COR Corona COVID-19 forum
Alles over het corona / COVID-19 virus.
RIP vakantie-vinkjequote:Op donderdag 17 juni 2021 13:25 schreef popje het volgende:
Ik heb net gebeld met het RIVM omdat mijn eerste vaccinatie van 7 juni nog steeds niet in het systeem (mijnrivm) staat... en guess wat ik hoorde, het kan wel tot een maand duren!
Nee, niet nodig.quote:
Never in the entire history of calming down did anyone ever calm down after being told to calm down.
Nee, ik heb 2 weken terug gebeld en toen ging de planning tot 8 augustus.quote:
Eerste vaccinatie net gehad. Voorheen lukte het me niet mijn tweede vaccinatie te verzetten omdat ze nog niet zo ver vooruit plannen. Dus ik dacht: ik bel weer eens. Maar ze kunnen nog steeds niet iets inplannen voor eind juli. Herkennen anderen dit?
Jochem meyer post op fb dat hij ee 2e prik heeft gehaald. Die haatreacties eronder. Wat een tokkies soms zeg 
quote:
Op quote:Situatie van COVID-19 Patienten in de ziekenhuizen, dit is dus exlusief reguliere bezetting:
Nieuw op de IC: 5, dat is 3 minder dan gister.
Nieuw op de verpleegafdeling: 32, dat is gelijk aan gister.
In totaal liggen er nu 226 mensen op de IC en 347 mensen op de verpleegafdeling.
Dit is 13 minder op de IC en 19 minder op de verpleegafdeling ten opzichte van gister
“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”
Delta variant zorgt ook nog eens voor diabetes in jonge mensen...
https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws(...)iase-levens-a4047446
Patiënt 109, een advocaat, is nog jong. 38 jaar, brede schouders en lange benen die tot het einde van het bed reiken. Kothalkar: „Hij sportte iedere dag.” Er is nog een verschil met de oudere man. Anders dan hij had de advocaat geen diabetes. Tot hij niet zo lang geleden corona opliep. „Nu is hij ineens diabeticus.” En hij niet alleen, zegt de arts. „40 procent van mijn mucorpatiënten heeft diabetes ontwikkeld, nádat ze corona kregen.”
Steroïden zijn volgens Kothalker niet de enige boosdoener.
„De ‘delta’-variant die hier rondgaat, beschadigt de alvleesklier, die de insuline in je lijf reguleert. We zien dat dit diabetes opwekt bij mensen die dat nog niet hadden.” Een fenomeen dat zich niet beperkt tot Seven Star, noch India, noch deze variant. Onder meer in het Verenigd Koninkrijk buigen wetenschappers zich al sinds vorige zomer over de vraag of het coronavirus een rol speelt bij de plotse stijging in diabetespatiënten daar.
https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws(...)iase-levens-a4047446
Patiënt 109, een advocaat, is nog jong. 38 jaar, brede schouders en lange benen die tot het einde van het bed reiken. Kothalkar: „Hij sportte iedere dag.” Er is nog een verschil met de oudere man. Anders dan hij had de advocaat geen diabetes. Tot hij niet zo lang geleden corona opliep. „Nu is hij ineens diabeticus.” En hij niet alleen, zegt de arts. „40 procent van mijn mucorpatiënten heeft diabetes ontwikkeld, nádat ze corona kregen.”
Steroïden zijn volgens Kothalker niet de enige boosdoener.
„De ‘delta’-variant die hier rondgaat, beschadigt de alvleesklier, die de insuline in je lijf reguleert. We zien dat dit diabetes opwekt bij mensen die dat nog niet hadden.” Een fenomeen dat zich niet beperkt tot Seven Star, noch India, noch deze variant. Onder meer in het Verenigd Koninkrijk buigen wetenschappers zich al sinds vorige zomer over de vraag of het coronavirus een rol speelt bij de plotse stijging in diabetespatiënten daar.
Zo moet je niet tellen, het gaat om de capaciteit qua bedden en de handjes aan die bedden. Gelukkig komt er nu (adem)ruimte voor de mensen aan de frontlinie.quote:
[..]
573 mensen in het ziekenhuis (totaal). Op een bevolking van 17.500.000. Is dus 0.003% Boe!
