Discussion thread VI - COVID-19 (new coronavirus)

[Pathfinder]

UK -

Tragedy as hero doctor who worked on the Covid frontline dies of disease

By Daniel Keane
3 hours ago
...
Dr Irfan Halim, described by friends as a “gift of a man”, passed away at the Royal Brompton hospital in South Kensington on Sunday following a nine-week battle with the virus.

It came just two months after he had taken up work on the Covid intensive care unit (ICU) wards at Swindon Hospital, where it is believed he contracted the virus before collapsing during a shift on September 10. Dr Halim was fully vaccinated and wore full personal protective equipment (PPE) at all times during his time on the wards.

After spending several weeks in ICU in Swindon, Dr Halim was transferred to the Royal Brompton on September 23 where he received extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) treatment. He died in the arms of his wife Saila, who said she was “whispering prayers and love into his ears”.
...
His tragic death occurred just a few weeks after his father Kamal, also a doctor, passed away from Covid in late September, close friends of the family said. He was buried and a funeral took place while his son was in the ICU at the Royal Brompton.
...

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/irfan-halim-tributes-doctor-died-covid-frontline-b967135.html

[Emily]

https://washingtonnewspost.com/news/health/hero-surgeon-killed-by-covid-was-double-jabbed/

Hero surgeon killed by Covid was DOUBLE-JABBED
2 days agoLast Updated: November 19, 2021
Grieving widow Saila Halim said Dr Irfan Halim, 45, passed away at Royal Brompton Hospital in West London on November 14 following a nine-week battle with the virus.

The doctor, who had no known health conditions, received his second vaccine in January but was struck down by the disease on September 10, six days before Britain’s booster programme was given the green-light.

As a frontline NHS worker who was vaccinated nine months ago, he would have been at the front of the queue for the crucial third shot when they were rolled out on September 16.

Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, Mrs Halim said today: ‘My husband worked away from London and I’m not sure which vaccine he received but he was double vaccinated and always wore full PPE when he was on the wards.’

Fighting back the tears, she continued: ‘He never said anything about getting the booster and I don’t think he got one.

‘It makes you question the efficiency of the vaccine but now is not the time for me to think about these things because I’m so heartbroken.

‘It’s a double tragedy for the family and we are in too much pain to consider anything else.’..

[sharon sanders]

bump this

[kiwibird]

https://twitter.com/quality_nguyen/status/1462082934702325761/photo/1

Thomas A. NguyenTurkey (bird)
@quality_nguyen
Ok, so I've been doing pediatrics for 15 years but never before have I had a patient with 5 identifiable viruses

Adenovirus, RSV, Covid, OC43 Coronavirus and Rhinovirus/Enterovirus!

[Emily]

Protests about COVID measures getting violent in the Netherlands, or have been hijacked by people with their own agendas, as happens here. Police seem to be using bullets in response and some are wounded. It is alleged that some are being targeted wrongly, as happened here in the US during the Occupy Wall street protests.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bYPvy7KaAU

https://twitter.com/search?q=netherl...ed_query&f=top

[Pathfinder]

What's behind the rapid disappearance of the delta variant in Japan? It could be self-extinction.

BY OSAMU TSUKIMORI
STAFF WRITER
Nov 18, 2021

Why did Japan’s fifth and biggest wave of the coronavirus pandemic, driven by the supercontagious delta variant, suddenly come to an abrupt end following a seemingly relentless rise in new infections? And what made Japan different from other developed countries that are now seeing a fresh surge in new cases?
...
Many scholars point to a variety of possibilities, which include one of the highest vaccination rates among advanced countries with 75.7% of residents fully vaccinated as of Wednesday. Other potential factors are the social distancing and mask-wearing measures that are now deeply embedded in Japanese society.

But the chief reason may be related to the genetic changes that the coronavirus undergoes during reproduction, at a pace of around two mutations per month. According to a potentially revolutionary theory proposed by Ituro Inoue, a professor at the National Institute of Genetics, the delta variant in Japan accumulated too many mutations to the virus’s error-correcting, non-structural protein called nsp14. As a result, the virus struggled to repair the errors in time, ultimately leading to “self-destruction.”
...
“We were literally shocked to see the findings,” Inoue told The Japan Times. “The delta variant in Japan was highly transmissible and keeping other variants out. But as the mutations piled up, we believe it eventually became a faulty virus and it was unable to make copies of itself. Considering that the cases haven’t been increasing, we think that at some point during such mutations it headed straight toward its natural extinction.”

