Lunchtime Pandemic Reading, 25-June-2021
The most vaccinated country in the world masks up again
Lunchtime pandemic reading.
Standard disclaimer: this is a roundup of informative pieces I've read that interest me on the severity of the crisis and how to manage it. I am not a qualified medical expert in ANY sense; at best I am reasonably well-read laity. ALWAYS prioritize advice from qualified healthcare experts over some person on Facebook.
This is also available as an email newsletter at https://lunchtimepandemic.substack.com if you prefer the update in your inbox.
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Israel, the most vaccinated country in the world has reinstated mask mandates. "Coronavirus czar Nachman Ash announced Thursday that the indoor mask mandate, obligating people to cover their mouths and noses to prevent infections, will return early next week in an effort to stem the rise in COVID-19 cases.
In a briefing with journalists Thursday evening, Ash said the outbreak had spread to Kfar Saba, Ramla, Herzliya and other cities, as Health Ministry data showed 169 had been diagnosed Thursday by 6 p.m., the highest daily tally in months.
Ash recommended avoiding flights abroad, especially for people who have not been vaccinated.
“I call on the public to consider whether traveling abroad is essential. It is highly advisable to avoid non-essential travel abroad,” he said, echoing a similar call from Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Wednesday.
“This is not the right time to fly with children who are not vaccinated,” Ash said.
Concerns are rising in Israel over the spread of the new Delta variant, which is believed to be responsible for 70% of the new cases in the country in recent weeks. There were 125 new COVID cases confirmed on Monday, a figure more than double the number detected the day before.
Also on Thursday, the Health Ministry announced that significant traces of the Delta variant came up in testing of the sewage water from Ashkelon. It urged residents of the coastal city to get tested immediately if they are experiencing symptoms, but noted that case numbers remain low, relative to the traces found in the sewage."
Source: https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-to-reinstate-indoor-mask-mandate-next-week-as-covid-19-cases-keep-rising/
Commentary: When this is happening in a country that has had outstanding success in vaccinating its population, the rest of the world should take the hint. Time to put your masks back on if you took them off, vaccinated or not, for any indoor space.
This is KEY: Unvaccinated people including kids should not be maskless ever, indoors or outdoors, with how easily Delta spreads in fleeting contact scenarios. Unvaccinated people should be wearing the best masks available.
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Delta had kids. "One of the latest coronavirus variants to raise concern is the Delta Plus. But what is it and why is it a potential problem in the fight to suppress the virus?
What is the Delta Plus variant?
Delta Plus is simply the Delta variant with an additional mutation called K417N. There are at least two separate groups of the variant and these are known as AY.1 and AY.2. The first of these, AY.1, appears to be the most globally widespread.
Where did the Delta Plus variant come from?
The first case was observed in India on 5 April 2021, but the variant has now spread to many countries. Cases have been found in the UK, the US, Canada, Portugal, Poland, Switzerland, Russia, Turkey, Japan and Nepal. It was briefly, and unofficially, described as the Nepal variant when it first came to light because it was found in 13 people who travelled from Nepal to Japan. Where it originally emerged is unclear.
The first UK case of Delta Plus was recorded on 28 April 2021. So far numbers have remained small. As of 18 June, Public Health England had identified 36 confirmed and two probable cases of AY.1 infection in England. No AY.2 has been detected in the country.
Why is it causing concern?
The same K417N mutation is found in the Beta variant first detected in South Africa. The Beta variant is a concern because evidence suggests it is partially resistant to vaccines based on the original pandemic virus, and to immunity gained from previous Covid infection. The K417N mutation is believed to be part of the reason the Beta variant can evade vaccines to some degree, so when the highly transmissible Delta variant acquires the mutation, scientists are bound to pay attention.
At the moment, vaccines seem to perform well against the standard Delta variant, particularly after two jabs, but public health authorities are concerned that the K417N mutation could dent vaccine protection, or immunity gained from previous infection with an older form of the virus.
Is it more transmissible than Delta?
With so few cases reported, scientists know very little about how fast the variant spreads, the severity of disease it causes, and how much it may evade immunity. Given that numbers have remained small in the regions it’s been detected, it may not be more transmissible than the “original” Delta variant. It will take more data to know for sure."
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/03/nepal-covid-variant-does-it-exist-should-concerned
Commentary: It is inevitable that a variant will eventually negate our current vaccines. The question is how fast we can vaccinate people; the more and the faster we can vaccinate people - and this is ALL people, planetwide - the longer it will take for the virus to develop a vaccine-resistant mutation because it will have fewer chances to evolve. But we will reach a point where we will need boosters. If you are high risk - meaning you do a lot of traveling, or you have a lot of exposure to other people in public - you should talk to your healthcare provider about proactively sourcing a third booster shot (if you had a 2 shot vaccine) to provide additional protection and make sure your immune system stays primed against the virus, especially if you can get a vaccine type you didn't have previously.
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SARS-CoV-2 emerged earlier than reported. "SHANGHAI, June 25 (Reuters) - The virus that causes COVID-19 could have started spreading in China as early as October 2019, two months before the first case was identified in the central city of Wuhan, a new study showed on Friday.
Researchers from Britain's University of Kent used methods from conservation science to estimate that SARS-CoV-2 first appeared from early October to mid-November 2019, according to a paper published in the PLOS Pathogens journal.