“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”
Ik weet het, wij hebben structureel te weinig capaciteit (bezuinigen en bevolkingsgroei / verouderen). Maar even alles in perspectief. Dit virus heeft nu dus echt gevolgen / impact op 0.003% van de bevolking. Maar goed. Het is voorbij.quote:
[..]
Zo moet je niet tellen, het gaat om de capaciteit qua bedden en de handjes aan die bedden. Gelukkig komt er nu (adem)ruimte voor de mensen aan de frontlinie.
Hoezo veel sneller? Volgens mijn geboortejaar klopt dat schema gewoon. Eerste week juli. En de mensen in mijn omgeving met vergelijkbare leeftijd worden ook in diezelfde week geprikt.quote:
[..]
Dit mag ook wel een keer uit de OP worden gehaald, want het antwoord op die vraag is: nee, in de verste verte niet: we gaan veel sneller.
@:miss_sly
Cum hoc ergo propter hoc (correlation does NOT imply causation)
De coronacijfers van vandaag zijn een achteruitkijkspiegel van één à twee weken terug: COR / Het datavertragingstopic #2
De coronacijfers van vandaag zijn een achteruitkijkspiegel van één à twee weken terug: COR / Het datavertragingstopic #2
Het is al 1,5 jaar zo dat we het doen voor een vrij klein deel van de bevolking.quote:
[..]
Ik weet het, wij hebben structureel te weinig capaciteit (bezuinigen en bevolkingsgroei / verouderen). Maar even alles in perspectief. Dit virus heeft nu dus echt gevolgen / impact op 0.003% van de bevolking. Maar goed. Het is voorbij.
“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”
Ik heb wel gewoon toestemming gegeven...quote:Op donderdag 17 juni 2021 13:37 schreef Pino112 het volgende:
[..]
Als het maar bij de GGD staat, dat is leidend.
Het leven is een groot feest, en jij bent ook uitgenodigd!
quote:
Jochem meyer post op fb dat hij ee 2e prik heeft gehaald. Die haatreacties eronder. Wat een tokkies soms zeg
SPOILEROm spoilers te kunnen lezen moet je zijn ingelogd. Je moet je daarvoor eerst gratis Registreren. Ook kun je spoilers niet lezen als je een ban hebt.Geniaal
Op zaterdag 8 februari 2014 23:39 schreef Slaapscheet het volgende:
Oke, MichaelScott, je bent geweldig. :D
"Door via de app of website in te loggen met uw DigiD worden de gegevens automatisch opgehaald uit de registratiesystemen van:quote:
RIVM (als u daarvoor toestemming hebt gegeven)
GGD
Ziekenhuizen"
Probleem is alleen dat het bij veel mensen (nog?) niet in het GGD-systeem staat geregistreerd.
Minister: lt's not particularly silly, is it? I mean, the right leg isn't silly at all and the left leg merely does a forward aerial half turn every alternate step.
Mr Pudey: Yes, but I think that with Government backing I could make it very silly.
Mr Pudey: Yes, but I think that with Government backing I could make it very silly.
Dus de delta-variant veroorzaakt diabetes, maar de niet-delta variant (die vorig jaar rondging) veroorzaakte óók diabetes, omdat er een plotselinge stijging in het aantal diabetespatiënten was?quote:
Delta variant zorgt ook nog eens voor diabetes in jonge mensen...
https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws(...)iase-levens-a4047446
Patiënt 109, een advocaat, is nog jong. 38 jaar, brede schouders en lange benen die tot het einde van het bed reiken. Kothalkar: „Hij sportte iedere dag.” Er is nog een verschil met de oudere man. Anders dan hij had de advocaat geen diabetes. Tot hij niet zo lang geleden corona opliep. „Nu is hij ineens diabeticus.” En hij niet alleen, zegt de arts. „40 procent van mijn mucorpatiënten heeft diabetes ontwikkeld, nádat ze corona kregen.”
Steroïden zijn volgens Kothalker niet de enige boosdoener.
„De ‘delta’-variant die hier rondgaat, beschadigt de alvleesklier, die de insuline in je lijf reguleert. We zien dat dit diabetes opwekt bij mensen die dat nog niet hadden.” Een fenomeen dat zich niet beperkt tot Seven Star, noch India, noch deze variant. Onder meer in het Verenigd Koninkrijk buigen wetenschappers zich al sinds vorige zomer over de vraag of het coronavirus een rol speelt bij de plotse stijging in diabetespatiënten daar.
