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How many will die of Covid19 in the 2020s directly and indirectly

Less than 10,000
10 (14.7%)
10,000-100,000
9 (13.2%)
100,000-1,000,000
9 (13.2%)
One to ten million
13 (19.1%)
Ten to a hundred million
14 (20.6%)
Hundred million to one billion
9 (13.2%)
Over a billion
4 (5.9%)

Total Members Voted: 59

Voting closed: March 03, 2020, 12:39:52 AM

Author Topic: COVID-19  (Read 1691774 times)

Rodius

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12050 on: April 26, 2021, 03:27:56 AM »
What perplexes me is the things we need to do to combat Covid are not difficult.

1 - wear a mask when required. Typically when an outbreak is local.
2 - wash your hands when you get home.
3 - get tested for Covid if you get sick.
4 - allow tracing to happen when required. (when there is a local outbreak)
5 - get the safe vaccine.
6 - if you are waiting for a test result or have Covid, stay home.

The way people are behaving, you would think they were being asked to chop off their own hand.

Every single rich country in the world can easily apply these measures. Many poorer countries could do most of the above list as well.

I fail to understand why doing this list of things is so hard. The virus killed 1.8 million people from a standing start (compared to the endemic flu which kills about 500K people with 1 billion infections) and it isn't hard to see Covid killing up to 4 million people this year.

Even if you think this is a weak virus, surely it is worthwhile following the above to-do list to help prevent the growing list of deaths and damage this virus is doing to people?

We stay home when we have the flu and that only kills 500K people. Surely it makes sense to apply higher standards for something that has killed 2.9 million people in the last twelve months (and 1.9 million in the last six months) without it even existing 18 months ago?
« Last Edit: April 26, 2021, 04:26:25 AM by Rodius »

El Cid

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12051 on: April 26, 2021, 08:30:15 AM »
So i agree with James Ward's recommendations:

"So what is important is that we stay vigilant, and in particular focus on the following four things:
1)  Urgently gather more data on the potential level of immunity escape (vs vaccines and prior infection) for B.1.351 & others to refine the threat assessment.

2)  Continue to test and sequence to track the emergence of VOCs in the UK as we open up

3)  Prepare vaccine manufacturing capacity and supply contracts for quick-response boosters to re-vax the vulnerable groups asap if a variant with significant ‘escape’ does emerge

4)  Develop contingency plans to be used if an ‘escape’ variant emerges faster than the vaccine boosters can be delivered, and we need to buy ourselves some time."

Exactly what I wrote about upthread many times: vaccine escape of variants is THE question right now. We need data and we need to prepare boosters.

And maybe after many fuckups, European governments should get prepared to do real fast and widespread contact-tracing (Asia-style) which is much cheaper than a lockdown...

The Walrus

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12052 on: April 26, 2021, 03:34:37 PM »
Reported yesterday on worldometer:

New Cases:
India  -  354,531
Rest of the world - 372,888


zenith

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12053 on: April 26, 2021, 06:00:51 PM »
Covid triple-mutant found in India could be much deadlier, may be resistant to existing vaccines
https://www.businessinsider.co.za/covid-triple-mutant-in-india-could-be-much-more-deadly-2021-4

As India contends with its second major wave of COVID cases and a double-mutated variant of the virus, it now faces a new threat - a triple-mutant variant.

Scientists found two triple-mutant varieties in patient samples in four states: Maharashtra, Delhi, West Bengal, and Chhattisgarh. Researchers in the country have dubbed it the "Bengal strain" and say it has the potential to be even more infectious than the double-mutant variant.

This is because three COVID variants have merged to form a new, possibly deadlier variant.

The Times of India spoke to Vinod Scaria, a researcher at the CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology in India, who said that the triple mutant was also an "immune escape variant" - a strain that helps the virus attach to human cells and hide from the immune system.
« Last Edit: April 26, 2021, 06:15:30 PM by zenith »
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El Cid

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12054 on: April 26, 2021, 06:52:32 PM »
Reported yesterday on worldometer:

New Cases:
India  -  354,531
Rest of the world - 372,888

...and very likely India underreports cases BY A LOT (just like deaths)...which means that possibly the large majority of infections globally now happen there

bbr2315

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12055 on: April 26, 2021, 07:49:34 PM »
Reported yesterday on worldometer:

New Cases:
India  -  354,531
Rest of the world - 372,888

...and very likely India underreports cases BY A LOT (just like deaths)...which means that possibly the large majority of infections globally now happen there
Unless the underreporting is now even larger elsewhere which seems quite likely given India only has 1.4 billion people while the rest of the world has ~6.6... and China's numbers have been a complete farce.

Neven

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12056 on: April 26, 2021, 11:02:20 PM »
Exactly what I wrote about upthread many times: vaccine escape of variants is THE question right now. We need data and we need to prepare boosters.

Is it possible that the lockdowns have caused the variants to emerge? Has this been discussed here before?
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zenith

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12057 on: April 26, 2021, 11:13:30 PM »
Exactly what I wrote about upthread many times: vaccine escape of variants is THE question right now. We need data and we need to prepare boosters.

Is it possible that the lockdowns have caused the variants to emerge? Has this been discussed here before?

Highly unlikely lockdowns cause mutations, they break the chain of transmission. The higher the transmission the greater the chance of mutations. Natural immunity or vaccine induced immunity appear to exert an evolutionary pressure that directs the virus to escape, life wants to live and spread, there's no shortage of hosts. We've never eradicated a respiratory virus before, and with the new Indian triple mutation this thing is headed in a very bad direction. 
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Neven

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12058 on: April 26, 2021, 11:17:56 PM »
The double mutants, triple mutants (What's next? Mega-mutants? Hyper-mutants? Godzilla-mutants?) are what's making India interesting, given the widespread seroprevalence after last year's non-Armageddon.

But with regards to cases and deaths, some context:



And also:

Quote
COPD: What we know about the disease that killed a million Indians in 2017

Why haven’t we heard more about COPD, though it is the second-highest killer after heart disease in India, responsible for 958,000 deaths in 2017?

COPD is one of the badly neglected chronic lung diseases--though all chronic lung diseases have been generally neglected, including in India--despite (the fact that) lung diseases affect all organs of the body, and it poses a high burden. First, India has faced the rampage of communicable diseases, such as tuberculosis, malaria and HIV-AIDS, for so long now that we feel we have somehow conquered communicable disease. Now, the incidence of non-communicable diseases is on the rise. COPD is a good example of a non-communicable disease that remains neglected.

Secondly, levels of air pollution have risen dramatically over the last two to three decades. That has had a major impact on COPD.

Thirdly, all these years COPD was primarily thought to have been caused by tobacco smoking, because that is how it is caused in the rest of the world. But in this part of the world, most COPD cases are because of non-smoking risk factors. Since there has been no research in this field in all those years, it is only very recently that we have been able to generate that knowledge. It is this new knowledge that has shaped the appearance of COPD as a big threat in India.

(...)

Is COPD an irreversible disease?

COPD causes chronic lung damage and cannot be cured. If you look at the lung of a COPD patient, it is entirely black and can’t be cleaned. But you can halt the progression of the disease and give drugs that can improve the quality of life and ease symptoms. Patients walk longer distances and survival rates improve, but for that you need inhalation therapy.

A 2013 PURE study showed Indians have 30% less lung function than Caucasians. Is that why we have a higher burden of all respiratory diseases?

The PURE study is very well done and is a consistent observation that Indians have shrunken lungs, because we have been exposed to air pollution from birth, and because of other factors like nutrition levels. Weak lungs make us vulnerable to COPD. So an Indian born in India who later lives in the United States, will have lung function as good as people living there. So, having small lungs is not genetic. It is completely associated with the environment and is a modifiable factor.

Again, the double mutant stuff is what makes India interesting.

There are two possibilities: 1) The situation in India is hyped up, as they have finally caught up to the modern western mass psychosis and the 'result' can now be used to drum up fears in the West to get more people to accept vaccination. Or 2) Seroprevalence to the original SARS-CoV-2 is moot because 'double mutations' (due to lockdowns and/or vaccinations?) that are both more transmissible and more dangerous (what are the odds of that?), cause people to get re-infected.

Either possibility could mean that this really becomes a neverending story. The irony would be complete if variants turned out to have been caused by lockdowns and/or vaccinations (increasing pressure on the virus), and a vicious arms race cycle was thus created, just as with antibiotics and pesticides.

I have heard that during the Spanish Flu there were no variants (which is why it burned out, I guess). Is this true? And if so, is it due to a difference between influenza- and coronaviruses?
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WildFit

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12059 on: April 26, 2021, 11:31:21 PM »

I have heard that during the Spanish Flu there were no variants (which is why it burned out, I guess). Is this true? And if so, is it due to a difference between influenza- and coronaviruses?


There were 2 main variants of the spanish flu and number 2 was the big killer. It hit when the first wave abated and peopel thought they were through with it.

I personally don't try find out how things are exactly but I share 99% of your thoughts made in this thread. The percentage of people who see through to a reasonable extent are very sparse and i stopped discussing things with the brain washed. Fortunately ALL my long-term friends for 50-60 years think alike and my work is not concerned, lucky me.

I'm happy that you are the one who see things more objectively because you are the only one who can speak out loud without being bullied or worse for telling the truth.


FWIW I'm fully in the dangerous age and my dad logically even more so with more than 90 years and he as well is in agreement with most of your posts.

The biggest mistake we make when anger comes through, this is perhaps the only hint while I'm not saying that I have more control, just loose it with less hopeless topics than Sars-CoV-2.
« Last Edit: April 26, 2021, 11:42:34 PM by WildFit »

Rodius

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12060 on: April 27, 2021, 01:42:04 AM »
Exactly what I wrote about upthread many times: vaccine escape of variants is THE question right now. We need data and we need to prepare boosters.

Is it possible that the lockdowns have caused the variants to emerge? Has this been discussed here before?

Successfull lockdowns cant cause mutations because the result ends with no virus.

Failed or inadequate lockdowns means the virus continues to infect other people... just like it does without lockdowns.

Where did your line of thinking about lockdowns causing variants come from?

