Emergence of a Deadly Coronavirus

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Somehow I think this has little to do with Coronavirus and a lot to do with cracking down on political dissent.

We could know soon whether vaccines work against a scary new coronavirus variant

The variant in South Africa, called 501Y.V2 and first described by gene sleuths on December 22, not only spreads faster but, alarmingly, also appears to evade antibodies from the blood of people previously infected by covid-19, and, in theory, could also lessen the effect of vaccines, society’s main hope of curbing the global outbreak. When it was first detected, the South African variant looked worrisome because of the large number of mutations it had gained, 23 in all, and how many of these were in the critical spike protein, which the virus uses to attach to human cells.

The Johnson and Johnson vaccine is currently in trials and has been widely anticipated because it’s given as single shot and is easily stored, making it easier to get into arms than the super-cooled, two-dose messenger RNA vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer authorized in the U.S. last month. Academic and government scientists, along with Johnson and Johnson, decided on an international approach for that vaccine and trialed the shot in Africa, Brazil, and other parts of Latin America, as well as the US. Now that move looks prescient. [Why? - because it will provide us the first indication if the vaccines will work against the new strain.]

Corey estimates that 7,000 South Africans joined the trial, and since it took place as the new virus spread, “most of the study in South Africa will be measuring the efficacy against the variant.” [So comparing the vaccine results from South Africa and the rest of the World will provide us with the first indications of the answer to the question.]

Aerosol Transmission

"The evidence is now overwhelming — aerosol transmission of COVID-19 is common and is an important route of transmission." In November, Canada revised its guidelines on how COVID-19 spreads to include the risk of aerosol transmission.

Since early November, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) has advised Canadians to use three-layer non-medical masks in place of less robust one- and two-layer masks, and several Ontario companies have advertised systems they claim can either detect or kill airborne COVID-19 in a variety of indoor settings.

In their Jan. 4 letter to Canadian politicians and public health officers, the Canadian coalition of health-care workers, scientists and engineers called for the following measures to address the risk of airborne COVID-19:

• Promote strategies to reduce transmission risk indoors through clear public health messaging

• Ensure no high-risk health-care worker or other essential worker is denied access to a properly fitted N95 mask

• Mandate and fund indoor ventilation monitoring and improvement in essential public institutions, such as schools and long-term-care homes

“Experts warn that future respiratory viral pandemics are likely,” the letter states.

“Investing in ventilation, indoor air quality and appropriate personal protective equipment now will save lives and prevent economic hardship in the future.”

Source: 'Evidence is now overwhelming': 3 things to know about airborne COVID-19

Israel and UAE are vaccinating large portions of their populations.



These 2 countries may become main source of the vaccine effectiveness against the different variants.

Progress of COVID Inoculations

According to the coronavirus vaccine tracker, the U.S. has now administered 21.10 million vaccine doses.

Globally 63.05 million vaccinate doses have been given with the U.S., China and U.K. in the top three positions. The U.S. and China are vying for first place.

South African Variant

Fauci backs 'double-masking' in coronavirus fight, says 'likely more effective'

WHO team arrives in Wuhan to investigate pandemic origins

Bolding=Mine
If they are not going to investigate whether it came out of the Wuhan Lab little reason to trust this report

Progress of COVID Inoculations

According to the coronavirus vaccine tracker, the U.S. has now administered 22.40 million vaccine doses.

Globally 65.71 million vaccinate doses have been given with the U.S., China and U.K. in the top three positions. The U.S. and China are vying for first place.

Source: COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker

Adverse Reaction to Vaccine Shots

One concern about administering the COVID-19 vaccine is anaphylactic reactions. A new report on this topic should give us all some relief.

The report comes from the CDC by way of JAMA and provides information on the number of anaphylactic reactions during the first week of administration involving roughly 1.8 million doses. The data is very reliable and comes from the long-established Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). All vaccination sites are required to report adverse effects of any type. Unlike earlier COVID-19 statistics, this information is not ambiguous. Although there is a lag time in data collection, it can be measured in days, not weeks. This data is a month old, and it provides a reasonable picture.

Anaphylaxis is an immune response to an allergen, typically involving only one organ system, what we might think of as the allergic response to pollen. An anaphylactic reaction or shock involves multiple organ systems. It develops quickly, often within a few minutes, with the appearance of a rash, wheezing, trouble breathing, and other symptoms difficult to ignore.

Anaphylaxis is a syndrome, a constellation of symptoms rather than a disease with one distinctive symptom. It is scaled using Brighton criteria, a measure of severity and diagnostic certainty where 1 is the worst, three the least – but the least is bad enough involving those signs and symptoms I mentioned earlier.