Inoue’s theory, while innovative, would lend support to the mysterious disappearance of the delta variant’s spread in Japan. While much of the rest of the world with similarly high vaccination rates, including South Korea and some Western countries, are suffering from record waves of new infections, Japan appears to be a peculiar case in that COVID-19 cases have remained subdued despite trains and restaurants filling up following the end of the most recent state of emergency.
...
A similar natural extinction of the coronavirus could possibly be observed overseas, Inoue says, adding that detecting that would be difficult as no other country seems to have accumulated as many mutations in the virus’s nsp14 as in Japan, though similar mutations at the A394V site have been discovered in at least 24 countries.

But Inoue’s theory may also help explain why the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) ended abruptly in 2003. An in vitro experiment in which the researchers caused mutations in nsp14 in the virus that causes SARS led to findings that the virus eventually could not replicate itself as mutations piled up.

“No genome data exists, so it’s just a hypothesis, but because it has disappeared, it will never see the light of day again,” he said.

So what are the chances that we could see a similar natural extinction overseas of the COVID-19-causing SARS-CoV-2 virus?

“The chances are not zero, but that seems too optimistic for now as we’re unable to get hold of any such evidence, though we have looked at various data of other countries,” he said.
...

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/11/18/national/delta-variant-self-destruction-theory/

[JJackson]

I fail to see the logic in Ituro Inoue's hypothesis. Single stranded RNA viruses seem to have an upper limit of about 25k bases beyond which the accumulation of copy errors becomes unsustainable. Large genomes either need to be double stranded or require a proof reading mechanism. Corona viruses are +ssRNA virus of about 30k and use an exonuclease bound to the RdRp which corrects some of the errors bringing output back within the sustainable mutation threshold. Changes in the exonuclease, which reduce its efficiency, will make more variants but will also make too many that are not replication competent and the phenotype will be out competed by the wild type and other strains will fill the niche. Natural selection will allow the most efficiently reproducing phenotype to increase in the susceptible host population, if this is not a delta strain it will be something else. An overall reduction in cases is going to be due a failure of any strain to transmit between host and here an increased difficultly in transmitting, or sustaining an infection, due to previous infection or vaccination plus any social distancing and masking measures.

[gsgs]

> The funniest part is that, the Japanese prof who claimed Delta's over its error
> catastrophe threshold, was referring to a particular mutation: NSP14:A394V
> Which actually is one of defining mutations of all Deltas, has >92% prevalence
> now (100% in Japan), and still growingClown face

[gsgs]

-------edit-------
also the surprising unexplained decline in England after "freedom day"

[JJackson]

Experimentally you can create mutations in the ribosome which increase fidelity but when introduced back into a wild type population they are out performed. Each virus maintains a fine balance between the amount of genetic diversity derived during duplication and its ratio of replication competent to non-replication competent particles it produces. Variations in this genetic strategy vary enormously between viruses from ratios of 1:1 up to 1:10,000.

Regarding the peaks and troughs in SARS's waves - which I do not understand - I do not see anything particularly odd in the Japanese data but the current low could just be a lull before the next storm. The UK daily case graph is more interesting as this wave structure seems to have broken down and we now have small ripples from a constantly high base which I assume is due to a change in host behaviour as vaccination has changed the perceived personal risk. The CFR has dropped to 1 in 300, from 1 in 48 a year ago and in the first wave 1 in 5.

[Emily]

He proposes that host genetics played a part:

Studies have shown that more people in Asia have a defense enzyme called APOBEC3A that attacks RNA viruses, including the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19, when compared to people in Europe and Africa.

[JJackson]

There may well be genetic differences between populations but this is the same population that was running 23,000 cases a day three months ago and now has 150. If it did not protect them then why would it do so now?