Rodius

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12061 on: April 27, 2021, 01:48:50 AM »
Reported yesterday on worldometer:

New Cases:
India  -  354,531
Rest of the world - 372,888

...and very likely India underreports cases BY A LOT (just like deaths)...which means that possibly the large majority of infections globally now happen there
Unless the underreporting is now even larger elsewhere which seems quite likely given India only has 1.4 billion people while the rest of the world has ~6.6... and China's numbers have been a complete farce.

Underreporting or lack of testing is happening in Africa, China (most likely), India is playing catch up, Russia, and several other smaller regions.
There is no way we know the true number of infections other than it is much higher than we think. Same goes for the number of deaths.

The Walrus

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12062 on: April 27, 2021, 03:13:25 AM »
Reported yesterday on worldometer:

New Cases:
India  -  354,531
Rest of the world - 372,888

...and very likely India underreports cases BY A LOT (just like deaths)...which means that possibly the large majority of infections globally now happen there
Unless the underreporting is now even larger elsewhere which seems quite likely given India only has 1.4 billion people while the rest of the world has ~6.6... and China's numbers have been a complete farce.

Underreporting or lack of testing is happening in Africa, China (most likely), India is playing catch up, Russia, and several other smaller regions.
There is no way we know the true number of infections other than it is much higher than we think. Same goes for the number of deaths.

The number of deaths is more closely known, as a death is more readily known than a potentially infected individual.  That said, the true number of deaths could be higher or lower, depending on testing and recording.  The number of cases is most certainly a lower limit.

Shared Humanity

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12063 on: April 27, 2021, 03:20:35 AM »

Again, the double mutant stuff is what makes India interesting.

There are two possibilities: 1) The situation in India is hyped up, as they have finally caught up to the modern western mass psychosis and the 'result' can now be used to drum up fears in the West to get more people to accept vaccination. Or 2) Seroprevalence to the original SARS-CoV-2 is moot because 'double mutations' (due to lockdowns and/or vaccinations?) that are both more transmissible and more dangerous (what are the odds of that?), cause people to get re-infected.

Either possibility could mean that this really becomes a neverending story. The irony would be complete if variants turned out to have been caused by lockdowns and/or vaccinations (increasing pressure on the virus), and a vicious arms race cycle was thus created, just as with antibiotics and pesticides.

I have heard that during the Spanish Flu there were no variants (which is why it burned out, I guess). Is this true? And if so, is it due to a difference between influenza- and coronaviruses?

Are these the only two possibilities?

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/04/25/world/covid-vaccine-coronavirus-cases

"Many Indians are frustrated that their country, the world’s largest producer of vaccines, is so behind in its own inoculation campaign. Fewer than 10 percent of Indians have received even one dose, and just 1.6 percent are fully vaccinated..."

oren

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12064 on: April 27, 2021, 03:21:54 AM »
Quote
There are two possibilities: 1) The situation in India is hyped up, as they have finally caught up to the modern western mass psychosis and the 'result' can now be used to drum up fears in the West to get more people to accept vaccination. Or 2) Seroprevalence to the original SARS-CoV-2 is moot because 'double mutations' (due to lockdowns and/or vaccinations?) that are both more transmissible and more dangerous (what are the odds of that?), cause people to get re-infected.
I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the first possibility. People have started to get sick, require oxygen and drop dead because of a mass psychosis? Or do you so doubt the news reports coming from India that you need to generate a whole new reality to replace it - maybe that there is no new wave or that its magnitude is much lower than reported? Why would you think your own speculation, a single person in faraway Europe with a strongly pre-determined opinion, is better than the information provided from India itself with all its various official health sources, news feeds and private person feeds? A fresh-eyed analysis is good and useful but the facts themselves are required for such an analysis to be effective.
The second possibility seems to assume that all Indians have already had Covid-19, and that the mutations are re-infecting them. Is this what you assume? Most countries who employed basic countermeasures have seen a seroprevalence of 15%-20%. I strongly doubt India was close to 100% before this new wave began.

What about the third possibility? That only a fraction of the people in India have had Covid-19, thanks to luck and lockdowns and social distancing and masking and a reduced R - but then new variants with higher transmissibility (mainly the UK variant, not a double mutant actually), along with a relaxation of precautionary measures due to a low prevalence of infections at the time, and maybe some seasonality (haven't looked into this as this is country dependent and remains a somewhat unknown factor), have caused a new and very powerful wave, much harder to stop due to the higher R of the variants and the population probably being tired of mandated countermeasures, not enough seroprevalence/vaccination to bring about herd immunity or close to it, along with some reinfection of previously recovered persons. This would be a similar case to what was seen in many other places, and certainly fits with the available evidence.

Of course, all the above assumes that there is indeed a new wave in India. And that India exists and so on.

Rodius

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12065 on: April 27, 2021, 03:25:19 AM »
The Spanish Flu is still around today.
We just call it H1N1

Shared Humanity

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12066 on: April 27, 2021, 03:32:10 AM »
Of course, all the above assumes that there is indeed a new wave in India. And that India exists and so on.

 :o


oren

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12067 on: April 27, 2021, 04:13:47 AM »
If anyone doubts the second wave in India or its magnitude, a tour among Indian Twitter sources and various news feeds should give you enough information to realize this wave is not made up.

I don't have Sig's or V-M's or Tom's patience in gathering up tons of links. Here's just one I ran across. The best sources are those from local people who are not media or political entities and just report what they see. After an hour of wading through various hashtags, I saw lots of local anecdotes supporting the existence of a very powerful Covid wave in India. By the way, it appears there have been advance warnings about the coming of such a wave, which the government ignored, and a large festival and election gatherings which have contributed to the magnitude of the spread. I did not run across anyone in India who claimed this was overhyped or nonexistent, though I'm sure trying hard enough would find such.

https://au.news.yahoo.com/they-will-die-doctors-heartbreaking-plea-from-covid-epicentre-221807111.html

Quote
"They will die."

That was the stark reality an emotional Dr Gautam Singh delivered to social media on Sunday as his overloaded New Delhi hospital struggled to keep Covid-19 patients alive with oxygen supplies rapidly running out.

His heartbreaking plea for help encapsulated the fear and tragedy India is experiencing as its daunting surge in infections continues to grow.

"We have young patients who will die in a matter of two hours, I request you to please send oxygen to us," he said as he held back tears in a video shared to Twitter.

"We need oxygen for our patients... they will die... we can save them."

Quote
Dr Singh received 20 oxygen cylinders on Monday, only enough to enable the hospital to limp through the day until the ventilators started sending out their warning beeps again.

“I feel helpless because my patients are surviving hour to hour,” Dr Singh said in a telephone interview.

“I will beg again and hope someone sends oxygen that will keep my patients alive for just another day.”

aperson

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12068 on: April 27, 2021, 05:55:00 AM »
Published March 4, 2021: Interferon antagonism by SARS-CoV-2: a functional study using reverse genetics
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanmic/article/PIIS2666-5247(21)00027-6/fulltext

Quote
SARS-CoV-2 ORF6 interferes less efficiently with human interferon induction and interferon signalling than SARS-CoV ORF6. Because of the homology of the genes, onward selection for fitness could involve functional optimisation of interferon antagonism. Charged amino acids at positions 51 and 56 in ORF6 should be monitored for potential adaptive changes.

One of the two mutations referenced above, ORF6:Q56E, has now occurred in a B.1.1.7 variant sampled in Texas: https://outbreak.info/situation-reports?pango&muts=ORF6%3AQ56E&selected=USA_US-TX&loc=USA&loc=USA_US-TX

I believe we should be monitoring very, very closely for the prevalence of this mutation to increase now that it has been demonstrated as possible. Given the location, date, and variant, I also wonder if this may be the BV-1 strain sequenced at Texas A&M University: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/22/new-covid-variant-detected-at-texas-am-lab-shows-signs-of-antibody-resistance-and-more-severe-illness-in-young-people.html
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Rodius

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12069 on: April 27, 2021, 08:28:02 AM »
The double mutants, triple mutants (What's next? Mega-mutants? Hyper-mutants? Godzilla-mutants?) are what's making India interesting, given the widespread seroprevalence after last year's non-Armageddon.

But with regards to cases and deaths, some context:



And also:

Quote
COPD: What we know about the disease that killed a million Indians in 2017

Why haven’t we heard more about COPD, though it is the second-highest killer after heart disease in India, responsible for 958,000 deaths in 2017?

COPD is one of the badly neglected chronic lung diseases--though all chronic lung diseases have been generally neglected, including in India--despite (the fact that) lung diseases affect all organs of the body, and it poses a high burden. First, India has faced the rampage of communicable diseases, such as tuberculosis, malaria and HIV-AIDS, for so long now that we feel we have somehow conquered communicable disease. Now, the incidence of non-communicable diseases is on the rise. COPD is a good example of a non-communicable disease that remains neglected.

Secondly, levels of air pollution have risen dramatically over the last two to three decades. That has had a major impact on COPD.

Thirdly, all these years COPD was primarily thought to have been caused by tobacco smoking, because that is how it is caused in the rest of the world. But in this part of the world, most COPD cases are because of non-smoking risk factors. Since there has been no research in this field in all those years, it is only very recently that we have been able to generate that knowledge. It is this new knowledge that has shaped the appearance of COPD as a big threat in India.

(...)

Is COPD an irreversible disease?

COPD causes chronic lung damage and cannot be cured. If you look at the lung of a COPD patient, it is entirely black and can’t be cleaned. But you can halt the progression of the disease and give drugs that can improve the quality of life and ease symptoms. Patients walk longer distances and survival rates improve, but for that you need inhalation therapy.

A 2013 PURE study showed Indians have 30% less lung function than Caucasians. Is that why we have a higher burden of all respiratory diseases?

The PURE study is very well done and is a consistent observation that Indians have shrunken lungs, because we have been exposed to air pollution from birth, and because of other factors like nutrition levels. Weak lungs make us vulnerable to COPD. So an Indian born in India who later lives in the United States, will have lung function as good as people living there. So, having small lungs is not genetic. It is completely associated with the environment and is a modifiable factor.

Again, the double mutant stuff is what makes India interesting.

There are two possibilities: 1) The situation in India is hyped up, as they have finally caught up to the modern western mass psychosis and the 'result' can now be used to drum up fears in the West to get more people to accept vaccination. Or 2) Seroprevalence to the original SARS-CoV-2 is moot because 'double mutations' (due to lockdowns and/or vaccinations?) that are both more transmissible and more dangerous (what are the odds of that?), cause people to get re-infected.

