Coronavirus COVID-19 - Global Health Pandemic #101

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Skigh said:
New Botswana variant with 32 'horrific' mutations is the most evolved Covid strain EVER | Daily Mail Online


British experts have sounded the alarm over a new Covid variant believed to have emerged in Botswana that is the most mutated version of the virus yet.

Only 10 cases of the strain, which could eventually be named 'Nu', have been detected so far.

But it has already been spotted in three countries, suggesting the variant is more widespread.

It carries 32 mutations, many of which suggest it is highly transmissible and vaccine-resistant, and has more alterations to its spike protein than any other variant.

Professor Francois Balloux, a geneticist at University College London, said it likely emerged in a lingering infection in an immunocompromised patient, possibly someone with undiagnosed AIDS.

Changes to the spike make it difficult for current jabs to fight off, because they train the immune system to recognise an older version of this part of the virus.

Dr Tom Peacock, a virologist at Imperial College who first picked up on its spread, described the variant's combination of mutations as 'horrific'.

He warned that B.1.1.529, its scientific name, had the potential to be 'worse than nearly anything else about' — including the world-dominant Delta strain.
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Coming Soon to a hospital near you.
 
MimosaMornings said:
As another pandemic Thanksgiving nears, families navigate plans with unvaccinated relatives

“But many others have made a point of frequently reassessing their comfort level in crowds and directly informing unvaccinated friends and relatives about their boundaries and expectations ahead of holiday gatherings. It’s one thing, they say, to mute past tensions for a few hours and hope that the conversation doesn’t veer into fights about money, politics or religion, but quite another to sit back and accept the possibility of a health risk.”

“In a recent discussion on Twitter about banning unvaccinated relatives from holiday gatherings, several people declared themselves staunchly “no vax, no snax,” and another person shared a link to a doormat on Amazon that reads, “Welc— WAIT, HAVE YOU BEEN VACCINATED?”
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Decision time. Our family members are all double vaxxed, so will not hesitate to get together at Christmas. I know a couple of families who have taken a stand and will not have unvaccinated members over and that's that, hard feelings or no hard feelings. If you or someone in your family is immunocompromised I would strongly advise you not get together with unvaccinated people indoors.
 
CoverMeCagney said:
Oh god… can’t we just fast forward to Omega and get this thing over with.

All I know about Botswana is it’s home to the Kalahari desert and lots of wild animals. Hopefully, in a large country with a small population there will be less chance for it to cross borders.

EDIT I love these kids fact files, used them a lot when homeschooling. Here we have a Botswana 101:
Botswana Country Profile - National Geographic Kids
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Great resource! I was reminded of The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith.
 
I got COVID and spent 19 days in the ICU last year. You do not want to get COVID. Here's what that was like.
Christopher Stolarski
Wed, November 24, 2021, 11:00 AM

5cfc011f6f4ae2a9302f955a7dd1fec4

Christopher Stolarski, a St. Francis man, nearly died from COVID in late 2020, before safe and effective vaccines were available.

Just over a year ago, I was admitted to the intensive care unit at St. Luke's South Shore with acute respiratory failure.

Here are 26 things you probably didn’t know about being hospitalized with severe COVID-19 — one for each day I spent in the hospital (19 of them in the ICU).

1) You can only lie on your stomach or side. This is extraordinarily uncomfortable, and it can cause nerve damage. I now have meralgia paresthetica — permanent nerve damage in my right hip and thigh.

7) You’ll wear a blood pressure cuff 24/7. It goes off every hour, even when you’re sleeping. I named and talked to mine like Tom Hanks and the volleyball in Cast Away. ("Frank," by the way.)

15) You’re going to hallucinate — and not in the fun way. You will see and hear things that aren’t there. It’s sometimes horrifying, it’s sometimes just a little unnerving. But it’s always terrible. Eventually it goes away — months later.

