Coronavirus: UK variant can render all existing vaccines inefficient

Vitaliy_Kiselev

The sharp rise in the incidence of COVID-19 in the UK is associated with a new genetic variant of the coronavirus, which has been identified in the country and may be 70% more infectious, Johnson said, adding that British experts have not yet found evidence that the mutated virus could be more lethal.

"Although there is still considerable uncertainty on this issue, it can be 70% more infectious than the original version that we dealt with before. So far, this is only preliminary data, which can later be refined, but this is the best we have now. there is, and we must act on the basis of this information, since the spread of the infection is very fast, "said the head of government.

"We have no evidence that it causes more severe disease or higher mortality," Johnson added. So far, nothing also indicates that vaccines will not work against the new variant of the virus.

According to Patrick Wallance, senior scientific adviser to the British government, the new variant of the virus contains an unusually high number of mutations.

"Viruses mutate constantly, but in the new variant we see 23 changes in the genome, many of which are associated with changes in the spike protein produced by the virus," Vallance said, adding that mutations were noted in those parts of the genome that respond for the way the virus binds to cells and enters them.

Similar genetic variants of the coronavirus have also been previously found in other countries. The more contagious variety of coronavirus can also occur outside the UK, Wallance said, but there is a major outbreak in the kingdom that is caused by it. There is no information about whether the new variant of the virus originated in the UK or was imported from outside.

“Now it is very important for the general efforts to sequencing the genome of the virus to understand how it is changing and how much. Only by assessing the situation at the global level, we will begin to understand which parts of the genome of the virus are undergoing changes and in which parts of the planet this is happening. an important part of monitoring the virus, " Vallance said.

All vaccines target mostly spike protein, so some changes can render specific vaccine fully unusable.

Note that people who previously had COVID have immunity also for many internal proteins making is much harder for virus to avoid destruction.

VUI - 202012/01 (as UK calls virus) can be variant of COVID made by UK labs, contrary to original variant made by US or China.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

Carl Heneghan, Professor of Evidence Based Medicine at Oxford University’s Nuffield Department of Primary Care, has expressed scepticism over the 70 per cent figure.

“I’ve been doing this job for 25 years and I can tell you can’t establish a quantifiable number in such a short time frame,” Heneghan said.

“Every expert is saying it’s too early to draw such an inference,” the professor added.

“I would want to have very clear evidence rather than ‘we think it’s more transmissible’ so we can see if it is or not,” Heneghan continued.

“It has massive implications, it’s causing fear and panic, but we should not be in this situation when the Government is putting out data that is unquantifiable,” the professor further urged.

“They are fitting the data to the evidence. They see cases rising and they are looking for evidence to explain it,” Heneghan declared.

The data the government has on the ‘new strain’ off COVID comes from analysis by advisory body The New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag).

No one has seen the data, with the Prime Minster noting it is “early data, “subject to review” but “It’s the best we have at the moment.

onion

Technical report on the new variant here:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/947048/Technical_Briefing_VOC_SH_NJL2_SH2.pdf

endotoxic

If studying this further, more info comes out from main stream media, this colud just be a repetition of last year, even the timing it’s almost right.

If this is used as a manipulation weapon again, spect: Confinement, lock downs, more rule changing, more tech deployed outside and inside, less rights.

If vaccines are granted unusable for this strain, massive panic mode on.

AndrewReid_EOSHD

Crazy conspiracy theories.

Viruses mutate. It's normal. By the time the coronavirus appeared in humans, in Wuhan, it only had 96% similarity with the predecessor found in Wuhan bats, 2012. The lab in Wuhan knew about the virus since it killed cave explorers in Wuhan 8 years ago. All they did, was store it in a database. Not enough work was carried out and the government suppressed politically any suggestion that they might take the threat more seriously.

Neither the British government, nor the Chinese government want to destroy the global economy or kill over 1 million people. There is no geopolitical advantage to any sort of lock down or confinement. If tech industry benefits, Amazon sells more toilet paper, so what... If anything, European and UK governments are anti-American tech and would break up companies like Facebook, or hamstring them with red tape to reduce their influence, given the choice.

As for less rights, that tends to be the natural consequence of a pandemic and global health crisis. The government of the UK do not want to spend billions on furlough schemes and propping up lost trade, as a direct outcome of reduced individual freedoms, closed businesses and closed borders.

Most countries will want to find out if they have the same UK strain in widespread circulation locally before reopening freight and air travel to the UK. Until then, people will suffer. It's a natural outcome.