Either possibility could mean that this really becomes a neverending story. The irony would be complete if variants turned out to have been caused by lockdowns and/or vaccinations (increasing pressure on the virus), and a vicious arms race cycle was thus created, just as with antibiotics and pesticides.

I have heard that during the Spanish Flu there were no variants (which is why it burned out, I guess). Is this true? And if so, is it due to a difference between influenza- and coronaviruses?

Why are you comparing COPD to Covid?
COPD is basically self-inflicted or caused by polluted air. It isn't a virus.
It can be reduced simply by improving air quality and reducing smoking.

So you may as well compare Covid to cancer, or heart disease or car crashes as a means to make Covid seem less than it is.... you are meant to be a fan of compare, compare, compare.... but it helps to find something that is more like for like rather than any damn thing that helps your mindset of Covid is weak.

You are also the one imagining up words to hype up your thinking.... eg mega mutant.
You keep doing this type of thing over and over again. You keep undermining Covid. How is it you are happy to use words to undermine a serious problem while you are critical of the media that uses words to hype it up? You are one and the same.

And you don't answer the simple question of what is your thresh hold for changing your mind from weak virus to serious virus?
And what is your definition of weak?
Is influence weak?
If it is influence, what percentage of deaths compared to the flu would get you thinking that Covid isn't weak but moderate or bad?

India and TB, HIV etc.... when TB was everywhere the things that turned TB from serious to uncommon were vaccines, better air quality, better hygiene, and better treatment. TB hasn't changed, just our approach to containing it because it deserved to be contained.
India has the disadvantages of not having the tools to remove the disease.
But in spite of that, TB is still a disease to be respected, and it is mutating its way beyond the medicines we use to combat it. The rich world will end up with a TB that will break free of our controls eventually and will be a rich country problem again.
Comparing TB to Covid is not a good argument because it isn't like for like, again.
But still, India is having people die from Covid much the same way as every country that failed to contain Covid did. SO the reason people are dying isn't air quality... if you are talking India... and it isn't obesity and unhealthy people if you are talking rich countries.... oddly, the common denomiator for excess deaths is Covid.
No Covid, and those people would still be alive.... why is that hard for you to accept?
3 million dead people in less than 18 months and it is only getting started..... not a problem for you.
This isn't hype or mass psychosis, is it so many people dying in India at the moment that they cant cremate the bodies faster than they are created. It is a real problem.
And given Covid is, in your opinion, a weak virus, I wonder how you think your way around continuing to think Covid is weak when so many people are dying from it.... not just in India, but every single country that loses the battle to contain it.

And you keep talking about countries hyping up the danger..... the US, for example, played it down more at least six months. How is that not computing in your head... the exact opposite of your thinking of hyping it up.

El Cid

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12070 on: April 27, 2021, 08:34:24 AM »
What about the third possibility? That only a fraction of the people in India have had Covid-19, thanks to luck and lockdowns and social distancing and masking and a reduced R - but then new variants with higher transmissibility (mainly the UK variant, not a double mutant actually), along with a relaxation of precautionary measures due to a low prevalence of infections at the time, and maybe some seasonality (haven't looked into this as this is country dependent and remains a somewhat unknown factor), have caused a new and very powerful wave, much harder to stop due to the higher R of the variants and the population probably being tired of mandated countermeasures, not enough seroprevalence/vaccination to bring about herd immunity or close to it, along with some reinfection of previously recovered persons. This would be a similar case to what was seen in many other places, and certainly fits with the available evidence.

Exactly.

1) I have quoted studies about flu/cold seasonality in India. The "good" season is the dry, warm winter after the monsoon (Nov-March in most places but variable), then it gets worse and worse with the heat (March-May) and then the monsoon (June-Oct, also varies)
2) We know that they had many superspreading religious events and relaxation of rules
3) We know that the current wave is due to the more transmissible Indian mutant which is possibly able to reinfect people (we are not yet sure about this).

There is no miracle here: seasonality+more transmissible version+relaxation of rules = mass psychosis mass infection

sidd

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12071 on: April 27, 2021, 09:07:09 AM »
I just spoke with someone in india. Delhi is very very short on oxygen. Bombay is better now, there are oxygen trains carrying industrial oxygen repurposed from the steel plants in rourkela and tatanagar westbound several times a week, supplies from abroad are being flown in, and ships with liquid are expected shortly. Poona is doing badly, Bangalore under lockdown since last night, the person i spoke with had just left bangalore for bombay before bangalore shut down. She thinks the elections and the kumbh mela were factors in the current surge nationwide. But in bombay (no elections) she ascribes it to the reopening of the trains and public transport that fuelled the resurgence. I see that every second test is positive in calcutta now.

Bad times.

sidd

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12072 on: April 27, 2021, 09:23:03 AM »
Why are you comparing COPD to Covid?
COPD is basically self-inflicted or caused by polluted air. It isn't a virus.
It can be reduced simply by improving air quality and reducing smoking.

I'm not comparing COPD to COVID. I'm saying that when you have a population where so many people suffer from lung impairment (and VitD deficiency, and so on), and a new respiratory virus comes along, many people might die. That's not because that virus is The Plague, but because systemic circumstances, most of them preventable, make it more successful.
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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12073 on: April 27, 2021, 10:08:34 AM »
I'm saying that when you have a population where so many people suffer from lung impairment (and VitD deficiency, and so on), and a new respiratory virus comes along, many people might die. That's not because that virus is The Plague, but because systemic circumstances, most of them preventable, make it more successful.

And what do you suggest we do when "a new respiratory virus comes along" and "many people might die."? Nothing?

you have been avoiding an answer on "What to do about it"  for a whole year.

Can you be clear and specific about what is your proposed response?

Or are you just going to troll every possible solution to this problem?
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Rodius

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12074 on: April 27, 2021, 10:18:31 AM »
Why are you comparing COPD to Covid?
COPD is basically self-inflicted or caused by polluted air. It isn't a virus.
It can be reduced simply by improving air quality and reducing smoking.

I'm not comparing COPD to COVID. I'm saying that when you have a population where so many people suffer from lung impairment (and VitD deficiency, and so on), and a new respiratory virus comes along, many people might die. That's not because that virus is The Plague, but because systemic circumstances, most of them preventable, make it more successful.

The thing is that the underlying issue of pollution etc that causes COPD isn't exploited by other viruses like Covid is doing.
Covid is doing something more than other diseases to cause excess deaths.

Same with other underlying problems in other countries (like obesity in the US).

The underlying problems are there, but it is still Covid that is killing them over and above other viruses.

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12075 on: April 27, 2021, 10:21:22 AM »
Can't find any mention of this paper in here yet, so...

"Ten scientific reasons in support of airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2"

Quote
Heneghan and colleagues' systematic review, funded by WHO, published in March, 2021, as a preprint, states: “The lack of recoverable viral culture samples of SARS-CoV-2 prevents firm conclusions to be drawn about airborne transmission”. This conclusion, and the wide circulation of the review's findings, is concerning because of the public health implications.

If an infectious virus spreads predominantly through large respiratory droplets that fall quickly, the key control measures are reducing direct contact, cleaning surfaces, physical barriers, physical distancing, use of masks within droplet distance, respiratory hygiene, and wearing high-grade protection only for so-called aerosol-generating health-care procedures. Such policies need not distinguish between indoors and outdoors, since a gravity-driven mechanism for transmission would be similar for both settings. But if an infectious virus is mainly airborne, an individual could potentially be infected when they inhale aerosols produced when an infected person exhales, speaks, shouts, sings, sneezes, or coughs. Reducing airborne transmission of virus requires measures to avoid inhalation of infectious aerosols, including ventilation, air filtration, reducing crowding and time spent indoors, use of masks whenever indoors, attention to mask quality and fit, and higher-grade protection for health-care staff and front-line workers. Airborne transmission of respiratory viruses is difficult to demonstrate directly. Mixed findings from studies that seek to detect viable pathogen in air are therefore insufficient grounds for concluding that a pathogen is not airborne if the totality of scientific evidence indicates otherwise. Decades of painstaking research, which did not include capturing live pathogens in the air, showed that diseases once considered to be spread by droplets are airborne. Ten streams of evidence collectively support the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 is transmitted primarily by the airborne route.
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Neven

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12076 on: April 27, 2021, 10:39:02 AM »
Quote
There are two possibilities: 1) The situation in India is hyped up, as they have finally caught up to the modern western mass psychosis and the 'result' can now be used to drum up fears in the West to get more people to accept vaccination. Or 2) Seroprevalence to the original SARS-CoV-2 is moot because 'double mutations' (due to lockdowns and/or vaccinations?) that are both more transmissible and more dangerous (what are the odds of that?), cause people to get re-infected.
I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the first possibility. People have started to get sick, require oxygen and drop dead because of a mass psychosis? Or do you so doubt the news reports coming from India that you need to generate a whole new reality to replace it - maybe that there is no new wave or that its magnitude is much lower than reported? Why would you think your own speculation, a single person in faraway Europe with a strongly pre-determined opinion, is better than the information provided from India itself with all its various official health sources, news feeds and private person feeds? A fresh-eyed analysis is good and useful but the facts themselves are required for such an analysis to be effective.

I'm just trying to sum up the possibilities. Media tends to sensationalize things. There are always interests in the background influencing events. Social media and mass psychosis are a match made in heaven. All these factors make 1) a possibility.

Quote
The second possibility seems to assume that all Indians have already had Covid-19, and that the mutations are re-infecting them. Is this what you assume? Most countries who employed basic countermeasures have seen a seroprevalence of 15%-20%. I strongly doubt India was close to 100% before this new wave began.

I have posted links to reports about seroprevalence studies showing 56% seroprevalence in New Delhi, for instance, back in January (three months ago, so likely higher before this wave hit). That's pretty high, in my opinion. Not enough, of course, to stop spread of infections, but it should put a brake on things. Remember, there were no signs of Armageddon while getting to 56%, even if breathlessly announced last year around this time.

