news COVID-19 [Day 1600]

[Espresso]

Putting here for posterity from other thread, would’ve gotten around to it at some point. My position remains the same that more research is helpful but I remain weary given the CCP’s blocking of the WHO. 

 

[Espresso]

Also posting this duplicate from the politics thread for posterity here. This is a very length breakdown of the extensive medical backlash to Bret Stephens’ now infamous article against mask mandates, including the letters to the editor and the studies refuting his argument. 

 

[Espresso]

And again, a third duplicate from the other thread. CCP blocked the lab-leak investigation from them too. 

 

[Genius1111]

 

Better late than never I suppose.

 

[Genius1111]

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Florence Débarre, an evolutionary biologist at the French National Center for Scientific Research who had been scanning GISAID for data from the Huanan outbreak, noticed the new genetic signatures on March 4 and eventually alerted a group of researchers who had been studying the market.

Yet when the group reached out to the Chinese scientists who had posted the data, the sequences suddenly disappeared from GISAID, and no one knows who or why they were taken down.

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But from the start, the Chinese government interfered with efforts by both Chinese and international experts to study the pandemic, including its origins. Reporting by the AP found that even as WHO officials were publicly praising China’s cooperation, behind the scenes they were complaining about lack of access and a refusal to share data.

 

Edited March 18, 2023 by Genius1111

[Genius1111]

 

 

 

 

[Espresso]

Duplicate from U.S. politics thread

 

 

[Genius1111]

 

[Genius1111]

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With the congress over, some voices in the public health sector finally piped up. In an internal document published Oct. 28, obtained by The Associated Press and reported here for the first time, Wu Zunyou, China’s CDC chief epidemiologist, criticized the Beijing city government for excessive COVID-19 controls, saying it had “no scientific basis." He called it a “distortion” of the central government’s zero-COVID policy, which risked “intensifying public sentiment and causing social dissatisfaction.”

At the same time, he called the virus policies of the central government “absolutely correct.” One former CDC official said Wu felt helpless because he was ordered to advocate for zero-COVID in public, even as he disagreed at times with its excesses in private.

Wu did not respond to an email requesting comment. A person acquainted with Wu confirmed he wrote the internal report.

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Days after the protests, Sun held meetings where she told medical experts the state planned to “walk briskly” out of zero-COVID. The final decision was made suddenly, and with little direct input from public health experts, several told the AP.

“None of us expected the 180-degree turn,” a government adviser said.

Many in the Chinese government believe the protests accelerated Xi’s decision to scrap virus controls entirely, according to three current and former state employees.

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“Even three days’ notice would have been good,” said a former China CDC official. “The way this happened was just unbelievable.”

 

Edited March 21, 2023 by Genius1111

[Genius1111]

 

 

But at the same time, if you want to get the next shot early before everyone else, you can't and you need to wait for your turn. 

[Genius1111]

 

 

 

 

[Espresso]

 

[Genius1111]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Genius1111]

I just met someone who tested negative on a rapid test, but had more than half the people at home testing positive.

 

It's so freaking irresponsible.  

[Genius1111]

 

 

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XBB.1.16 is from Maharashtra (Mumbai), and has been dominant in that area of India for a while. India is rather big though.

XBB.1.16 is the current likely apex variant, growing significantly (at least 50%) faster per week than "vanilla" XBB.1.5. It is basically identical to XBB.1.5 as far as the immune system is concerned, so arguably it is not really a "new" variant (same as comparing Delta to the different Delta+ variants that displaced it over summer->fall 2021).

XBB has had no antigenic changes since it first recombined, and this is likely to continue. But mutation will not stop, so we don't know what direction its evolution will go. If nothing else evolves, though, we are likely to see a successive laddering of slightly-more-contagious XBB versions showing up in some kind of order, and since they could easily be pretty close to each other there will be a large founder effect (whichever one arrives first at a location will have a months head start). XBB.1.16 is a real saltation, having 12 nucleotide mutations
 from its parent XBB.1. By comparison XBB.1.5 just has the one (most important) mutation, which has surely evolved independently numerous times and always makes it less fit than anything more mutated. However, XBB.1.5 will infect a lot of people, and so it will have many descendants. But XBB.1.16 will get to all of India first and they are far less vaccinated, so it will have many descendants. XBB.1.9.1 and XBB.1.9.2 are also currently of interest - they are literally identical to XBB.1.5 in the structural proteins.

None of these variants will "restart the pandemic", because they do not have any immune escape from each other. They'll just get better and better at finding anyone who hasn't caught or been vaccinated against XBB* yet. My guess is >50% of the world population will catch XBB* over the last+next ~6 months, if nothing fast-growing replaces it.

Unfortunately the FDA has decided not to vaccinate against XBB* until fall. The BA.5 bivalent doses do okay-ish against it, but one dose even with prior pre-BA.5 infection does not do very well. We have zero research on two doses, or on one dose with BA.5/BF.7/BQ.1 infection. But based on previous variants it is very likely that a dose well after your first dose or BA.5/BQ.1 infection does much better - get your bivalent dose if it's been at least 6 months since your last infection or dose.

For the pandemic to be restarted post-XBB, we would need a large saltation - and something with enough contagiousness and immune escape to both have 50-100%+ weekly absolute growth, and have a large enough susceptible population to infect many people. This would then become a third strain (alongside original aka sars-cov-2 and omicron aka xbb). BA.1, once itself called omicron, is IMO the most likely ancestor if that were to happen, since it has the most immune escape from both original and omicron (XBB). But every month this doesn't happen, the chances of it lower.

 

[Espresso]

 

[Genius1111]

 

 

 

[Genius1111]

 

[Genius1111]

 

[Genius1111]

[Specter]

39 minutes ago, Genius1111 said:

 

Is this to discourage carelessness exclusively, or...

 

Because I cannot imagine seeing this as someone reinfected sajdhksahj

[Espresso]

UGH FINALLY, Jesus  

 

 

[Espresso]

 

[Espresso]

 

[jdanton2]

White House finally putting more money into new vaccine program . hope the Republicans don't try to cut the funding.