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Thanks, interesting thread. Someone made an interesting comment that it might affect younger age groups more readily. Given they’ve not had the vaccines yet, that could cause problems. Also, even if it spreads without much hospitalisation, it still encourages further mutations so any community spread really needs to be controlled.
The BBC website reports:-
It will be a couple of weeks before we know for sure. The message is clear - this needs to be taken seriously, but there is no need to panic.
It is tempting to conclude that because there is now evidence this variant is more infectious and because cases have risen rapidly in the UK, this marks the start of the rise of this Indian variant, but there are some good reasons why we should not jump to that conclusion.
The rapid rise in cases is being linked to an increase in international travel from India ahead of the country being put on the "red list".
There are some early signs in the data, Public Health England sources say, that the increase may be coming to an end, meaning that it may reflect that rise in travel rather than significant community spread.
Two key factors are in our favour - the vaccines appear to work just as well against this variant as the dominant virus circulating in the UK (although uptake in the Indian community is a little lower) plus there are still significant social distancing restrictions in place that should help to limit spread.
Lots of testing and contact tracing in different areas are taking place - and some surge testing is expected to be announced later in areas where there is most concern.
PJ, sorry you thought I was sneering. I was trying to balance what I read as alarmist hyperbole in the reporting. Expressions like "Covid nuclear reactor" and "Biological Fukushima" are OTT at the very least, and do not help project sensible thinking. Testing, and I hope AVCT will be at the heart of the UK's, will help us manage and control things, as variants will occur and spread, especially in and from those areas of the world which are not managing their outbreaks well. Maybe we weren't quick enough out of the blocks but the UK has shown, painful though it might have been for personal lives and the economy in general, lockdowns will stop an outbreak, vaccination will protect against further infection. Testing helps provide accurate management of events. Brazil, and others, are providing the environment for variation in the virus to occur and the disease to spread unabated, to the detriment of the world. We are going to need extensive testing regimes for some time.
Received this today from friends in China. It appears to expand on credible reports if you search "chongqing" in news search engines.
According to news reports, today there are three Chinese working in India, After returning home from India via Nepal, the initial tests were negative when they arrived in Chongqing, but the doctor still had doubts, so he gave them a CT scan. They were found to have lesions in their lungs and confirmed to be a triple variant of the Indian virus, proving that this Indian super variant can evade current testing, However, most of the checkpoints are only conducted by ordinary tests. Hong Kong and most other countries do not require immigrants to undergo CT scans and do not have sufficient time and resources to do so. If the estimate is correct, we believe that the fifth wave of super virus outbreak will soon appear in Hong Kong and the world:
Message from Singapore:
* virus is back *.
This time there is more energy,
Tactics and camouflage.
The infected person does not cough and has no fever.
* This time the symptoms are joint pain, weakness and loss of appetite. *
Death rates are higher and the time to reach critical is shorter.
Sometimes without symptoms. ..
Be careful. ..!
This strain does not reside in our nasopharyngeal region!
So no more prodromal symptoms such as loss of smell or taste, it attacks the lungs directly, shortening the onset time.
Many patients who do not have a fever,
But X-rays showed moderate chest pneumonia!
Nasal mucosa sieve test often shows COVID19 negative!
More and more false throat and nasal findings.
(COVID19) This means that the virus spreads directly to the lungs, causing acute respiratory distress (hypoxia) from viral pneumonia!
This explains why it became acute and so much more deadly!
Fever may become severe.
Please note:
* Avoid crowded places *
* Keep social distance *
* puts on mask *,
* Wash your hands often with hand soap or soap *.
This outbreak is more deadly than the last one, and caution must be exercised,
*Don't neglect*!
Yes definitely the Indian variation is the key one to worry about, which has outcompeted our Kent variant in India to cause the enormous current wave over there - so it seems to be better than our variant at spreading and look at how our Kent variant caused so much trouble here. And looking at how quick the cases have multiplied here in UK since the Indian variant has first been detected it's quite alarming, no wonder PHE are concerned about it
Olffortyniner, if I remember rightly it was through a "it'll never affect us" approach to the early Covid reports in the first few months of 2020 that enabled Covid to swamp us in the March. The same can be said of the Indian strain which I warned people about on here a month before the current crisis struck. Sneering snobbery is shortsighted at best, especially where it is the horizon that is best viewed in order to measure the markets.
Each to his own but I'm not sure I think of The Sun as my go to source of scientific information. This is an old report from 9th April anyway. If we are nonetheless to have any confidence in what it says it is worth noting that in amongst it reports:
"the new strain has not yet been confirmed to be more deadly or more transmissible."
and
"The expert assured the vaccines remain effective"
I think for Brazil, and probably the world, it is Brazil's administration which is the worry as much as any new variant that pops up amongst the chaos. The article affirms that the way to avoid new variants in an outbreak is for countries to invoke lockdowns and speed up vaccination.
Test. Test. Test.
For those who think we are out of the woods as far as Covid is concerned, this story's been doing the rounds since early April but appears to be gaining traction...........
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/14593887/brazil-variant-18-mutations-vaccines-covid/