Quote
What about the third possibility? That only a fraction of the people in India have had Covid-19, thanks to luck and lockdowns and social distancing and masking and a reduced R - but then new variants with higher transmissibility (mainly the UK variant, not a double mutant actually), along with a relaxation of precautionary measures due to a low prevalence of infections at the time, and maybe some seasonality (haven't looked into this as this is country dependent and remains a somewhat unknown factor), have caused a new and very powerful wave, much harder to stop due to the higher R of the variants and the population probably being tired of mandated countermeasures, not enough seroprevalence/vaccination to bring about herd immunity or close to it, along with some reinfection of previously recovered persons. This would be a similar case to what was seen in many other places, and certainly fits with the available evidence.

Your third possibility is founded on the assumption that seroprevalence is low. It's possible that the studies were flawed, but there were many of them, and seroprevalence studies aren't very hard to do.

So, Armageddon was announced for India last year, it never really happened and relatively high seroprevalence was reached. Now, Armageddon is said to be happening. Let's go back to the second possibility, summarized by El Cid:

Quote
3) We know that the current wave is due to the more transmissible Indian mutant which is possibly able to reinfect people (we are not yet sure about this).

This is the million dollar question (trillion dollar, if you ask Big Pharma). I've finally managed to find an interesting article that concerns itself with this question, from a fact-check-immune source no less, The Wire:

Quote
COVID-19: The Second Wave May Not Be the Last – but Which One Will Be?

COVID-19 cases across India are soaring once again, but more blatantly, boisterously this time. It becomes important to understand the gravity of the situation. What caused this sudden rise in COVID-19 cases? What must be done to tackle it? And what can be done to prevent it in future?

The answer to what must be done is complicated and is based on a major imbalance between the demand and supply of major public health resources. But we may look into the chronology of the events to help understand this sudden spike and a way forward dealing with such spikes.

Various parts of the country – including Delhi (56%), Mumbai (up to 75%) and Hyderabad (54%) – have reported high seroprevalence. But in spite of the high prevalence of protective antibodies and previous fall in cases, the number of cases in these cities is once again rising quickly. Experts have advanced various explanations, including circulation of the new B.1.617 variant. It has five mutations in the spike glycoprotein, including L452R and E484Q; Variants with L452R have also been found in California and shown to have high transmissibility. Variants with E484Q or E484K have been found to have decreased neutralisation tendency to protective antibodies, i.e. they can escape the immune system more. Notably, a variant with the E484K mutation was associated with a recent surge in Brazil despite high seroprevalence.

(...)

We can understand viral evolution better by contemplating the Darwinian law of survival – ‘the survival of the fittest’. For example, doctors prescribe multiple antibacterial agents to treat bacterial diseases like tuberculosis. This is done to evade the high risk of emergence of fitter bacteria, with drug resistance, when a single antibacterial agent (suboptimal therapy) is used. Similarly, neutralising antibodies to the spike protein, derived from natural infection or a vaccine, and COVID-appropriate behaviour – use of masks, physical distancing, washing hands – are in a sense ‘antiviral’ in that they prevent the spread of disease in a population. So variants of concern may emerge when this ‘antiviral’ response is suboptimal, making the virus resistant (fitter) to either or both the antibodies (increased rate of reinfections) and COVID-appropriate behaviour (increased transmissibility).1

(...)

Researchers have observed another well-established suboptimal ‘antiviral’ response – in patients with compromised immune systems (such as with HIV or cancer) or those who were transferred convalescent plasma. There have been reports of increased viral evolution in these patients, with some harbouring viral particles in the body for months. These conditions have been linked to faster viral evolution.2 It is important here to highlight the role of vaccines with regard to such patients. Vaccines induce a polyclonal immune response, with some even triggering higher neutralising antibodies and T-cell responses than the natural infection. This has clear implications in strengthening our antiviral response and suppressing emerging variants. So such individuals should be vaccinated promptly to curtail the emergence of new variants.

(...)

According to Trevor Bedford, an associate professor of genome sciences at the University of Washington, “The currently observed rate of evolution in S1 (in SARS-CoV-2) is rapid compared to the equivalent domain in influenza virus.”

Bedford has also said that its evolution would depend on whether the virus undergoes convergence in its evolution – i.e. mutates until it has a specific set of mutations, and no further. This would suggest, in Bedford’s words, that “SARS-CoV-2 will have arrived at its destination having stacked up all the relevant mutations.” This may mean, then, that we may not observe such waves and that we can easily control the virus’s spread by establishing vaccine-induced herd immunity.

But Bedford said the virus could evolve the other way as well – taking the path of divergence. This is associated with an increased rate of viral evolution and seasonality associated with persistent surges. If this turns out to be true, the virus may continue to evolve and vaccines may need to be modified periodically according to the strain circulating at a given time.3

I've bolded three sentences. In non-chronological order, because the first two are side paths, and the third is at the heart of our discussion:

2) re 'faster viral evolution in immuno-compromised patients'. Doesn't the same principle apply for vaccinated people between their first and second shots?
3) re 'periodic vaccine modifications because of viral evolution'. Could it be that this is actually desired, because it will guarantee Big Pharma profits as well as keep governments from having to relinquish their new powers of control over populations?

This ties in with number 1 which I'm re-quoting:

Quote
So variants of concern may emerge when this ‘antiviral’ response is suboptimal, making the virus resistant (fitter) to either or both the antibodies (increased rate of reinfections) and COVID-appropriate behaviour (increased transmissibility).

Basically, what he's saying, is that when lockdowns are suboptimal, viral evolution is speeded up. Now, I know that most people here will say that the effect of lockdowns is suboptimal because of stupid people fooled by Trump, Bolsonaro, Orban, and South Korea and Australia are simply fantastic, and so on. Of course, it feels very nice to wag fingers at the perceived enemy who is dumb and evil.

But here's the thing. Wasn't it possible to know beforehand that lockdowns would be suboptimal somewhere, if not mostly everywhere, meaning it was entirely predictable that variants would emerge because of it? Isn't there plenty of scientific literature saying as much, for instance, the WHO having stated that lockdowns are counter-productive once a virus is in the process of becoming endemic?

If variants cause new waves next winter, will the reaction have to be suboptimal lockdowns again? Would that be a wise thing to do? And, what if vaccination is (predictably) suboptimal as well?

The good news is, I'm on board with the fear now!  ;D
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blu_ice

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12077 on: April 27, 2021, 10:56:55 AM »
People against Big Pharma should question why are so few people vaccinated in India despite India being the largest vaccine producer in the world. What happened to all the Astra Zeneca vaccines Europeans are not taking due to marginal health risks?

That would be more productive than engaging in tin-foil conspiracy theories about media-fuelled plague hype.

It's easy to be a privileged first-world anti-vaxxer when in case of illness you get an ambulance to a ICU paid by the taxpayer. Lot harder for the people dying on the streets of Kolkata with no oxygen and medication.

Archimid

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12078 on: April 27, 2021, 10:58:49 AM »
`Much talk, no solutions.

You want no masks, no shutdowns, no vaccines, and then complain that this isn't solvable.

You need to explain what is the proposed solution. This is important because climate change is coming like a freight train and solutions will have to be much bolder than just a piece of cloth over the mouth or a needle in the arm.

Is your approach to C19 and Climate change the same? Sabotage and accelerate human demise?
I am an energy reservoir seemingly intent on lowering entropy for self preservation.

be cause

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12079 on: April 27, 2021, 12:25:57 PM »
Perhaps OrganicSu has discovered the truth ? Copied from Arctic cafe for a little light relief here ..

''Did Neven sell his user name to WUWT?
Trying to understand his posts last year led me to believe he was trying to diminish the quality and authority of this website.
This year, it looks more like he is using the website as an entry point of disinformation onto the web, for attacking science based arguments and pushing his own (or another organisation's) agenda. The method of 'discussion' from the "Neven" username looks like the posts are written directly by someone at WUWT or similar organisation.''
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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12080 on: April 27, 2021, 12:32:15 PM »
That is a prime example of attacking the poster while not adressing the point. So how you rate that as light relief is beyond me...
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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12081 on: April 27, 2021, 12:37:10 PM »
The mystery that could explain why COVID vaccines work so well

There’s something a bit odd about COVID-19 vaccines. Good, but odd.

In clinical trials, AstraZeneca, Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson’s jabs all offer almost exactly the same level of protection against serious illness and death: between 95 and 100 per cent.

Now consider the huge range of different efficacy levels the vaccines have for preventing infection: from 61 to 95 per cent.

Different vaccines. Different efficacy levels. But the same protection against serious illness and death. What’s going on?

The answer might be found in a powerful part of your immune system that rarely gets much press coverage: the T cell.

Professor David Tscharke is a T cell researcher based at the Australian National University. He also has multiple sclerosis; his particular treatment means his body does not make many new antibodies, even when vaccinated.

He’s just received his first dose of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine. “It all depends on T cells for me,” he says.

Antibodies hog the anti-virus limelight. That’s partially because they are much easier to measure and study than the other components of the immune system. Scientists are starting to get a pretty good idea of how many you need to be immune.

For T cells, “we’re still trying to understand what’s happening at the viral infection stage”, says Professor Stephanie Gras, a T cell researcher at La Trobe University. “I’m not even talking about what happens when we get vaccinated.”

That means if they are important, we may have missed it.

Let’s go back to the vaccines. They stop people getting seriously ill. But some people still get mildly unwell. Why?

Vaccine-induced antibodies offer instant defence against the virus the moment it enters your body. They sit in your throat and float through your blood. If they come across the virus, they stick to it, gumming up the machinery it uses to infect cells.

T cells are your immune system’s cavalry. They wait in your lymph nodes (under your arm, at the base of your neck). Vaccine arms these troops, but when they spot an invader, they still take a few days to grow into a huge army before launching their attack.

That delay is our clue.

It may be that, in some cases, the virus gets through antibody defences and we get sick. And then, bang, in comes the T cell-cavalry, wiping out the virus before it can make us seriously ill – or kill us.

That’s one theory, but it’s hard to prove.

Conversely, it may be the antibodies are preventing serious infection and death themselves.

...

Antibodies generally work by gumming up the spike SARS-CoV-2 uses to infect cells. To do that, the antibody has to be exactly the right shape to fit onto the spike. If the spike changes shape, even slightly, the antibodies cannot stick.