Dan doet de delta variant toch gewoon hetzelfde als de gewone variant? Nog steeds vervelend hoor, maar dat maakt 'm toch niet ineens veel heftiger oid?
Trouwens, een 40% toename van diabetes in een bepaalde groep patiënten? Dat lijkt me nogal een hoog percentage?
[ Bericht 2% gewijzigd door #ANONIEM op 17-06-2021 14:15:21 ]
Het ging over mijnrivm, die het doorgestuurd krijgen van de GGD en dat boeit dan dus niet.quote:
[..]
"Door via de app of website in te loggen met uw DigiD worden de gegevens automatisch opgehaald uit de registratiesystemen van:
RIVM (als u daarvoor toestemming hebt gegeven)
GGD
Ziekenhuizen"
Probleem is alleen dat het bij veel mensen (nog?) niet in het GGD-systeem staat geregistreerd.
Never in the entire history of calming down did anyone ever calm down after being told to calm down.
Interessante vraag.
wegmetdetestwet.nl / wegmetdetestmaatschappij.nl voor een gratis subdomain DM me.
Dat geldt toch ook voor niet gevaccineerden?quote:
[ afbeelding ]
Bron: https://www.ons.gov.uk/pe(...)vaccination/june2021
Het aantal besmettingen lag in januari op 70.000 per dag vs 2000 in mei, volgens BJ ten gevolge van de lockdown.
Inmiddels raken steeds meer gevaccineerden besmet, en vertegenwoordigen zij dagelijks meer dan een derde van de ziekenhuisopnames.
Gisteren ruim 9000 besmettingen in de UK, de verwachting is rond de 60.000 juli/aug.
Meer dan een derde van de ziekenhuisopnames van mensen die gevaccineerd zijn? Dat is nogal veel.quote:
[..]
Dat geldt toch ook voor niet gevaccineerden?
Het aantal besmettingen lag in januari op 70.000 per dag vs 2000 in mei, volgens BJ ten gevolge van de lockdown.
Inmiddels raken steeds meer gevaccineerden besmet, en vertegenwoordigen zij dagelijks meer dan een derde van de ziekenhuisopnames.
Gisteren ruim 9000 besmettingen in de UK, de verwachting is rond de 60.000 juli/aug.
Zijn die mensen volledig gevaccineerd of hebben ze alleen een enkele gehad?
Als je door de GGD geprikt bent, en het staat niet bij de GGD in het systeem, dan zal het ook nooit goed gaan staan bij RIVM.quote:
[..]
Het ging over mijnrivm, die het doorgestuurd krijgen van de GGD en dat boeit dan dus niet.
Daarom afwachten tot GGD z'n zaakjes op orde heeft.
Minister: lt's not particularly silly, is it? I mean, the right leg isn't silly at all and the left leg merely does a forward aerial half turn every alternate step.
Mr Pudey: Yes, but I think that with Government backing I could make it very silly.
Mr Pudey: Yes, but I think that with Government backing I could make it very silly.
Merendeel enkelequote:
[..]
Meer dan een derde van de ziekenhuisopnames van mensen die gevaccineerd zijn? Dat is nogal veel.
Zijn die mensen volledig gevaccineerd of hebben ze alleen een enkele gehad?
Per dag?quote:
[..]
Dat geldt toch ook voor niet gevaccineerden?
Het aantal besmettingen lag in januari op 70.000 per dag vs 2000 in mei, volgens BJ ten gevolge van de lockdown.
Inmiddels raken steeds meer gevaccineerden besmet, en vertegenwoordigen zij dagelijks meer dan een derde van de ziekenhuisopnames.
Gisteren ruim 9000 besmettingen in de UK, de verwachting is rond de 60.000 juli/aug.
Phizer en Moderna 88%, AZ (en Janssen) 60%
the Pfizer vaccine showed 88 percent effectiveness against symptomatic disease caused by the Delta variant compared to 93 percent against the Alpha variant. Two doses of AstraZeneca vaccine were 66 percent effective against Alpha but only 60 percent against Delta. But with just single dose of either of the two vaccines, the vaccine effectiveness was only 51 percent against the Alpha variant compared to 33 percent against Delta. This effectiveness falls below the 50 percent efficacy threshold the FDA had set for designing safe COVID-19 vaccines; in which a vaccine should prevent at least half of the vaccinated people from getting COVID-19 symptoms.