The new South African strain is what we should be more afraid of.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

By the time the coronavirus appeared in humans, in Wuhan, it only had 96% similarity with the predecessor found in Wuhan bats, 2012. The lab in Wuhan knew about the virus since it killed cave explorers in Wuhan 8 years ago. All they did, was store it in a database.

This is wrong data, as none of 2012 viruses have 96% similarity (at least not in any important areas of RNA) as far as I remember.

You can check detailed publications about lab origin of virus as best of them are based on very interesting story of similar viruses. And how most close of them appeared out of nowhere after COVID outbreak (in January), as it had been required to explain natural origin.

Neither the British government, nor the Chinese government want to destroy the global economy or kill over 1 million people. There is no geopolitical advantage to any sort of lock down or confinement.

You are wrong here.

As capitalism crisis is extremely severe and new phase started from problem on US bonds and banks market right before first coronavirus (October 2019). We do not know if any either solution (besides nice thermonuclear war) to save capitalism intact exist.

Also it is lot of questions about spike protein that attach to ACE2 receptor and its efficiency. Researches showed that it is very close to theoretical maximum efficiency for such protein for ferrets, and it is exactly ferrets that are using in mass in bio labs for virus filtering and adaption.

It also explain why we see mass minks killings and so big fear as they are extremely close to ferrets. And people can make very bad conclusions if you let it continue.

As for less rights, that tends to be the natural consequence of a pandemic and global health crisis. The government of the UK do not want to spend billions on furlough schemes and propping up lost trade, as a direct outcome of reduced individual freedoms, closed businesses and closed borders.

We live in capitalism, class society. So talking like it is some abstract government that care for working people is wrong. Government is just committee elected by ruling class (capitalists). And we literally see how they DO NOT care about anyone but they class. How they destroy small business with smiles on their face and will let huge companies get same market.

I have good quote for you here, that perfectly match that we see during coronavirus:

Cynicism, dishonesty and corruption of business people give grounds to assert that the goals of convicted criminals and those who are engaged in business are the same ... Crime is an extreme and most acute form of realizing the same ideals and values of bourgeois morality.

AndrewReid_EOSHD

Coronavirus is capitalism's worst nightmare, it has put capitalism into a state of Greta Thunberg-size comatose activity, flights and businesses grounded and factories closed. Only China, Taiwan and a handful of smaller countries have dealt with the virus in the correct manner. As far as I know, Taiwan and South Korea are fully capitalist nations.

The Wuhan virus lab had a public database available until recently, and their highest match on the database at the start of the coronavirus pandemic was about 96% for the initial pandemic strain, so if it came from the lab, any scientist outside of China would have been able to find a better match of close to 100% on the database. You can always say the lab has another secret database full of gained up viruses designed for the Chinese state, and nothing can be completely disproven or excluded yet, but I have to say it looks unlikely given the damage to China itself, and the fact they had no real political motive to torture themselves and the entire planet with a pandemic.

The Russian state is the ultimate class system based economy. At least in the UK you go to free state education with the avenue open into Oxford university, and onwards into the civil service and government if you choose. There are countless people in UK politics from working class backgrounds. The actual mundane truth of it is even less exciting. Far from being a meritocracy or even a class based system, the UK state is founded on incompetence to a large degree. The private sector gets the best brains and pays the most money. UK civil service and government work is less interesting, a lesser career choice and attracts mainly unimaginative thickos from the local councils and local governments. It is not a sophisticated ruling class of capitalists. It is more a hobbyist pursuit than you expect.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

Coronavirus is capitalism's worst nightmare, it has put capitalism into a state of Greta Thunberg-size comatose activity, flights and businesses grounded and factories closed. Only China, Taiwan and a handful of smaller countries have dealt with the virus in the correct manner. As far as I know, Taiwan and South Korea are fully capitalist nations.

No, coronavirus for now is best capitalism savior that gave it reasons to solve immediate debt issue by making stuff out of nothing under pretense of relieve bills.

US. The amount due in the next 12 months is $7340 billions, or approximately 25.8 normalized monthly US budget revenues.

Of these, $3995 billions will mature in the next 3 months - the normalized US budget income in 14 months.

So...

The Wuhan virus lab had a public database available until recently, and their highest match on the database at the start of the coronavirus pandemic was about 96% for the initial pandemic strain, so if it came from the lab, any scientist outside of China would have been able to find a better match of close to 100% on the database. You can always say the lab has another secret database full of gained up viruses designed for the Chinese state, and nothing can be completely disproven or excluded yet, but I have to say it looks unlikely given the damage to China itself, and the fact they had no real political motive to torture themselves and the entire planet with a pandemic.

