New coronavirus variant raises alarm
(CNS): The United Kingdom is one of several countries tightening travel restrictions after a new variant of SARS-CoV-2 was identified in South Africa this week. The UK, Singapore, Japan and the European Union are among those imposing stricter quarantine measures and banning flights from states in Southern Africa. The World Health Organization (WHO) has said it will take a few weeks to understand the impact of the new variant but early indications show this latest strain could be the worst yet because it has so many mutations.
Vaccines, which were designed using the original strain, may not be as effective, the researchers are warning.
The WHO was expected to name the B.1.1.529 variant later today and announce whether at this point it is a variant of concern or interest. WHO’s COVID-19 Technical Lead Dr Maria Van Kerkhove said the agency does not yet know very much about this variant.
“What we do know is that this variant has a large number of mutations,” she said on the WHO’s YouTube channel (see below). “And the concern is when you have so many mutations it can have an impact on how the virus behaves.” She also said that the more this virus circulates, the more opportunities it has to change leading to more mutations.
The rapid spread of the Delta variant, which now accounts for almost 99% of all cases of the coronavirus around the world, demonstrated that countries need to act fast if they are to have any hope of containing more infections of new mutations of this virus. But WHO has advised countries to take a scientific risk-based assessment regarding the latest variant and not rush to close borders to African countries.
CNS has contact officials here about any moves to require travellers whose journeys originated in southern states on the African continent to quarantine on arrival, regardless of their vaccination status, and we are awaiting a response.
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Category: Health, Medical Health
All-cause mortality should be the first and primary metric we look at. It is the simplest, most objective, and least manipulable summary statistic of risk reward.
And yet, it is almost nowhere reported.
In search of all-cause mortality, we will look at two sources.
The first is a paper from MMWR, the CDC journal, that came out at the end of October. The second is a data set from the Office of National Statistics in England that Alex Berenson posted about on November 20.
One thing we will see is that the English data appears transparent, whereas the CDC data appears obfuscatory. The English data is not that easy to interpret, but it at least appears to be complete. The CDC, simply put, appears to be hiding something.
#1 The CDC/Kaiser-Permanente data
COVID-19 Vaccination and Non–COVID-19 Mortality Risk — Seven Integrated Health Care Organizations, United States, December 14, 2020–July 31, 2021 https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7043e2.htm?s_cid=mm7043e2_w
There are two deeply strange things about this paper:
It reports non-COVID mortality, but doesn’t report COVID mortality or all-cause mortality.
It compares mortality among those vaccinated to those who were not vaccinated for COVID but who did receive at least one flu shot in the last two years. It does not report the mortality among the general population of people not vaccinated against COVID.
They stated that “In this study, non–COVID-19 deaths were assessed because a protective effect of COVID-19 vaccination for COVID-19–related deaths was expected.”
• It was expected, but is that what happened? Why aren’t the COVID-19-related deaths reported?
• Why did they use those vaccinated for the flu but not COVID as the control group?
#2 The English Data
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/deathsbyvaccinationstatusengland
The English data appears to be much more transparent: it shows all deaths and death rates per 100,000 people in four age groups by vaccination status. Under-60 folks are dying twice as often if vaccinated, but this might be because the older people in that group are more likely to be vaccinated and more likely to die. We need to demand the data for subgroups in that age bracket.
Older folks seemed to benefit a lot from the vaccines early on but that benefit seems to be disappearing. Whether it will turn net negative soon is anyone’s guess, but everyone must have the right to consider that possibility for themselves.
Well that was a waste of 60 seconds.
People need to calm down. Delta is till the dominant variant, and we know vaccines protect us against that. No need for irrational panic and suggesting closing our borders and bringing back quarantine. These new variants and Covid will be emerging and killing the unvaccinated in a decade still. Let’s wait for the facts. And the fact the uk fist, then Europe and the us reimposed a red list on South Africa and other associated countries today, means we have effectively done the same as we don’t have direct flights. No need to panic and change anything here. Our hospital numbers are very positive at the moment.
People are nervous because, unlike you, they can see that red lists will only slow things down for a couple weeks. If it turns out that this new variant is resistant to vaccines and is super transmissible like Delta, we are essentially starting from square one from a vaccination perspective.