=======================================
https://www.reddit.com/r/(...)eres_why_its_on_the/
The Delta variant is serious. Here’s why it's on the rise. The virus variant that caused infections to spike in the U.K. is now spreading in the U.S., and experts are very worried. BYSANJAY MISHRA PUBLISHED JUNE 16, 2021 9 MIN READ
With vaccination rates slowing in the United States, and other countries struggling to secure vaccines, public health experts have growing concerns that the so-called Delta coronavirus variant, first identified in India in March, could trigger dramatic rises in cases and deaths in the U.S. and the world.
The Delta variant already accounts for 18 percent of cases in Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming, and about six percent of cases nationwide. It has already spread to more than 70 countriesand is now the most dominant variant in India, the United Kingdom, and Singapore. Last week, Delta caused more than 90 percent of the new COVID-19 cases in the U.K., leading to a 65 percent bump in new infections since May 1. On Monday, to curb Delta’s spread, the U.K. government decided to postpone “freedom day,” which would mark the end of public health restrictions.
The Delta variant is 60 percent more transmissible than the Alpha variant—first identified in the U.K.—which in turn was about 50 percent more transmissible than the ancestral Wuhan strain. “It’s a super spreader variant, that is worrisome,” says Eric Topol, founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute. It has features that enable escape from the immune system and is perhaps more evasive than the Beta variant (B.1.351) first identified in South Africa, which was the worst until now, says Topol. “Plus, it has the highest transmissibility of anything we've seen so far. It's a very bad combination.”
Dismayed by the trajectory of Delta in the U.K., Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warned President Joe Biden last week, “we cannot let that happen in the United States.”
The President echoed those sentiments, tweeting “Folks, the Delta variant—a highly infectious COVID-19 strain—is spreading rapidly among young people between 12 and 20 years old in the U.K. If you’re young and haven’t gotten your shot yet, it really is time.” A complete dose of a COVID-19 vaccine is still effective at preventing serious COVID-19 stemming from Delta infection.
Why is the Delta variant so scary? Freely circulating viruses, especially coronaviruses and influenza viruses, which encode their genetic instructions using the molecule RNA, mutate frequently and randomly due to copying errors introduced as they replicate in their human host cells. Some mutations enable the virus to evade antibodies; some enhance its ability to infect a cell; others go unnoticed since they yield no benefits or can even weaken it.
The key to Delta’s success is the collection of mutations the variant has accumulated in the spike protein, which covers SARS-CoV-2 and gives the virus its signature crown-like appearance. These mutations have changed the spike, and, as a result, some of the existing antibodies may not bind as tightly or as often, explains Markus Hoffmann, an infectious disease biologist at the Leibniz Institute for Primate Research in Germany. Hoffman has shown that Delta’s closely related Kappa variant evades antibodies that were generated through previous infection and vaccination; it also resists synthetically produced antibody therapies like bamlanivimab.
The Delta variant has mutations on the spike protein that alter how it interacts with the ACE2 receptor protein, which is found on the surface of lung and other human cells and is the portal to invade the cell. The mutation at location 452 of the spike protein, which is also present in some of the California variants, appears to make the virus more transmissible and helps it spread through the population, explains Mehul Suthar, an immunologist at the Emory Vaccine Center.
If a mutation gives a virus a fitness or reproductive advantage, that mutation tends to evolve independently around the world. Delta, its closely related variants, and the highly contagious Alpha variant all carry a mutation at position 681 of the spike protein, which is thought to be an evolutionary game changer that also makes it easier for SARS-CoV-2 to invade the host cell and spread. This mutation is fast becoming common in COVID-19 viruses around the globe.
In addition to these mutations a recent study, not peer reviewed, shows a variation at position 478 on Delta’s spike that enables the virus to escape from weak neutralizing antibodies. This mutation has also become increasingly common in SARS-CoV-2 variants in the U.S., Mexico, and Europe since early 2021.
“When you have all of these mutations, then you start seeing a difference in infectivity (of the virus),” says Ravindra Gupta, a professor of clinical microbiology at the University of Cambridge, who has shown in an unpublished studyhow these variants can have a greater potential to cause disease.