There were 21 cases reported to the CDC’s VAERS system in that initial week. That works out to 11.1 cases per million or 0.001%. All of the results pertain to the Pfizer vaccine.
* There were no deaths
* Roughly half had Brighton level 1 symptoms, the worst; the remainder were level 2.
* The most common symptoms were itching, rash, swelling, and a sense of “throat closure.”
* 81% were treated in Emergency Departments – the typical treatment involves the immediate injection of epinephrine delivered at the vaccination center and then supportive care.
* The median time of onset was 13 minutes, although the range was up to two hours. – This points out the absolute need for that 15-30 minute observation period after receiving the vaccination
* Roughly a third had a prior anaphylactic reaction, and 80% had previous allergic reactions to various allergens. Without knowing how many individuals with prior allergic reactions were amongst the unaffected 1.8 million, it is hard to make this more of a concern than the cautions already in place.
* Allergic reactions were experienced by 83 individuals or 0.004% of the total.

Source: Allergic Responses To COVID-19 Vaccination

Moderna expects vaccine will be protective against variants, but will test boosters to improve immunity

Merck stopping development of its Covid-19 vaccine candidates


California health officials lift stay-at-home order for all regions

Some good news https://www.nationalgeographic.com/scie ... _Vn9aGs16g

Lockdown Philosophy

Early in the pandemic, China and South Korea were hit with infections. The two countries took different approach to dealing with the pandemic. China locked down its society whereas South Korea kept theirs open. The steps they took represent the two models for dealing with the pandemic. Many countries followed the Chinese model. But they didn't really implement a hard lockdown instead they used a soft lockdown approach. It is one of the reasons why lockdowns have generally been ineffective in treating this problem in the West.

So if you look at the response during the current Chinese lockdown, you might understand the difference.

Authorities in a north-eastern Chinese city have come under fire for their poor handling of a recent spike in COVID-19 cases, as anger mounts over a shortage of food and medication during lockdown measures. The latest outbreak in Tonghua city, in the northern province of Jilin, saw local authorities impose strict measures last week, resulting in residents being banned from leaving their homes.

Tonghua has been one of the most discussed topics on Chinese social media Weibo, with hashtags related to the topic racking up more than 1 billion views. Despite the heated discussion, local authorities, via the CCP's official mouthpiece the People's Daily, have denied that the city is facing scarcity. "At present, the city has sufficient reserves of basic living materials [and] procurement and transportation channels are open in order to meet residents' basic needs," a statement reads, "There is no shortage of materials and resources."

But some Weibo posts have said some families have gone without food since Friday. Some residents have also been posting their addresses to obtain critical medicines and other items, because they say supermarkets and pharmacies have been shut in order to prevent virus transmission. "The elderly in my family haven't taken their blood pressure medication for five days," Tonghua resident Wang Suxin wrote on Weibo last night. "You can live without food, but you can't live without medicines," Ms Wang told the ABC. "The lockdown came so urgently, and we couldn't even get a chance to find a blood pressure monitor." [Even all postal delivery services have been shut down. For example Amazon.]

Source: China's COVID-19 case spike forces another harsh lockdown, and citizens are calling out for help

So the U.S. and other countries have not been implementing hard lockdowns like they did in China but rather soft lockdowns where grocery stores and drug stores remain open along with a vast variety of other "essential businesses".

And I do not see how the U.S. could adequately control a lockdown with the porous borders we have. So it may be best to take Plan B and try the South Korean approach.

Things are really speeding up in the vaccine front.

Progress of COVID Inoculations

According to the coronavirus vaccine tracker, the U.S. has now administered 23.46 million vaccine doses.

Globally 68.15 million vaccinate doses have been given with the U.S., China and U.K. in the top three positions.

Source: COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker

What's the S.Korea's way?

Well let me try and answer this using the Internet:
The first article I came across is: Emerging COVID-19 success story: South Korea learned the lessons of MERS

South Korea’s response to COVID-19 stands out because it flattened the epidemic curve quickly without closing businesses, issuing stay-at-home orders, or implementing many of the stricter measures adopted by other high-income countries. The country has shown early success across three phases of the epidemic preparedness and response framework: detection, containment, and treatment. From the outset, decision making in South Korea has been a collaboration between the government and the scientific community.

Detection: South Korea built hundreds of innovative, high-capacity screening clinics and worked closely with the private sector to ensure an adequate supply of tests. As the outbreak escalated, approximately 600 testing centers were established to screen people efficiently and outside of the health system, with testing capacity reaching 15,000 to 20,000 tests per day.

Containment: South Korea isolated infected patients, supported those in quarantine to increase compliance and, most importantly, traced contacts with unusual thoroughness. A workforce of hundreds of epidemiological intelligence officers was deployed for these tracing efforts and empowered to use a wide variety of data sources, including credit card transactions and closed-circuit television footage.