And yet we sent that young girl to the meat market super spreader event in the land of the the most racist people in the world.
This afternoon Moderna released the following and Pfizer has indicated that it will take 100 days for them to tweak their vaccine to work against this variant.
Vaccine maker Moderna says the new Omicron variant represents a “significant potential risk” to the efficacy of its Covid-19 vaccine as well as immunity reached naturally.
“The recently described Omicron variant includes mutations seen in the Delta variant that are believed to increase transmissibility and mutations seen in the Beta and Delta variants that are believed to promote immune escape,” Moderna said Friday in a news release.
“The combination of mutations represents a significant potential risk to accelerate the waning of natural and vaccine-induced immunity,” the company said.
speculations. nobody knows anything other than it is super mutated. It could be on the path of self-destructions.
Such an abundance of mutations can work against the virus, making it unstable. Therefore, it is too early to say that the new strain will become a global problem.
At the moment, there is no reason for particular concern,” emphasizes University College London geneticist François Ballou .
“It’s hard to say anything definite just by looking at mutations,” adds Professor Lawrence Young, a virologist at the University of Warwick School of Medicine . Viruses change and new options inevitably appear. There is no need to panic,
Time to bring back the 14-day quarantine monitored by the geo-tag for all arrivals. It was the only thing that kept us all safe and healthy, and allowed us all to live normal lives.
What we have now, the way we live these last few weeks, this isn’t normal and surely isn’t what the ‘learn to live with it’ crowd really wanted.
I don’t understand how this is benefiting our economy now. I’ve stopped going to restaurants, the gym, cinema, browsing the shops etc. so my financial input to the economy has dropped since covid was brought in, and I suspect it’s the same for many.
Arrivals is not the problem now, no point shutting the gate, when the horse has already escaped.
Only 2 arrivals tested positive, over 4,000 residents have currently positive.
Now out of 2 travelers and 4,000 residents, who do you think is more likely to spread it?
This is a new horse – with rabies
But we don’t have the more dangerous variant here yet, almost certainly. So let’s stop it coming by keeping it in quarantine. It worked for a long time, and was successful, albeit a small inconvenience for those traveling. We can do it again, and eradicate covid, and go back to the wonderfully free lives we had just a few months ago.
Then the traveling off island must stop immediately. Is that what you want? Didn’t think so.
Many of the 4,000 though are probably not contagious , but we’ll lock them up regardless.
Agree. We are not better off.
But we will be. If we stayed isolated from the world the longer term would be worse than this time of adjustment.
Ditto. We stopped going to restaurants, bars, retail shops and make it a point to minimize grocery shopping trips. My family’s contribution to the local economy has been drastically reduced and will continue to be so because of this willingness to let the pandemic spread for tourism dollars and leisure travel
The variant is already out, once its discovered its already too late .
It’s not all about you brother. Unless you work for Civil Service and are a voter of course. Most people on island and in the rest of the world don’t and must work for a living. All the lock downs and quarantine work we have done and where is the Cayman Islands now? Maybe the best we can do is be as healthy as we can individually and be one of the 99 who have no problems instead of the 1 who does. Just my small insignificant little opinion to be discarded by most.
Canada just announced a ban on travel from Southern Africa.
The US just announced a ban on travel from Southern Africa. Is anybody in government paying attention????
And the word is in Nu gets past natural immunity acquired by those previously exposed to Delta.
“The World Health Organization has named the B.1.1.529 Covid variant, which was first reported to the WHO from South Africa on 24 November, Omicron and labelled it a “variant of concern”.
The WHO said preliminary evidence suggests Omicron carries a higher risk of reinfection than other variants of concern, and the number of cases appears to be increasing in almost all provinces in South Africa.”
Hey PACT, new Saffa accountants arriving daily now for the upcoming busy season. Some extra scrutiny please?
How will they get here if U.K. & USA have stopped their flights from Southern Africa?
Easy. Dubai, Brazil or Argentina then to Toronto and down to Cayman.
New accountants plus the hordes of existing SA accountants coming back from Xmas vacation in four weeks.
Of course this assumes they can get here somehow!!