That’s what the South African and Brazilian variants appear to have done. Very preliminary – but troubling – evidence suggests the South African variant seems to have changed shape in such a way that AstraZeneca’s vaccine is not effective against it at all.

If T cells play a key role in the vaccine’s success, says Professor Tscharke, it’s likely they don’t give much of a stuff about the variants.

When a virus infects a human cell, it captures the cell’s factories and turns them to churning out copies of itself.

But the cell is secretly fighting back. A special mechanism kicks into action, taking lots of random pieces of the virus and sticking them outside the cell, waving them around like a flag. That’s what the T cells spot.

Those flags can be just about any part of the virus, including vital parts the virus cannot easily mutate.

(Quick sidenote: about 4 per cent of people express a gene which means that, when infected with one of the seasonal coronaviruses that cause the common cold, their cells flag up a piece of cold virus that is similar to a piece of SARS-CoV-2. In a small study published last week, Professor Gras’ team showed 90 per cent of these people had T cells that could spot and attack CoV-2, despite never having seen the virus before!)


https://www.theage.com.au/national/the-mystery-that-could-explain-why-covid-vaccines-work-so-well-20210427-p57mq0.html
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Jim Hunt

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12082 on: April 27, 2021, 12:47:04 PM »
Perhaps OrganicSu has discovered the truth ?.''

My response, copied from the Arctic cafe:

Quote
Don't be daft Su! For more insight into the Covid-19/psychology nexus please see:

"The 21st Century of the Self"

For more insight into the nefarious activities at WUWT please see:

https://GreatWhiteCon.info/2021/04/the-2021-g7-summit-in-cornwall/#Apr-27
« Last Edit: April 27, 2021, 04:41:09 PM by Jim Hunt »
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oren

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12083 on: April 27, 2021, 12:53:07 PM »
Quote
There are two possibilities: 1) The situation in India is hyped up, as they have finally caught up to the modern western mass psychosis and the 'result' can now be used to drum up fears in the West to get more people to accept vaccination. Or 2) Seroprevalence to the original SARS-CoV-2 is moot because 'double mutations' (due to lockdowns and/or vaccinations?) that are both more transmissible and more dangerous (what are the odds of that?), cause people to get re-infected.
I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the first possibility. People have started to get sick, require oxygen and drop dead because of a mass psychosis? Or do you so doubt the news reports coming from India that you need to generate a whole new reality to replace it - maybe that there is no new wave or that its magnitude is much lower than reported? Why would you think your own speculation, a single person in faraway Europe with a strongly pre-determined opinion, is better than the information provided from India itself with all its various official health sources, news feeds and private person feeds? A fresh-eyed analysis is good and useful but the facts themselves are required for such an analysis to be effective.

I'm just trying to sum up the possibilities. Media tends to sensationalize things. There are always interests in the background influencing events. Social media and mass psychosis are a match made in heaven. All these factors make 1) a possibility.
If this is what you think we can have no common grounds for discussion unfortunately, as we disagree about the basic facts of the situation.
I just want to point out that in this case you are the one making posts on social media (this forum), while all sources of actual facts, not just the media or whatever you want to call it, agree on said facts, while you are questioning them with nothing much to go on but speculation and "skepticism".

There IS a powerful Covid wave in India. That is a fact. If anything, the wave is much more powerful than the statistics show, as with positivity rates of 50% that sidd mentioned it means a huge number of cases go undiagnosed, and a large number of dead are not counted. WHY it's happening is a different question, probably the average rate of seroprevalence across the country was not the one reported for the large cities, and probably the mutations and the time passed have brought about some reinfection. This merits further looking into. But as long as you keep alive the possibility that it's just media hype and mass psychosis, nothing can be gained by further rehashing.

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12084 on: April 27, 2021, 01:35:46 PM »


Over the past 24 hours, India recorded 323,144 new cases, slightly below a worldwide peak of 352,991 reached on Monday, with overrun hospitals turning away patients due to a shortage of beds and oxygen supplies.

“Please note that a huge fall in daily cases … is largely due to a heavy fall in testing,” Rijo M John, a professor and health economist at the Indian Institute of Management in the southern state of Kerala, said on Twitter.

“This should not be taken as an indication of falling cases, rather a matter of missing out on too many positive cases!”

--------------------------------------------

Over 1,000 COVID Deaths ‘Missing’ In Delhi: Report
https://www.ndtv.com/delhi-news/delhi-coronavirus-deaths-over-1-000-covid-deaths-missing-in-delhi-data-reveal-civic-records-2422628

An investigation by India’s NDTV network reveals the actual number of deaths from COVID-19 might be much higher than the official figures.

The channel says it visited the capital’s civic body and seven cremation grounds and found that at least 1,150 deaths did not make it to the official list.

Data collected from the Municipal Corporation of Delhi’s 26 crematoriums shows that 3,096 cremations of COVID-19 victims were conducted between April 18 and April 24, while the total deaths released by the Delhi government in the same time period show 1,938 deaths.

-----------------------------------------



-----------------------------------------

Delhi has cremated so many COVID-19 victims that authorities are getting requests to cut down trees in city parks to fuel the funeral pyres
https://apnews.com/article/health-india-coronavirus-8788a4dadc2103ec30f40111dec92f15
https://www.businessinsider.com/delhi-getting-requests-trees-funeral-pyres-covid-surge-2021-4



NEW DELHI (AP) — Delhi has been cremating so many bodies of COVID-19 victims that authorities are getting requests to start cutting down trees in city parks for kindling, as a record surge of illness is collapsing India’s tattered health care system.

Outside graveyards in cities like Delhi, which currently has the highest daily cases, ambulance after ambulance waits in line to cremate the dead. Burial grounds are running out of space in many cities as glowing funeral pyres blaze through the night

In the central city of Bhopal, crematoriums have added pyres. One has been forced to skip the exhaustive rituals Hindus believe release the soul from the cycle of rebirth.

Overwhelmed crematoriums reflect the collapse of India’s already fragile health care system. Hospitals are unbearably full, with two or three patients to a bed in some cases. Officials are racing to add beds, ventilators and more oxygen to help the sick breathe.



------------------------------------------

The Scroll website reported on April 18 that only 11 out of 50 planned oxygen generation plants had been set up across the country in eight months. In response, the Ministry of Health claimed 162 such plants were planned, of which 32 have been set up.

https://scroll.in/article/992537/india-is-running-out-of-oxygen-covid-19-patients-are-dying-because-the-government-wasted-time

------------------------------------------

Photos show the deadly toll of Covid in India as coronavirus cases top 17 million
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/04/26/photos-show-the-deadly-toll-of-covid-in-india-as-coronavirus-cases-top-17-million.html





--------------------------------------------

India's Richest People Are Fleeing On Private Jets as the Country Hits 350,000 COVID-19 Infections In Another Daily Global Record
https://www.businessinsider.com/super-rich-fleeing-india-country-records-new-daily-global-record-2021-4

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/airfares-soar-private-jets-in-demand-rich-indians-flee-the-country-fly-to-dubai-to-escape-covid-surge/articleshow/82228187.cms

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/indians-charter-100-000-private-jets-to-beat-4am-coronavirus-travel-deadline-q276j6gms

------------------------------------------------------

India’s Urban Affluent Hit By New Virus Wave After Dodging First
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-23/india-s-urban-affluent-hit-by-new-virus-wave-after-dodging-first

India’s devastating new wave of infections appears to have landed on its urban affluent, a group whose lives are usually insulated from the country’s worst economic and social crises.

In Mumbai, India’s financial center, more than 170,000 households are in buildings that have been sealed by government authorities, which indicates the coronavirus is spreading rapidly among the city’s middle and upper middle classes. Official data show only 120,000 slum households are in areas demarcated as “containment zones,” despite the poor being packed in far more tightly.

“Most cases are coming from buildings and high rises and not slums,” Suresh Kakani, Mumbai’s deputy municipal commissioner, said by phone.

... Every essential to save a life is in short supply or available on the black market. Then there's the fear of the virus literally "at your door". Over the past week, three buildings in the gated complex where I live have become "containment zones", with entire skyscrapers sealed because of too many infections. The days and nights are filled with helplessness, anxiety and fear. The bad news is unrelenting.

With the so-called consuming class ravaged by the new wave, India’s growth is at risk because private consumption accounts for about 60% of India’s economy. The central bank’s consumer confidence survey is showing increasing pessimism on jobs and policy makers have said they stand ready to support growth in what is now the world’s epicenter of the pandemic.

“Times are such that people are seeking help from every quarter possible,” said Ajay Bagga, a retired banker and fund manager, who is helping vet claims on social media from groups purporting to supply the Covid treatment remdesivir. “Trader chatrooms are no more exclusive to market discussions. People are sharing information on hospital beds, oxygen supplies.”

The affluent cities of Mumbai and Pune account for almost 30% of Maharashtra state’s active cases while housing 14% of its population. Within Mumbai, more than 90% of all active cases this week are concentrated in high-rise buildings while only 10% come from the slums, according to an Indian Express analysis.

Comparable data isn’t available for other Indian cities but similar stories abound. Bankers are turning to Twitter to seek medical help for their friends and family, tycoons are advising people to keep their masks on even in the presence of trusted folks, and citizens who, until now, enjoyed levels of privilege unthinkable for the vast majority of Indians, are pleading for hospital beds and oxygen.

One reason why the second wave is hitting wealthier Indians hard is simply that they managed to avoid the first outbreak by sheltering at home when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a strict lockdown that devastated poorer communities.

The first wave coursed through India’s crowded slums quickly -- serological surveys conducted mid-2020 showed about half the population in Mumbai’s slums had antibodies compared with less than 20% for the rest of the city. This might now be providing a level of protection against the second, deadlier outbreak for disadvantaged populations.

-------------------------------------------------------

China's Airline Suspends Cargo Flights Bringing Medical Supplies To India
https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/covid-19-chinas-airline-suspends-cargo-flights-bringing-medical-supplies-to-india-2422069

China's state-run Sichuan Airlines has suspended all its cargo flights to India for 15 days, causing major disruption to private traders' efforts to procure the much-needed oxygen concentrators and other medical supplies from China despite Beijing offering "support and assistance" to the country to deal with the latest surge of COVID-19 cases.