The most likely date for the virus's emergence was Nov. 17, 2019, and it had probably already spread globally by January 2020, they estimated.
China's first official COVID-19 case was in December 2019 and was linked to Wuhan's Huanan seafood market.
However, some early cases had no known connection with Huanan, implying that SARS-CoV-2 was already circulating before it reached the market.
A joint study published by China and the World Health Organization at the end of March acknowledged there could have been sporadic human infections before the Wuhan outbreak.
In a paper released in preprintform this week, Jesse Bloom of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle recovered deleted sequencing data from early COVID-19 cases in China.
The data showed that samples taken from the Huanan market were "not representative" of SARS-CoV-2 as a whole, and were a variant of a progenitor sequence circulating earlier, which spread to other parts of China."
Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/china/first-covid-19-case-could-have-hit-china-oct-2019-study-2021-06-25/
Commentary: The mystery of the virus continues to defy analysis, but we'll get there someday. I have no doubt, however, that the government of China knows more than it's sharing.
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Missouri leads the USA in new infections. "Missouri now has the highest rate of new COVID-19 infections, due to a combination of rising Delta variant (B1617.2) activity and one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country.
The Associated Press reports that, unlike most of the country, where 53% of all Americans have at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccines, some counties in Missouri have vaccination rates well below 40%. Hospital administrators say intensive care unit beds are once again filling, this time with young, unvaccinated adults.
In several states, including Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming, the Delta variant is responsible for at least 50% of new cases.
Missouri public health officials warn that their state is a canary in the coal mine, showing what will happen when the Delta variant circulates among the unvaccinated."
Source: https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/06/missouri-leads-nation-new-covid-19-infections
Commentary: The pandemic in the USA and other parts of the world is now two different entities. There's the impact on the vaccinated, and the impact on the unvaccinated. They have very different outcomes.
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A reminder of the simple daily habits we should all be taking.
1. Wear the best mask available to you when you'll be around other people, even after you've been vaccinated. Respirators are back in stock at online retailers, too. Wear an N95/FFP2/KN95 that's NIOSH-approved or better mask if you can obtain it. If you can't get an N95 mask, wear a surgical mask with a cloth mask over it.
2. Get vaccinated as soon as you're able to, and fulfill the full vaccine regimen. Remember that you are not vaccinated until everyone you live with is vaccinated. If you received an adenovirus vaccine (J&J/AstraZeneca), consider gettings an mRNA single shot booster (Pfizer/Moderna).
3. Wash/sanitize your hands every time you are in or out of your home.
4. Stay home as much as practical. Minimize your contact with others and avoid indoor places as much as you can; indoor spaces spread the disease through aerosols and distance is less effective at mitigating your risks.
5. Get your personal finances in order now. Cut all unnecessary costs.
6. Replenish your supplies as you use them. Avoid reducing your stores to pre-pandemic levels in case an outbreak causes unexpected supply chain disruptions.
7. Ventilate your home as frequently as weather and circumstances permit, except when you share close airspaces with other residences (like a window less than a meter away from a neighboring window).
8. Masks must fit properly to work. Here's how to properly fit a mask:
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Common misinformation debunked!
There is no basis in fact that COVID-19 vaccines can shed or otherwise harm people around you.
Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-covid19vaccine-reproductivepro-idUSL1N2MG256
There is no mercury or other heavy metals in the Pfizer mRNA vaccine.
Source: https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/12/09/1013538/what-are-the-ingredients-of-pfizers-covid-19-vaccine/
There is no basis in fact that COVID-19 vaccines pose additional risks to pregnant women.
Source: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2104983
There is no genomic evidence at all that COVID-19 arrived before 2020 in the United States and therefore no hidden herd immunity:
Source:
There is no evidence SARS-CoV-2 was engineered, nor that it escaped a lab somewhere.
Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/01/29/experts-debunk-fringe-theory-linking-chinas-coronavirus-weapons-research/
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9
Source: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/05/anthony-fauci-no-scientific-evidence-the-coronavirus-was-made-in-a-chinese-lab-cvd/
Source: https://www.smh.com.au/national/are-we-ignoring-the-hard-truths-about-the-most-likely-cause-of-covid-19-20210601-p57x4r.html
There is no evidence a flu shot increases your COVID-19 risk.
Source: https://www.factcheck.org/2020/04/no-evidence-that-flu-shot-increases-risk-of-covid-19/
Source: https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaa626/5842161
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Disclosures and Disclaimers
I declare no competing interests on anything I share related to COVID-19. I am employed by and am a co-owner in TrustInsights.ai, an analytics and management consulting firm. I have no clients and no business interests in anything related to COVID-19, nor do I financially benefit in any way from sharing information about COVID-19.
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A common request I'm asked is who I follow. Here's a public Twitter list of many of the sources I read.
https://twitter.com/i/lists/1260956929205112834
This list is biased by design. It is limited to authors who predominantly post in the English language. It is heavily biased towards individual researchers and away from institutions. It is biased towards those who publish or share research, data, papers, etc. I have made an attempt to follow researchers from different countries, and also to make the list reasonably gender-balanced, because multiple, diverse perspectives on research data are essential.
This is also available as an email newsletter at https://lunchtimepandemic.substack.com if you prefer the update in your inbox.