[Emily]

JJackson, I misread the significance of the APOBEC3A enzyme. Inoue does not think that is the key to the mystery. Further down he says other Asian countries have similar expressions of the protein and vaccination rates, yet they have not done as well as Japan.
I see now he mentioned that because it provoked them to see how it affects the nsp14 protein. Then they found the haplotype network of the delta unexpectedly had lower genetic diversity than the alpha. But he doesn't seem to me to offer a mechanism as to why it happened yet.
I've read that Japan allowed doctors to prescribe Ivermectin even though it was not on the official guidelines. It binds to nsp14 with high affinity.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8203399/

Possibly it or some other antiviral they were using worked together with vaccines and other measures to break transmission.

[sharon sanders]

bump this

[Emily]

https://twitter.com/i/status/1463275901718876160

Dr. Eli David
@DrEliDavid

Dutch police beating a man unconscious to fight Covid. Notice how even the dog refuses to take part in this barbaric act.

Video at link is graphic - E.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1463275901718876160

752.4K views
0:02 / 0:26
From zwinki_zwonki





Tamsanqa
@Tamsanq29395794

Replying to@DrEliDavid

Exactly how Dutch Police used to beat Africans here in South Africa, only difference being their dogs also took part in those barbaric acts. Does it mean Covid has been in existence here is SA long before it was detected in Wuhan???





Ansgar John
@ansgarjohn
·
8h

Replying to@DrEliDavid

This was a while ago. The police is generally pretty good now (in Amsterdam). Thanks, I believe to @PolForFreedom
ex-Army veterans and conscripts like myself standing up. #IHGVV etc, etc. We have a 24/7 freedom fire on Dam Square. #vlamopdedam "Freedom in the opposite of fear."

[Emily]

https://twitter.com/leucasch/status/1372180860288573441

ᗰiᑕK ᒪEᑌᑕᗩSᑕᕼ @leucasch

"This is apparently the photographer who was beaten up by the Mobile Unit on Sunday [in the Hague]. He is a nature photographer. But now he has seen real animals. Still in uniform."






Jan B. Hommel - alias @the_stinging
@hommel_b
Mar 17

https://trouw.nl/ts-b6f8dddf via @trouw Dit is blijkbaar de fotograaf die zondag werd afgetuigd door de Mobiele Eenheid. Hij is natuurfotograaf. Maar nu heeft ie echte beesten gezien. In uniform nog wel. #coronavirus #Malieveld #verkiezingen

8:39 AM · Mar 17, 2021·Twitter Web App

[sharon sanders]

bump this

[sharon sanders]

Vaccinated people can have "breakthrough" #COVID19 infections + many did not get a booster yet...

Please look at current surges in Europe and South Korea:

https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/europe-aj/europe-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021…
https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/asia-ad/asia-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021… #COVID19

Choose your risk & take care of you during the holidays.

[gsgs]

B.1.1.529 (=Ny?) in South Africa is out-competing others *far* faster than Beta and even Delta
https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/sta...56686075580421

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...nt-strain.html

spreads much faster and
vaccines >40% less effective

[gsgs]

35 amino-acid mutations in the spike protein alone !?!
incredible 9alpha had 7, delta 6)
68 nonsynonymous changes
plus the synonymous ones, which I don't have
(I don't know, what PL below means , from a tweet od @Tuliodna )

spike:
A67V
del 69-70
T95I
G142D
del 143-145
N211I
L212V_RE
V213P
R214E
G339D
S371L
S373P
S375F
K417N
N440K
G446S
S477N
T478K
E484A
Q493R
G496S
Q498R
N501Y
Y505H
T547K
D614G
H655Y
N679K
P681H
N764K
D796Y
N856K
Q954H
N969K
L981F


E:T9I
M3G
M:Q19E
M:A63T
N:P13L
N:del 31-33
N:R203K
N:G204R

orf1ab :
PL:K38R
PL:L862LF
PL:V1069I
PL:del 1265
PL:L1266I
PL:A1892T
nsp4:T492I
3CL:P132H
nsp6:F34FL
nsp6:F35FILV
nsp6:del 105-107
nsp6:I189V
RdRP:P323L
nsp14:I42V
nsp15:F122FILV

[Mary Wilson]

Today, 10:58 PM
Eric Tool

Nu (Ν,ν) will be the @WHO name/Greek letter for the new variant. Better than B.1.1.529. That's about the only good thing you can say about it right now.

https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status...75943257481216

[sharon sanders]

bump this