The suspension of cargo flights came as a surprise to agents and freight forwarders who are frantically trying to procure the oxygen concentrators from China.

There are also complaints of Chinese manufacturers jacking up the prices by 35 to 40 per cent. The freight charges have been increased to over 20 per cent, Siddharth Sinha of Sino Global Logistics, a Shanghai-based freight forwarding company.

The suspension of the flights owing to the coronavirus situation in India is surprising as there is no crew change in India and the same crew flies the aircraft back, he said.

He told PTI here that the Sichuan Airlines decision to cancel flights has caused severe disruption to attempts by private traders in both the countries to secure quick supplies of the Oxygen concentrators to rush to India in view of the dire situation.

Now it becomes very challenging to rush the supplies as they have to be rerouted through Singapore and other countries through different airlines, which delays the much-needed supplies, he said.

---------------------------------------------

Rural Doctors Braced for ‘Devastating’ Second Wave as India’s Workers Flee Cities
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/23/rural-doctors-braced-for-devastating-second-wave-as-indias-workers-flee-cities

Scenes of migrant workers massing at bus and train stations, fleeing lockdowns in Indian cities for their villages, are ominous to doctors in the country’s hinterlands.



They know that many of those in the crowds will be returning with Covid-19 strains that are ravaging urban India, leading to record numbers of daily infections this week and the country’s highest daily death tolls since the virus emerged. In parts of rural West Bengal state, where politicians were holding mass election rallies until late this week, the surge has already started.

“Few hospitals in this region have vacant beds for patients right now, and some are refusing to admit patients, no matter how sick they are,” a physician at a government hospital in Birbhum, a district of 3.5 million people north of Kolkata, told the Guardian on Friday. He asked not to be named, fearing reprisals from authorities.

“Where I am working, I have seen a three-fold increase in the number of patients reporting breathlessness and other Covid-related symptoms in the past two or three weeks.”

Surveys from the first wave showed that rural citizens in parts of Karnataka state had comparable levels of antibodies to their urban counterparts. Though they lived in less dense communities, fewer in the countryside were able to stop working and the virus found no shortage of hosts.

... Official statistics show monthly cases in Birbhum grew from 42 in February, to three times that many the following month, to 4,762 by 21 April. On their current trajectory, infections will surpass 13,000 by the end of the month, far beyond what the district’s 80 government hospitals and primary healthcare centres can treat.

The doctor in the government hospital said he reported every Covid-19 death in his institution to authorities, but that most of the sick in his area would never reach his facility.

“The actual number of infections in my area is five-to-10 times higher than what my hospital reports,” the doctor said.

----------------------------------------------
« Last Edit: April 27, 2021, 02:13:16 PM by vox_mundi »
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

vox_mundi

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12085 on: April 27, 2021, 02:04:35 PM »
Recent Rise of Indian Covid-19 Cases Display The Dangers Of SARS-CoV-2 Variants
https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamhaseltine/2021/04/23/the-recent-rise-of-indian-covid-19-cases-display-the-dangers-of-sars-cov-2-variants/?sh=196052527492

In mere weeks, the second wave of Covid-19 to hit India has gone from bad to worse. At the beginning of March, seven-day averages in India were around 15,000 cases per day. By late April, the rate reached almost 300,000. Today, infection numbers are spiraling out of control. The new B.1.617 variant, while not the only contributing factor, is likely the driving force behind the surge, displaying for all to see the dangers of the mutant SARS-CoV-2 variants circulating in India and around the world.

... It was widely believed that the higher temperatures of the spring months, which hover around 90 degrees Fahrenheit in major metropolitan areas, would slow the virus and keep people safely outdoors. But despite the heat, case numbers climbed to heights never before seen. This suggests not only that the summer won’t offer a reprieve, but also that the new variants are likely far more contagious than previous strains.



https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamhaseltine/2021/04/12/an-indian-sars-cov-2-variant-lands-in-california-more-danger-ahead/?sh=ba2666b3b290

Detailed analysis of the genome and proteins of B.1.617 reveal it arose independently in India. It differs substantially from the B.1.1.7, P.1, B.1.351, B.1.427/9 (California), and B.1.526 (New York) variants currently circulating in the United States. All of the 15 amino acid changes of B.1.617 differ from those of all other variants of concern when compared to the globally dominant D614G strain designated B.1 with two notable exceptions.

The exceptions are in a region of the spike protein, the receptor-binding domain (RBD), that is critical both for binding to the ACE2 receptor and antibody neutralization.

The first of these is a leucine to arginine substitution at amino acid 452 (L452R). This is the same change found in the California variant (B.1.427/429). Laboratory experiments demonstrate that this change both increases the affinity of the spike for the receptor and decreases antibody recognition, including recognition by antibodies present in convalescent serum and as well as some clinically important neutralizing monoclonal antibodies.

The second mutation of interest occurs at amino acid 484. Many of the variants of concern, including the B.1.351, P.1, and B.1.526 variants, substitute glutamic acid for lysine (E484K), which is a substitution of a negatively charged for a positively charged amino acid. This change reduces neutralization by convalescent antisera and binding of some monoclonal antibodies and increases the affinity for ACE2.

The Indian variant B.1.617 is also mutated at position 484. However, the 484 mutation is different. The glutamic acid is substituted by the polar uncharged amino acid glutamine (E484Q). Laboratory experiments confirm that this change also confers increased ACE2 binding and immune evasion properties.  The combination of the two, sometimes called the double mutant, goes a long way toward explaining the increased transmission of the India variant in its home country, and highlights the danger now that it is established here in the United States.

Two of the five remaining mutations in the spike protein are located in the N-terminal domain of the S1 protein, a region that is extensively mutated in other variants of concern. These two mutations are unique to the Indian variant.

The third mutant in S1, the substitution of proline for arginine (P681R), is located near the cleavage site between S1 and S2. This change may increase the infectivity of the virus particles by facilitating cleavage of the S precursor protein to the active S1/S2 configuration. The contribution of the two remaining amino acid substitutions in the S2 portions is also unique to the Indian variant. The full extent of spike mutations in the B.1.617 variant can be found in the figure below.

Most of the variants of concern also contain an extensive set of mutations in the structural proteins, the replication enzymes, and the accessory proteins. B.1.617 is no exception. B.1.617 carries one mutation in each of the replication enzymes, NSP3, NSP6, NSP13, NSP15, NSP16 as well as one mutation in the accessory proteins orf3a, orf6, and orf7a. As before, these changes are unique to the Indian variant.

In addition to the B.1.617 a number of strains with additional mutations are also circulating that are currently less prevalent, but still cause for concern. These mutations, which are heavily concentrated in the N-terminal and receptor-binding domains of the spike protein, likely make their respective variants more resistant to convalescent sera and vaccine-administered antibodies.

Among these mutations is W152L, located in the N-terminal domain, which is thought to be a neutralizing antibody binding site due to its high antigenicity. Mutations to this area could reduce neutralization capability and make the virus more resistant to convalescent sera and vaccines. Another mutation, V382L, is also located in the receptor-binding domain. The variants we’ve seen so far don’t usually have many mutations in this region, which is a target site of potential antibody therapies. This mutation may work against that prospect, making the virus less susceptible to neutralizing antibodies.

Further mutations found in India include N450K, which is also found in the Belgian B.1.214 variant; S477N, which is also seen in the New York B.1.526 variant; and a series of others, all heavily concentrated in the receptor-binding domain. Mutations to this region affect both binding to human ACE2 receptors and potential resistance to neutralization.

All these mutations, in addition to the rise of the B.1.617 variant, display the swift capability of variants growing out of control, possibly foreshadowing what’s to come in other countries. Take the United States for example. The B.1.1.7 variant is circulating widely throughout the United States, as is the South African B.1.351 variant. In addition, there is an infectious New York B.1.526 variant and a Californian B.1.427/9 variant. All the while in Oregon, a strain of B.1.1.7 has been detected that has a new addition of E484K, or EEK!, which confers greater immune resistance to the virus. How many variants can the United States reasonably deal with before our Covid-19 case counts are as out of control as those in India?

One recent article claimed that first-generation Covid-19 vaccines protect against the New York variant. But a deeper analysis into the referenced study reveals that protection may last only as long as neutralizing titers do. The study found that B.1.526 virus is neutralized four to five times less for vaccinees in comparison to older strains. In other words, vaccines may cover the New York variant at first, but protection may fade much more quickly than against the wild-type virus. This may well be the case for many of the variants circulating in the United States ( and elsewhere).

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.24.436620v1

As we have seen with the B.1.617 variant in India and the mutated B.1.1.7 variant in Oregon, SARS-CoV-2 will only continue to mutate. For the general population, this means being vaccinated is not necessarily a reason to go out and live as normal again. Though any protection against the variants is better than none, it is no time to relax. We must remain vigilant in our Covid-19 mitigation efforts if we are to avoid the fate India currently faces.

-----------------------------------------
« Last Edit: April 27, 2021, 02:31:22 PM by vox_mundi »
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12086 on: April 27, 2021, 02:20:52 PM »
India Covid Crisis: Hospitals Buckle Under Record Surge
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-56858403

----------------------------------------

India Virus Patients Suffocate From Low Oxygen Amid Surge
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-56870410.amp
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-04-india-virus-patients-suffocate-oxygen.html

India has recorded nearly a million infections in three days, with 346,786 new cases overnight into Saturday.

... "Every hospital is running out (of oxygen). We are running out," Dr. Sudhanshu Bankata, executive director of Batra Hospital, a leading hospital in the capital, told New Delhi Television channel.

“Every hospital is running out (of oxygen). We are running out,” Dr. Sudhanshu Bankata, executive director of Batra Hospital, a leading hospital in the capital, told New Delhi Television channel.

... At least 20 COVID-19 patients at the critical care unit of New Delhi’s Jaipur Golden Hospital died overnight as “oxygen pressure was low,” the Indian Express newspaper reported.

“Our supply was delayed by seven-eight hours on Friday night and the stock we received last night is only 40% of the required supply,” the newspaper quoted the hospital’s medical superintendent, Dr. D.K. Baluja, as saying.

"That happened last night. Everything we had was exhausted. The oxygen was not supplied on time. It was supposed to come in at 5 p.m. but it came around midnight. People who were critically ill needed oxygen," said Baluja.