Is there any evidence that this variant is more lethal? I’m seeing it all over the mainstream media but haven’t seen any proof that it is causing an increase in deaths or hospitalizations.. This seems to be just governments trying to stoke up the fear fire. I’m, not an anti-vaxxer.. I’ve had both my jabs and I would like my booster but this fear-mongering is starting to get old fast. it’s nearly December. let’s have something a bit more cheerful hey?
According to tweets from Tulio de Oliveira, Director of CERI: Centre for Epidemic Response & innovation, South Africa, the Delta variant took 6 months to take over from Beta as dominant strain in South Africa. By comparison, “Omicron”/B.1.1.529, has already achieved >75% of all new cases in just the last two weeks.
PCRs still have good detection, since it shares a mutation at spike 69-70 with Alpha, but he terms it “a variant of great concern” for humanity.
Fear should really be swapped for anger that the World Bank, the IMF, USAID, PEPFAR, the Global Fund, and others NGO and Supranational entities, continue to perpetuate vaccine access inequality with poorer nations, and as a result, fail to extinguish emergence of newer variants.
Nonsense 1:29. In South Africa vaccinations have been available for months and free. RSA actually asked the vaccine suppliers, earlier this month, to stop sending more vaccines as the take up of vaccines was so slow.
So direct your anger somewhere else. Perhaps the 22% of Caymanians who are still not vaccinated here.
No evidence whatsoever. Super mutated is all they know. Could be self-destroying.
Keep up. Science moves quickly these days. All available evidence is that it has overtaken Delta in areas where it occurs and that people who have had Delta are not immune to this new variant. Even the vaccine manufacturers are saying that their models show the current vaccines will not control this variant to the same extent as older variants.
I thought the science was that with each new variant, although maybe more contagious than previous, it was less deadly? And isn’t that how the virus eventually burns itself out? Is there any evidence that Omicron is more deadly? (maybe too early to tell)
If you like living in fear than yes it is your death coming as it ever was. If not it is the beginning of the end of the pandemic as it starts to mutate to being less lethal. Still your choice so far. Basically your Faith and it’s power or no faith and no power. What do you have Faith in as your future? I believe as does many that this is actually not the end of mankind.
Absolutely ridiculous to stop nationalities form ‘new variant’ countries traveling anywhere.
By the time these variants are discovered it has already travelled all over the globe. It’s probably here already.
If this pandemic has thought us anything is that life should be lived to the fullest. Hiding under our beds will solve **** all.
Oh look I see it coming………another knee jerk reaction from Pact on the way.
Now sequenced in an inbound Belgian traveller from JNB from a few days ago. 14 different airlines flying out of O.R Tambo all day long, to all over the world, including MIA. 201 outbound international flights, just yesterday. Contact tracing nightmare.
Run. Hide. Say your goodbyes. You are going to die.
Just not today.
PACT government on the ball, they have stopped their plans for direct flights to Cayman from Botswana immediately.
A very pro-active move
stopping flights from these countries will stop nothing….if a country wants to keep itself safe it would need to do what cayman/new zealand did and close its borders fully,,,,,,but that is only delaying the inevitable.
we need to learn to live with viruses.
thats what we get for not following WHO advice on vaccination process.
cayman, like most first world countries, were only concerned with the mass vaccination of their entire populations instead of making sure the most at risk world wide were vaccinated.
cayman should hang its head in shame as it attempts to triple vax its population while many poorer neighbours have limited access to vaccines.
vacination of young healthy people is waste of time.
How do you know all young people are healthy? And do you know what vaccines are for?
CNS: It’s likely you’ll be waiting some time for a response. Don’t hold your breath! And when it comes, it will be “We’re currently taking advice on the matter and will make a decision in the near future”. Near future being too late of course!
CNS: Travellers from South Africa would have to isolate regardless upon entry to Cayman, because the vaccination rate there is below 60 percent.
New variants tend to emerge from undervaccinted populations, but quickly become a global issue.
What’s the plan Pact? Going to continue to let people come from Souther Africa, Israel, and Hong Kong, without 14 day quarantine? You have to act quickly and decisively. Can you? Will you?
I eat my words. Thank you.