scenario's

Goal herd immunity percentage in US - 70%.

DJ

-Since the India variant may be the main factor in how this pandemic further will develop [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=275TdKLUonI[/url] or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=275TdKLUonI.. DJ-Most likely this is a UK story-claiming the India-variant is not that much more infectious then the UK/Kent variant...Some other claims did put the UK variant at 1,33 the old variant-the India variant 2,25 times as infectious. Still the SA variant-in statistics showing to be 1,49 times as infectious as the old variant was stopped spreading by the UK variant...In this ZOE video also the infections do NOT (so far) seem to spread in a larger region-linked to area's with multi-generation households, poverty, often Asia-links. 

Another study claims infection spread is reduced by vaccinations. ONE vaccination with AZ/O or Pfizer would reduce spread with 30 to 50%. But further study would have to look at variants, circumstances...

-Some of the (other) numbers giving an indication of where we are [url]https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/[/url] or https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ is showing India still reporting almost 260,000 new cases, 4,209 deaths. Brazil numbers seem to be increasing again-over 83,000 new cases, 2,527 deaths...Argentina is now #3 in new cases with 35,884 new cases being reported...the US is #4-just over 30,000 new cases...

[url]https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/weekly-trends/#weekly_table[/url] or https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/weekly-trends/#weekly_table is showing an increase of 8% for Brazil, +40% for Argentina...India -23%, USA -21% both countries with reduced testing...In many Latin America, South Asia countries numbers are still going up...in the UK +2% (simply is not good !)

DJ-Looking at the global situation this pandemic is far from over ! With over 650,000 new cases (the real number very likely far over 1 million !), over 13,000 deaths per day "the pandemic is over for a limited number of rich countries" that were able to have a mix of NPI restrictions (you have to be rich to shut down the economy !) and vaccinations. 

A lot of "rich countries" still have some restrictions. Japan is still in a crisis with high numbers. So it is a mixed picture. 

[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lineage_B.1.617#Statistics[/url] or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lineage_B.1.617#Statistics is showing the India variant now in 69 countries-9,023 cases. UK has 4,034 (reported-sequenced) cases, the US has 921, Canada 381, Germany 260, Japan 150, Ireland 90, Belgium 60. (In latest news India variant statistics an overview over this month).

By the way [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lineage_P.1#Statistics[/url] or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lineage_P.1#Statistics the US has 8,048 reported/sequenced P1 cases, Canada 9,129, UK 113....

[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lineage_B.1.351#Statistics[/url] or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lineage_B.1.351#Statistics the US has 1.153 SA variant cases, Canada 1,089, UK 782, France 1,445, Germany 1,513...

With limited vaccine/natural immunity and less restrictions also those numbers will increase-result in newer variants. Mutations that help to evade immunity will have an advantage...so will increase...

-Flutrackers;

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/local-regional-communities-and-organizations/cidrap/915850-cidrap-another-new-coronavirus-has-jumped-to-people[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/local-regional-communities-and-organizations/cidrap/915850-cidrap-another-new-coronavirus-has-jumped-to-people ; As the world is dealing with a pandemic caused by one novel coronavirus that likely jumped from animals, researchers have identified another novel coronavirus from a child with pneumonia in Sarawak, Malaysia, in 2017-18, reports a study today in Clinical Infectious Diseases.

Dubbed CCoV-HuPn-2018, this new virus is the first canine coronavirus (CCoV) to ever be isolated from a human.

If CCoV-HuPn-2018 is confirmed as a pathogen, it would be the eighth known coronavirus to cause infection in humans.

-

Why is CIDRAP calling this a 'jump' to humans when the researcher does not state that, let alone whether or not this virus contributed to pathology? It seems like researchers are willing to endanger the human-canine bond to get funding and CIDRAP wanted a click-bait title on a post. At least NPR corrected their title.

DJ-It looks like some canine traces were found in the RNA traces-but it may be a cold infecting both dogs and humans-in this case it jumped from a dog to a child...See also [url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/animal-diseases-of-concern-excludes-h5n1/915834-a-new-infectious-coronavirus-is-detected-in-malaysia-%E2%80%93-and-it-s-coming-from-dogs[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/animal-diseases-of-concern-excludes-h5n1/915834-a-new-infectious-coronavirus-is-detected-in-malaysia-%E2%80%93-and-it-s-coming-from-dogs ;In the past 20 years, new coronaviruses have emerged from animals with remarkable regularity. In 2002, SARS-CoV jumped from civets into people. Ten years later, MERS emerged from camels. Then in 2019, SARS-CoV-2 began to spread around the world.

For many scientists, this pattern points to a disturbing trend: Coronavirus outbreaks aren't rare events — but will likely occur every decade or so.

Now, scientists are reporting that they have discovered what may be the latest coronavirus to jump from animals into people. And it comes from a surprising source: dogs.

When the COVID-19 pandemic first exploded, Dr. Gregory Gray started to wonder if there might be other coronaviruses out there, already making people sick and threatening to trigger another outbreak.

The problem was, he didn't have a tool to look for them. The test for COVID-19, he says, is extremely limited. It tells whether one particular virus – SARS-CoV-2 – is present in a person's respiratory tract, and nothing else.

DJ-Coronavirusses in animals ARE a problem for humans-one health !

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/-2019-ncov-new-coronavirus/england-2019-ncov/915871-most-covid-patients-in-east-lancashire-hospital-had-jab-says-council-leader[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/-2019-ncov-new-coronavirus/england-2019-ncov/915871-most-covid-patients-in-east-lancashire-hospital-had-jab-says-council-leader ; Stop blaming vaccine hesitancy for spread of India Covid variant, says Mohammed Khan

The majority of people in hospital with Covid-19 in East Lancashire have received a vaccine dose, a council leader has said, as ministers were criticised for “blaming” a resurgence of cases on people who had not yet had the jab.

Mohammed Khan, the leader of Blackburn with Darwen council, said six of the nine coronavirus patients in the region’s hospital had received at least one jab. Only three of the Covid patients at East Lancashire Hospitals NHS trust had not received a jab when they were eligible, Khan told the Guardian.

He added: “It’s no good blaming people or blaming part of the community. They have to find out why [people have not had a vaccine] … This virus has nothing to do with nationality, nothing to do with faith – it will move anywhere.”...

DJ-Vaccine evasion, vaccine escape is likely to increase in time with more people being vaccinated and catching the virus. Only those mutations that support further spread can move on...Vaccine selection is a major problem-the outcome could be a resistant virus able to infect a host over and over again...(and to be honest it looks like we are going in that direction !) 

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/united-states-ab/united-states-covid-19-sars-cov-2-september-13-2020-may-31-2021/915864-south-carolina-b-1-617-2-cases[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/united-states-ab/united-states-covid-19-sars-cov-2-september-13-2020-may-31-2021/915864-south-carolina-b-1-617-2-cases ; Dr. Linda Bell, the state’s top epidemiologist, is cautiously optimistic about South Carolina’s coronavirus outbreak, even with four cases of the B.1.617 lineage, a variant first discovered in India, now identified in the state.

Daily case counts have dropped by 97% since Jan. 8. And the state’s COVID-19 hospitalizations have decreased by 43% in the past month.

DJ-I again am NOT an expert-but the India variant in an area with limited immunity and limited restrictions is a MAJOR problem !

See also [url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/united-states-ab/united-states-covid-19-sars-cov-2-september-13-2020-may-31-2021/915842-texas-b-1-617-2-variant[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/united-states-ab/united-states-covid-19-sars-cov-2-september-13-2020-may-31-2021/915842-texas-b-1-617-2-variant and [url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/united-states-ab/united-states-covid-19-sars-cov-2-september-13-2020-may-31-2021/914921-colorado-cases-of-b-1-617-2-detected[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/united-states-ab/united-states-covid-19-sars-cov-2-september-13-2020-may-31-2021/914921-colorado-cases-of-b-1-617-2-detected (latest activity); According to Mesa County Public Health, there are now 141 known cases of that variant in Mesa County. Of those, a handful were found in people who had been partially or fully vaccinated. Three residents who had been fully vaccinated later tested positive for a COVID-19 variant, two of which were for the India variant. Another six residents who were partially vaccinated also later tested positive for the India variant.
 (I could start India variant cases in the US....)

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/local-regional-communities-and-organizations/cidrap/915859-cidrap-europe-makes-cautious-progress-urged-to-monitor-covid-19-variant-spread[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/local-regional-communities-and-organizations/cidrap/915859-cidrap-europe-makes-cautious-progress-urged-to-monitor-covid-19-variant-spread ; Europe's COVID-19 cases have dropped 60% over the past month, but progress is fragile, as the region once again is on guard against a more transmissible SARS-CoV-2 variant, B1617, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) European regional office said today.
Hans Henri Kluge, MD, MPH, the group's director, said, "We have been here before. Let us not make the same mistakes that were made this time last year."

Much of Europe still vulnerable

Some European countries took reopening steps this week, with, for example, United Kingdom residents returning to pubs and Parisians dining in outdoor cafes again.
Kluge warned that several countries have pockets of transmission that could fuel dangerous resurgences, and he noted that case incidence is still high in eight countries. So far, 26 of 53 countries in the WHO's European region have identified cases of B1617, the variant first detected in India. He said most cases have links to international travel, but onward transmission is occurring, and the virus has the capacity to displace Europe's dominant B117 variant.
He urged countries that are easing restrictions to double down on measures such as testing, sequencing, isolation, contact tracing, and vaccination.
Many people in the region are still susceptible to the virus, with only 23% currently immunized with a single dose and only 11% fully vaccinated, Kluge said. "Vaccines may be a light at the end of the tunnel—but we cannot be blinded by that light."

DJ-"Media/politics" is almost claiming "we did beat the virus"...restrictions going down=testing/vaccinations going down...Will we "repeat the mistake" from may-june 2020 ? Yes we will ! "Can't fix stupid" did win...

More global headlines

• In India, daily deaths dropped below 4,000 a day after setting a global record, but cases were up compared with the previous day.
• Africa's vaccine rollout has not only been hampered by a supply bottleneck due to a stall in a COVAX vaccine produced by India's Serum Institute but also by a lack of financial resources in some countries to put the shots into peoples' arms, the head of the WHO's African regional office, Matshidiso Moeti, MBBS, said today at a briefing. She added that the supply gap can be filled if developed countries donate doses, but some countries need help developing operational plans to best use their supplies, which includes hiring vaccinators, cold-chain storage, logistics, and transportation.
• Malaysia today reported a record single-day high of more than 6,000 cases, according to CNN.
• In the Americas, Panama is closing its border with Colombia to slow the spread of the virus, and in Brazil, Sao Paulo state—the country's most populous—is easing restrictions, despite rises in cases and deaths.
• The global total today topped 165 million and is now at 165,085,000 cases, along with 3,421,409 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins online dashboard.

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/local-regional-communities-and-organizations/cidrap/915853-cidrap-nearly-1-million-excess-deaths-in-29-nations-during-pandemic[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/local-regional-communities-and-organizations/cidrap/915853-cidrap-nearly-1-million-excess-deaths-in-29-nations-during-pandemic ; Nearly 1 million more people than normal died in 29 high-income countries during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, according to a time series study yesterday in BMJ.
University of Oxford researchers led the study, which involved calculating weekly excess deaths for each included country in 2020, adjusting for age, sex, and seasonal and annual mortality trends in the previous 5 years.
They estimated that 979,000 more people than expected died of all causes during the pandemic, with rates generally increasing with advancing age. All countries, except for Demark, New Zealand, and Norway, had more deaths than expected, especially in men. But the excess death rate in the United States was higher among women than men in the 85 and older age-group.
"Excess deaths substantially exceeded reported deaths from COVID-19 in many countries, indicating that determining the full impact of the pandemic on mortality requires assessment of excess deaths," the researchers wrote.

DJ-Again-I am NOT an expert-but the real number of global pandemic related deaths worldwide may be getting closer to 10 million by now. Not only the tested/reported Covid cases-also the untested ones have to be included. On top of that all others that died because lack of care because of the pandemic. 

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/local-regional-communities-and-organizations/cidrap/915851-cidrap-experts-say-cdc-missed-mark-on-covid-mask-guidance[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/local-regional-communities-and-organizations/cidrap/915851-cidrap-experts-say-cdc-missed-mark-on-covid-mask-guidance ;When Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky, MD, MPH, announced last week that fully vaccinated Americans no longer had to wear masks in most indoor settings unless local mandates dictate so, many public health experts scratched their heads and braced themselves for what they knew would be a confusing moment in America's battle against COVID-19.
"The CDC got the science right, but the policy and communication was really wrong," said Leana Wen, MD, the former Baltimore health commissioner and Washington Post contributing columnist and CNN medical analyst. "There are unintended consequences that can endanger people and sew distrust in the CDC."

DJ-Totally unrealistic to expect unvaccinated would go on wearing a mask-if the masks itself already was a major problem. (DJ-Masks are part of a chain-"dry-virus-parts" could still get through the holes in the masks-point is virus parts pick up moisture...but masks itself have limited value.)

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/united-states-ab/united-states-covid-19-sars-cov-2-september-13-2020-may-31-2021/915848-how-long-do-vaccine-protections-last-science-can%E2%80%99t-say-for-sure[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/united-states-ab/united-states-covid-19-sars-cov-2-september-13-2020-may-31-2021/915848-how-long-do-vaccine-protections-last-science-can%E2%80%99t-say-for-sure ;  Protection from coronavirus vaccines is expected to wane, but no one knows when. It could be as soon as this fall for the first wave of people vaccinated last winter, and many predict that Covid boosters will soon join annual flu shots.

Ideally, anyone worried about fading vaccine protection could get tested for Covid-fighting antibodies, the primary defense against the virus. But as cancer patients and others with impaired immune systems are learning, it’s not that simple.

DJ-We will need a mix of vaccines AND NPI/travel restrictions to get out of this pandemic-but the political will to go for that direction is not there-making this pandemic only worse ! The present direction will bring resistant Covid-19 virusses-the virus wins...stupidity will kill us...

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/the-pandemic-discussion-forum/892756-discussion-thread-vi-covid-19-new-coronavirus?view=stream[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/the-pandemic-discussion-forum/892756-discussion-thread-vi-covid-19-new-coronavirus?view=stream ;(latest activity) Cautioning people to maintain social distancing to prevent the transmission of the Covid-19 virus, the office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India on Thursday said that aerosols, one of the key transmission mode of the SARS-CoV-2, can travel in the air up to 10 meters.

While sharing a set of guidelines called “Stop the Transmission, Crush the Pandemic”, the panel said, “Always Remember: People who show no symptoms can also spread the virus.” While stating that proper ventilation can prevent the spread of the virus, the panel added, “Running air conditioners while keeping windows and doors shut, traps infected air inside the room, and increases risk of transmission from an infected carrier to others.”

DJ Aerosol transmission up to 10 meters-indoors, asymptomatic spread, closed rooms with airco all can be problematic in most countries.

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/india/india-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/915839-india-genome-sequencing-finds-b-1-617-becoming-dominant-variant-of-concern-in-india-insacog-scientists-may-20-2021[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/india/india-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/915839-india-genome-sequencing-finds-b-1-617-becoming-dominant-variant-of-concern-in-india-insacog-scientists-may-20-2021 ; Scientists across various institutions under Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) have said the B.1.617.2 variant was beginning to take over as the dominant variant of concern in the country.

INSACOG is the leading national consortium of top scientific institutions in the country involved in genome sequencing of the virus. Over 20,000 samples of SARS-CoV-2 have been sequenced from across states, and the consortium has identified variants of concern in 8,000 samples with B.1.617 variant being the dominant one.

DJ-No surprise...

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/canada/canada-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/915836-nb-canada-delta-fredericton-outbreak-fuelled-by-b1617-variant-may-be-spreading-by-surface-contact[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/canada/canada-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/915836-nb-canada-delta-fredericton-outbreak-fuelled-by-b1617-variant-may-be-spreading-by-surface-contact ;A growing "cluster" of COVID-19 cases at the Delta Fredericton is fuelled by the variant first reported in India and health officials believe there's a "very strong probability" it's spreading through surface contacts rather than respiratory droplets or aerosols, according to an internal Horizon Health Network memo.

There are now 36 cases linked to the former isolation hotel for non-essential travellers — 10 "direct" cases and 26 contacts in the community and "contacts of contacts," the Department of Health confirmed Wednesday. At least one of them involves an employee.

Public Health has referred to the situation as a "cluster," not an outbreak.

But Horizon's COVID-19 committee on infectious disease and infection, prevention and control, which is co-chaired by Dr. Gordon Dow, a member of the provincial pandemic task force, described it as an outbreak in a bulletin to staff Monday.

"Public Health experience during the recent COVID-19 B.1.617 (Indian variant of concern) outbreaks at UNB Magee House residence and the Delta Hotel in Fredericton, has highlighted a very strong probability of contact/fomite transmission," the bulletin, obtained by CBC News, states...

DJ-Discussions on if it is a cluster or an outbreak indicate authorities are out of control...

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/china-h5n1-h5n8-h5n6-h5n3-h5n2-h10n8-outbreak-tracking/915776-china-reports-h5n8-avian-flu-outbreak-in-wild-birds-in-tibet[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/china-h5n1-h5n8-h5n6-h5n3-h5n2-h10n8-outbreak-tracking/915776-china-reports-h5n8-avian-flu-outbreak-in-wild-birds-in-tibet ; The Information Office of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs announced on May 19 that a wild bird H5N8 subtype highly pathogenic avian influenza epidemic occurred in Nagqu City, Tibet Autonomous Region.

DJ-In february H5N8 jumped from birds to humans in Russia-H5/H7 is very likely the next pandemic around the corner...

-Dr. John Campbell-Thursday update [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2YvIVkcJFk[/url] or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2YvIVkcJFk ;

Need for third dose autumn or winter? Factors Variants and vaccine efficacy Longevity of protection Trial starts in June N = 3,000 All ages who had their first dose in December or January Prof Saul Faust, chief investigator, University of Southampton It could be that some age groups may not need a booster and others do

UK, variant hotspots to get  Surge tests and vaccinations Areas identified, analysing wastewater and travel patterns an incredibly sensitive biosecurity surveillance system India variant, = 2,967

DJ The idea is in the UK outbreaks of India variants can be contained by local measures...one of many problems is asymptomatic spread (in part via people without permission to stay in the UK). Also travel will remain an issue. Contact spread of the variant may bring more cases in a wider area...The idea of booster-vaccines ignores the fact most of the world population did not even get (a chance for) a first vaccination...

DJ-My impression is the US/UK/EU goal is to keep the R0 just under 1...even if that means the pandemic will go on worldwide for many years..."economy first=economy only"...that strategy remains to be a disaster !

