and others as proof those exist as separate and unique viruses. No one so far has isolated the Covid-19 virus (or the HIV virus). The topic is getting quite a bit of buzz right now. As a layman, I may not have chosen the most convincing video to post. I've been reading articles and watching info on the topic from various sources. Perhaps as a non-scientist myself, that one was "dumbed down" for the layman in easier to understand concepts versus being technically accurate from a purely scientific standpoint. I know Dr. Cowan leans toward holistic health and "food as medicine" and is not a virologist or epidemiologist.