Vaccines less effective against this super spreader The data from India and the U.K. show that Delta has emerged as the dominant variant in those countries within four to six weeks. That indicates Delta is more transmissible and infectious than the previous variants. There is emerging evidence that it can also cause more severe disease. For example, in Scotland it caused about twice as many hospitalizations than the Alpha variant, which already caused more severe illness than the original SARS-CoV-2.
“This combination of high transmissibility, high severity, and escape from vaccines makes Delta a very, very dangerous variant,” says Deepti Gurdasani, a clinical epidemiologist at Queen Mary University of London. Once Delta enters a country, it is going to spread rapidly. “It's going to be quite hard to contain, and very likely will become the dominant variant in a matter of weeks. It could change the trajectory of the global pandemic.”
While vaccines are still effective against severe disease and hospitalization caused by the Alpha and Beta variants, they offer less protection against Delta. People who were vaccinated with one or two doses of the Pfizer vaccine produced lower levels of antibodies capable of neutralizing the Delta variant compared with the levels generated against Alpha and Beta. In the U.K., 31 percent of all confirmed Delta variant patients who needed emergency care had received at least one vaccine dose.
Similarly, a study under review revealed that after both doses, the Pfizer vaccine showed 88 percent effectiveness against symptomatic disease caused by the Delta variant compared to 93 percent against the Alpha variant. Two doses of AstraZeneca vaccine were 66 percent effective against Alpha but only 60 percent against Delta. But with just single dose of either of the two vaccines, the vaccine effectiveness was only 51 percent against the Alpha variant compared to 33 percent against Delta. This effectiveness falls below the 50 percent efficacy threshold the FDA had set for designing safe COVID-19 vaccines; in which a vaccine should prevent at least half of the vaccinated people from getting COVID-19 symptoms.
In other studies still awaiting peer review, researchers report that Delta was responsible for most breakthrough infections—which occur after full vaccination—in India leading to a cluster of such cases among fully vaccinatedhealthcare workers.
There are many vaccine candidates being rolled out around the world and since there are no agreed international efficacy standards, each vaccine might offer a varying degree of protection against new variants. “We need more information about the performance of some of the more widely available vaccines in other parts of the world,” says physician and virologist Benjamin Pinsky of Stanford University School of Medicine. “I think folks need to make sure they get vaccinated. And until they are fully vaccinated, continuing with public health intervention is very important,” he says.
A vaccine alone only slows down the progression of a contagious disease by increasing the herd immunity. Until that point, preventive measures such as social distancing and masking are proven strategies for curbing the spread of the virus.
With just 44 percent of the U.S. population fully vaccinated, the majority of people are still vulnerable. Relaxing public health restrictions and declaring victory prematurely could provide an opportunity for the Delta variant to surge–particularly in the fall.
A study, not yet published, suggests the possibility of seasonal variations in COVID-19 incidence based on analyses from a full year of the pandemic in Europe and Israel. While the virus’s seasonal trends may not be clear yet, says Topol, we do know that when people spend more time indoors with poor ventilation and low humidity the virus spreads more rapidly.
What is happening in the U.K. could occur in many places worldwide. “We should keep social distancing after vaccination, because there will always be possibilities of breakthrough infection because vaccines can still be imperfect against emerging variants,” says Kei Sato,a virologist at the University of Tokyo, Japan, who has been studying the effect of mutations on the transmission of Delta and other emerging variants.
“The more variants like this spread, especially in unvaccinated individuals, the more these viruses mutate and eventually pick up mutations that allow for more efficient antibody escape. This could, in theory, make the current vaccines even less effective against these variants.” Suthar cautions.
If we don’t take Delta seriously, “there will be a further wave in the U.S. We can already see the fall in cases has plateaued,” cautions Gupta. Topol agrees that if we ignore this variant “we’ll have a significant rise in cases in vulnerable areas, more hospitalization, and the pandemic here will last longer.”