WAR

[url]https://halturnerradioshow.com/index.php/en/news-page/news-nation/cease-fire-in-gaza-but-escalation-in-new-york-city[/url] or https://halturnerradioshow.com/index.php/en/news-page/news-nation/cease-fire-in-gaza-but-escalation-in-new-york-city 

In the US (and other places) groups like BLM (Black Lives Matter) may identify with Palestinians...This pandemic is more and more becoming political. Right wing groups tend to claim "there is no pandemic" (like they claim there is no climate collapse). Most western governments make half choices-resulting in the worst possible scenario's....

Music ; Teach In -Ding-a-dong 1975 winner of the Eurovision Song Contest [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI78Bqp6z6g[/url] or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI78Bqp6z6g We now have that ESC "thing" in Rotterdam...

DJ, 

Due to internet problems (I need to have a good talk with my provider) a limited version today...

Most countries may reach-with some "luck" an immunity-rate of 70%+ via vaccinations and natural infections. This will influence the way this pandemic further developes. If we develop into a resistent variant that "herd immunity" may at best limit disease/death numbers. But the sooner we get a high level of immunity widespread-hopefully variants will not get a chance to develop further towards resistant forms. 

I am NOT an expert-I think most experts do not want to go for long term scenarios-other then "endemic" and preparing for a next possible pandemic-and how to stop that one. 

-Some numbers [url]https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/weekly-trends/#weekly_table[/url] or https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/weekly-trends/#weekly_table looking at highest growth in %;  Taiwan, Sudan, Niger, Gambia, China, Vietnam, Thailand, Jordan, South Africa, Malaysia, Uruguay, Portugal, Chile, Finland, Brazil, Egypt are in the group of 90 countries showing an increase of cases. The decrease was -15% is now -14% worldwide...Statistics are based on (lack of) testing/reporting...

[url]https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/[/url] or https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ has been between 600,000 and 650,000 cases per day for several days. India often going for 1/3 of all reported cases. Brazil, Argentina combined over 1/6-so the top 3 is 1/2 the cases. Deaths between 12,000 and 14,000 reported...In the highest number of cases the UK is at #33 with still over 2,800 new reported cases...lots of India-variants (meaning Germany is closing its borders for all travel from the UK. Germans returning from the UK have to go in quarantine for 2 weeks...). 

[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lineage_B.1.617#Statistics[/url] or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lineage_B.1.617#Statistics did not change from that of yesterday...

-Flutrackers;

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/europe-aj/europe-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/915010-variant-first-identified-in-india-labelled-as-variant-of-concern-by-public-health-england-b-1-617-2-updated-may-21-2021[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/europe-aj/europe-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/915010-variant-first-identified-in-india-labelled-as-variant-of-concern-by-public-health-england-b-1-617-2-updated-may-21-2021 ; 

This variant has increased by 260% in 9 days (since May 9 update):

DJ Alarming !

Some good news on vaccinations, but both doses are needed.

The Pfizer and AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccines are highly effective against the variant identified in India after two doses, a study has found. Two jabs of either vaccine give a similar level of protection against symptomatic disease from the Indian variant as they do for the Kent one. However, both vaccines were only 33% effective against the Indian variant three weeks after the first dose. This compared with 50% effectiveness against the Kent variant.

[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dermanyssus_gallinae[/url] or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dermanyssus_gallinae "No fun" !

We had [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Fipronil_eggs_contamination[/url] or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Fipronil_eggs_contamination here in NL...

Tabitha111 wrote: oh yep....regarding the wikipedia notes I have 2 HUGE dehumidifiers, 2 air purifiers, minimum furniture and it is either leather or glass or vinyl protected. You can say I live a life in plastic: plastic weathertight bins for my clothes, plastic bags for everything else even my shoes, and important papers. Nothing is out of plastic. Two showers a day with 3 hair washes in DAWN diswhashing soap. Salt scrubs all over my body. Sulphur creams and alchohol sprays are my life. Not only do I have to keep my apartment spotless and clean, but my car too. Its not for the faint of heart. Exhaustion is a constant. It is very tiring to maintain this lifestyle and also very expensive. I buy Lysol by the truckload and my biopesticide costs $145 for one month's worth.....sigh. I hate birds. Now you see why.

Wow, I had no idea they can live on humans. Our chickens have them. We get round them two ways. Firstly we have 4 chicken houses and I rotate the chickens around to the next house every 4 or 5 months, so the other 3 houses sit empty for over a year and the chicken mites die off. All the houses are in the same large orchard so it's not much trouble to do this. 

Secondly we use diatomaceous earth on the chickens when we move them, we literally dust them all over with it and then put them in the new house and we scatter it about the chicken house too. Since it's made up of the skeletons of tiny diatoms, when the mites bite the chickens they take in a tiny bit of the diatoms and it rips their innards to shreds. It's totally non toxic and looks and feels like heavy talc.It's particularly good for putting in crevices and coating the mites with. I know where they hide in our houses and I crush them with my finger and quite enjoy popping them.

DJ,

-Based on these numbers [url]https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/[/url] or https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ India would now be under 200,000 new cases per day...Global new cases under 450,000....but these are sunday numbers-less testing/reporting...

The trends [url]https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/weekly-trends/#weekly_table[/url] or https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/weekly-trends/#weekly_table show 92 countries reporting an increase (yesterday that was 101 countries). At #93 is Israel with 0%...202 cases this week and last week...UK reporting +18%-15,456 cases last week, 18,179 cases this week...

Statistics on the India-variant were updated [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lineage_B.1.617#Statistics[/url] or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lineage_B.1.617#Statistics ; UK now 6,414 India variant cases, US 1,110 a total of 69 countries reporting 12,114 cases (See India variant statistics in latest news). 

DJ-Both testing and sequencing is limited. Vaccines offer protection against the India variants but less...Sequencing takes time-so reported cases may give an indication of may 10....[url]https://www.gisaid.org/hcov19-variants/[/url] or https://www.gisaid.org/hcov19-variants/  

[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GISAID[/url] or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GISAID 

-Flutrackers

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/asia-ad/asia-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916098-thailand-media-2111-people-from-a-factory-in-phetchburi-screen-positive-for-covid-19-may-25-2021[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/asia-ad/asia-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916098-thailand-media-2111-people-from-a-factory-in-phetchburi-screen-positive-for-covid-19-may-25-2021 ;According to a Thai media report on the 24th local time, a factory producing electronic products in Phetch Buri Province, Thailand, recently had an outbreak of clustered new crown pneumonia. The results of the new crown virus screening of more than 5,000 people in the factory showed that 2111 people were infected with the new crown virus, including 781 Thai employees and 1,330 foreign employees.

　　At present, the infected are placed in the shelter hospital and local hospitals in the factory for treatment, and the other uninfected people are placed in multiple isolation observation points, and the factory is temporarily closed. It is reported that the factory did not take strict measures at the beginning of the outbreak, and did not suspend work or production, which led to the rapid spread of the epidemic along with the movement of people, resulting in hundreds of infections in the surrounding area.

DJ-Unclear what variant....

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/local-regional-communities-and-organizations/cidrap/916093-cidrap-world-health-assembly-kicks-off-with-pandemic-issues-at-fore[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/local-regional-communities-and-organizations/cidrap/916093-cidrap-world-health-assembly-kicks-off-with-pandemic-issues-at-fore ;

In an address to the group today, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, warned the group that the world remains in a very dangerous situation and as of today, more COVID-19 deaths have been reported in 2021 than in all of 2020. "Since our Health Assembly started this morning, almost 1000 people have lost their lives to COVID-19. And in the time it takes me to make these remarks, a further 400 will die," he said.
Though global cases have dropped for the past 3 weeks, the world remains in a fragile situation, Tedros said.
Fortunately, none of the SARS-CoV-2 variants have significantly evaded vaccines, drugs, or tests, but there are no guarantees that that situation will remain, he said, noting that no country is out of the woods, even those with high vaccination levels.
The pandemic won't be over until the virus is controlled in every country, Tedros said, calling on countries to do more, repeating his call for high-income countries to share vaccine supplies. "There is no diplomatic way to say it: a small group of countries that make and buy the majority of the world’s vaccines control the fate of the rest of the world."

-

India deaths still at record high As the country continues to battle its devastating surge, the government asked farmers to cancel mass protests slated for May 26 due to fears of superspreading events, according to Reuters. The farmers are protesting the deregulation of agricultural markets.

-

B1617.2 vaccine protection

In new reports on the B1617.2 variant over the weekend, Public Health England (PHE) said vaccines are a bit less effective than against the B117 variant, but protection is still high. Two weeks after the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, scientists found 88% effectiveness against symptomatic B1617.2, compared with 93% against B117.

And after two doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine, effectiveness was 60% against symptomatic B117 disease, compared with 66% against B117. For both vaccines, effectiveness against symptomatic illness 3 weeks after the first dose was 33% for B1617.2, compared with 50% for B117.

The findings for B1617.2 are based on 1,054 people across all ages and ethnic groups. PHE said the difference between the two vaccines may reflect later rollout of second AstraZeneca doses and data that suggest it takes longer to reach maximum effectiveness with that vaccine. It also added that even higher levels of effectiveness are likely for both vaccines against severe B1617.2 illness.

In a detailed technical report, PHE said though overall COVID-19 case levels are low, the proportion of B1617.2 cases continues to rise, especially in London, the North West, and the East. It said the secondary attack rates are higher for B1617.2 than for B117, with small numbers of reinfections that aren't unusual for any prevalent variant.

And in a separate risk assessment, PHE said it's likely that B1617.2 is more transmissible than B117, though the size of the difference isn't clear. Overall, it said the new variant continues to replace B117, but an increase in overall incidence has been seen only in a few places.

PHE said the high growth rate of the new variant could relate to several factors, including immune escape in those who have only received one vaccine dose.

More global headlines

• In Japan, hospitals in Osaka, the country's second biggest city, are running low on beds and ventilators, according to the Washington Post. The head of Osaka's medical association said that about 10,000 people are isolating at home or waiting to be hospitalized and that hosting the Olympics this summer will be "extremely difficult."
• China's health advisors are recommending a third COVID-19 vaccine dose for high-risk groups, noting that protection seems to decline after 6 months for some people.
• Health officials in Australia's Victoria state are investigating the source of four COVID-19 cases, signaling the first community transmission in almost 3 months, according to Reuters. The cases involve an extended family in two households in a suburb of Melbourne.

DJ This pandemic is far from over. Again I am NOT an expert-but what I do get is the idea that vaccine selection may be a problem. Vaccines offer so far protection against all the known variants-but as long as variants are able to spread also in vaccinated people mutations that evade the vaccine-immunity may end up creating newer variants better able to evade immunity...

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/europe/europe-h5n8-tracking/h5n8-tracking-russia/907760-russia-h5n8-in-7-poultry-workers-1st-documented-bird-to-human-transmission-of-this-strain-in-the-world-february-20-2021?view=stream[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/europe/europe-h5n8-tracking/h5n8-tracking-russia/907760-russia-h5n8-in-7-poultry-workers-1st-documented-bird-to-human-transmission-of-this-strain-in-the-world-february-20-2021?view=stream (latest activity);NOVOSIBIRSK, May 23. /TASS/. Russia?s Vektor State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology has created a vaccine strain that can be used as a vaccine against the A(H5N8) influenza, also known as the bird flu, the center?s chief Rinat Maksyutov has told TASS.

"In March, we used reverse genetics technology to create a vaccine strain that can be used as a vaccine against H5N8. If necessary, this strain can be promptly handed over to Russian production facilities, to develop a vaccine with the help of existing technologies. The prototype of a testing kit has also been developed," he said on the sidelines of the New Knowledge educational marathon.
...
Head of Russia?s consumer watchdog Anna Popova said in an interview with TASS in March that the new type of bird flu A(H5N8), confirmed in several Russians in February, is likely to mutate soon to acquire the ability of human-to-human transmission.

DJ Good news ! H5/H7 flu types are close to be able to get more widespread...

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/the-pandemic-discussion-forum/824572-discussion-chinese-academy-of-sciences-cas-in-wuhan-has-been-working-with-bats-and-coronavirus-for-many-years-dna-manipulations-cloning?view=stream[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/the-pandemic-discussion-forum/824572-discussion-chinese-academy-of-sciences-cas-in-wuhan-has-been-working-with-bats-and-coronavirus-for-many-years-dna-manipulations-cloning?view=stream DJ-The CIA keeps leaking those "reports" accusing China for all kinds of things-without any proof "because it is secret". Marianne Koopmans-Dutch virologist-she was in the WHO team visiting China-did ask the US for more info; "it is secret" ...The US did outsource a lot of the more risky research to China-a.o. the Wuhan-lab...if US cases go down the CIA "leaks" this kind of non-info....Not very productive...

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/india/india-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916081-india-yellow-fungus-cases-reported-in-up-delhi[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/india/india-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916081-india-yellow-fungus-cases-reported-in-up-delhi ; New Delhi: India has increasing cases of coronavirus, black fungus, white fungus and now yellow fungus. After Ghaziabad, the National Capital Region(NCR) reported its first yellow fungus case.

A person has now been diagnosed with a yellow fungus infection, and the patient is currently being treated at ENT surgeon Dr Brij Pal Tyagi?s hospital. And yellow fungus is reportedly more dangerous than the black and white fungus.

Cases of Mucormycosis have been increasing rapidly. The Union Health Minister on Monday morning said that 5,424 cases of Black fungus have been reported so far. According to a report, the treatment for yellow fungus is the amphotericin b injection. It is an anti-fungal drug.

DJ-Dr. John Campbell has a video on black fungus....[url]https://www.financialexpress.com/lifestyle/health/yellow-fungus-symptoms-risks-causes-treatment-precautions-medicine-black-fungus-white-fungus-similarity-difference-all-you-need-to-know/2258290/[/url] or https://www.financialexpress.com/lifestyle/health/yellow-fungus-symptoms-risks-causes-treatment-precautions-medicine-black-fungus-white-fungus-similarity-difference-all-you-need-to-know/2258290/ ;What is Yellow Fungus Disease vs Black Fungus vs White Fungus: Rising cases of mucormycosis (commonly known as black fungus) and white fungus among Covid-19 patients have been reported from several states across the country. Both black and white fungus are caused by mucormycetes — which is present in the environment — but as they impact lungs and other vital organs they can be extremely dangerous. However, on Monday, reports emerged that a patient in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad had been diagnosed with “yellow fungus”. ANI reported that the first such case of yellow fungus was diagnosed by Dr B.P Tyagi, an ENT (Ear-Nose-Throat) specialist in the district. The patient, a 45-year-old resident of Ghaziabad’s Sanjay Nagar, is also suffering from black and white fungus infections. We take a detailed look at the three fungal infections and decode the similarities and differences between them:

Black Fungus – In Brief:

Over 10,000 cases of black fungus have been reported so far. It affects the nose, face, orbits of the eyes, and brain and lungs as well in some cases. AIIMS director Dr Randeep Guleria has attributed misuse of steroids as the cause behind the rise in black fungus cases in the country. Covid-19 patients, diabetics, and patients undergoing steroid treatment for longer durations are at a higher risk of contracting it. Black fungus is known to cause chest pain, pain on one side of the face, toothache, discolouration over the nose, breathlessness and chest pain. Delay in treatment can be extremely dangerous.

White Fungus – In Brief:

Fewer cases of white fungus have been reported in comparison to black fungus. Some of its symptoms are similar to Covid’s – cough, breathlessness and chest pain; some patients also complain of headaches and swelling. People with low immunity and those living in unsanitary conditions are more prone to catching the white fungus. People suffering from diabetes, cancer or those on prolonged steroid use are more at risk, say experts. Delay in treatment can be extremely dangerous.

What is Yellow Fungus disease?

Like black fungus and white fungus, yellow fungus too is a fungal infection, but it can be rather fatal and deadly as it begins internally — unlike the others where symptoms are visible. ANI quoted Dr Tyagi as saying that this yellow fungus trait often leads to a delay in its diagnosis. This characteristic of yellow fungus makes it very difficult to manage and more dangerous as early diagnosis is a necessity in such cases.

DJ Black and white fungus infections are on the outside of a body-yellow fungus is inside....

Yellow Fungus Symptoms:

Symptoms of yellow fungus are loss of appetite, lethargy and weight loss. In latter stages of the infection patients suffering from yellow fungus exhibit severe symptoms sunken eyes due to malnutrition and organ failure, slow healing of wounds and oozing of pus from the wounds, and necrosis (cell injury that leads to death of cells and living tissues).

Yellow Fungus Treatment:

Like mucormycosis, the treatment for yellow fungus is Amphoteracin-B injection, Dr Tyagi said.

Yellow Fungus Precautions:

Here are some of the precautions that one can take to protect themselves from the yellow fungus:
i) Keep your room, home and surroundings as clean as possible;
ii) Remove stale food and fecal matter immediately to check bacteria and fungal growth;
iii) Keep the humidity of the room and home under check as excessive humidity promotes bacteria growth. Just like for Covid patients maintaining clean air flow inside the room and homes is necessary.
iv) Coronavirus positive patients must immediately start treatment so complications like yellow fungus do not develop.

DJ So far there are (as far as I know) no reports of fungus infections in Covid patients outside India-this may change...[url]https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/05/17/russia-confirms-rare-deadly-black-fungus-infections-seen-in-india-reports-a73922[/url] or https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/05/17/russia-confirms-rare-deadly-black-fungus-infections-seen-in-india-reports-a73922 DJ Unclear limited number in Russia...

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/china-other-health-threats/china-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916069-china-1-617-variant-2-confirmed-covid-19-cases-in-guangzhou-husband-wife-guangdong-province-may-23-2021[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/china-other-health-threats/china-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916069-china-1-617-variant-2-confirmed-covid-19-cases-in-guangzhou-husband-wife-guangdong-province-may-23-2021 ; Fuzzy math:

Population of China is about 1.4 billion people.

500 million doses is 250 million people fully vaccinated.

That is about 18% of the population fully vaccinated.

I have seen no data about the effectiveness of Sinovac against the 1.617 series of variants.

Here is a recent news item about the vaccine. link

DJ-The India variant can become a problem for China. Vaccination is limited, Chinese people may believe they are out of a problem, and possibly Chinese vaccines may not do very well against this variant...see also [url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/china-other-health-threats/china-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916063-china-media-report-many-new-local-covid-19-cases-in-anhui-liaoning-other-places-nanjing-jiahe-hospital-holds-prevention-control-drills-jiangsu-province-many-20-2021[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/china-other-health-threats/china-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916063-china-media-report-many-new-local-covid-19-cases-in-anhui-liaoning-other-places-nanjing-jiahe-hospital-holds-prevention-control-drills-jiangsu-province-many-20-2021 In the link NOTHING on new local cases in Anhui...