It is much better to check https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/rogue-chinese-virologist-joins-twitter-publishes-evidence-covid-19-created-lab

Dr. Li-Meng Yan and similar papers, is is few of them. Most of them are censored.

The Mordor state is the ultimate class system based economy. At least in the UK you go to free state education with the avenue open into Oxford university, and onwards into the civil service and government if you choose. There are countless people in UK politics from working class backgrounds.

You mean that you have zero knowledge of Mordor education system (I worked in it for big amount of years)? Or you want to tell me how bad you know origins of UK capitalists (I hope you do not want to tell me that political circus or government clergy is something making all decisions? Can check last US bill where senators had 4 hours to read 5.7k pages and 98% of them never saw even one page before).

Vitaliy_Kiselev

The CDC has officially weighed in for the first time, with the agency stating that there's "no evidence" the variation causes more severe illness, or in any way increases the risk of death.

New variant strain of SARS-CoV-2 that contains a series of mutations has been described in the United Kingdom (UK) and become highly prevalent in London and southeast England. Based on these mutations, this variant strain has been predicted to potentially be more rapidly transmissible than other circulating strains of SARS-CoV-2. Although a variant may predominate in a geographic area, that fact alone does not mean that the variant is more infectious. Scientists are working to learn more about this variant to better understand how easily it might be transmitted and whether currently authorized vaccines will protect people against it. At this time, there is no evidence that this variant causes more severe illness or increased risk of death. Information regarding the virologic, epidemiologic, and clinical characteristics of the variant are rapidly emerging. CDC, in collaboration with other public health agencies, is monitoring the situation closely. CDC will communicate new information as it becomes available.

AndrewReid_EOSHD

The origins of UK capitalism is very far removed from the system at play today, neither of our countries are what you'd call perfect examples of either traditional capitalism on my side, or on your side exactly what Karl Marx envisioned for society when he saw the working conditions in Manchester's factories. Everything is far removed, new forces and new competition. Had Russia not lost her once great empire, in an almost Roman-style collapse they would not be vying for chief world wide geopolitical agitator today, it would be a stable soviet empire fully in control and confident, and probably as capitalist & 'open for business' as China.

All of us are quite fucked. We all need to adjust our class systems and societies, starting with a complete revolution of both education and governments. Poor education takes generations to fix. The system produces too many brainwashed idiots in charge of fixing it.

Likewise with ideologies. Russia still wants to paint Latvia as a bunch of fascists. When will the ideology change and the propaganda stop? It'll take generations.

There's no such thing as the right system or one truth, only petty jealousy. I never assumed that the Polish admired the British for our fairness or sport... No, more like - get me the hell away from the communists so I can have myself a nice TV. Russia's state is now a capitalist oligarchy in all but name.

I honestly don't believe the imaginative corona conspiracies.

The very fact Oxford university is advocating collaborations with the Sputnik vaccine team and considering the double dosing with the UK vaccine is proof of scientists at work, not geopolitics. Had the UK government or capitalist big Pharma bosses been consulted, the PR people would have killed the plan before it even began.

endotoxic

Coronavirus conspiracy?

Dude, it’s a reality many things are not close to conspiracy, are real, like the Minks killings, approvals of laws from at least a year before, with its name covid on, gates making simulations about this months before, laws that usually take long time to make already scripted and ready to be executed, a virus that was not natural, and I’m not talking the medical part of it.

You must be blind no to see that and at least use logic.

I’ll say it again covid it’s a concept and idea of change, not solely a virus and a pandemic. It conforms many changes in so many levels.

You must be very naive to think that at this point of time, we don’t have the technology the experience and the money to pull out covid? Come on dude! Really? That naive? Wake up, to much cameras.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

The origins of UK capitalism is very far removed from the system at play today, neither of our countries are what you'd call perfect examples of either traditional capitalism on my side, or on your side exactly what Karl Marx envisioned for society when he saw the working conditions in Manchester's factories. Everything is far removed, new forces and new competition.

Nope, it is all the same stuff. Just new curtains, same prostitutes on old beds with creaky mattresses.

Had Mordor not lost her once great empire, in an almost Roman-style collapse they would not be vying for chief world wide geopolitical agitator today, it would be a stable soviet empire fully in control and confident, and probably as capitalist & 'open for business' as China.

USSR was not empire. You should know it if you read stuff.

Btw discussion of Mordor on PV is prohibited from day 1 exactly due to simple fact that usual poster have no idea that he post about. I started made exception today as western capitalists started to lie so blatant that even low level discussion can help to understand other people.