The hospital is currently scrambling to arrange more oxygen but has not received a fresh supply all Saturday morning. "We have only 15-20 minutes of oxygen left now. It may take hours to get another tanker," Baluja said.

When the news anchor asked Bankata what happens when a hospital issues an SOS call as his had done, Bankata replied: "Nothing. It's over. It's over."

... On Saturday morning, Moolchand hospital tweeted out an SOS to the Delhi government pleading for oxygen. "Urgent sos help. We have less than 2 hours of oxygen supply @Moolchand_Hosp. We are desperate [...] Have over 135 COVID pts with many on life support,"

"Almost every hospital is on the edge. If oxygen runs out, there is no leeway for many patients," Dr Sumit Ray said.

"Within minutes, they will die. You can see these patients: they're on ventilators, they require high-flow oxygen. If the oxygen stops, most of them will die," ... The hospital had stopped admitting patients until the situation was resolved, she said.

Hospitals in Delhi have warned they are at breaking point. At the Holy Family Hospital, intensive care units are full and there is no room for any more beds.

Fortis Healthcare, a major Indian health-care chain, said Saturday it could take in no new patients in New Delhi, Reuters reported.

... Despite government claims, things are going from bad to worse. There are no beds, few medicines. For many it's a slow road to death.

https://www.reuters.com/world/india/indias-daily-coronavirus-cases-climb-new-world-record-hospitals-buckle-2021-04-24/

Indian media reported Saturday that Twitter had complied with Modi’s request to censor at least 52 tweets in India, many of which were critical of the government’s handling of the pandemic.

------------------------------------------

https://www.indiatoday.in/coronavirus-outbreak/story/coronavirus-live-updates-pm-modi-india-covid-19-vaccine-oxygen-beds-world-cases-deaths-1794450-2021-04-24

Oxygen tanker reaches Delhi’s Batra Hospital after SOS call

An oxygen tanker has reached Batra Hospital after the hospital sent an SOS to the Delhi government this morning.

"500 kg oxygen truck is being delivered to Batra Hospital, which will be enough for the next 1 hour," said Dr SCL Gupta, MD, Batra Hospital.

------------------------------------

Jaipur Golden Hospital sends SOS to Delhi govt, says 45 minutes of oxygen left

Crisis if oxygen not supplied immediately, says Batra Hospital

Delhi's Batra Hospital on Saturday sent an SOS saying it has only 20 minutes of oxygen left and requested that the supplies be replenished urgently.

---------------------------------------

Jaipur Golden Hospital has sent an SOS to the Delhi government, requesting an urgent supply of oxygen. The hospital said that it has only 30 minutes of oxygen left.

"We are arranging temporary oxygen cylinders. The hospital requires a normal supply of oxygen. We have stock for ICU only. The hospital is getting oxygen cylinders from the neighbour hospital. Batra Hospital has requested police to escort oxygen cylinders," said Dr SCL Gupta, MD, Batra Hospital.

Later ...

(Triage) ... 20 die in Delhi's Jaipur Golden hospital due to oxygen shortage; half an hour of supply left, said an official.

https://mobile.twitter.com/ANI/status/1385817586626035720

Oxygen supply to last only half an hour now, more than 200 lives are at stake. We lost 20 people due to an oxygen shortage last night: DK Baluja, Jaipur Golden Hospital

The incident comes after Delhi's Sir Ganga Ram hospital had reported that 25 severely ill patients had died in the past 24 hours and 60 other patients were at risk.

----------------------------------

Saroj Hospitals Closes Admissions Due to Oxygen Shortage

https://mobile.twitter.com/ANI/status/1385822095955808257

Delhi | We are closing patient admissions because of an oxygen shortage. We are discharging the patients: COVID in-charge, Saroj Hospital

----------------------------------

Islamabad Faces Massive Shortage of Oxygen

The Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences has run out of beds and has postponed all surgeries due to shortage of oxygen.

Pakistan recorded 5,870 new Covid-19 cases on Friday, while 144 more people succumbed to the deadly virus.

-------------------------------------

Oxygen Express Train With 30,000 Litres of Liquid Medical Oxygen Arrives In Uttar Pradesh

An Oxygen Express train carrying around 30,000 litres of liquid medical oxygen arrived here on Saturday morning as Uttar Pradesh is battling a sudden surge in coronavirus cases, an official said.
The special train carrying two truckloads of medical oxygen arrived in the state capital at 6.30 am from Bokaro, Jharkhand.

"Two trucks of medical oxygen arrived in Lucknow at around 6.30 am. One of the trucks was offloaded in Varanasi late on Saturday. Each truck is of 15,000 litres capacity," Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Awanish Kumar Awasthi told PTI.

He said both the trucks may be used for Lucknow and a decision will be taken soon.

"The arrival of two trucks of medical oxygen will meet around half the demand of Lucknow for today. Lucknow will be in a better position. The second Oxygen Express departed at around 5.30 am from Lucknow for Bokaro with four tankers," Awasthi said.

The railways on Wednesday had said it will run its second Oxygen Express to Uttar Pradesh after a request was received from the state government.

-----------------------------------------

At AIIMS Hospital in Delhi, India’s premier research hospital, contact tracing among health care workers was suspended because there weren’t enough personnel to spare for the exercise, according to Srinivas Rajkumar, a representative for the resident doctors’ association.
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

vox_mundi

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12087 on: April 27, 2021, 02:29:08 PM »
Brazil's Covid Vaccination Effort at Risk Due to 2nd Dose No-Shows
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/brazils-covid-19-vaccination-program-risk-due-2nd-dose-no-shows-2021-04-23/

In Brazil, the Covid vaccination programme is being put at risk by people failing to show up for their second shot, with 1.5 million missing appointments for the follow-up dose, according to the health ministry.

Specialists say that is particularly concerning after a recent real-world study from Chile found that the Sinovac Biotech Covid vaccine, which has accounted for 80% of Brazil’s programme, is just 16% effective after one shot.

“Without the two doses, we get neither full protection nor a long duration of protection,” Juarez Cunha, head of the Brazilian Society of Immunizations, told Reuters. “We need people to do the full cycle.”

... “If a person doesn’t get their second dose, there’s no guarantee at all that the immunization will work,” Bonorino said.

In total, Covid-19 has claimed more than 380,000 lives in Brazil, the world’s second highest death toll behind the US.
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12088 on: April 27, 2021, 02:29:51 PM »
Published March 4, 2021: Interferon antagonism by SARS-CoV-2: a functional study using reverse genetics
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanmic/article/PIIS2666-5247(21)00027-6/fulltext

Quote
SARS-CoV-2 ORF6 interferes less efficiently with human interferon induction and interferon signalling than SARS-CoV ORF6. Because of the homology of the genes, onward selection for fitness could involve functional optimisation of interferon antagonism. Charged amino acids at positions 51 and 56 in ORF6 should be monitored for potential adaptive changes.

One of the two mutations referenced above, ORF6:Q56E, has now occurred in a B.1.1.7 variant sampled in Texas: https://outbreak.info/situation-reports?pango&muts=ORF6%3AQ56E&selected=USA_US-TX&loc=USA&loc=USA_US-TX

I believe we should be monitoring very, very closely for the prevalence of this mutation to increase now that it has been demonstrated as possible. Given the location, date, and variant, I also wonder if this may be the BV-1 strain sequenced at Texas A&M University: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/22/new-covid-variant-detected-at-texas-am-lab-shows-signs-of-antibody-resistance-and-more-severe-illness-in-young-people.html

Perceptive and possibly important issue.  We should remember that SARS-1 had a mortality rate of around 30 percent and MERS of around 60 percent.  Covid is far less virulent, but there's no reason it can't acquire mutations to bring it more in line with its cousins.

We can't hang our expectations on the oft-cited idea that viruses evolve to avoid killing its host species.  Smallpox retained high lethality for centuries.  Covid remains contagious for about two weeks in an individual.  At the end of that time, the victim is either recovering and no longer contagious, or dead and no longer contagious.  The virus has no reason to prefer one of these outcomes over the other.

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12089 on: April 27, 2021, 02:42:42 PM »
We can't hang our expectations on the oft-cited idea that viruses evolve to avoid killing its host species.  Smallpox retained high lethality for centuries.  Covid remains contagious for about two weeks in an individual.  At the end of that time, the victim is either recovering and no longer contagious, or dead and no longer contagious.  The virus has no reason to prefer one of these outcomes over the other.

Isn't there a chance that the recovering person is still up and about (imagine he's just sneezing a bit, or better still: asymptomatic), spreading the virus, while the one that is going to die, is bed-stricken and not going anywhere. If I were a virus that wants to propagate, I'd take the former person.

Now imagine, all the asymptomatic, sneezing persons are locked in their homes, so the less dangerous virus is locked in as well, but the more deadly virus is transported to hospitals and care homes where there are plenty of vulnerable and immuno-compromised hosts?

Suddenly, with your lockdown, you have changed the playing field for the virus variants, providing equal chances for all. Imagine doing that, knowing full well that the lockdown will be suboptimal to boot (highly likely, given all those dumb people associating consumption with freedom).

And then, because of all those highly dangerous variants out and about, your vaccination program has become suboptimal as well, creating the risk that one of those variants turns into something that escapes immunity altogether. Imagine that.

---

And to re-iterate my question: How likely is it that variants are both more transmissible and more dangerous at the same time? What does the literature say about that wrt coronaviruses? Why haven't the various common cold-strains never turned into Godzilla-mega-mutants3?
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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12090 on: April 27, 2021, 02:48:12 PM »
For India´s current wave this seems correct:

I just spoke with someone in india. ...

She thinks the elections and the kumbh mela were factors in the current surge nationwide. But in bombay (no elections) she ascribes it to the reopening of the trains and public transport that fuelled the resurgence.

Likely coupled with some more transmissive strains.

Maybe we should be surprised that it has actually taken this long to get that bad.

What other factors could be involved? Seasonal patterns? Could it be that many people who lost their jobs also had to rely on poorer diets which also makes them more vulnerable over time?

In the real world all things happen while we usually focus on some simple metric at first (like IFR, CFR) and beyond that there is just a lot we do not know. Due to lack of testing we mostly do not know the exact number of cases but we also have no correct numbers of death and their attributions. And we know less about the other less noticeable effects.