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/internet-communication/avian-flu-diary/916061-brazil-fiocruz-median-age-for-covid-hospitalization-drops-below-60-for-the-1st-time[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/internet-communication/avian-flu-diary/916061-brazil-fiocruz-median-age-for-covid-hospitalization-drops-below-60-for-the-1st-time ; 

Although Brazil's daily case counts are down about 20% from their highs of a month ago - COVID continues to exact a heavy toll, with a 7-day moving average still of over 65,000 cases. Of obvious concern, the downward trend in cases reported a couple of weeks ago, appears to have stalled.

While Brazil's dominant P.1 variant might be producing more severe illness and a higher death rate, some of this observed rise in CFR could also be due to the overwhelming of Brazil's healthcare system.

DJ worldometers weekly trends shows +3% for Brazil...Median age getting below 60 is showing up in several countries-several reasons; natural/vaccine immunity in the over 60, over 60 more carefull-less social active...or could variants be targetting younger age group ? 

-Dr. John Campbell monday update; [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDnFRFq1ugA[/url] or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDnFRFq1ugA ;

Black fungus India, cases, 9,000 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia... Mortality rate, 50% Most cases 12 to 18 days after CoViD recovery Gujarat and Maharashtra and 15 more states (All 29 states have been told to declare an epidemic)

The black fungus infection has now become more challenging than Covid-19 If patients are not treated in time and properly, than the mortality rate can go up to 94% The cost of treatment is expensive, and the drugs are in short supply Amphotericin B or "ampho-B" anti-fungal intravenous injection Every day for up to eight weeks

Majority of the patients had recovered from Covid-19 and were male Most had been treated with steroids, all had underlying conditions, mainly diabetes 

A separate study 100 cases of Covid-19 patients who contracted Mucormycosis 79 were men 83 were diabetic

Dr Akshay Nayar, eye surgeon No patient of mucormycosis has normal blood sugar Caused by exposure to mucor mould Commonly found in soil, plants, manure, decaying fruits and vegetables Ubiquitous, found in soil and air and even in the nose and mucus of healthy people 

DJ Again [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycosis[/url] or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycosis may become a problem (and might already be an unreported problem) in other countries. 

Music [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZAsfB1Np-8[/url] or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZAsfB1Np-8 Morning has broken-Cat Stevens...

DE does NOTHING to get rid of mites on a person or in thier home...sorry. Tons of us have tried it and its just nothing but a huge mess. The most successful things are using a biopesticide called Elector and taking an -azole like Abilfy or Rexulti. - azole medications are used successfully for tapeworm sufferers.....

sorry to get us sooo off track!

DJ,

-The numbers [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lineage_B.1.617#Statistics[/url] or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lineage_B.1.617#Statistics per may 27 UK had reported 7,338 India variant cases, US had 1,326.

[url]https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/[/url] or https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ Global number of (under)reported cases now at almost 170 million. India claiming "only" almost 170,000 new cases-in part due to no testing in rural area's. Worldwide testing-and often-vaccinations going down..."the pandemic is over"-don't test-don't tell...hide and seek...

Based on the (fraudulent) statistics [url]https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/weekly-trends/#weekly_table[/url] or https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/weekly-trends/#weekly_table is also "looking good"-global cases -14%...This pandemic is now only a problem for countries we keep poor...almost...

Australia is seeing an increase-very limited numbers-of 42%. Last week 42 cases, this week 66. Latin America, most of Africa, Asia disaster zones...UK reporting an increase of 21% with "limited numbers" (and "local lockdowns") last week 16,107 new cases-this week "only" 19,412...

[url]https://www.gisaid.org/hcov19-variants/[/url] or https://www.gisaid.org/hcov19-variants/ offers a more realistic view-several variants are increasing...

I am getting cynical 71 countries now reporting 13,826 cases of the India variant-numbers tending to double per week-these numbers are 10/14 days old - "but no problem-the pandemic is over-vaccines saved us"....Japan would-all of a sudden-have a decrease of 21%-let the olympics begin....fools !

-Flutrackers-latest posts

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/-2019-ncov-new-coronavirus/-2019-ncov-studies-research-academia/916375-two-more-coronaviruses-may-infect-people[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/-2019-ncov-new-coronavirus/-2019-ncov-studies-research-academia/916375-two-more-coronaviruses-may-infect-people ; Last week, an international collaboration that went looking for known or novel viruses in pneumonia patients in Malaysia reported that in eight children, they found signs of a coronavirus that may have originated in dogs. Earlier this year another group reported a coronavirus that appears to have jumped from pigs to several children in Haiti. There's no sign so far that either virus can spread from person to person—as the spark of the pandemic, SARS-CoV-2, readily does—or definitive evidence that they cause human illness. But the discoveries, which could increase the number of coronaviruses known to infect people from seven to nine, underscore the threat posed by this viral family.

DJ Corona-virus disease is a long term well known problem in lots of animals-very likely to also someday show up in humans...But like with climate "change" "economy first" the virus came from a lab-US/CIA...."China did it"...Several other diseases are close to getting pandemic-but "freedom of travel for a rich elite" has priority..."We" are not doing much to stop a next pandemic-profit first...[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/health-humanitarian-issues/916374-penn-gop-lawmakers-pass-bill-that-fines-women-for-miscarriages[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/health-humanitarian-issues/916374-penn-gop-lawmakers-pass-bill-that-fines-women-for-miscarriages DJ-When "politics" falls into the hands of this kind of idiots there is a very major problem....Related [url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/-2019-ncov-new-coronavirus/-2019-ncov-studies-research-academia/916377-origins-of-sars-cov-1-and-sars-cov-2-are-often-poorly-explored-in-leading-publications[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/-2019-ncov-new-coronavirus/-2019-ncov-studies-research-academia/916377-origins-of-sars-cov-1-and-sars-cov-2-are-often-poorly-explored-in-leading-publications ;In the rush to understand the coronaviruses that threaten human health, authors of many prominent papers have not performed phylogenetic analyses to the standard of the field today. Errors include faulty placement of the root of the phylogeny, outdated methods of reconstruction, poor taxon sampling, inappropriate emphasis on selected functional elements, and inadequate consideration of ambiguity. As a result, certain conclusions regarding the origin of human infections are not supported soundly or are wrong.

DJ-If "science" is used for political/economic (profit) goals it may become "selective science"-only looking for the results they want to see...

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/animal-diseases-of-concern-excludes-h5n1/916369-respiratory-chicken-disease-%E2%80%98infectious-coryza%E2%80%99-spreading-in-pakistan[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/animal-diseases-of-concern-excludes-h5n1/916369-respiratory-chicken-disease-%E2%80%98infectious-coryza%E2%80%99-spreading-in-pakistan ;A new respiratory disease ‘infectious coryza’, which is similar to the coronavirus is rapidly spreading among chicken across the country.

According to the details, the respiratory disease called ‘infectious coryza’ has been spreading in chicken across poultry farms in Pakistan.

Chairman Consumer Association Pakistan Kokab Iqbal said that the disease is said to be similar to the coronavirus, however, this infection affects chickens with symptoms of common cold and respiratory problems.

Furthermore, there have been several poultry farms shut down across the country after the detection of infectious coryza among the chicken.

The CAP Chairman also said that the disease is being reported in the United States more than Pakistan...

DJ ???? Does not sound good ! If Covid19 now would be spreading in chickens (no testing/sequencing ? India-variant(s) ?) we may have a major problem ? (Would it spread to other birds ? Is the disease corona-related ?) 

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/local-regional-communities-and-organizations/cidrap/916362-cidrap-africa-sounds-urgent-call-for-covid-19-vaccine-doses[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/local-regional-communities-and-organizations/cidrap/916362-cidrap-africa-sounds-urgent-call-for-covid-19-vaccine-doses ; At a WHO African regional office briefing today, Matshidiso Moeti, MBBS, the group's director, said Africa needs at least 20 million doses AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine in the next 6 weeks so that those who received their first dose can get their second within the 8- to 12-week recommended interval between the two doses.
Vaccine supplies are scarce in many countries, partly due to delayed COVAX shipments related to a massive surge in India, where most supplies originated.
"It's too soon to tell if Africa is on the cusp of a third wave. However, we know that cases are rising, and the clock is ticking, so we urgently appeal to countries that have vaccinated their high-risk groups to speed up the dose-sharing to fully protect the most vulnerable people," she said.
Cases in Africa are up 17% this week, after declining for 3 weeks, but it's too soon to say Africa is experiencing a resurgence, she said, adding, "We are balancing on a knife's edge."
She thanked countries like France that have already donated, as well as groups that have pledged doses, but she said expediting the process, ideally though COVAX, is crucial.

DJ-My impression is US/EU may be-for now-making "some progress" but are reopening much to fast-so will lose what they just did win...UK-and in fact almost the rest of the world is still getting deeper into the pandemic swamp. With very likely even more resisten variants on their way...Since "politics and embedded media" want to claim "we won" dealing with this pandemic is only getting harder...

German researchers who conducted lab studies on cells to investigate rare blood clot side effects in people who have received adenovirus-vector vaccines yesterday suggested a possible mechanism. They detailed their findings in a preprint study that hasn't been peer reviewed yet.
The extremely rare blood clotting events have been reported from a number of countries in people who received the AstraZeneca-Oxford or Johnson & Johnson vaccines. The concerns led some countries to temporarily pause their campaigns and to modify existing policies.
In their study, the team suggested that the adenovirus vector brings some of the vaccine material into the cell nucleus, where it makes proteins that can split apart in the body, which can trigger blood clots in very rare instances.
One of the authors told the Financial Times that Johnson & Johnson is already working on a way to prevent the unintended splice reactions, according to the Washington Post.

-

Japan mulls state of emergency extensions

Japanese officials are considering extending state of emergencies across most of the country and are expected to make an announcement tomorrow, according to CNN. The country is still experiencing a surge of infections that is putting a strain on its health system, with the Tokyo Summer Olympics just 2 months away.

The head of the Japan Doctors Union today warned that it is dangerous to go ahead with the Tokyo Olympics, according to the Washington Post.

Meanwhile, at a summit between the European Union and Japan today that covered a host of issues, the groups said in part of a joint statement that they supported holding the Games in a safe and secure manner as a symbol of global unity in defeating COVID-19.

More global headlines

• Australia's Victoria state announced a 7-day lockdown after 12 more local cases were identified, raising the cluster centered in Melbourne to 26, according to Reuters. The cluster is linked to an overseas traveler who was infected with the B1617 variant, but the transmission pathway still isn't clear.
• Bahrain enters a 2-week lockdown starting today to slow its surge, even though it has one of the world's highest vaccination coverage rates, according to the Washington Post. The country has been using China's Sinopharm vaccine and had earlier announced that those who received two doses will get a third booster dose.
• China today fired back at US President Joe Biden's announcement that he asked US intelligence agencies to double down on their analysis and information gathering on the source of SARS-CoV-2. At a briefing in Beijing, China's foreign ministry spokesman said the United States should open its labs to international scrutiny.

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/local-regional-communities-and-organizations/cidrap/916360-cidrap-news-scan-chinese-covid-vaccines-effective-long-haul-covid-19-inadequate-state-covid-vaccine-websites[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/local-regional-communities-and-organizations/cidrap/916360-cidrap-news-scan-chinese-covid-vaccines-effective-long-haul-covid-19-inadequate-state-covid-vaccine-websites ;

A randomized controlled trial of two inactivated (vero cell) COVID-19 vaccines made in China finds a vaccine efficacy of 73% in one and 78% in the other, according to a study yesterday in JAMA.
The whole-virus inactivated vaccines were developed with strains of the virus taken from patients in Wuhan, China.
The phase 3 trial included approximately 40,000 adults in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain who were assigned to receive either a vaccine (WIV04 or HB02) or an alum-only injection. Both vaccines are two-dose inactivated injections, and the primary end point of the trial was symptomatic COVID-19 at least 14 days after the second injection.

-

Review finds persistent symptoms in 73% of COVID-19 patients

Almost three quarters of patients reported at least one persisting COVID-19 symptom during follow-up, with the most common being shortness of breath and fatigue, according to a literature review published in JAMA Network Open yesterday.
The researchers looked at 45 studies published from Jan 1, 2020, to Mar 11, 2021, and defined long-haul COVID as either 60 days after diagnosis, symptom onset, or hospitalization, or at least 30 days after acute illness recovery or hospital discharge. The largest proportion of studies came from China (7), followed by the United Kingdom (6), Spain (6), Italy (5), France (4), and the United States (3).

DJ-Cold war mentality does not help in dealing with this pandemic-we may need all the vaccines we can get...(some vaccines may be able to deal better with some variants, other vaccines could show better results in other variants..) Long Covid is a growing problem-often also in younger-often healthy-people. "Sports" is trying to reopen gyms "because good fitness would protect" is economic based lies...For many gyms it looks like profits go above health...It would be welcome if they showed more realism and creativity...

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/china-other-health-threats/china-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916069-china-confirmed-community-spread-of-1-617-variant-seen-in-india-11-estimated-confirmed-covid-19-cases-in-guangzhou-guangdong-province-may-23-2021?view=stream[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/china-other-health-threats/china-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916069-china-confirmed-community-spread-of-1-617-variant-seen-in-india-11-estimated-confirmed-covid-19-cases-in-guangzhou-guangdong-province-may-23-2021?view=stream latest activity; 9 cases that live in close proximity. Plus the waiter and the 17 year old student in Haizhu District....I am already losing control of the count...if health care workers start getting sick, then you know...

DJ The article itself take a long read to get a more clear picture-I think China will do all it can to contain the (India) variants...just like Australia-but these variants may show "new problems" ; unclear incubation-people may get ill very seen-within a few days after infection-but it also may take some weeks-quarantine of three weeks even may not be long enough. Also testing may do not the best to detect the newer variants. (DJ-One of the reasons why the UK did quite well in detecting the UK variant was 1 of the 3 "segments"the PCR test was testing for was missing. If in newer variants more of the segments from the RNA are missing there is a need for better tests...Finland did have a variant that "escaped testing"-so they had to look for other RNA segments in PCR testing).

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/united-states-ab/united-states-covid-19-sars-cov-2-september-13-2020-may-31-2021/916342-us-cdc-increase-in-1-617-2-covid-19-variant-proportion-220-in-last-two-weeks-may-25-2021[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/united-states-ab/united-states-covid-19-sars-cov-2-september-13-2020-may-31-2021/916342-us-cdc-increase-in-1-617-2-covid-19-variant-proportion-220-in-last-two-weeks-may-25-2021 ; These numbers (updated on May 25, 2021) are 2 weeks behind. The 1.617.2 variance proportion has increased from .6% to 1.3% (220%) since the last report dated April 24.

DJ Numbers reflect the situation in the US around may 10-but "in general new cases are going down"-so easing of restrictions, summer/vaccines will save us...while you need a mix including also NPI. The "good part" of the story is that lots of people did learn better then "politics". They did not forget cases going down summer 2020-the see a new explosion in fall/autumn (and wave 3-UK variant in winter-we are just getting out of that wave...).

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/africa/seychelles-covid-19/915717-unusually-high-number-of-vaccinated-people-have-been-testing-positive-for-coronavirus-in-seychelles-us-doctor-trapped-there-suspects-faulty-testing?view=stream[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/africa/seychelles-covid-19/915717-unusually-high-number-of-vaccinated-people-have-been-testing-positive-for-coronavirus-in-seychelles-us-doctor-trapped-there-suspects-faulty-testing?view=stream latest activity; (Bloomberg Businessweek) -- For epidemiologists, the past year and a half has been a voyage of discovery. Recently their journey aboard SARS-CoV-2 took an unexpected turn toward Seychelles, a palm-fringed archipelago in the Indian Ocean with fewer than 100,000 inhabitants. A country that few could pinpoint on a map suddenly became internet-famous as the most vaccinated nation on Earth, with 64% of the population having received the requisite two shots. Yet to the surprise of virologists—and the dismay of the government, which had been counting on the immunization drive to reopen the tourism-dependent economy—the infection count has been ticking up. As of May 13 a third of active cases—about 900 in all—were among residents who’d been fully vaccinated.

Vaccine skeptics pronounced themselves vindicated, while international health experts have been scrambling to answer a host of questions without the benefit of robust data. Did one or both of the vaccines used in Seychelles fail? Has herd immunity not been reached? Is the nation grappling with a more infectious variant capable of evading the defenses that certain types of vaccines provide?

“So what’s going on?” asked Raina MacIntyre, professor of global biosecurity at the Sydney campus of the University of New South Wales, during an online presentation on May 18. “It’s probably that the herd immunity threshold hasn’t been reached, plus or minus, if it’s the South African variant in there.”

The answers to the questions MacIntyre and other experts are posing may influence the future course of the pandemic. For starters, the tiny nation has become a test case for two of the world’s most widely used vaccines. In the Seychelles, 57% of the vaccinated population received Sinopharm’s shot, and 43% got the Covishield vaccine developed by AstraZeneca Plc. Sinopharm’s inoculation has been donated or sold to countries around the globe, including Indonesia, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe; Covishield makes up the bulk of shots distributed to poor nations in Africa and elsewhere through the Covax initiative, which seeks to make vaccine distribution more equitable.

What’s happening in Seychelles is very different from the experience of Israel, the second-most vaccinated nation, where Covid-19 infections have plummeted. The contrast could yield crucial insights into the efficacy of the different types of immunizations. In Israel the dominant vaccine was the messenger ribonucleic acid shot made by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE....

DJ-Some vaccines may offer better protection for some variants-other vaccines may do better against other variants. The claimed level of protection-sometimes up to 95% (almost to good to be true) also has to do on the test-groups. If you test a medicine on young healthy men you may find less side effects then when you use a cross section of society...see also [url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/-2019-ncov-new-coronavirus/-2019-ncov-studies-research-academia/epidemiology/916340-covid-19-researchers-find-higher-than-expected-reinfections-with-p-1-variant-among-the-brazilian-amazon[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/-2019-ncov-new-coronavirus/-2019-ncov-studies-research-academia/epidemiology/916340-covid-19-researchers-find-higher-than-expected-reinfections-with-p-1-variant-among-the-brazilian-amazon ;A study of blood donors in the city of Manaus has found that 1 in 6 of those infected with the coronavirus were reinfected with the P.1 variant.1 The results were higher than researchers anticipated and those found in studies of reinfections conducted elsewhere.

