New Covid variant *title edited by MNHQ at OP's request*

[Wingingthis]

Can anyone talk some sense about how dangerous this is or is it just the media over exaggerating?

@Delatron

Shows how quickly they can act when they want to. Makes it even more frustrating how slow they were previously..

Absolutely.

It also shows the stupidity of thinking we can just vaccinate the UK and ignore the rest of the world.

She is being incredibly naive. Both her and her boyfriend are medical students in ther final years. No idea what will happen about their studies if they are stuck for any length of time. You can't do clinical shifts on Zoom. I have told her to get to the airport and get on any flight to Europe asap, but she isn't even reading her messages now...I know she thinks I (and DH) are being over dramatic.

You won't be aware of it IYSWIM because it has yet to be officially labelled a VOI, let alone a VOC.

Both of those could follow soon, depending on how the spread of the variant actually is on the ground - remember that right now the number is low despite the expectation that it could be much higher.

The politicians and travel companies appear to be taking a highly precautionary approach, which increases alarm and amount of chatter

I agree with this and think we can’t be sure yet of anything and being fast doesn’t necessarily indicate much more. We just need the data which is hard to wait on but better to be fast just in case.

@theDudesmummy

She is being incredibly naive. Both her and her boyfriend are medical students in ther final years. No idea what will happen about their studies if they are stuck for any length of time. You can't do clinical shifts on Zoom. I have told her to get to the airport and get on any flight to Europe asap, but she isn't even reading her messages now...I know she thinks I (and DH) are being over dramatic.

I have noticed in my young adult children they can shut down when in stressful situations, their decision-making goes a bit to pot. Really hope she squeaks through the border.

She is 27, not that young, and definitely should know better than this. Nothing else I can do though.

Goodness, I did a final year elective in SA many years ago, it must be such a challenge organising overseas placements in a pandemic.

You're quite right to encourage them to come home asap, of course.

My 28 year old nephew kicking off on our family WhatsApp was due to go to a wedding in SA. Says you can all stay in your home's and take boosters until they're coming out of your arse but we want freedom. He won't be alone in that feeling no doubt.

She is not on an overseas placement, she is on holiday (visiting family). They were only supposed to be there for five days.

Following for the updates

May I recommend the data threads, @onlychildhamster ?

Lots of sensible information but without the competitive winding- up

Is the low vaccination rate in South Africa due ti vaccine hesitancy/ logistics?

I do agree vaccination needs to be a worldwide effort. But also you can’t vaccinate those that don’t want to be.

What is the WHO saying about countries with low vaccination rates? Lack of supply? Means to get the jabs in arms? It is something that needs to be addressed. If everyone who wants a vaccine has been offered one then there’s not much more we can do. But we can’t say that yet can we.

Anyway, I digress.

I really feel for all those with family in SA and plans to travel there that have been disrupted.

Or maybe, as she’s actually in SA, she’s seeing what’s actually happening rather than being bombarded with sensationalism British media.

Is the low vaccination rate in South Africa due ti vaccine hesitancy/ logistics?

Mostly.

Talking on the radio about this now.

Vaccine hesitancy and supply issues.

Is it no coincidence that the countries that are best at genome sequencing are the ones that find these new variants? Makes you wonder what else is out there.

@ChardonnaysPetDragon

Very sad that the west hasn't delivered on Covax, we need to vaccinate the world, not just small regions of it.

Covax or not, you cannot vaccinate people who don't want to be vaccinated.

The issue is vaccine supply, covax has been given approx 500m doses, enough for 250m people. That would do about half of europe.

Education is the key, we managed to persuade people to take Polio and other vaccines but there isn't the will to do this, we all want our boosters etc etc and forget that a new vaccine resistant variant would put us back to March 2020... grim.

Maybe covid will require the world to focus on making the most effective HIV treatment widely available (or can this happen even in someone taking the best drugs for HIV?).

So if the virus can evade the vaccine, all the vaccinated people would basically be back to ‘unvaccinated’ status. What a shame we didn’t pump billions into our health service so it can cope with increased levels of hospitalisations rather than wasting it on track and trace systems and vaccine passport apps.

@bumbleymummy

So if the virus can evade the vaccine, all the vaccinated people would basically be back to ‘unvaccinated’ status. What a shame we didn’t pump billions into our health service so it can cope with increased levels of hospitalisations rather than wasting it on track and trace systems and vaccine passport apps.

And a shame that vaccines weren’t shared worldwide to reduce the chances of mutations.

Was AZ wanted? I remember talk about that but maybe it was fine

Improving vine health service capacity is turning a tanker - long and gradual.

Getting society and the economy going again was far more urgent than that, and vaccination has made a period of relative normality possible. Weakening the link (from about 9% requiring hospital to about 2%) has been what's made it possible. Yes, we might have to cope with a vaccine evading strain, but the lead time to produce a new vaccine for it will be much shorter.

Also, even though hospitalisation is the number that matters the most, the number of deaths is also linked to case numbers, and avoiding excess deaths is important. Vaccination has of course saved lives by reducing the number of severe cases. That is good in itself

@Polkadotties it is not sensationalist to observe that entry to several European counties plus UK is being refused to people travelling from SA, is it? That is a fact. Nor is it to say that clinical years medical students who have snuck off for an unauthorised couple of days holiday in the middle of term and who then cannot get back for weeks, are truly fucked. This is a very realistic prospect.

And a shame that vaccines weren’t shared worldwide to reduce the chances of mutations

The working theory is that the variant appeared in a patient with a compromised immune system caused by HIV. The Kent variation arose in a patient with an immune system compromised by chemotherapy. It is known that highly immune suppressed people do not necessarily respond to the vaccine at all.

So other than by suppressing the numbers of cases, making it less likely that a highly immune suppressed person would catch covid in the first place, vaccination might not be the complete answer.

And I am not just following "sensationalist British media". I don't even live in the UK. I am following Euronews, the Guardian and the Irish Times. Are they sensationalist?

@bumbleymummy

So if the virus can evade the vaccine, all the vaccinated people would basically be back to ‘unvaccinated’ status. What a shame we didn’t pump billions into our health service so it can cope with increased levels of hospitalisations rather than wasting it on track and trace systems and vaccine passport apps.

There's no evidence that's the case, just the suggestion that vaccines may be less effective (and there's no way of telling for sure at this stage anyway).

Vaccines have already saved millions of lives worldwide. You can pump all the billions you want into the NHS - there still would not have been time to train tens of thousands of medics and build infrastructure before this variant hits (if it even does). I agree that T&T was/is a shambles and also that the NHS needs major, urgent investment. But that should be as well as, not instead of, the vaccine program.

@Delatron the reason for the low vaccine take up in SA is almost 100% vaccine hesitancy. Earlier this week the SA government asked both Pfizer and J&J not to make the next scheduled delivery of vaccine because there isn’t the demand.

I think the gvt here had no choice but to act but it does seem a bit like we’ve been here before. With the beta variant there was lots of hysterical overreaction and SA stayed on red list for months and months after it became clear that beta had been wiped out by the delta variant. And there was more beta in Europe than in SA.

I am devastated by the news - I have no family here and everyone was due to come for Xmas. I’m hanging on to the hope it’s a storm in a teacup - Sarah Gilbert said months ago that big mutations are great for headlines but are not usually great for viruses because they become unstable.

.