16) Everything itches all the time. First, the room is very dry. But also… You have at least six EKG leads stuck to you 24/7, and those itch. The pulse oximeter taped to your finger itches. Also, you can’t shower, so…itch.

17) Time, as an entire construct, disappears. Other than the aforementioned 4 a.m. wakeup call from the phlebotomist, you generally don’t know when you are. Days of the week? LOL, not a thing.
 
SoCalDavidS said:
Coming Soon to a hospital near you.
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I wish people would understand that if we mess around with Covid and keep refusing to get vaccinated, we're going to prolong the virus' run and increase the chances that deadlier variants mutate.

The Delta virus has been less deadly so everyone seems to think it's over. Here in Kansas, even Gov. Laura Kelly, who was the first governor to close schools and take preemptive measures, signed a bill that doesn't permit employers to question workers if they claim a religious exemption. That basically takes all the teeth out of an employer who establishes a vaccine mandate. All any worker has to do is say, "I claim a religious exemption," and that's it. The person can be an atheist and get a religious exemption.

Schmidt to Kansas employers: Questioning religious exemption now illegal

Not that I think mandates are the way to go, but I think employers have a right to set rules in their own workplaces. This undercuts that.

Que sera sera...
 
Kaley Smith said:
Decision time. Our family members are all double vaxxed, so will not hesitate to get together at Christmas. I know a couple of families who have taken a stand and will not have unvaccinated members over and that's that, hard feelings or no hard feelings. If you or someone in your family is immunocompromised I would strongly advise you not get together with unvaccinated people indoors.
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Agreed. People have the right not to get the jab, but their families also have the right to ask them to stay home and not put others at risk.
 
GRT said:
I wish people would understand that if we mess around with Covid and keep refusing to get vaccinated, we're going to prolong the virus' run and increase the chances that deadlier variants mutate.

The Delta virus has been less deadly so everyone seems to think it's over. Here in Kansas, even Gov. Laura Kelly, who was the first governor to close schools and take preemptive measures, signed a bill that doesn't permit employers to question workers if they claim a religious exemption. That basically takes all the teeth out of an employer who establishes a vaccine mandate. All any worker has to do is say, "I claim a religious exemption," and that's it. The person can be an atheist and get a religious exemption.

Schmidt to Kansas employers: Questioning religious exemption now illegal

Not that I think mandates are the way to go, but I think employers have a right to set rules in their own workplaces. This undercuts that.

Que sera sera...
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Schmidt’s an evil troll!
MOO
 
This may encourage you.

Just 9 fully vaccinated people in ICU over last year: PHO
The immunization campaign gets underway as a new analysis from Public Health Ontario (PHO)showed that just nine people under the age of 60 who had gotten two doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been admitted to intensive care units in the last year.

The PHO report, published this week, said that as of Nov. 14 there have been about 17,596 "breakthrough" cases of COVID-19 among fully immunized Ontarians. That is roughly 3.8 per cent of the 11, 565,488 people who had had two doses of vaccine by that time.

Of those fully vaccinated people under 60 years old who caught COVID-19, 83 were admitted to hospital and nine needed intensive care.

In the same time frame, 8,355 unvaccinated people under the age of 60 with COVID-19 were admitted to hospital, with 1,722 eventually requiring treatment in an ICU.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toro...nov-25-2021-kids-vaccinations-cases-1.6262143
 
ilovewings said:
I would too but I hope we don't have to get it every six months. There is new variant that may evade vaccines. I am going to post that here now. It is very scary. It is a heavily mutated variant.

Covid: New heavily mutated variant B.1.1.529 in South Africa raises concern
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Is this the same one that’s been found in Botswana? It’s mainly concentrated in the Gauteng region of SA which includes Pretoria and Jo’burg. Bigger cities = higher density = more travel and transmission.

I’m feeling the need to phone Boris and tell him to stop flights from those at region pronto. We’ve been here before, with Delta flying in from India by the plane load.
 
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