The preprint, which has not been peer reviewed, was published by the Brazil-UK Center for Arbovirus Discovery, Diagnosis, Genomics, and Epidemiology (CADDE). It is the latest effort from researchers to understand why hospitals in Manaus—which is home to two million in the Brazilian Amazon—collapsed under the weight of coronavirus infections in January 2021 despite antibody levels suggesting that around three quarters of the population had been infected in the first wave.2

The study suggests that reinfections with P.1 are more common than researchers had previously thought and confirms the theory that herd immunity through natural infection is impossible, said Ester Sabino, the study’s lead author and associate professor at the Institute of   Medicine at the University of São Paulo School of Medicine...

DJ "Natural immunity" after infection may not offer long and good protection against variants...Maybe one conclusion could already be booster vaccines could be needed more often ? Once every 8-10 months ? For more groups then the most vulnarable ? Some countries did choose to vaccinate the most social active. Indonesia did have reasonable results with that till the India-variant showed up...There are new vaccines being developed supposed to be able better to offer protection also against variants...

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/africa/emerging-diseases-other-health-threats-ah/907948-drc-2021-plague[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/africa/emerging-diseases-other-health-threats-ah/907948-drc-2021-plague latest activity;May 27, 2021 13:50 +08

The Bubonic Plague has killed 11 people in the latest worrisome Black death surge in the Democratic Republic of Congo. At least 15 cases of the devastating disease have been reported between April 23 and May 8 in Ituri Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which recently fought with another epidemic, called 'Ebola' in recent years.

The director of Ituri's Provincial Health Department (DPS), Dr. Luis Tshulo said that the Bubonic plague victims showed symptoms such as fever, headache, cough, and ultimately vomiting blood. The first case of the plague was reported in the Bukachele health zone, where a woman was reported dead from the infection.

"A week later, on April 30, a 30-year-old man also died after showing the same kind of symptoms. On May 8, there was another man who died. We were alerted when there were already five deaths in this health area in the same family," Dr. Tshulo said...

DJ-By defenition reports from DRC/Congo etc. are under reporting. There are lotst of other diseases posing a global risk if they could spread. But often now they are in remote area's with very limited mobility-so the disease does not spread...

-DJ- My conclusion so far for today is the western world may still be underestimating this pandemic-or does not want to know. ([url]https://paulbeckwith.net/[/url] or https://paulbeckwith.net/ has been reporting on "climate change" = climate collapse-the west rather goes for short term profits for a rich 0,1% in control of the "democrazy"...Do "we" realy want to know how bad the climate crisis is ? Do we realy want to know how "politics" works-who gets paid by who ?) 

Today no new fungus coinfection-stories-already widespread in India, limited reports from Russia.But from Pakistan Covid in chickens ? Brazil, Seychelles a.o. showing natural/vaccine immunity may be "far from perfect", increase of the India variants in the US ignored by the embedded "mass media"...To many countries going for reopenings to soon-again...

Here in NL schools are supposed to reopen again 100%-politics claim it will be safe...Lots of schools rather protect the children, teachers, parents-basicly not only from this pandemic but also from "crazy politicians"...repeating mistakes. 

-Dr. John Campbell [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoSHkuc0hp8[/url] or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoSHkuc0hp8 Thursday update-only 13 minutes...

DJ-In this video Dr.J.C. seems to be linking offers to bring anti-Pfizer info in France with Russia and China supposed to promote their vaccines. DJ-It seems more likely anti-vaccine groups were trying to promote their idea-Pfizer is proberbly most used in France. Anti-vax groups tend to be linked with extreme right wing groups. In France nationalism may also be a factor. Pfizer-BioNTech is US/German (with BionTech having a director from Turkish background). France itself did not yet get a good vaccine on the global market...

The second point Dr.J.C. has the US pressure to investigate China-lab escape stories-even with the WHO claiming it was almost 0% likely...DJ-Corona virusses has been a long term problem in lots of animals-it was an "accident bound to happen". The top 3 "best prepared for a pandemic countries" in a 2019 "study" US, UK, NL did terrible-so pointing the finger at China is not looking at their own faillures...

DJ-In embedded Dutch news we now see Belarus sanctions being promoted after a "hijack" to arrest a "journalist" of the opposition. That "journalist" also was a member of the neo-nazi Azov regiment killing Russians in Ukraine...The "West" should stop government change/colour revolutions...pointing "alternative" governments-often extreme right wing-from Venezuela, Ukraine, Brasil, to now Belarus...The total lack of respect for sovereignty of those countries is showing a western neo-colonialism-damaging for that west. 

The pandemic is hitting hard countries kept poor by the western economic system. Also hitting much harder the poor in western countries. Like "climate change" and wars the poor pay the price for "bad behavior" of a rich elite...

This pandemic is far from over but a "jet set" of rich want to go and party...while others have to pay the price. 

-Music; Blinded by the light-Manfred Mann's earth Band [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rpq35wyDi7I[/url] or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rpq35wyDi7I ; But mama, that's where the fun is Mama always told me not to look into the eyes of the sun But mama, that's where the fun is

DJ-Denial may bring a short term of relief; away from problems-that only grow bigger being ignored...blinded by the light....

Tabitha111-I see some similarity with your mites problem and this pandemic-both very persistent-you only know when it is over maybe after months...but it drives you crazy and will leave a mental scar...Did you have contact with professional pest control ? (Sorry if that is a stupid question...)

DJ

I just found this; [url]https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/vietnam-detects-hybrid-of-covid-19-variant-identified-in-india-and-uk[/url] or https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/vietnam-detects-hybrid-of-covid-19-variant-identified-in-india-and-uk ; 

HANOI (REUTERS, XINHUA) - Vietnam health minister Nguyen Thanh Long said on Saturday (May 29) the country has detected a new variant of the coronavirus, which is a mix of the Covid-19 variants first identified in India and Britain and spreads quickly by air, online newspaper VnExpress reported.

According to Mr Nguyen, the hybrid strain could spread very fast in the air, and the Vietnamese health ministry will announce this new strain on the world gene map.

The two mutated strains first identified in Britain and India are currently the most common variants among the new Covid-19 cases in Vietnam in the ongoing infection wave.

After successfully containing the coronavirus for most of last year, Vietnam is now battling an outbreak that is spreading more quickly.

DJ New variants-outcome of mixing of "older" variants should be expected. 

-The numbers; [url]https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/[/url] or https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ This pandemic is far from over. The UK reporting 4,182 new cases should be alarming ! Due to vaccines it has become more a "third world" problem-out of control...

Here in NL the R0 went from 0,82 to 0,85-reflecting situation on may 13. Also when you look at the undercurrent of variants-the problem is sequencing is limited-results can take 10 to 14 days...So-if the general numbers are going down-"party time !" "we did beat the virus"...a repeat of stupidity...

[url]https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/weekly-trends/#weekly_table[/url] or https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/weekly-trends/#weekly_table UK +24%-but global -15%...based on limited testing. Here in NL we do see much more self testing-not showing up in official statistics...Testing going down because "the pandemic is over"...

A look at more relevant variant numbers [url]https://www.gisaid.org/hcov19-variants/[/url] or https://www.gisaid.org/hcov19-variants/ India variants-UK 8,956, US 1,520, Germany 412, Australia 145 !!!!!, Japan 157, Canada 163....Other variants also seem to be increasing-mixing most likely. (The reported numbers are 10/14 days old-sequencing takes time...!)The selection proces due to mutations mean immunity evading variants will increase...reopenings means more room for spread...but it is a repeat of last year's story...

-Flutrackers latest posts;

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/local-regional-communities-and-organizations/cidrap/916449-cidrap-covid-19-vaccinations-increase-in-us-but-unevenly[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/local-regional-communities-and-organizations/cidrap/916449-cidrap-covid-19-vaccinations-increase-in-us-but-unevenly ;Vaccination rates for American adults continue to increase across the United States, but progress is uneven, with Southern states lagging.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Mississippi and Alabama have the lowest vaccination rates in the country, with 31.8% and 33.9% of the adult population vaccinated, respectively. Maine has the highest vaccination rate, with 60.8%.
California, New York, New Mexico, Colorado, Iowa, and Minnesota have all passed the 50% mark in recent days, the paper reported.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) COVID Data Tracker shows 361,250,445 COVID-19 vaccine doses have been delivered in the US, and 290,724,607 have been administered, with 132,769,894 Americans fully vaccinated.

DJ-The UK is showing variants spread in urban area's with some groups being vaccinated much less. The US has 40% of its population vaccinated-that is far from herd immunity !

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/emerging-diseases-other-health-threats-alphabetical-a-thru-h/916440-deforestation-can-fuel-the-rise-of-diseases-research-shows[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/emerging-diseases-other-health-threats-alphabetical-a-thru-h/916440-deforestation-can-fuel-the-rise-of-diseases-research-shows ; 

Oil palm plantations a ‘threat to global health,’ says study on outbreaks

28 May 2021

• From Ebola in Africa to malaria in Brazil to tick-borne illnesses in the U.S., there is a common thread linking outbreaks of vector-borne and zoonotic diseases: fluctuating forest cover, according to a recent study.
• Deforestation and even increases in green cover can fuel the rise of diseases, the research shows, citing the link between oil palm plantations and outbreaks of malaria and dengue as a case in point.
• The study examined linkages between forest cover changes with vector-borne and zoonotic diseases between 1990 and 2016 and found that outbreaks of both types of infections have increased.
• The evidence that human health can suffer even as a result of misguided afforestation or plantation shows that more research is needed on the role of forests in modulating diseases.

DJ-Basicly not "new news"...just a reminder...

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/europe/h5n1-tracking/netherlands/916439-netherlands-two-dead-foxes-tested-positive-for-h5n1[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/europe/h5n1-tracking/netherlands/916439-netherlands-two-dead-foxes-tested-positive-for-h5n1 ; Wageningen Bioveterinary Research (WBVR) has diagnosed bird flu in two foxes from the province of Groningen and characterized the virus as H5N1. The sequences of the avian flu virus in the foxes are similar to those identified in infected wild birds from the same region. It is therefore likely that the foxes became infected from eating a bird infected with bird flu. The virus found in foxes is not related to the zoonotic HPAI H5N1 strains that have also infected humans in Asia.

H5N1 infestations in foxes have been previously observed in other parts of the world and recently in England. Extensive spread of the virus among foxes is unlikely as foxes generally live in families and not in large groups. In addition, an infected fox develops serious symptoms within a few days, so that it does not move much anymore. Therefore, the risk of extensive spread within the foxes is rated as low. The foxes are thought to be unlikely to transmit the virus to other wild animals. However, other wild animals such as seals, dogs and cats are known to be susceptible to bird flu. Recently, HPAI H5N8 virus, to which the HPAI H5N1 virus is genetically related, has been detected in seals in England and Sweden.

DJ-H5/H7 could become a next pandemic...

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/china-other-health-threats/china-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916069-china-confirmed-community-spread-of-1-617-variant-seen-in-india-14-estimated-confirmed-covid-19-cases-in-guangzhou-guangdong-province-may-23-2021?view=stream[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/china-other-health-threats/china-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916069-china-confirmed-community-spread-of-1-617-variant-seen-in-india-14-estimated-confirmed-covid-19-cases-in-guangzhou-guangdong-province-may-23-2021?view=stream (latest activity) DJ The India variant seems to be spreading in China...

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/south-america-aa/south-america-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916437-paraguay-could-reach-more-than-20-thousand-deaths-from-covid-19-in-september[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/south-america-aa/south-america-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916437-paraguay-could-reach-more-than-20-thousand-deaths-from-covid-19-in-september ; So far, Paraguay is the second country with the most deaths per million inhabitants. It is estimated that in the next 21 days more than 54,000 new infections and 2,000 new deaths will be registered. Taking into account the weekly report of COVID-19 in Paraguay issued by the General Directorate of Health Surveillance (DGVS), it is said that the daily average of new infected with the virus is 2,668, with a probable value of 3,190 in 95% of the confidence interval, significantly higher than the previous weeks.

In this sense, a positive percentage change of 11% is reported with respect to a moving average of previous weeks, which indicates an increasing trend of the epidemic curve.

And [url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/south-america-aa/south-america-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916436-first-two-cases-of-black-fungus-confirmed-by-covid-19-in-paraguay[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/south-america-aa/south-america-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916436-first-two-cases-of-black-fungus-confirmed-by-covid-19-in-paraguay ;Until this morning, Paraguay was still free of the dreaded “black fungus” or cases of the rare rhinoorbital mucormycosis infection that began to occur in people with COVID-19, worryingly, first in India and then a patient was announced in Uruguay. But moments ago, from the Paraguayan Society of Microbiology they confirmed that the first two cases have already been reported, a woman in Coronel Oviedo and a man in Central, both had already overcome the coronavirus picture.

DJ-So now FOUR countries reporting fungus co-infections, India, Russia, Paraguay and Uruguay...very likely also other countries do have cases...making the outcome much worse, this pandemic even harder to deal with.

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/south-america-aa/south-america-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916435-argentina-battles-health-and-economic-crises-as-covid-cases-soar[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/south-america-aa/south-america-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916435-argentina-battles-health-and-economic-crises-as-covid-cases-soar ;Last year, the country kept contagion relatively low in a strict lockdown that dragged on for months. It allowed the government to bolster its healthcare system, but battered a weak economy and took a harsh emotional toll on society.

Now, following a summer of relaxed restrictions and new COVID variants, the number of infections and deaths have exploded exponentially.
‘The system is collapsing’

Hospital units are overflowing as exhausted healthcare workers plead with the public to heed warnings of distancing and to take precautions. In the province of Buenos Aires, the government has started producing its own oxygen to confront a looming shortage.

Vaccine shipments are arriving, but as with many countries in Latin America, the campaign was slow to get going amid fierce global competition. Some 20 percent of the population have received their first shot...

DJ Often in these countries the economy is weak, extreme inequality fueling a social crisis/civil war

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/united-states-ab/united-states-covid-19-sars-cov-2-september-13-2020-may-31-2021/916431-thousands-of-breakthrough-covid-infections-in-mass-report[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/united-states-ab/united-states-covid-19-sars-cov-2-september-13-2020-may-31-2021/916431-thousands-of-breakthrough-covid-infections-in-mass-report ;A very small percentage of people in Massachusetts who have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus still tested positive for COVID, according to new “breakthrough” case data from the Department of Public Health.

The department said that as of May 24th, there were 3,343 people in Massachusetts who have been fully vaccinated and then tested positive for COVID.

“This total number represents 0.11% of all fully vaccinated people (2,949,248) in MA as of that date,” the department said.

Breakthrough infections are defined by the Centers for Disease Control as positive tests that occur more than two weeks after a person has received their second vaccine dose, or one dose of a single-shot vaccine. CDC data shows just under 2,500 breakthrough cases nationwide that caused hospitalization or death... 

DJ Vaccines do offer 90%+ protection against a lot of Covid variants-some newer variants see lower numbers...

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/the-pandemic-discussion-forum/916381-could-vaccine-breakthrough-clusters-be-due-to-improper-injection-technique[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/the-pandemic-discussion-forum/916381-could-vaccine-breakthrough-clusters-be-due-to-improper-injection-technique ;We’ve all seen the video and pictures over the past three weeks of people receiving the pandemic-altering vaccines into their upper arms, and that’s where the COVID-19 vaccine goes, straight into the deltoid muscle.

But Dr. Tom Pitts, a neurologist who practices in New York City, says as he’s watched the images, he has noticed too many instances in which the skin is being pinched as the needle is inserted.
That could lead, he says, to the vaccine being injected into the subcutaneous fat, the fat layer under the skin, instead of into the muscle where it needs to go.

If that happens, Pitts says the vaccine will not be effective.

“The hard part was getting the vaccine, the hard part shouldn’t be injecting it into the muscle,” Dr. Pitts said.

So he’s been sounding the alarm on social media in physicians’ chat groups, circulating diagrams which show the correct methods of injecting an intramuscular vaccine, and reminding health care professionals with a simple hashtag, #DoNotSqueezeMyArm....

DJ-The vaccine does not work if it can not get into the muscle-people may believe they get vaccine immunity while they do not get  vaccinated good enough...

-Dr. John Campbell did take a day off...

Music; Una Paloma Blanca-George Baker Selection-summer music [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmKam2IUeCI[/url] or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmKam2IUeCI  there is a parody [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIj_mxccbpE&t=31s[/url] or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIj_mxccbpE&t=31s half Dutch/English whatever...Una Corona Drama...

Josh- Pest companies do NOT know how to deal with this issue. It is up to me and others to take it on ourselves. In the past before I realized what I was dealing with I had the pest company come out THREE seperate times and spray the whole house I used to live in and the outside yard with all kinds of strong poisons....didn't even make a dent in the problem! Just a complete waste of $1,000 of dollars.

it works for me too. Since reading about your situation, I've tightened up our procedures here a bit. In particular we collect eggs in a basket lined with barley straw and if there are any mites on the eggs, they fall off into the straw and the basket just sits in our kitchen. So I've replaced it with a very small bucket and now when we collect eggs, we stop by the outside sink and fill the bucket with water to kill any. I'm becoming paranoid about them!!

Tabitha111-The only possible effective strategy against your mites-problem could be long term strategies...I hope you will "beat the beast"....Keep us informed ! This pandemic also may become in need of long term strategies...

Morpheus-a virus is on the edge of life. It needs a host to reproduce-can not reproduce on its own...But for the rest-YES-the virus will go to every corner it can find to survive...There may have been effective short term strategies that could have worked then...the idea that "vaccines will beat the virus" in my opinion may be to optimistic. Mainly because we-as humans-offer 7,5 billion hosts...Natural immunity does not seem very effective on the longer term for to many earlier infected people. Vaccines may offer 90% protection against illness/death-but it "does not kill the spread" very likely much less effective there...Variants indicate vaccines slowly becoming LESS effective over time. Vaccine-selective variants-able to spread in countries with lots of vaccinations-may see-one bad day-a resistent virus. Such a virus would be able to reinfect over and over again...

The only country that did seem to be effective vaccinating itself out of a pandemic may be Israel...Worth to keep an eye on. But even the UK and US-both in the top ten for vaccines-may see an India-variant wave coming. We need a mix of vaccines AND NPI...

In communications for the general public the message often is simple; "Pandemic button off or on"-and in several countries politics switched to "off" (with a lot of words as an excuse if things go wrong-always have someone to blame...) 

-The numbers [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variants_of_SARS-CoV-2[/url] or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variants_of_SARS-CoV-2 The Vietnam variant is not yet on the list. We may need more info to see if it is realy a new variant or a variation of an older one...The UK, India, P3 variants are spreading in the region. 