[ Bericht 0% gewijzigd door slashdotter3 op 17-06-2021 14:50:27 ]
the Pfizer vaccine showed 88 percent effectiveness against symptomatic disease caused by the Delta variant compared to 93 percent against the Alpha variant. Two doses of AstraZeneca vaccine were 66 percent effective against Alpha but only 60 percent against Delta. But with just single dose of either of the two vaccines, the vaccine effectiveness was only 51 percent against the Alpha variant compared to 33 percent against Delta. This effectiveness falls below the 50 percent efficacy threshold the FDA had set for designing safe COVID-19 vaccines; in which a vaccine should prevent at least half of the vaccinated people from getting COVID-19 symptoms.
=======================================
https://www.reddit.com/r/(...)eres_why_its_on_the/
The Delta variant is serious. Here’s why it's on the rise. The virus variant that caused infections to spike in the U.K. is now spreading in the U.S., and experts are very worried. BYSANJAY MISHRA PUBLISHED JUNE 16, 2021 9 MIN READ
With vaccination rates slowing in the United States, and other countries struggling to secure vaccines, public health experts have growing concerns that the so-called Delta coronavirus variant, first identified in India in March, could trigger dramatic rises in cases and deaths in the U.S. and the world.
The Delta variant already accounts for 18 percent of cases in Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming, and about six percent of cases nationwide. It has already spread to more than 70 countriesand is now the most dominant variant in India, the United Kingdom, and Singapore. Last week, Delta caused more than 90 percent of the new COVID-19 cases in the U.K., leading to a 65 percent bump in new infections since May 1. On Monday, to curb Delta’s spread, the U.K. government decided to postpone “freedom day,” which would mark the end of public health restrictions.
The Delta variant is 60 percent more transmissible than the Alpha variant—first identified in the U.K.—which in turn was about 50 percent more transmissible than the ancestral Wuhan strain. “It’s a super spreader variant, that is worrisome,” says Eric Topol, founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute. It has features that enable escape from the immune system and is perhaps more evasive than the Beta variant (B.1.351) first identified in South Africa, which was the worst until now, says Topol. “Plus, it has the highest transmissibility of anything we've seen so far. It's a very bad combination.”
Dismayed by the trajectory of Delta in the U.K., Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warned President Joe Biden last week, “we cannot let that happen in the United States.”
The President echoed those sentiments, tweeting “Folks, the Delta variant—a highly infectious COVID-19 strain—is spreading rapidly among young people between 12 and 20 years old in the U.K. If you’re young and haven’t gotten your shot yet, it really is time.” A complete dose of a COVID-19 vaccine is still effective at preventing serious COVID-19 stemming from Delta infection.
Why is the Delta variant so scary? Freely circulating viruses, especially coronaviruses and influenza viruses, which encode their genetic instructions using the molecule RNA, mutate frequently and randomly due to copying errors introduced as they replicate in their human host cells. Some mutations enable the virus to evade antibodies; some enhance its ability to infect a cell; others go unnoticed since they yield no benefits or can even weaken it.
The key to Delta’s success is the collection of mutations the variant has accumulated in the spike protein, which covers SARS-CoV-2 and gives the virus its signature crown-like appearance. These mutations have changed the spike, and, as a result, some of the existing antibodies may not bind as tightly or as often, explains Markus Hoffmann, an infectious disease biologist at the Leibniz Institute for Primate Research in Germany. Hoffman has shown that Delta’s closely related Kappa variant evades antibodies that were generated through previous infection and vaccination; it also resists synthetically produced antibody therapies like bamlanivimab.
The Delta variant has mutations on the spike protein that alter how it interacts with the ACE2 receptor protein, which is found on the surface of lung and other human cells and is the portal to invade the cell. The mutation at location 452 of the spike protein, which is also present in some of the California variants, appears to make the virus more transmissible and helps it spread through the population, explains Mehul Suthar, an immunologist at the Emory Vaccine Center.
If a mutation gives a virus a fitness or reproductive advantage, that mutation tends to evolve independently around the world. Delta, its closely related variants, and the highly contagious Alpha variant all carry a mutation at position 681 of the spike protein, which is thought to be an evolutionary game changer that also makes it easier for SARS-CoV-2 to invade the host cell and spread. This mutation is fast becoming common in COVID-19 viruses around the globe.
In addition to these mutations a recent study, not peer reviewed, shows a variation at position 478 on Delta’s spike that enables the virus to escape from weak neutralizing antibodies. This mutation has also become increasingly common in SARS-CoV-2 variants in the U.S., Mexico, and Europe since early 2021.