All of us are quite fucked. We all need to adjust our class systems and societies, starting with a complete revolution of both education and governments. Poor education takes generations to fix. The system produces too many brainwashed idiots in charge of fixing it.

Communists showed that poor education or lack if it takes just years to fix even having big invasion in the same time. And you can't fix modern capitalism, it is beyond fixable state. Plus it is waste of your efforts and time. And it is not system, it it capitalism that produces idiots, as idiots are the ground it feeds on.

Likewise with ideologies. Russia still wants to paint Latvia as a bunch of fascists. When will the ideology change and the propaganda stop? It'll take generations.

Nope. First you again do not know the question you talk about. As Latvia is really fascists (and not they alone) and it does not matter that friendly (to them) Mordor elites tell you in mass media.

I never assumed that the Polish admired the British for our fairness or sport... No, more like - get me the hell away from the communists so I can have myself a nice TV. Russia's state is now a capitalist oligarchy in all but name.

Well, if you see counterrevolution made by internal and external capitalists against people as "I can have myself a nice TV" ... I can't help much.

The very fact Oxford university is advocating collaborations with the Sputnik vaccine team and considering the double dosing with the UK vaccine is proof of scientists at work, not geopolitics. Had the UK government or capitalist big Pharma bosses been consulted, the PR people would have killed the plan before it even began.

Things are complex, same scientists (who are always prostitutes under capitalism) told various things about Mordor doping or Novichok (btw story continues).

I think here we just have nice sounding paper as UK try to save our capitalists (for the safety of things) as they can't produce Sputnik (because they destroyed and sold to metal largest pharma factories and destroyed top research institutions because they wanted space they took in the centers of the cities).

miko

To answer the question (?) in the thread title: https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-astrazeneca-vaccine/update-1-astrazeneca-says-its-vaccine-should-be-effective-against-new-coronavirus-variant-idUKL1N2J21YQ

arum

Anectodal evidence, but here we go: I had corona back in March. I work at a school, over ten people in my environment have tested positive. I took a test just in case, negative. Also another two people who had corona earlier in the year have tested negative in spite of being in situations where they would have been exposed a lot.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

@arum

What test you made? If it is PCR - it works very specifically with best being 4th day of illness and showing almost nothing after 7th day.

You can check main coronavirus topic here on PV.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

Over the past few days, health officials across Europe (but especially in the UK) along with the top executives of Pfizer, BioNTech, Moderna etc. have repeatedly assured the public that the first wave of COVID vaccines will work against the COVID-19 mutation - the press has taken to referring to a "new variation" presumably to avoid stoking a panic.

In an interview with the FT, BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin proclaimed that should the vaccine prove ineffective, his company's mRNA platform could simply whip up a modified vaccine.

..."the beauty of the messenger mRNA technology is we can directly start to engineer a vaccine that completely mimics this new mutation and we could manufacture a new vaccine within six weeks," he said

He added that it will take roughly two weeks to determine whether the vaccine is effective against the new variant, or not.

Dr Sahin said it would take two weeks to complete the laboratory work needed to definitively prove whether or not the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine, already approved for use in the UK, US and EU, would still work as effectively.

arum

Yeah, PCR. I did still not develop symptoms, so either I have not caught it through some miracle, I am asymptomatic or I still have some manner of immunity from having had it in March.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

@arum

If you check main topic on coronavirus, I posted nice video - immunity is quite long lasting, so must work.

arum

My point is that if I still have immunity from March that has protected me against the new variant (most likely since I work in such an exposed environment), it seems very likely that a vaccine that protects against that variant would also protect against the new one (a hypothesis supported by the anecdotal data of teachers in my school who had already had it not having caught it again).

Vitaliy_Kiselev

@arum

You don't know if it is "new one". To know this virus RNA must be sequenced.

Lot of that you hear on media is part of big operation, we don't know even if this new mutations are widespread and not just present in closed lab to scare people.

arum

Again, I am just talking about anecdote based on my personal experience. In my school, where we have followed protocols quite well (there's always a kid that does not, but adults were very careful) we had 3 positive cases until mid December, suddenly, in the week from the 14th to the 20th we had. It could be bad luck, but it feels to me like the behaviour is different.

DrDave

I mean, here we don't have enough vaccine anyway because $stupid$

Vitaliy_Kiselev

The new mutant, called 501.V2, was announced in Cape Town last Friday and is believed to be a more extreme variant than Britain’s new Covid strain which has plunged millions into miserable Christmas lockdowns.

Cases in South Africa have soared from fewer than 3,000 a day at the start of December to more than 9,500 per day, with the mutant accounting for up to 90 percent of those new infections.

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