Vietnam is not in a top for vaccines-this means two things; 

1 Since Vietnam managed to keep numbers down most of this pandemic there is hardly NO immunity-any variant could spread like wildfire...So creating high number of cases there may not mean it is more infectious...it is host related.

2. Vaccine-selection may not be a major problem in Vietnam-since vaccinations are limited. Vaccine selection may be a problem in the US, UK, Israel, Chile...with high level of vaccinations.

[url]https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/[/url] or https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ New cases worldwide would be under 500,000 ? Brazil reporting over 78,000 new cases...India claims just over 174,000 new cases-but most likely a mix of less testing/reporting and "politics" is an issue...[url]https://www.gisaid.org/hcov19-variants/[/url] or https://www.gisaid.org/hcov19-variants/ can tell us more on the under current of variants spreading-most in unvaccinated younger people. UK reporting 8,956 cases, USA 1,539, Germany 420, these numbers-at best-give some indications...

Of course I am NOT an expert and I hope this pandemic would end soon...

-Flutrackers latest posts;

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/welcome-to-the-scientific-library/treatments/916474-review-of-the-emerging-evidence-demonstrating-the-efficacy-of-ivermectin-in-the-prophylaxis-and-treatment-of-covid-19[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/welcome-to-the-scientific-library/treatments/916474-review-of-the-emerging-evidence-demonstrating-the-efficacy-of-ivermectin-in-the-prophylaxis-and-treatment-of-covid-19 ; Conclusions:

Meta-analyses based on 18 randomized controlled treatment trials of ivermectin in COVID-19 have found large, statistically significant reductions in mortality, time to clinical recovery, and time to viral clearance. Furthermore, results from numerous controlled prophylaxis trials report significantly reduced risks of contracting COVID-19 with the regular use of ivermectin. Finally, the many examples of ivermectin distribution campaigns leading to rapid population-wide decreases in morbidity and mortality indicate that an oral agent effective in all phases of COVID-19 has been identified.

DJ See also [url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/the-pandemic-discussion-forum/901004-ivermectin-a-useful-treatment-for-covid-19-coronavirus-some-discussion-and-studies[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/the-pandemic-discussion-forum/901004-ivermectin-a-useful-treatment-for-covid-19-coronavirus-some-discussion-and-studies 

If Ivermectin is that succesfull why is that not the basis for treatment in this pandemic ? How can it be that an old, save, cheap, easy to produce drug was NOT used ? 

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/animal-diseases-of-concern-excludes-h5n1/916460-vietnam-stops-live-pig-imports-from-thailand-due-to-swine-fever[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/animal-diseases-of-concern-excludes-h5n1/916460-vietnam-stops-live-pig-imports-from-thailand-due-to-swine-fever ;Vietnam has decided to stop importing live pigs from Thailand starting June 30 after 980 of them were found infected with the African swine fever.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development took the decision to stop imports to try and prevent the disease from being transmitted to domestic herds.

DJ-There are some claims African Swine Fever may have a link with the start of this pandemic. [url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/asia-ad/asia-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916464-vietnam-detects-hybrid-of-indian-and-uk-covid-19-variants[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/asia-ad/asia-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916464-vietnam-detects-hybrid-of-indian-and-uk-covid-19-variants ; Vietnam detects hybrid of Indian and UK COVID-19 variants

Authorities in Vietnam have detected a new coronavirus variant that is a combination of the Indian and UK COVID-19 variants and spreads quickly by air, the health minister said on Saturday.

snip

"Vietnam has uncovered a new COVID-19 variant combining characteristics of the two existing variants first found in India and the UK," Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long said in a statement.

"The new variant is very dangerous," he added.

DJ-We soon may see more info-if they already claim a combination of India and UK variant they likely will know more...

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/the-pandemic-discussion-forum/892756-discussion-thread-vi-covid-19-new-coronavirus?view=stream[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/the-pandemic-discussion-forum/892756-discussion-thread-vi-covid-19-new-coronavirus?view=stream ;So in the interest of dignity there is no bashing. There are many sites that allow unfettered bashing. In fact, most of main stream media (who previously were news organizations) engage in character assassination. We are not doing it here.

We can state our disagreements on actions and policies, but the personal attacks are out.

Thank you for participating. I know we are boring, but that is us.

DJ-A "forum" only can work if their is mutual respect-a place to exchange views. Not to convince people to your views...Science does not work by voting-we can not choose the reality we live in but have a choice in how we deal with it !

Other news is African Swine Fever showing up again in Philippines, Malaysia had birds imported from Mali with bird flu...There are lots of diseases-that is the reality we have to face...

-Dr. John Campbell takes the weekend off...Peak Prosperity-may 14-Chris Martenson is back ? [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8GUAU4cJW8[/url] or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8GUAU4cJW8 DJ-At his best I liked his presentations because he had a wide view on this pandemic-including the economy, Ivermectin etc...MedCram is very good but mainly medical points. Dr. J.C. can be good-more critical thinking would be welcome there...

Latest video from C.M/Peak Prosperity [url]https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCD2-QVBQi48RRQTD4Jhxu8w[/url] or https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCD2-QVBQi48RRQTD4Jhxu8w "Lab-leak" story. DJ-Not one of my favorite items-for now. Allthough in the past C.M. made some good points-who is investigating who for what ? Gain-of-function studies are not new. The US outsourced reseurch to China for safety reasons...There are lots of dangerous research projects-better risk assessments can limit risks.

Music; [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fR4HjTH_fTM[/url] or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fR4HjTH_fTM The Long And Winding Road-Beatles

With climate change running out of control,

I wish someone could tell me how we as the race of beings that have caused this,

can bring it under control before we push the temperature of the planet up beyond 1.5c towards 2c ,

Because as I've said many times on here,the only way I can possibly see is a quick depopulation of the creatures causing the planets heating....

I mean when you see people coming out of lockdowns what's the first thing they do.......

Get in their car,boat, motorcycle,get on a plane,go to a sporting event,watch cars racing round a circuit,.....burning petrol adding to the climate change,just for "Entertainment"...!!!!!!

Ergo.....

Unfortunately we humans are the cause......reap what you sow....

Very unpalatable

 i know......truth hurts.......

Ludicrous in a way.....

Insanity in a word.....

I actually think we are now in the throws of the end of times.....

Take care all 😷😉

DJ

[url]https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-57304515[/url] or https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-57304515 ; 

The UK started vaccinations very early-beginning of december last year...

DJ-There is no clear definition of a Covid-death. In NL "our health minister expects end of almost all pandemic rules by september 1"-by then 70%+ of the population would have all vaccinations/time needed..so "the pandemic would be over"...

A vaccinologist claimed "we have had most of the variants" I (DJ) do not know on what basis he made that claim..."Yes this pandemic has been here for more then a year-it should end by now" may be the same kind of logics...

More interesting is the idea of naming variants after the greek alfabeth...practical point it has 24 characters...We may be at over 18 variants by now...Even if you only would include the Variants Of Concern-VOC-there are limits. The hurricane names last year did run out of "normal names" and almost out of Greek Alfabeth-characters...

-The numbers [url]https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/[/url] or https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ UK 3,383 new cases (most India variant) being reported-and a lot will be missed...Yes-low global numbers-if you compare it to the peaks...Almost 360,000 new cases, 7,886 deaths-sunday numbers...

[url]https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/weekly-trends/#weekly_table[/url] or https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/weekly-trends/#weekly_table may be of better use; Gibralter last week 1 case-this week 8-on a population of under 34,000-most of them fully vaccinated it may give an indication. Iceland -also small population 343,000+-8 cases last week-30 cases this week. In general 83 countries reporting an increase...often limited numbers/poor countries...Vietnam has an increase of 83% 1,045 cases last week-this week 1,917 Global -17%...but undercurrent of variants must be in the +....

I tried to look at [url]https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-testing[/url] or https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-testing to find basic numbers on testing-is it going up or down the last two months ? But the site seems to be that complicated-overload of "non-info" -I take the freedom to claim testing is down in many places-so yes; less testing=less cases...sequencing is another problem...

The variant data may get updated this week. [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variants_of_SARS-CoV-2[/url] or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variants_of_SARS-CoV-2  Worldometer global deaths is just over 3,5 million (tested/reported) deaths...So I (DJ) was wrong claiming we would see 5 million deaths by june 1. The real number is far higher then both 3,5 million or 5 million...

-Flutrackers latest posts;

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/africa-ac/africa-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916573-africa-%E2%80%98has-highest-covid-19-death-rate-of-critically-ill%E2%80%99[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/africa-ac/africa-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916573-africa-%E2%80%98has-highest-covid-19-death-rate-of-critically-ill%E2%80%99 ;[NAIROBI] Africa has the highest death rates in the world among critically ill COVID-19 patients, with limited intensive care resources a major factor, a study says.

Africa’s 2.86 million cases of COVID-19 represent about two per cent of the global total of 166.35 million cases, according to a situational report on the pandemic published by the World Health Organization last week (25 May).

Researchers, who conducted the study published in The Lancet this month (22 May), say that Africa lacks data on critically ill patients with COVID-19, and factors associated with death or survival in resource-limited settings.

“We cannot afford to have a scenario similar to what is happening in India, happen in Africa.”
Bruce Biccard, University of Cape Town

DJ-What is happening in Africa may be worse then what is happening in India or Brazil...very limited testing, civil administration, hospitals...sometimes one doctor per 100,000 people...bad logistics, lots of conflicts, lots of other diseases/HIV....No media realy interested in Africa..Often hardly a government...Related [url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/africa-ac/africa-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916567-south-africa-faces-third-covid-wave-returns-to-stricter-lockdown[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/africa-ac/africa-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916567-south-africa-faces-third-covid-wave-returns-to-stricter-lockdown ; South Africa faces third COVID wave, returns to stricter lockdown
Four of the nation’s nine provinces, including Gauteng which boasts Johannesburg and Pretoria, are already battling a third wave of infections.
30 May 2021

President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced that South Africa is to reimpose stricter measures against COVID-19 fearing the whole country will soon face a third wave of the pandemic.

DJ Numbers were going up for South Africa-Africa in general. Since there is a large India minority in most of East Africa-some former Portugal colonies have links with Brazil Africa is a mix of variants-resulting in newer more dangerous variants...vaccinations are "very limited"...

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/europe-aj/europe-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/915010-variant-first-identified-in-india-labelled-as-variant-of-concern-by-public-health-england-b-1-617-2?view=stream[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/europe-aj/europe-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/915010-variant-first-identified-in-india-labelled-as-variant-of-concern-by-public-health-england-b-1-617-2?view=stream latest activity; Evidence of reduced vaccine effectiveness National vaccine effectiveness monitoring shows a reduction in vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic infection after 1 dose of vaccine for B.1.617.2 compared to B.1.1.7 (moderate confidence).

Current data suggest this is an absolute reduction of approximately 20% after 1 dose. Vaccine effectiveness is higher and similar between variants after 2 doses with a possible small reduction for B.1.617.2 (low confidence).

Although this is observational data subject to some biases, it holds true across several analytic approaches, is consistent with observed outbreaks, and is supported by pseudovirus and live virus neutralisation data. There are no data on whether prevention of transmission is affected.

There are insufficient data on vaccine effectiveness against severe disease. Based on neutralisation data, vaccines are expected to remain effective against severe disease.

Monitoring continues.

DJ-I would love to believe vaccines can get us out of this pandemic. I fear they will not be able to do that miracle...Vaccinations go very slow-only a few (rich) countries may find some protection in vaccines-variants will develop around the immunity...simply because there are enough hosts, mutations and time to do so...Expecting vaccines to do more then buying some time is expecting water to go upstream...to be able to walk on clouds...

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/the-pandemic-discussion-forum/892756-discussion-thread-vi-covid-19-new-coronavirus?view=stream[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/the-pandemic-discussion-forum/892756-discussion-thread-vi-covid-19-new-coronavirus?view=stream latest activities; Today 8 Q498K sequences from Slovenia were disclosed in the GISAID database. 498K is as i understand expected to have a similar effect to Q498R. This latter substitution together with N501Y and another b.1.1.7 mutation was shown to have a 600x increased affinity. Let's keep an eye on Slovenia Does anyone know more about this ?

-

Could be bad news, could be irrelevant, but worth monitoring

DJ link [url]https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.06.425392v2[/url] or https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.06.425392v2  We will find out how Slovenia will develop...

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/north-america-ab/north-america-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916564-haiti-malnutrition-surges-amid-covid-and-violence[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/north-america-ab/north-america-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916564-haiti-malnutrition-surges-amid-covid-and-violence ; Severe acute childhood malnutrition is expected to more than double this year in Haiti amid the pandemic, rising crime and low resources, Unicef says.

More than 86,000 children under the age of five could be affected, compared to 41,000 last year, the UN agency said.

Haiti is the poorest country in the Americas, and more than 60% of its population live in poverty.

DJ Many countries people have some reserves...Haiti has no reserves...[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/south-america-aa/south-america-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916560-with-recent-surge-uruguay-battles-to-contain-coronavirus[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/south-america-aa/south-america-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916560-with-recent-surge-uruguay-battles-to-contain-coronavirus DJ-Most Latin American countries did have limited health care before this pandemic...If rich countries keep failing to-keep other countries poor-this pandemic only can worsen...What most variants have in common is that they started in a country we keep poor-Brazil, India, South Africa, it is very likely we may be missing some variants (Tanzania ? DRCongo ?) that are already widespread in a region-simply because we do not test or sequence...

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/asia-ad/asia-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916557-southeast-asia-s-coronavirus-covid-19-surge-prompts-shutdowns-and-alarm-may-31-2021[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/asia-ad/asia-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916557-southeast-asia-s-coronavirus-covid-19-surge-prompts-shutdowns-and-alarm-may-31-2021 ; "The healthcare systems in several Southeast Asian countries are either at risk of being or already have been completely overwhelmed."

DJ-like in Africa, Latin America...[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/asia-ad/asia-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916464-vietnam-detects-hybrid-of-indian-and-uk-covid-19-variants?view=stream[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/asia-ad/asia-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916464-vietnam-detects-hybrid-of-indian-and-uk-covid-19-variants?view=stream latest activity;

VGP – Viet Nam has uncovered a new COVID-19 variant combining characteristics of the two existing variants first found in India and the UK, the Ministry of Health said on Saturday.

The new variant is very dangerous, stressed Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long at a national online meeting on COVID-19 held in the morning.

This is the eight strain detected in Viet Nam since the Southeast Asian country confirmed the first COVID-19 patient on January 23, 2020.

Other variants include a strain from China’s Wuhan; D614G from Europe, B.1.1.7 from the UK; B.1.351 from South Africa; B.1617 from India; B.1619 from Africa; and B.1222.

Viet Nam is experiencing the fourth wave of COVID-19 resurgence with 3,643 community infection cases in 32 cities and provinces since April 27, 2021.

The current wave features with fast transmission rate due to concurrent emergence of multiple outbreaks especially at industrial parks and multiple variants while patients suffer from more severe symptoms, said Nguyen.

As of mid-Saturday, the national caseload reached 6,713, including 2,896 recoveries and 47 deaths./.

By Thuy Dung

-DJ Conclusion

While most of the world is sinking deeper into a healthcrisis, the pandemic is worsening on a global scale a few rich countries claim "the pandemic is over"....I started this post with BBC-UK warning the India variant is on the rise-early phase of yet another wave...

Again "save the economy", "summer will save us" a repeat of last year insanity...new non-sense is "vaccines will save us" with less then 50% fully vaccinated, "the pandemic has been here for over a year" or "freedom"....

Kiwimum's slogan "can't fix stupid" is winning...even if stupid will kill us all...

-Dr. John Campbell-Monday update on the India-variant in the UK and the Vietnam variant [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyZOoFBjc3c[/url] or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyZOoFBjc3c  info under the video-UK fully vaccinated 38,1% may be a main point...

DJ-But again !!!! A PANdemic is a GLOBAL crisis !!!! We are failing-for over 15 months-so provide a global answer ! Media/politics hope for some miracle...Ivermectin may be the best we have but we are not using it often...Fungul coinfections show up in India, Russia, Latin America...this healthcrisis is on top of already existing other healthcrisis. The duration of this crisis can bring global healthcare on its knees...

Music; [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjFoQxjgbrs[/url] or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjFoQxjgbrs Carpenters- Rainy days and Mondays ...

The Associated Press: Australian court upholds ban on most international travel.

https://apnews.com/a1d239e80be05c8cf393ec67d1b6cce2

DJ,

-The numbers [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WFckBrljsk[/url] or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WFckBrljsk Has the 3rd Covid-wave begun in the UK ? ZOE; Tim takes a look at what is causing COVID numbers to rise again in the UK and explains why he doesn’t believe this is the start of a 3rd wave.  

DJ-The UK numbers do show an increase-but very limited and in unvaccinated people. The video even admits possible spread in "unregistered people" ...still the numbers are-so far-very low. Vaccines do seem to protect...local/regional restrictions may contain the outbreaks. It is a matter of definition of a "wave"....Here in NL we also have very low numbers of most variants, around 95% is the UK variant...R0=0,85...biggest problem may be still a high number of people spreading the virus. We did see 10 million vaccinations in NL today-on a population of 17,5 million-with lots of people also still "sheltering in place" with some luck we can avoid a (fourth-often) wave for now...The Dutch CDC (RIVM) expects anaother wave in autumn/fall-proberbly most likely in area's where people did not get vaccinated on a larger scale (orthodox religion and poverty related). 

Peru did correct its number of Covid-deaths. Since there is no international defenition of a Covid-death (would be welcome !) lots of countries use own definitions. Both the UK and Russia (I believe) have the 28 days after testing positive rule...Dr. John Campbell did a video on statistics-some US states did not a very good job. Here in NL the RIVM (Dutch CDC) has much lower numbers-ending up in statistics-then the statistics office (CBS) based on excess deaths...

Limited/no testing-in the early phase-and later on-is also a point. Proberbly a lot of cases are missed in Africa. Political pressure is/was also a factor...

China is a subject "with some disagreement" on this forum. I think China did underreport but managed-after the Wuhan lockdown to keep numbers low-at least till the India-variant showed up. Did China make mistakes during this pandemic ? Yes-first doctors reporting early cases-end of 2019 ended up in prison. If these doctors were taken serious maybe this pandemic could have been stopped in China. There have been more SARS-like outbreaks in China between 2003 SARS-1 and 2019-SARS-2. In 2017 Yunnan seem to have had several cases of a SARS-like disease in people collecting bird/bat droppings. 

China wants to be a respected global trading partner-to be respected (and "strong") more openess on diseases in China is needed. Not "just welcome" but needed !!!!