“When you have all of these mutations, then you start seeing a difference in infectivity (of the virus),” says Ravindra Gupta, a professor of clinical microbiology at the University of Cambridge, who has shown in an unpublished studyhow these variants can have a greater potential to cause disease.
Vaccines less effective against this super spreader The data from India and the U.K. show that Delta has emerged as the dominant variant in those countries within four to six weeks. That indicates Delta is more transmissible and infectious than the previous variants. There is emerging evidence that it can also cause more severe disease. For example, in Scotland it caused about twice as many hospitalizations than the Alpha variant, which already caused more severe illness than the original SARS-CoV-2.
“This combination of high transmissibility, high severity, and escape from vaccines makes Delta a very, very dangerous variant,” says Deepti Gurdasani, a clinical epidemiologist at Queen Mary University of London. Once Delta enters a country, it is going to spread rapidly. “It's going to be quite hard to contain, and very likely will become the dominant variant in a matter of weeks. It could change the trajectory of the global pandemic.”
While vaccines are still effective against severe disease and hospitalization caused by the Alpha and Beta variants, they offer less protection against Delta. People who were vaccinated with one or two doses of the Pfizer vaccine produced lower levels of antibodies capable of neutralizing the Delta variant compared with the levels generated against Alpha and Beta. In the U.K., 31 percent of all confirmed Delta variant patients who needed emergency care had received at least one vaccine dose.
Similarly, a study under review revealed that after both doses, the Pfizer vaccine showed 88 percent effectiveness against symptomatic disease caused by the Delta variant compared to 93 percent against the Alpha variant. Two doses of AstraZeneca vaccine were 66 percent effective against Alpha but only 60 percent against Delta. But with just single dose of either of the two vaccines, the vaccine effectiveness was only 51 percent against the Alpha variant compared to 33 percent against Delta. This effectiveness falls below the 50 percent efficacy threshold the FDA had set for designing safe COVID-19 vaccines; in which a vaccine should prevent at least half of the vaccinated people from getting COVID-19 symptoms.
In other studies still awaiting peer review, researchers report that Delta was responsible for most breakthrough infections—which occur after full vaccination—in India leading to a cluster of such cases among fully vaccinatedhealthcare workers.
There are many vaccine candidates being rolled out around the world and since there are no agreed international efficacy standards, each vaccine might offer a varying degree of protection against new variants. “We need more information about the performance of some of the more widely available vaccines in other parts of the world,” says physician and virologist Benjamin Pinsky of Stanford University School of Medicine. “I think folks need to make sure they get vaccinated. And until they are fully vaccinated, continuing with public health intervention is very important,” he says.
A vaccine alone only slows down the progression of a contagious disease by increasing the herd immunity. Until that point, preventive measures such as social distancing and masking are proven strategies for curbing the spread of the virus.
With just 44 percent of the U.S. population fully vaccinated, the majority of people are still vulnerable. Relaxing public health restrictions and declaring victory prematurely could provide an opportunity for the Delta variant to surge–particularly in the fall.
A study, not yet published, suggests the possibility of seasonal variations in COVID-19 incidence based on analyses from a full year of the pandemic in Europe and Israel. While the virus’s seasonal trends may not be clear yet, says Topol, we do know that when people spend more time indoors with poor ventilation and low humidity the virus spreads more rapidly.
What is happening in the U.K. could occur in many places worldwide. “We should keep social distancing after vaccination, because there will always be possibilities of breakthrough infection because vaccines can still be imperfect against emerging variants,” says Kei Sato,a virologist at the University of Tokyo, Japan, who has been studying the effect of mutations on the transmission of Delta and other emerging variants.
“The more variants like this spread, especially in unvaccinated individuals, the more these viruses mutate and eventually pick up mutations that allow for more efficient antibody escape. This could, in theory, make the current vaccines even less effective against these variants.” Suthar cautions.
If we don’t take Delta seriously, “there will be a further wave in the U.S. We can already see the fall in cases has plateaued,” cautions Gupta. Topol agrees that if we ignore this variant “we’ll have a significant rise in cases in vulnerable areas, more hospitalization, and the pandemic here will last longer.”
[ Bericht 0% gewijzigd door slashdotter3 op 17-06-2021 14:50:27 ]
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