If you take that into account it should not be surprising that some people have different viewpoints because we hang around on different continents and we are at different ages with  different responsibilities.

For some reason people disagreeing has become offensive these days, or lets say some are just fousing on ´we must do this´ without taking into account that we do most of it and still cannot get rid of the virus.

In the Netherlands we have all the measurements in place but even the simple things are not really enforced. The malls stay open and there is a shop alone guidance and every day you can count a whole number of people not doing that. We have stripes so there is an entry and an exit lane but then you have to wait while 2 people push their cart out through the entry lane followed by the security guard peeking at his WhatsApp or whatever.

Now that still does not really contribute to the numbers that much but people will also ignore the visit with only 1 guidance. And then there are whole groups of people who are bored already so we have illegal parties all the time. Also this morning two women carrying a crate of beer (it is Kings day, a dutch holiday, we a reopening tomorrow but not officially celibrating Kings day).

One says so can X be contagious if he has no symptoms?
The other one told her yes off course but yeah.

One of the differences between S-Korea and the Netherlands might be how much we are citizens or consumers...
Þetta minnismerki er til vitnis um að við vitum hvað er að gerast og hvað þarf að gera. Aðeins þú veist hvort við gerðum eitthvað.

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12091 on: April 27, 2021, 02:49:42 PM »
India’s Urban Affluent Hit By New Virus Wave After Dodging First
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-23/india-s-urban-affluent-hit-by-new-virus-wave-after-dodging-first

India’s devastating new wave of infections appears to have landed on its urban affluent, a group whose lives are usually insulated from the country’s worst economic and social crises.

In Mumbai, India’s financial center, more than 170,000 households are in buildings that have been sealed by government authorities, which indicates the coronavirus is spreading rapidly among the city’s middle and upper middle classes. Official data show only 120,000 slum households are in areas demarcated as “containment zones,” despite the poor being packed in far more tightly.

“Most cases are coming from buildings and high rises and not slums,” Suresh Kakani, Mumbai’s deputy municipal commissioner, said by phone.

... Every essential to save a life is in short supply or available on the black market. Then there's the fear of the virus literally "at your door". Over the past week, three buildings in the gated complex where I live have become "containment zones", with entire skyscrapers sealed because of too many infections. The days and nights are filled with helplessness, anxiety and fear. The bad news is unrelenting.

With the so-called consuming class ravaged by the new wave, India’s growth is at risk because private consumption accounts for about 60% of India’s economy. The central bank’s consumer confidence survey is showing increasing pessimism on jobs and policy makers have said they stand ready to support growth in what is now the world’s epicenter of the pandemic.

“Times are such that people are seeking help from every quarter possible,” said Ajay Bagga, a retired banker and fund manager, who is helping vet claims on social media from groups purporting to supply the Covid treatment remdesivir. “Trader chatrooms are no more exclusive to market discussions. People are sharing information on hospital beds, oxygen supplies.”

The affluent cities of Mumbai and Pune account for almost 30% of Maharashtra state’s active cases while housing 14% of its population. Within Mumbai, more than 90% of all active cases this week are concentrated in high-rise buildings while only 10% come from the slums, according to an Indian Express analysis.

Comparable data isn’t available for other Indian cities but similar stories abound. Bankers are turning to Twitter to seek medical help for their friends and family, tycoons are advising people to keep their masks on even in the presence of trusted folks, and citizens who, until now, enjoyed levels of privilege unthinkable for the vast majority of Indians, are pleading for hospital beds and oxygen.

One reason why the second wave is hitting wealthier Indians hard is simply that they managed to avoid the first outbreak by sheltering at home when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a strict lockdown that devastated poorer communities.

The first wave coursed through India’s crowded slums quickly -- serological surveys conducted mid-2020 showed about half the population in Mumbai’s slums had antibodies compared with less than 20% for the rest of the city. This might now be providing a level of protection against the second, deadlier outbreak for disadvantaged populations.

Neven you may have missed this, it can help explain how come a second wave arrives after high seroprevalence from the first wave. The populations were quite separate, initially the poor population was hit as they couldn't afford to quarantine, now the affluent are being hit as they lack the antibodies and are probably much more careless than during the initial response.
In addition it seems average seroprevalence even in the cities was not as high as you posted upthread, though I haven't dug down into the details to compare the data.

Had India's vaccination effort been much more advanced, the second wave may well have been prevented.

Rodius

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12092 on: April 27, 2021, 04:00:45 PM »
We can't hang our expectations on the oft-cited idea that viruses evolve to avoid killing its host species.  Smallpox retained high lethality for centuries.  Covid remains contagious for about two weeks in an individual.  At the end of that time, the victim is either recovering and no longer contagious, or dead and no longer contagious.  The virus has no reason to prefer one of these outcomes over the other.

Isn't there a chance that the recovering person is still up and about (imagine he's just sneezing a bit, or better still: asymptomatic), spreading the virus, while the one that is going to die, is bed-stricken and not going anywhere. If I were a virus that wants to propagate, I'd take the former person.

Now imagine, all the asymptomatic, sneezing persons are locked in their homes, so the less dangerous virus is locked in as well, but the more deadly virus is transported to hospitals and care homes where there are plenty of vulnerable and immuno-compromised hosts?

Suddenly, with your lockdown, you have changed the playing field for the virus variants, providing equal chances for all. Imagine doing that, knowing full well that the lockdown will be suboptimal to boot (highly likely, given all those dumb people associating consumption with freedom).

And then, because of all those highly dangerous variants out and about, your vaccination program has become suboptimal as well, creating the risk that one of those variants turns into something that escapes immunity altogether. Imagine that.

---

And to re-iterate my question: How likely is it that variants are both more transmissible and more dangerous at the same time? What does the literature say about that wrt coronaviruses? Why haven't the various common cold-strains never turned into Godzilla-mega-mutants3?

If you want to talk lockdowns, maybe focus on inadequate lockdowns.
Lockdowns done hard and fast do work.... but half measures wont do the job.

And give you are being critical of lockdowns, what is your proposal to combat Covid to prevent uncontrolled disease and collapsed health care systems? This has been the thing I have said multiple times this past year.... either we do the lockdowns and contain it or it will run rampant... and that is exactly what is happening now.
What alternative have you got?

Concerning Covid becoming more deadly..... given it can spread before symptoms appear, the virus really wont care if the host dies or not in two weeks' time because it has already spread to other hosts.

Neven

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12093 on: April 27, 2021, 04:05:26 PM »
If this is what you think we can have no common grounds for discussion unfortunately, as we disagree about the basic facts of the situation.
I just want to point out that in this case you are the one making posts on social media (this forum), while all sources of actual facts, not just the media or whatever you want to call it, agree on said facts, while you are questioning them with nothing much to go on but speculation and "skepticism".

It doesn't matter what I think. I'm just listing possible explanations. If you want to discard the hype aspect of it all, fine. Let's say it's all true, after more than a year, The Plague has finally hit India. Let's also not discard the January seroprevalence studies + three more months of daily cases times 29 (according to IMHE model) + the numbers of vaccinated so far.

That makes it very weird, especially what's going on in New Delhi.

I hope you are right that it's just the virus finding all non-immune people, and that pretty soon India will have reached herd immunity. Because otherwise it means that some exciting new variant has escaped, and everything starts all over again. The CEO of Pfizer is already hinting towards that, probably increasing price per dosis, as we speak.
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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12094 on: April 27, 2021, 04:27:21 PM »
Quote
Let's also not discard the January seroprevalence studies

They failed a reality check then and the confirmation that the serologies were pure lies comes now.
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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12095 on: April 27, 2021, 05:54:51 PM »
This thread is like watching a drunk driver careening down the road, swerving and smashing into cars and pedestrians.

I'm going to take a break and catch up on some flat earth society sites.

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12096 on: April 27, 2021, 06:16:50 PM »
I hope you are right that it's just the virus finding all non-immune people, and that pretty soon India will have reached herd immunity. Because otherwise it means that some exciting new variant has escaped, and everything starts all over again. The CEO of Pfizer is already hinting towards that, probably increasing price per dosis, as we speak.
India will not necessarily reach herd immunity so very soon. With 1.3B people, the wave has quite a lot of room to grow before it subsides. Many countries have reached a level of ~1k new daily infected per million at or near the peak, which for India could mean above 1M daily cases, 3 times the current number.

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12097 on: April 27, 2021, 06:52:39 PM »
Dear Neven,
Please excuse my post about you, put in the cafe but which was copied here.
My interpretations of your messages and my imagining of your reasons are surely far from true.
Best wishes

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12098 on: April 27, 2021, 07:08:14 PM »
Cold viruses like Coronaviruses only offer 12 months immunity before most people can be reinfected, Rhinoviruses even less 6 months, Influenza flu offers 3 years immunity.

Herd Immunity is only possible with Vaccines for Covid. Influenza offers herd immunity without vaccines as immunity lasts upto 3 years. New variants may escape the vaccine efficacy levels, time will tell.

If it takes 2 years to Vaccinate a large population like China or India you would not reach herd immunity, as after 12 months the vaccinated would get reinfected.

Seasonal coronavirus protective immunity is short-lasting (link below)

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-1083-1

We show that reinfections by natural infection occur for all four seasonal coronaviruses, suggesting that it is a common feature for all human coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2. Reinfections occurred most frequently at 12 months after infection, indicating that protective immunity is only short-lived.



April 27th 2021

One in 435 of all of the people that were alive in England, UK in 2019 have since died with COVID-19 (+346 this week).

Based on 129,048 death certificates with COVID-19, est. population of 56,286,961 in mid-2019.
« Last Edit: April 27, 2021, 07:36:58 PM by glennbuck »

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #12099 on: April 27, 2021, 07:13:40 PM »
April 27th 2021

One in 435 of all of the people that were alive in England, UK in 2019 have since died with COVID-19 (+346 this week).

Based on 129,048 death certificates with COVID-19, est. population of 56,286,961 in mid-2019.

Not sure, but you may be conflated England with all of the U.K. 
In 2019, England had 56M people, while the entire U.K. had 66M
England has reported 112K covid deaths, while the entire U.K. has reported 127K.

The ratio for England is 1 in 500, for the entire U.K. it is 1 in 520.