Wet markets/bush meat are a major health problem in many countries. The international language in (science) communications is English-even if that has a colonial background. China did publish very likely a lot of info in Manderin-not in English-and in that way missed by the international community. Communications are essential ! 

There is a "cold war" between the US/UK and Russia-Iran-China (a.o.)-in part a propaganda war, a vaccine war...That conflict is a danger to the world and should stop. 

Are numbers important ? Yes-they give us an insight on where we are, where we are going. In a company numbers can tell if the company is making a profit-or losses. If there are losses how much ? Is it a risk ? What can be done better ? 

In this pandemic numbers show where the crisis are-how they are developing-may give warnings for new variants-resulting in travel restrictions. 

And I do NOT like these numbers ! [url]https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/[/url] or https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ Good to see India numbers going down to 134,000+ but Brazil with 94,509 new cases is very alarming ! Is it a correction ? Numbers were high for several days...the P1 variant is widespread-is it getting more dangerous ? The UK reporting 4,330 new cases is simply not good !

DJ,

-A look at the statistics [url]https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/[/url] or https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/  A top ten for new cases has at #1 India-with 131,000+ new cases, #2 Brazil 83,000+ new cases (ALARMING !!!). #3 & #4 are Argentina and Colombia-both around (high) 30,000 new cases. The US is now #5-just under 18,000 new cases. #6=Iran, #7=Russia, #8=Malaysia, #9=France and at #10=Chile....Latin America and South Asia still in crisis. 

At #16=the UK with 5,274 new cases-maybe not yet a major fourth wave-also not under control !

The trends [url]https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/weekly-trends/#weekly_table[/url] or https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/weekly-trends/#weekly_table ; UK +39%, Vietnam+16% (both still limited numbers but clearly a variant related problem). Brazil +4%, India-on a weekly basis- -32% but last few days limited change. 

I do not yet see relevant new numbers on variants-but variants undercurrent remain a major problem. 

Some other numbers-In the UK now 50% of the (adult) population did get two vaccines-still cases going up in 20-29 y/o. Worldwide 2 billion vaccines done-China 700 million, US 300 million, EU 255 million, India 220 million. Since the global population is 7,8 billion-and most of the time two vaccines are needed about 13% of the global population has a form of vaccine protection. 

DJ-The problem I have with this is that it took almost 6 months to get this far. Variants have all the time to mutate around vaccine protection. Since vaccination does a much better job in protecting against symptoms then against spread-vaccinated people may get infected, infect others-simply not know it-I think there is a major problem. 

There is discussion on wave four-will the UK see wave four soon because of the India-variant ? It may be a matter of definition-in my opinion they are already in wave four...In general it is assumed autumn/fall may bring another (limited) wave. 

Some countries now have to do a lot to get people vaccinated-with 60/70% of the population vaccinated variants still can spread. Communication remains a problem...

-Flutrackers-latest posts;

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/united-states-ab/united-states-covid-19-sars-cov-2-september-13-2020-may-31-2021/916680-new-york-willow-point-nursing-home-suspends-visitation-following-positive-covid-19-test-results[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/united-states-ab/united-states-covid-19-sars-cov-2-september-13-2020-may-31-2021/916680-new-york-willow-point-nursing-home-suspends-visitation-following-positive-covid-19-test-results ; The Broome County Executive's Office said a total of 12 people have tested positive at the nursing home since last week.

It began last week when one resident tested positive at a local hospital; soon after, a staff member also tested positive. This week, surveillance testing revealed another 10 positive cases.

Officials said most of the cases are in people who are asymptomatic...

They also said at least 8 of the 11 residents who tested positive received the COVID-19 vaccine.
...

DJ-Severe symptoms-also after vaccination-are "easy to detect the problem is in asymptomatic spread. 

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/china-other-health-threats/china-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916069-china-confirmed-community-spread-of-1-617-variant-possible-delta-2-high-risk-areas-identified-in-guangzhou-guangdong-province-may-23-2021?view=stream[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/china-other-health-threats/china-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916069-china-confirmed-community-spread-of-1-617-variant-possible-delta-2-high-risk-areas-identified-in-guangzhou-guangdong-province-may-23-2021?view=stream (latest activity); Up to now, the current round of the epidemic in Guangzhou has been confirmed to be infected with a mutant virus found in India. This mutant virus has the characteristics of short incubation period, fast transmission speed, and high viral load. This mutant strain is also the first time in my country. There is community transmission in the country.
Regarding the characteristics of patients infected with the mutant virus found in India in terms of symptoms of infection, development of the epidemic, and clinical treatment, and whether they are different from the past, we interviewed the Guangzhou New Coronary Pneumonia Hospital, the Infectious Disease Center of Guangzhou Eighth People's Hospital Chief expert Cai Weiping.
Q: The people infected in this round of the epidemic in Guangzhou were infected with the variant strain found in India. Are there any differences in their symptoms of infection from the past? What is the moderate to severe disease rate?
A: The biggest feature of this virus strain infection is that the patient's nasopharyngeal swabs tested the nucleic acid load of the new coronavirus, which was nearly double that of last year's patients. The disease progressed faster. Last year, the average incubation period of the patient was 5.9 days, this time it was only 3.2 days on average.
Most patients in this round of epidemic have mild or asymptomatic infections. The severity rate was 6.2%. It feels that the proportion of severe cases is lower than that of last year's epidemic, but last year patients went to the doctor when they had symptoms or were checked for fever. Most of the patients in this epidemic were actively screened and found that the two are not very good comparisons.

DJ-Maybe China did learn to communicate better, maybe some "in the west"learned to listen better...

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/local-regional-communities-and-organizations/cidrap/916672-cidrap-covid-surges-in-afghanistan-africa-stir-more-concerns[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/local-regional-communities-and-organizations/cidrap/916672-cidrap-covid-surges-in-afghanistan-africa-stir-more-concerns ;

Despite an overall decline in global COVID cases, fresh activity spikes are expanding to different parts of the world, with a crisis worsening in Afghanistan and cases rising sharply in a number of African countries.
In other developments, the United Kingdom today updated its assessment of the Delta (B1617.2) variant, which appears to be more transmissible than the Alpha (B117 variant), and potentially leading to more hospitalizations.
-

Elsewhere, cases in Africa rose again for the second week in a row, with eight countries reporting abrupt rises of over 30% over the past week, the head of the World Health Organization's African regional office said today at a briefing.
Matshidiso Moeti, MBBS, said South Africa is experiencing a sustained increase in cases, with Uganda seeing a 131% spike with clusters in schools, rising cases in health workers, and increased burden on intensive care units (ICUs). Angola and Namibia are also reporting surges.

DJ ;She urged African nations to boost their ICU capacity to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed, and Moeti also raised concerns about Africa falling behind the global pace of COVID vaccination.
"The threat of a third wave in Africa is real and rising. Our priority is clear—it's crucial that we swiftly get vaccines into the arms of Africans at high risk of falling seriously ill and dying of COVID-19," she said, adding that only 2% of the African population has received one dose, compared to 24% of the rest of the world.

Is this a joke ? A lot of African countries have 1 docter per 100,000 population "increasing ICU capacity" is bizarre...with cases +30% Africa IS in wave #3...they would love to have the vaccines...

Higher rate of Delta variant in UK

In updated assessments of variant activity, Public Health England (PHE) today said the Delta variant now makes up 61% of sequenced cases, and patterns show a substantially increased growth rate when compared to the Alpha variant. Also, secondary attack rates remain higher for Delta than for Alpha.
Regarding hospitalizations, early data from England and Scotland suggest an increased risk for Delta, but the findings need confirmation.
The PHE has reported reduced vaccine effectiveness against the Delta variant that is more pronounced after one dose.
UK officials are closely watching how the Delta variant developments unfold, given that the country is slated to take its next major reopening step later this month. Other countries are also focusing on the UK's Delta experience as a possible bell weather for what could happen with the spread of the variant elsewhere.
DJ "Delta variant"=India variant-should we rename the WHO as X1 to avoid confusion with the UK rockband ? 

More global headlines

• Indonesia's official COVID count is likely to reflect a vast undercount, due to recent seroprevalence findings, epidemiologists from the country told Reuters. At the start of the year, the government seroprevalence estimate for the world's fourth most populous country was 0.4%; however, results from the epidemiologists' studies suggested 15% seroprevalence during the same time period.
• Bahrain is recommending that high risk people who received China's Sinopharm vaccine receive a third booster shot of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, according to the Wall Street Journal, a sign of ongoing doubt about the vaccine's effectiveness.
• Concerns about safety continue to rattle preparations for the Tokyo Olympics, with mass volunteer resignations, partly due to COVID worries, and a top government infectious disease advisor warning that holding the games during a pandemic is "not normal," according to the Washington Post. Shigeru Omi, MD, PhD, said organizers should scale the games down as much as possible and strengthen the management system.

DJ-It would be welcome if an independent group could control vaccines effectivity against variants. Some vaccines may offer better protection against the India-variant, others may do better against the P1 variant-also age groups matter. Cold-vaccine war is NOT helping !

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/local-regional-communities-and-organizations/cidrap/916668-cidrap-dental-workers-found-to-be-at-increased-covid-19-risk[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/local-regional-communities-and-organizations/cidrap/916668-cidrap-dental-workers-found-to-be-at-increased-covid-19-risk ; UK dental professionals were at heightened occupational risk for COVID-19 infection early in the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an observational study yesterday in the Journal of Dental Research.
A team led by University of Birmingham researchers obtained blood samples from 1,507 dentists, dental nurses, and dental hygienists in the Birmingham, England, region in June 2020. They found that 16.3% of participants had SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, compared with an estimated 6% to 7% of the general population. Dental receptionists who don't have direct patient contact, however, were no more likely than community members to have coronavirus antibodies, at 6.3%.
Race was a significant risk factor for COVID-19, as shown by antibody detection in 35.0% of Black and 18.8% of Asian dental professionals, versus 14.3% of White participants. Living in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas was also a risk factor. The authors noted that although the study had a relatively small sample size, the results were similar to previous studies involving non-dental healthcare workers.

Antibodies lingered for 6 months in most

The researchers obtained follow-up blood samples from most participants in September 2020, after dentist offices had reopened with improved personal protective equipment (PPE) and infection-control protocols, and again in January 2021, amid the second pandemic wave and healthcare worker vaccination rollout.
Of professionals who had SARS-CoV-2 antibodies at the first blood draw, over 70% still had antibodies 3 and 6 months later, and their risk of reinfection was 75% lower than those not previously infected.

DJ-Vaccinations will offer better protection-people NOT going to the dentist may face health problems. Dental workers can become asymptomatic spreaders of the virus-so increase testing !

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/africa-ac/africa-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916652-coronavirus-in-drc-the-disease-is-increasing-exponentially-in-kinshasa[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/africa-ac/africa-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916652-coronavirus-in-drc-the-disease-is-increasing-exponentially-in-kinshasa ;The cases of Covid-19 increased at the end of May " exponentially " in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), warned the local office of the World Health Organization (WHO).

" There is an exponential increase in the circulation of the Sars-Cov-2 virus in Kinshasa, thus accentuating a clear deterioration in the epidemiological indicators of the city-province ", notes in its latest weekly bulletin WHO in the DRC.

-

Asked by AFP, an official from the Ministry of Health, speaking on condition of anonymity, also noted: " The third wave of Covid-19 is already there. These are the Indian variants (Delta) and South African "(Beta) .

" We are in the third (wave) at the moment, " said a member of the Covid-19 Committee, Professor Jean-Marie Kayembe, quoted Wednesday evening by UN radio Okapi.

He made this observation on the basis of "the number of cases of new infections which are increasing, but also the saturation of patient care centers ", seeing there the consequence of slackening of compliance with barrier measures.

For several days, cases of contamination, relatively limited in absolute terms, have been rising sharply, according to official figures. 243 new cases were thus identified Thursday, including 161 in Kinshasa, where the contaminations revolved around a few dozen at most in recent weeks.

Downtown as an epicenter

As of June 2, these figures show 32,176 confirmed cases, for 789 deaths. With more than 22,348 cases, Kinshasa is the main focus of the epidemic that appeared in March 2020 in the country, with the town of Gombe as its epicenter, the rich city center where institutions, the business world are concentrated, and where live well-off Congolese and foreigners.

The majority of the inhabitants of the capital, however, remain skeptical about the presence, or even the existence, of the coronavirus in this sprawling megalopolis, for the moment relatively spared.

Several close associates of President Félix Tshisekedi died of the disease, as well as around thirty parliamentarians.

DJ-See also [url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/north-america-ab/north-america-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916650-covid-19-the-epidemic-continues-to-worsen-in-haiti[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/north-america-ab/north-america-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916650-covid-19-the-epidemic-continues-to-worsen-in-haiti ; Over the past ten days, more than forty people who tested positive for Covid-19 have died in hospitals while, since March 2020, less than 300 deaths have been officially attributed to the epidemic in Haiti.

On May 24, following the detection of the Alpha and Gamma variants in the country (respectively identified for the first time in the United Kingdom in December 2020 and in Brazil in January 2021), the health authorities established a first state of emergency. eight-day health: curfew between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m., reduction of staff in public and private institutions, compliance with the physical distancing measure (1.50 m), compulsory wearing of a mask in public places and closure classes, with the exception of those preparing for official exams.

Unfortunately, this was not enough to stem the increase in the number of Covid-19 cases in the country.

DJ-Welcome to the Congo and Haïti variant ! Democratic Republic Congo DRC is seeing a mix of SA and India-variant, Haïti is seeing a mix of UK and P1 variant-both will result in newer variants...(giving them greek alfabeth characters does not change that ! Geographic names at least gives an indication of what is happening...).

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/the-pandemic-discussion-forum/892756-discussion-thread-vi-covid-19-new-coronavirus?view=stream[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/the-pandemic-discussion-forum/892756-discussion-thread-vi-covid-19-new-coronavirus?view=stream (latest activity); Now (yesterday) also 2 sequences in the Netherlands, one Q498k and one Q498R (hCoV-19/Netherlands/NB-RIVM-34343/2021 and hCoV-19/Netherlands/GE-RIVM-33453/2021).

In the Netherlands b.1.1.7 is currently at 95% so possibly on this background. 

DJ It was NOT in the Dutch news-The Dutch CDC gives updates on tuesdays and fridays-so this must have come from june 1 reflecting findings from the end of may. These changes also not in [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variants_of_SARS-CoV-2#Notable_missense_mutations[/url] or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variants_of_SARS-CoV-2#Notable_missense_mutations DJ however lots of mutations in the 440/510 area-a.o. on N440K, L452R, S477G/N, E484K and E484Q, N501Y so Q498K and Q498R fit in a pattern...very likely NOT GOOD ! Yet another indication for an undercurrent. In NL trends; 1 Often cases going up in younger age groups under 30y/o, 2 Cases going up in urban area's Amsterdam may even be in the + for cases ? 3 Bible-belt orthodox christians do NOT want vaccination (very likely also limited testing...) 4 In general testing is going down-sequencing may be <5%...5 Several variants are increasing in NL-we may be even creating a "Dutch variant"...(DJ-I will try to find more info on this...put it in the Netherlands section-latest news)

-Dr. John Campbell no new video ? Music then; [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_Bv8UkzW7g[/url] or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_Bv8UkzW7g Alice Cooper-How You Gonna See Me Now ? 1978 ? 

Starting part 2-for today-saturday june 5-simply a lot of info/developments (I was expecting much less since it is weekend...). Will be working on it this morning...Is the Pandemic Alert Level of this forum realy 1 ????  !

Some items;

-[url]https://www.bbc.com/news/health-57362508[/url] or https://www.bbc.com/news/health-57362508 ;

DJ Why [url]https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/weekly-trends/#weekly_table[/url] or https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/weekly-trends/#weekly_table has different numbers. The ONS numbers proberbly not all tested cases ?  Here in NL Central Bureau of Statistics numbers also are different the Dutch CDC/RIVM (tested/reported) numbers.

Also from this BBC article;

DJ-A R0 above 1 is spread-if there are new variants involved and the R0 is above 1 for over a week you could call that a "wave". Even with limited numbers, no serious illness, increase in cases is what matters...

-Dr. John Campbell-I (DJ) often disagree with him [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcNkPXkbSD4[/url] or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcNkPXkbSD4 Friday Update-Dr.J.C. very optimistic on the US situation...although he points out vaccinations going down is a problem. 

I think the basic problem is in communications-the main message seems to be "this pandemic is over" while it is not...Some more from under the video;

US At least one dose, 50.9% (169 million) Fully vaccinated, 41.2% (137 million)

Global vaccination President Biden Pfizer, Moderna, J and J 80 million doses in June First 25 million 6 million, Central and South America 7 million, Asia 5 million Asia 6 million, Allies in need Mostly COVAX

Sinovac Biotech (CoronaVac) Under licence in Pakistan as PacVac

Dr June Raine, the chief executive of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). We have carefully reviewed clinical trial data in children aged 12 to 15 years and have concluded that the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine is safe and effective in this age group and that the benefits of this vaccine outweigh any risk

UK, ONS Week ending 21 May 2021 Prevalence England, 0.09% (1 in 1,120) Wales, 0.03% (1 in 3,850) NI, 0.12% (1 in 820) Scotland, 0.16% (1 in 630) These are likely to be compatible with variant B.1.617.2, first identified in India.

Long CoViD In people with self-reported long COVID More than one-third symptomatic after one year 2 May 2021 376,000 people infected during the “first wave” still symptomatic after one year Out of 1.0 million people with self-reported long COVID (more than 4 weeks) Of those reporting Long CoViD 63.7% some limitation to day-to-day activities 18.8% day-to-day activities limited a lot 35 to 69 years, more likely to report long COVID 70+ Relatively more common in: Females Deprived areas Health or social care workers Another activity-limiting health condition

DJ I do not know why Dr. J.C. is using old info from ONS ending week may 21? The number of vaccines available for the billions living in countries we keep poor remains a "bitter joke". Very slow vaccinations enable variants to evade (vaccine) immunity...

-Some numbers [url]https://www.gisaid.org/hcov19-variants/[/url] or https://www.gisaid.org/hcov19-variants/ UK reporting 17,034 India-variant cases, US at 1,821, Germany 578, Australia (!!!) 199

Of the P1 variant US has 12,644 cases by now, Canada 2,808, Belgium-also high in India variant with  159 cases-1,027 cases of P1-Brazil variant. 

The SA variant 2,148 cases in Sweden ! (at #51 in weekly trends-cases going up 16% 8,076 last week-this week did see 9,355 new cases-some of them the SA variant). Germany 2,046 cases, US 1,827 cases, France 1,641 cases, Belgium (!!!) 919, UK 622 cases...