Treatment: The health system surged to meet demand, especially in Daegu, the site of a large cluster of infections. An additional 2,400 health workers were recruited in Daegu alone. Across the country, the government built temporary hospitals to increase capacity and addressed shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) through centralized government purchasing.

South Korea’s strong enabling environment positioned the government to act quickly and effectively. After its flawed response to an outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) in 2015, the government made several reforms to the health system to boost preparedness. In addition, a well-functioning national health insurance system, ample human resources and infrastructure, and constructive relationships with key institutions such as the president’s office, the Ministry of Health, and the Korean Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, allowed for an extraordinarily decisive response to the pandemic.

It is a good article and well worth the read. I will focus on one aspect of their approach. So drilling down into the article, it read:

As with many cities around the world during the COVID-19 pandemic, Daegu faced a shortage of PPE, a critical issue that was escalated to the national government. Initially, the government limited the export of masks and penalized hoarding among retailers, but in mid-February, emergency measures doubled the production of masks in South Korea to an average of 10 million per day by March.

The government intervened in early March to purchase 80 percent of the mask supply from Korean manufacturers, fully ban exports, set a price limit on mask sales, and limit the number of masks sold weekly through retailers. Moreover, the government prioritized the distribution of masks to medical facilities. These interventions provided relief and averted further shortages, without forcing hospitals to issue policies about reusing PPE.

So my next question is what type of mask did the South Korean's wear. This lead to the following article which provided the answer:
Types of face masks that are worn due to coronavirus (COVID-19) in South Korea as of February 2020

KP94 Health Mask - 52%
Non Woven Disposable Masks - 19%
KF80 Health Masks - 18%
Cloth Masks - 10%
K99 Health Masks - 2%

So what are KP94 Heath Mask? Another article provides the answer:
Coronavirus FAQ: Why Am I Suddenly Hearing So Much About KF94 Masks?

As Stephen Morse, an epidemiology professor at Columbia University, puts it, a KF94 is essentially the South Korean equivalent of the N95. They're "pretty comparable," he says. For a visual image, you can think of a mash between an N95 and a typical cloth mask. The KF94 comes with side flaps, which mold to the contour of your face, and an adjustable band around the bridge of your nose.

Sonali Advani, an assistant professor of medicine at Duke University, explains that KF stands for "Korean filter." And 94 refers to its filtration efficiency (basically, just how good the mask is at filtering out particles we don't like), which is 94%. Not surprisingly then, an N95's filtration efficiency is 95%.

A limited study published last year showed that the KF94 was comparable to the N95 in blocking SARS-CoV-2 particles.

So basically one of the differences [but not the only difference] in the South Korean model is that the South Koreans used better mask from February of last year. They were using KF94s and KF99 right from the get-go.

-------------------------------------------
Another major difference is the focus. There are two approaches to quarantine and lockdown. In the first, you quarantine the entire population (Chinese model) and in the second you identify the vulnerable population and target extra support for this group (South Korean model).

South Korea defined the following seven groups as being at higher risk for severe illness from COVID-19: (1) people ages 65 and older; (2) people with underlying chronic conditions such as diabetes, chronic kidney, liver, or heart disease, and HIV; (3) people with blood cancer; (4) cancer patients receiving chemotherapy; (5) people taking one or more immunosuppressive medications; (6) pregnant women, extremely obese people, those undergoing dialysis, transplant recipients, and smokers; and (7) people with a blood oxygen saturation level below 90 percent. The country also ensured response readiness for these and other groups.

The Variants of the Coronavirus

There are 3 major variants of the Coronavirus which are labeled the U.K. variant, South African variant and Brazilian variant.
The Brazilian variant has found its way into the U.S.

The variant, known as P.1, was confirmed in a Twin Cities metro area Minnesota resident who had recent travel history to Brazil. The unnamed patient was ill in the first week of January after returning from Brazil, and the sample was collected on Jan. 9, officials said.

The Brazil P.1 strain was recently identified in Manaus, a northwestern city in the Amazon. Researchers say the variant was circulating there in December. The strain includes three mutations, E484K, K417T, and N501Y, similar to a variant initially detected in South Africa -- which was said to "escape" neutralization power from antibodies in convalescent plasma treatment.

The big concern is will the various vaccines be effective against these two strains (South African and Brazilian).

Moderna on Monday vowed confidence in its COVID-19 vaccine’s ability to remain effective against emerging strains of the virus, namely the South African and U.K. variants, following results from a yet-to-be peer-reviewed study.

Pfizer and BioNTech already vouched confidence in their COVID-19 vaccines ability to protect against new variants. Earlier in January, the companies posted a yet-to-be peer-reviewed study that showed the jab remained effective against both the U.K. and South African strains.

Source: Minnesota confirms Brazil coronavirus variant case, first in US

Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are based on mRNA design, but there are many other vaccines in development or use, created using different designs. Will these vaccines be effective against the new variants?