US has 43,199 cases of the California-variant, Mexico has 374, South Korea 103, Canada 57

The Nigeria variant has 1,057 US cases, 923 Canada, 614 German, 611 Denmark, 523 France, 431 UK cases...

DJ-All these numbers are based on testing/sequencing-both not available in most of the world... A combination of variants may create new variants-if there is spread in vaccinated (once) population we may see a more resistent variant...

-Flutrackers-latest posts part two;

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/internet-communication/avian-flu-diary/916803-uk-phe-update-technical-briefing-revised-risk-assessment-on-covid-variant-b-1-617-2-delta[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/internet-communication/avian-flu-diary/916803-uk-phe-update-technical-briefing-revised-risk-assessment-on-covid-variant-b-1-617-2-delta ; 

Two months ago the`UK' B1.1.1.7 (Alpha) variant seemed in complete control in UK and poised for eventual world domination. But at the same time, the UK's PHE announced their detection of the country's first (77) cases of the B.1.617 variant, and added it to their watch list as a VUI (Variant under Investigation).

Since then, we've seen two revised Risk Assessments on B.1.617.2 from the UK's PHE (May 23rd & May 28th), each one ratcheting up their concerns over the transmissibility, potential vaccine escape, and the possibility of increased severity over the last.

Yesterday, in an announcement from the UK's PHE, the B.1.617.2 (aka `Delta') variant was declared dominant in the UK, having unseated the juggernaut that was B.1.1.7 in just over 60 days.

Although some of this was telegraphed in last week's numbers, this is the confirmation from the PHE:

DJ-Yes vaccinations may make SOME difference ! But the lack of speed-again-can result in mutations in variants evading vaccine immunity ! The India-variant now dominant in the UK is-basicly-a global disaster...reopening based on "vaccine safety" an illusion !

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/africa-ac/africa-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916652-coronavirus-in-drc-the-disease-is-increasing-exponentially-in-kinshasa[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/africa-ac/africa-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916652-coronavirus-in-drc-the-disease-is-increasing-exponentially-in-kinshasa latest; Published on Thu, 03/06/2021 - 22:13 | Last modified on Thu, 03/06/2021 - 22:14

"I officially announce the occurrence of the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in our country, with the city of Kinshasa as the epicenter," the Minister of Public Health, Jean-Jacques Mbungani Mbanda, announced Thursday, June 3.

The current situation of the Covid-19 pandemic "is very worrying", indicates the minister, who notes a considerable increase in cases of contamination and deaths in the past four weeks.
...
The first wave of the Coronavirus pandemic was declared on March 10, 2020. The second wave was declared in December of the same year. Several measures have been taken, including the curfew.

DJ A mix of India and SA variants-what can go wrong ???

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/welcome-to-the-scientific-library/immunity-aa/916804-lancet-letter-neutralising-antibody-activity-against-sars-cov-2-vocs-b-1-617-2-delta-and-b-1-351-beta-by-bnt162b2-biontech-pfizer-vaccination-june-3-2021[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/welcome-to-the-scientific-library/immunity-aa/916804-lancet-letter-neutralising-antibody-activity-against-sars-cov-2-vocs-b-1-617-2-delta-and-b-1-351-beta-by-bnt162b2-biontech-pfizer-vaccination-june-3-2021 ; After only one dose of the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine, 32 per cent of people showed a quantifiable antibody response against the Delta variant, the study found. In contrast about 79 per cent of people had a quantifiable antibody response against the original strain of coronavirus after their first jab.

Only about 25 per cent showed a response against the Beta variant, which first emerged in South Africa. It is not known exactly what level of antibodies is required to protect against disease. Eleanor Riley, professor of immunology and infectious disease at the University of Edinburgh, said the data suggested that vaccines may offer “somewhat less protection against infection with the Delta variant”.

DJ "somewhat less" protection...

-Animals 

[url]https://www.wormsandgermsblog.com/2021/06/articles/miscellaneous/vaccination/covid-19-vaccination-for-animals-necessary-useful/[/url] or https://www.wormsandgermsblog.com/2021/06/articles/miscellaneous/vaccination/covid-19-vaccination-for-animals-necessary-useful/ ;

I’ve written before about animal vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 with regard to mink, but with Russia having recently licensed its Carnivac-Cov vaccine for use in several species (namely dogs, cats, foxes and mink) and Zoetis developing a vaccine in the US for mink, there’s continued interest in the subject, so I’ll revisit it.

-

When I think about SARS-CoV-2 vaccines for animals, there are three main reasons we would use them:

1. Prevention of severe disease

This is the main goal of most vaccines. However, dogs and cats don’t seem to get very sick, very often, from this virus.

• I’m still on the fence as to whether this virus really causes significant disease in dogs at all. We have some data that suggests infection is associated with risk of very mild disease but overall, it’s still not entirely clear. However, it is clear that they rarely, if ever, get seriously ill.
• Cats are commonly infected with SARS-CoV-2, but even cats rarely develop severe illness. There’s evidence that they can, so we can’t dismiss it. However, our research and others suggests that a large percentage of cats from households where people have COVID-19 get infected. So, we have probably had millions of infected cats worldwide since the start of the pandemic.
• 2. Prevention of transmission from animals to people

  Dogs pose little risk to people, if any, in terms of transmission of SARS-CoV-2. Dog-to-dog transmission has not been seen experimentally, and infected dogs seem to have pretty low viral loads, so I doubt there’s much risk. Cats pose more risk to people. Cat-to-cat transmission does happen, so we have to assume cat-to-human transmission can occur too.  But human-to-cat transmission is still far more common.

• 3. Prevention of viral mutation

  This is an important aspect for species that might serve as reservoirs and source of new variants. Virus variants emerge because of random mutations in the viral genome, and mutations happen when the virus replicates. So, the more the virus replicates and the more individuals are infected, the greater chance of a “bad” mutation occurring. For dogs and cats, this isn’t really a big concern. We don’t have massive numbers of dogs or cats together where widespread sustained transmission  is of great concern. Yes, a mutation could happen within a single infected dog or cat, but it’s really unlikely (and even then, it’s only relevant if that dog/cat then can pass it on to a person.)

  The greatest risk of significant viral mutation in any animal species to date appears to be in mink.  We know that the virus can mutate in mink populations AND spread back to people. When you house thousands of a highly susceptible animals close together and introduce the virus from an infected person, that’s the recipe for widespread transmission and massive viral replication that’s needed for “bad”mutations to result in the emergence of a significant variant. Vaccination of mink farm workers helps reduce the risk of mink getting infected and from passing the virus back to people, but there’s still some degree of risk.

   

  Overall, I can’t see a need at this point for vaccination of dogs and cats against SARS-CoV-2. The cost-benefit comparison of vaccination of those species doesn’t seem convincing.  Vaccination of high-risk (e.g. endangered) susceptible animals like large cats and non-human primates might make more sense, such as in zoos, rehab facilities and other places where there’s some degree of human contact with these species.

  Mink are a different story. If we’re going to continue to farm mink, vaccination is a reasonable consideration.

  The final disclaimer here is that all this is based on what we know about current virus variants. New variants always have the potential to reset our knowledge to some degree. Variants that can infect a wider range of animal species, cause more serious disease in animals or be more transmissible from animals to humans might impact the current risks and make vaccination of other species more beneficial. That’s why I’m glad we have some information about vaccines for animals now. I don’t think we need them currently for most species, but it’s good to be prepared should things change.

DJ-Millions of animals-most in minks and cats-did catch Covid19. Since most of new variants now show up in "third world" countries-with a lot of mixing between humans and animals-and coronavirusses are widespread in animals-I think there is a serious risk of spread of variants in non-human hosts...mice did test positive for viral spread in limited-lab-experiments. So far there has not been detected animal spread of Covid 19 outside minks...But we must have missed tens of millions of human cases as well. If you do not test animals you will not detect any virus...

Still large scale illness in pigs seems to be African Swine Fever-NOT Covid19...(allthough ther may be some relation-but again I am NOT a scientist). 

[url]https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01574-4[/url] or https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01574-4 ;

Soon after the new coronavirus started spreading around the globe, reports emerged of cases in animals — pet cats in Hong Kong, tigers in a New York City zoo and mink on farms in the Netherlands. Now researchers are urgently trying to discover which species can catch the virus, and whether they can pass it to people.

So far, there have been only two reported cases of animals — both mink — passing the virus SARS-CoV-2 to people. At the moment, the chance of contracting the disease from an infected animal is negligible compared to the risk of catching it from an ill person, say researchers.

But as the numbers of infected people fall and restrictions on movement ease, infected animals might have the potential to spark new outbreaks. Researchers are calling for extensive sampling of pets, livestock and wildlife to improve understanding of the risk.

The virus could be spreading undetected in some animals that we don’t know about, says Joanne Santini, a microbiologist at University College London. “We just don’t have enough data,” she says.

Several scientists worry that the virus could end up passing back and forth between animals and people. This could really frustrate efforts to control the pandemic, says Arjan Stegeman, a veterinary epidemiologist at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. “We need to take actions now to prevent that from happening,” he says.

-

Several species, including pet dogs and cats, captive lions and tigers, and farmed mink, almost certainly caught the virus from people. That probably means that related canids, felids and mustelids — the group that includes mink, weasels, badgers, martens and wolverines — could also be susceptible, but so far, no one has checked, says Jürgen Richt, a veterinary virologist at Kansas State University in Manhattan.

Hamsters, rabbits and common marmosets are also susceptible, according to laboratory experiments in which the animals were deliberately infected. Experiments in pigs, ducks and chickens show² that they are not susceptible, but there have been no studies of other livestock animals, such as cows, sheep and horses. “If SARS-CoV-2 becomes established in wildlife or other species that have close contact with livestock, then this increases the possibility for interspecies transmission,” says Linda Saif, a virologist at the Ohio State University in Wooster.

-

t is not uncommon for pathogens to jump between species, making it difficult to control their spread. SARS-CoV-2 most likely originated in bats, but researchers do not know whether other animals were involved in its journey to people. The 2009 pandemic H1N1 influenza virus originated in pigs, jumped to people, spread worldwide and then passed back to pigs. The virus continues to circulate in the animals, where it has combined with other flu viruses to create new variants that have crossed over to people, says Stegeman.

Several scientists also worry that SARS-CoV-2 could jump back and forth between cats and people, because the animals often roam between households. Although cats can infect other felines, so far there have been no reports of cats infecting people.

-

Asisa Volz, a veterinary virologist at the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover in Germany, plans to investigate whether cats spread the virus in a retirement home in Bavaria where residents separated from infected individuals still became ill. A cat there was found to have traces of RNA from the coronavirus, which suggests it could have been shedding virus as it roamed the facility. Volz and Beer will test the facility’s cats for antibodies against the virus and study the chronology of events to see whether the felines were a source of infection.

Stegeman also plans to test cats living with people who have had COVID-19 in the Netherlands. If it turns out that cats can pass the virus to people, he says, it would become even more difficult to control the spread.

“The establishment of a pandemic virus in animal populations can be critical and should be always taken into consideration,” says Beer.

DJ-Problem I have with this story is a lot of study will be done in western countries while the problems may develop outside that region...

-This forum going for pandemic alert level 1 is irresponsible in my opinion. Pandemic has to take the GLOBAL situation as a basis-not one or a few countries !

"Music" Holiday in the sun-Sex Pistols (or for the US ... Pistols...) [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ah1JM9mf60[/url] or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ah1JM9mf60  DJ-Ryan Air expects to be at pre-pandemic flights in july, a lot of people want "a holiday in the sun" even if local people have to stay inside due to pandemic restrictions...

I again hope to be wrong-would love to be wrong-but I do not see any basis for that at the moment-holidays in the sun will be yet another spread event-history keeps repeating...

DJ-Carbon20 had a good link [url]https://www.dw.com/en/virus-variants-in-asia-threaten-the-whole-world/a-57745685[/url] or https://www.dw.com/en/virus-variants-in-asia-threaten-the-whole-world/a-57745685 from Deutsche Welle on the global risk of variants. How inequality is further increasing-more becoming a global threat. Also how variants are moving towards escaping tests and vaccines via natural selection, mutations and spread in a vaccinated population. The wrong vaccine/variant mix will further worsen/speed up variants becoming more resistent. 

DJ-The sad reality is that this pandemic is far from over. We are doing everything we can to make matters worse...Increasing air travel, more social mixing, less people getting vaccinated/tested means variants increase spreading-most first in unvaccinated-and then-just like in 2020-it will result in other waves...

[url]https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/06/ufo-reports-are-fertilizer-for-military-budgets.html[/url] or https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/06/ufo-reports-are-fertilizer-for-military-budgets.html DJ-Every story has a goal. UFO's making main news is meant to increase spending on "dealing with UFO's"...Lab-escape story has to distract from the spread-story. Why international air travel was kept going that long...of course-blame China, blame the WHO, but countries themselves have the main responsibility ! They still hide behind "economy", "summer/vaccines" will save us, less cases=more "freedom" etc...

The other side of "freedom" is "responsibility"-it is the same coin...people just do not want to see that...

-The numbers; [url]https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/[/url] or https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ show 327,000 new cases-India just over 100,000. Also 7,739 deaths would be a"very welcome"low number...However-even for weekend numbers the UK is reporting 5,341 new cases-no doubt most of them the India variant...(I can imagine Greece not being happy with using the Greek-alfabet as an excuse for much more usefull geographic names-just to get an idea of how variants spread. The UK now has a lot of India variants because it was imported from India-because air travel was-again-not stopped in time ! The DW-article mentions by now more then a 1,000 variants have been detected. The India-variant itself has 3 variations..).

[url]https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/weekly-trends/#weekly_table[/url] or https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/weekly-trends/#weekly_table may also have limited use-yes 78 countries reporting an increase (with Brazil at #78 +0,1%...after all this time..). UK reporting an increase of 49%...

More relevant numbers may be found at [url]https://www.gisaid.org/hcov19-variants/[/url] or https://www.gisaid.org/hcov19-variants/ UK now 17,034 India variant cases detected, US 1,888-but sequencing is slow-providing info that is 10/14 days old-and only often less then 5% of cases get sequenced...Still the undercurrent of variants is by now the biggest risk in this pandemic. 

In general-yes-numbers did go down a lot-but variants are increasing ! And a lot of the variants show up in regions where there is hardly any testing, sequencing or treatment...With less then one doctor per 100,000 if that doctor dies the problem even get worse...

But cruises have restarted, spoiled people going party, holiday in the sun...can't fix stupid-unbalanced "freedom"...

-Flutrackers latest posts;

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/-2019-ncov-new-coronavirus/-2019-ncov-studies-research-academia/epidemiology/916943-j-infect-structural-dynamics-of-sars-cov-2-variants-a-health-monitoring-strategy-for-anticipating-covid-19-outbreaks[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/-2019-ncov-new-coronavirus/-2019-ncov-studies-research-academia/epidemiology/916943-j-infect-structural-dynamics-of-sars-cov-2-variants-a-health-monitoring-strategy-for-anticipating-covid-19-outbreaks ;

Objectives: The Covid-19 pandemic has been marked by sudden outbreaks of SARS-CoV-2 variants harboring mutations in both the N-terminal (NTD) and receptor binding (RBD) domains of the spike protein. The goal of this study was to predict the transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2 variants from genomic sequence data.
Methods: We used a target-based molecular modeling strategy combined with surface potential analysis of the NTD and RBD.
Results: We observed that both domains act synergistically to ensure optimal virus adhesion, which explains why most variants exhibit concomitant mutations in the RBD and in the NTD. Some mutation patterns affect the affinity of the spike protein for ACE-2. However, other patterns increase the electropositive surface of the spike, with determinant effects on the kinetics of virus adhesion to lipid raft gangliosides. Based on this new view of the structural dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 variants, we defined an index of transmissibility (T-index) calculated from kinetic and affinity parameters of coronavirus binding to host cells. The T-index is characteristic of each variant and predictive of its dissemination in animal and human populations.
Conclusions: The T-index can be used as a health monitoring strategy to anticipate future Covid-19 outbreaks due to the emergence of variants of concern.

DJ With variants getting further spread around the globe, increased mixing, major outbreaks in Kinshasa/DRC, Haïti, cases going up in most of Asia, Africa, Latin America and in many spots in Europe, North America the question is how many new variants will show up when. Sequencing may help to find the best vaccine that may at least still have some effect on the variant...

The way we are dealing with this pandemic is that stupid the virus will "beat us"...it will be a long ride...

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/welcome-to-the-scientific-library/pathological-findings/916942-int-j-infect-dis-covid-19-autopsy-findings-in-six-patients-between-26-and-46-years-of-age[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/welcome-to-the-scientific-library/pathological-findings/916942-int-j-infect-dis-covid-19-autopsy-findings-in-six-patients-between-26-and-46-years-of-age ;

Objectives: Studies on the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) usually focus on middle aged and older adults. However, younger patients may present with severe COVID-19 and potentially fatal outcomes. For optimized, more specialized therapeutic regimens in this particular patient group, a better understanding of underlying pathomechanisms is of uttermost importance.
Methods: This study investigates relevant pre-existing medical conditions, clinical histories and autopsy findings, together with SARS-CoV-2-RNA, determined by qPCR, and laboratory data in six COVID-19 decedents at an age of 50 years or younger who were autopsied at the Charité University Hospital.
Results: From a total of 76 COVID-19 patients who underwent an autopsy at our institution, 6 (7.9%) were 50 years old or younger. Most COVID-19 decedents of younger age presented with pre-existing medical conditions prior to SARS-CoV-2 infection. These included overweight and obesity, arterial hypertension, asthma, obstructive sleep apnea as well as graft-versus-host disease following cancer and bone marrow transplantation. Furthermore, clinical histories and autopsy results revealed a disproportionally high prevalence of thromboembolism and ischemic organ damage in this patient cohort. Histopathology and laboratory results indicated coagulopathies, signs of immune dysregulation and liver damage.
Conclusions: In conclusion, pre-existing health conditions may increase the risk of severe and fatal COVID-19 in younger patients who may be especially prone to developing thromboembolic complications, immune dysregulation and liver damage.

DJ Embedded "press" describes this virus still as a "lung-virus" while organ damage, blood clots are maybe even more the problem. With older people more often vaccinated, a "health industry/gyms" lying a good condition will save you from a severe disease lots of young people will show up in ICU/ crematoria...Do we need to learn it the "hard way"? 

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/-2019-ncov-new-coronavirus/-2019-ncov-studies-research-academia/916924-cutaneous-manifestations-of-a-21st-century-worldwide-fungal-epidemic-possibly-complicating-the-covid-19-pandemic-to-jointly-menace-mankind[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/-2019-ncov-new-coronavirus/-2019-ncov-studies-research-academia/916924-cutaneous-manifestations-of-a-21st-century-worldwide-fungal-epidemic-possibly-complicating-the-covid-19-pandemic-to-jointly-menace-mankind ; In view of the new viral COVID-19 pandemic, the fungal Candida auris epidemic still in progress worldwide highlights non-Candida albicans candidal infections. We describe an immunocompetent woman with a cutaneous manifestation of Candida parasilopsis fungemia, a prominent eschar, which proved to be the nidus for the candidemia. We stress the value of selectively removing eschars. C. parasilopsis and C. auris are increasingly important causes of sepsis and wound infections. We emphasize that commercially available biochemical-based tests may misidentify C. auris as C. parapsilosis, and stress the added danger of C. auris to critically ill-hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Any health care facility with evidence of infection or colonization with C. auris requires very close monitoring, since this fungus is a nosocomial threat comparable to SARS-CoV-2 in its mortality and fomite adhesiveness! Both organisms have the potential to be transmitted as nosocomial pathogens; health care workers need to follow strict CDC guidelines. During this COVID-19 pandemic, every health care facility should closely monitor for the possible deadly combination of the SARS-CoV-2 and C. auris. The identification of C. auris necessitates use of sophisticated technology not readily available to make this essential diagnosis since C. auris is multi-drug resistant and isolation precautions would become paramount.

DJ-Translation skin-fungul-infection is a growing risk in hospitals/HCWers...worldwide.

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/-2019-ncov-new-coronavirus/china-2019-ncov/867998-china-zhong-nanshan-covid-19-the-most-contagious-5-days-before-and-5-days-after-the-onset-of-symptoms-june-8-2020[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/-2019-ncov-new-coronavirus/china-2019-ncov/867998-china-zhong-nanshan-covid-19-the-most-contagious-5-days-before-and-5-days-after-the-onset-of-symptoms-june-8-2020 ; On June 6, two academicians, Zhong Nanshan and Li Lanjuan, visited the Baidu Health Medical Code. They made live broadcasts on topics such as the infectiousness of asymptomatic patients, the cure rate of new coronary pneumonia, group immunization, and subsequent follow-up prevention.
　　
During the live broadcast, academician Zhong Nanshan talked about when the new crown patients were the most infectious. He pointed out that droplets and contact were the definite source of infection. The infection was the most contagious 5 days before and 5 days after the onset of symptoms. Significantly decreased.
　　
When talking about "group immunization", Academician Zhong Nanshan pointed out that the group immunization proposed by some countries is a natural infection without any intervention, and gradually establishes the process of immunization. "To establish'group immunity', 60%-70% of the population must be infected. According to the mortality rate of the new coronary pneumonia, 6.95% of the world's deaths can gradually establish group immunity, which will probably cause 30-40 million deaths. That's too expensive! Therefore, this kind of "group immunity" is not feasible. If you want to establish "group immunity", you still have to rely on the research and development of vaccines. The new crown vaccine can be used as an emergency as early as this autumn or the end of the year. There are already 6 clinical trials in mainland China. in."
　　As for whether the asymptomatic infected person is really no sign, whether it is highly contagious, academician Li Lanjuan said that the asymptomatic infected person is less infectious than the early infected person, and many asymptomatic infected persons heal themselves after infection and do not cause strong Immune response.

"Asymptomatic people are also infectious, and they still need to be strictly isolated to prevent their spread to other people. The Chinese are still susceptible and can't relax their vigilance now."

DJ -Also in the link China working on SIX new vaccines better able to deal with variants...Earlier also vaccinating people from 3 y/o (so starting at a very young age) is planned in China...Again-China may be reporting but are we listening ? 

DJ-Some birdflu links;https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/middle-east/h5n1-tracking-ac/iraq/904124-iraq-bird-flu-blamed-for-deaths-of-tens-of-thousands-of-chickens[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/middle-east/h5n1-tracking-ac/iraq/904124-iraq-bird-flu-blamed-for-deaths-of-tens-of-thousands-of-chickens (latest); The Iraqi authorities announce the elimination of thousands of poultry in Baghdad, Anbar, Wasit and Basra due to exposure to viral infections.
Sunday 06/06/2021

Baghdad - The Iraqi authorities announced, on Sunday, the execution of thousands of poultry in 4 provinces due to "viral infections", without mentioning the type of virus.
The four governorates are Baghdad, Anbar (west), Wasit and Basra (south), according to the official Iraqi News Agency, which said that the outbreak of the viral epidemic (it was not named) had been controlled, with the exception of Basra governorate.

DJ-In january Iraq detected H5N8...it later was found infecting farm workers in Russia, Nigeria...proberbly showing up in many places-only matter of time for spread in non-bird hosts...

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/europe/h5n1-tracking/latvia-aa/916906-latvia-highly-pathogenic-avian-influenza-h5n1-detected-in-dead-silver-gull-found-in-valgalciems-roja[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/europe/h5n1-tracking/latvia-aa/916906-latvia-highly-pathogenic-avian-influenza-h5n1-detected-in-dead-silver-gull-found-in-valgalciems-roja ; A new subtype of avian influenza has been identified in Latvia

Portal nra.lv June 3

The laboratory confirmed the highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 subtype found in Valgalciems, Roja district, which can rarely occur in humans in direct contact with birds infected or diseased with avian influenza, the Food and Veterinary Service (FVS) informed.

In Latvia, after a long time, highly pathogenic avian influenza has been detected again in one wild bird.

The H5N1 avian influenza subtype is rare, but can also occur in humans in direct contact with birds infected or diseased.
In 2020, there was one official case of this subtype of avian influenza virus in the world, but according to the World Health Organization, more than 800 cases of H5N1 have been reported worldwide since 2003, but none of them have been reported in Europe.

Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Finland and Estonia have also reported the presence of highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 in wild birds or poultry in recent months.

DJ New subtype means so far Latvia did find H5N8 cases-now they did find H5N1 as well....https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/europe/europe-h5n8-tracking/h5n8-tracking-germany/908538-germany-h5n4-in-wild-birds[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/europe/europe-h5n8-tracking/h5n8-tracking-germany/908538-germany-h5n4-in-wild-birds ; Avian influenza in Schleswig-Holstein: renewed increase in
Evidence detected in wild birds and the new subtype H5N4
In addition to H5N8, H5N5, H5N3 and H5N1, the new subtype H5N4 is currently the fifth subtype found in wild birds in Schleswig-Holstein. 

DJ-Above is from february 28. The new report has another case of H5N4...[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avian_influenza#Subtypes[/url] or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avian_influenza#Subtypes So in North Germany did so far this year did find H5N1, H5N3, H5N4, H5N% and H5N8-still missing in the H5-"family" is H5N9....

-Dr. John Campbell did not post another video-no doubt will keep us informed on the variants spreading in the UK-how well vaccines offer prtection.  

Music [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIN3IE3DHqc[/url] or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIN3IE3DHqc Grace Jones-Strange I've Seen That Face Before...1981...

DJ,

In Latest news carbon20 had a very good ABC-link on the Delta/India-variant. Though mainly focussing on India-with some links to Australia, and mentioning the UK it also makes clear the "Delta"/India-variant is becoming a global problem. In a limited number of countries we now do see low cases/spread-but the undercurrent of several variants is growing. It is not just the India-variant stepping over immunity...variants are developing towards resistent forms. Since in many countries quite a lot of people may have had (mild/asymptomatic) infections-only a few countries did get vaccinations at relevant levels-new mutations in the virus will deal with increasing immunity....

Again-a virus does not make choices, it does not think. In reproduction in hosts-the only way a virus can "survive"-those mutations that give the virus the best chance to reproduce become dominant. By now those mutations will become more immunity evading-simply because there is more immunity and time to develop in that direction....

The only effective way to stop this pandemic is to stop the spread-and "we" are reopening...because "this pandemic has been here for that long" ..."we deserve freedom" "the economy" etc-reopening again is bringing us deeper into the swamp. There is maybe just one way out-Stop The Spread ! (STS)

I did see reports of vaccines being tested on 5 month old babies...vulnarable people maybe getting a third, fourth vaccination...Basicly the "strategy" seems to go into the direction of endless massive vaccinations ...Not just a "boostershot" once every two years-but new vaccines being used against new variants every few months...

-The numbers [url]https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/[/url] or https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ only give an indication. When you look at the top 10 in new cases-yes-India reporting now under a 100,000 cases-but a lot of cases are simply not tested because there are no tests...other Asian countries, Latin America also still high numbers. The UK at #10 with 6,049 new cases being reported...most of them the India-variant. 

By the way-I will try to keep calling the variants by their geographical name-just to show where the spread started/was first detected. I do not blame Spain for the "Spanish Flu" nor "Kent" for the "Kent-variant"...

[url]https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/weekly-trends/#weekly_table[/url] or https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/weekly-trends/#weekly_table can also be of use to see where we are going. Weekly Case % change is showing a lot of increase in Africa. In the highest numbers the UK now at #20-with an increase of 61%. The India-variant evading the "single-shot strategy" and widespread natural immunity after the UK variant-it should send an alarming signal...but nobody hardly is listening...

Both in Europe and the US we will see the India variant increase-another wave-we do not stop. [url]https://www.gisaid.org/hcov19-variants/[/url] or https://www.gisaid.org/hcov19-variants/  for the UK now 21,552 India-variant cases, US 2,097, Germany 633, Canada 360, Singapore 295, Ireland 232, Australia and Belgium both 204 cases detected via sequencing-taking up to two weeks-and then reported...as far as I understand these numbers are a serious undercount-maybe just 5% of the real numbers...(But again I am NOT an expert-just trying to make some sense...).

For the SA-variant Sweden has now 2,149 cases, US 2,081, Germany 2,073, France 1,667, Belgium 932, NL 674, Canada 629.

P1/Brazil variant US now 12,427, Canada 2,956, Belgium 1,131, Spain 523, NL 412, Chile 327, Argentina 222-for both Chile and Argentina the real numbers must be in the tens of thousends...)

Nigeria variant Canada 1,173, US now 1,079, Germany 626, Denmark-sequencing almost 100% of its positive tests-the only country doing so-UK I believe is 50%, US under 5%- "poor countries" as good as NO sequencing) 613, India 95...

It is "partytime for the variants" ! Mixing and reproducing all over the planet-and we give it all the room...

-Flutrackers latest posts;

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/china-other-health-threats/china-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916069-china-confirmed-community-spread-of-1-617-variant-possible-delta-2-high-risk-areas-identified-in-guangzhou-guangdong-province-may-23-2021?view=stream[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/china-other-health-threats/china-covid-19-sept-13-2020-may-31-2021/916069-china-confirmed-community-spread-of-1-617-variant-possible-delta-2-high-risk-areas-identified-in-guangzhou-guangdong-province-may-23-2021?view=stream latest activities; From May 21 to June 6 at 24:00, a total of 98 domestic infections (84 confirmed cases and 14 asymptomatic) were reported in this round of the epidemic in Guangzhou. At present, all infected persons are treated in isolation at the Eighth People's Hospital of Guangzhou City. The places or communities involved in the above-mentioned infected persons have been strictly terminally disinfected by the disease control department (the list of relevant places or communities involved is attached).

DJ-I think China underestimated the SARS-2 crisis at the end of 2019-since then they did learn. In communications being open on what went wrong could help. In general my view of China is they-by now-are one of the better performing countries in this pandemic. Not stopping international air travel january 2020 was wrong. (Repeating that mistake when dealing with the Brazil, India variants becomes insane...). 

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/europe/h5n1-tracking/germany/912747-germany-outbreaks-of-highly-pathogenic-avian-influenza-h5n1-in-wild-birds?view=stream[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/europe/h5n1-tracking/germany/912747-germany-outbreaks-of-highly-pathogenic-avian-influenza-h5n1-in-wild-birds?view=stream Latest activity ; Another H5N1-case this time in the Hamburg region-june 8. 

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/local-regional-communities-and-organizations/cidrap/917021-cidrap-us-covid-cases-drop-another-30-as-africa-surge-continues[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/local-regional-communities-and-organizations/cidrap/917021-cidrap-us-covid-cases-drop-another-30-as-africa-surge-continues ; 

International COVID developments

While America's outbreak is on the decline, Africa's COVID-19 cases have now risen for the fourth week in a row, up 19% from the previous week, according to a weekly outbreaks and health emergencies report from the World Health Organization (WHO) Africa regional office.

Most cases, however, are concentrated in a few countries experiencing sharp or steady rises, including South Africa, Uganda, Eritrea, Namibia, and Zambia.

The report said Africa only has enough COVID-19 vaccine for 1% of its population, and WHO officials have warned that the region is falling behind the rest of the world in receiving vaccine supplies.

In a related development, the Mastercard Foundation today announced that it will donate $1.3 billion over the next 3 years to a partnership with the Africa Centers for Disease Control to help the region respond to and recover from the pandemic. Part of the initiative will acquire vaccines for at least 50 million people, building on the efforts of COVAX, the program designed to ensure equitable access to COVID vaccine for low- and middle-income countries.

In other global headlines:

• British officials are considering delaying the country's full reopening, originally slated for Jun 21, by up to 2 weeks to allow more people over age 50 to be fully vaccinated, as the country grapples with further spread of the more transmissible Delta (B1617.2) SARS-CoV-2 variant, according to the London Times.
• Australia's Victoria state reported two more local COVID-19 cases in the Melbourne area yesterday, down from 11 the day before, and officials have signaled that the 2-week circuit-breaker lockdown will likely ease on Jun 10 as planned, according to Reuters.
• Another high-profile Japanese virologist has raised concerns about risk of further COVID-19 spread posed by the upcoming Tokyo Olympics. Hitoshi Oshitani, MD, PhD, MPH, a government advisor with Tohoku University, told the London Times that the event could spread the virus to countries that have little spread and few variant cases. In a related development, as the event draws closer and cases decline in Japan, the country's public is becoming more optimistic about the games, with a new poll suggesting that 50% think the event should proceed, up from 39% a month ago, according to the Washington Post.
• The latest global total is 173,757,407, with 3,740,257 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins online dashboard.

DJ Mexico=+27%, Portugal-still-+11% again-lots of variants spreading all over the place-proberbly by now SEVERAL new variants may be starting the spread. 

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/china-h5n1-h5n8-h5n6-h5n3-h5n2-h10n8-outbreak-tracking/917003-chp-closely-monitors-human-case-of-avian-influenza-a-h5n6-in-chengdu?view=stream[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/china-h5n1-h5n8-h5n6-h5n3-h5n2-h10n8-outbreak-tracking/917003-chp-closely-monitors-human-case-of-avian-influenza-a-h5n6-in-chengdu?view=stream H5N6 may become a problem in China. (A list-proberbly far from complete at [url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/china-h5n1-h5n8-h5n6-h5n3-h5n2-h10n8-outbreak-tracking/723926-flutrackers-h5n6-cumulative-case-list[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/china-h5n1-h5n8-h5n6-h5n3-h5n2-h10n8-outbreak-tracking/723926-flutrackers-h5n6-cumulative-case-list )

DJ Both H5/H7 bird flu types seem to be increasing worldwide.

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/the-pandemic-discussion-forum/892756-discussion-thread-vi-covid-19-new-coronavirus?view=stream[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/the-pandemic-discussion-forum/892756-discussion-thread-vi-covid-19-new-coronavirus?view=stream latest activity; The furin cleavage site in the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein is required for transmission in ferrets

We also note that the SARS-CoV-2 CS remains suboptimal for furin cleavage. It is unclear if this is a trade-off (that is, with stability of spike) or whether further optimization of this site could result in higher transmissibility. In this regard, multiple SARS-CoV-2 variants have recently emerged and spread rapidly, including some, such as the B.1.1.7 ‘UK’ variant, that have mutations proximal to the S1/S2 CS predicted to enhance furin cleavage. This further emphasizes the role of this site for virus transmission and the importance of continued monitoring as SARS-CoV-2 circulates in the human population

DJ [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furin[/url] or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furin (I have to study this myself...) 

-Dr. John Campbell [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6bWBDWidZ4[/url] or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6bWBDWidZ4 ;

CDC, adolescents aged 12–17 years Covid-19 hospitalization rates, among adolescents Declined in January and February Increased during March to April Variants, return to school, behavioural change

Severe disease that requires hospitalization occurs in all age groups Some risk of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children COVID-19–associated hospitalizations, January 1–March 31

COVID-19–associated adolescent hospitalization rate, 12.5 times lower than aged ≥18 years Adolescent hospitalization rates comparable to aged 0–4 years, but higher than rates among children aged 5–11 October 1, 2020 to April 24, 2021 2.5–3.0 times higher than influenza-associated hospitalization rates

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky I am deeply concerned by the numbers of hospitalized adolescents and saddened to see the numbers of adolescents who required treatment in intensive care units or mechanical ventilation Much of this suffering can be prevented Vaccination is our way out of this pandemic

Andrew Pavia, professor of pediatrics and infectious diseases, University of Utah Flu very rarely causes long-term symptoms and organ damage — unlike covid-19 Adolescents have many reasons to get vaccinated as soon as possible, including their own health, the ability to help control covid-19 among more vulnerable groups and the ability to return to normal life

DJ Vaccines has become a form of religion. Yes vaccines do help-but in combination with NPI ! Stop The Spread !!!! So NO restart of international air travel spreading variants-some countries are already on pre-pandemic levels...

-Music; [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GwjfUFyY6M[/url] or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GwjfUFyY6M Kool & The Gang-Celebration-1980...variants party time !

ViQueen24-Most of Europe will not do much better...here in NL there is discussion on vaccinating children (under 18 y/o). People without children do much more support such ideas then parents do...

I do not have an outspoken idea on vaccinating children-only that they should have to agree with it. Vulnarable children under 12 might be better of with vaccinations as well...

Dr. John Campbell a few days ago mentioned the U.S. being the only country with more vaccines then arms to put the vaccines in. 

One of the problems I have with how media deal with the present low numbers is-we have been here before about a year ago...Did "media" forget the low numbers in summer 2020-then the spread of infections after holidays. (Here in NL lots of cases imported from Spain, France) Then in autumn/fall UK variant followed with the India variant(s) ?

I would love to see an end to this pandemic-but reopening everytime the R0 gets under 1-to have new restrictions when that leads to R0 going above 1-is that depressing...

Newer variants may need "herd immunity"far higher then 70%...even if that would mean some people getting a third/fourth vaccine-as long as that would get us out of the pandemic. But you need BOTH-I think vaccines AND NPI...