A new variant doesn't equal disaster

[chararara]

A new variant, more negative news.

Fact is, it is far too early to know anything concrete about this variant and already the news is contradicting itself. They are overly negative for views.

Some more positive points:

• South Africa has great genome testing and does a lot more advanced testing than neighbouring countries due to their expertise from HIV testing. It is no surprise they discovered it and very possible other countries missed it. The sequence of this variant points to being older than two weeks. Hence, it is likely it already existed and SA have been the first to pick it up. Why is this good? It means it has potentially been circulating for months, so if it has only just been noticed, it is less likely to be the extra transmissible nightmare as the media state.

• SA is not a good country to make predictions from. They have a low vaccine rate, yet had unusually low infections. Any strain would take a great hold, so it's impossible to say that its "ripping through," when the population is largely unvaccinated. Data cannot be extrapolated to majority vaccinated countries at this point in time.

• It has new spike protein additions. Concerning? Yes. Definitely a problem? No. They could just be changes that have barely any impact. It's just as feasible to assume the best, as well as the worst.

• Even if this is a more transmissible strain or resistant strain, it is highly unlikely it would completely evade vaccines or not offer defense against severe illness.

We are not back at the beginning. Be cautious and mindful with the media you consume. Get a booster vaccine.

Some less negative articles:

www.reddit.com/r/CoronavirusUK/comments/r2k067/new_variant_will_not_take_us_back_to_square_one/

@MarshaBradyo

just think it’s inevitable that something like this would happen given that the west has hoarded vaccines to itself.

I remember listening to Andrew Pollard, who is very critical of vaccinating children over poor countries - do you agree with that part? You’d not do that?

Who anyway said variants weren’t the reason to share as it wouldn’t make much difference to that

Other countries could have been given the patent to be able to make the vaccines themselves. And they were blocked.

@JesusInTheCabbageVan

I do agree it's too early to be panicking, but I don't believe they've deliberately kept this secret for four months in order to ruin Christmas. If that we're the case, I'm sure they would have done a better job of it.

It's really unfortunate that the article doesn't have a 'last updated' date on it because it's so easy for misinformation like this to spread.

Thankfully independent archives exist to show the article did not have anything about the new variant back in the summer:

Snapshot from July:
<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210714215707/www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/07/how-scientists-detect-new-covid-19-variants/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20210714215707/www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/07/how-scientists-detect-new-covid-19-variants/

Snapshot from September:
<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210922151556/www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/07/how-scientists-detect-new-covid-19-variants/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20210922151556/www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/07/how-scientists-detect-new-covid-19-variants/

@bagofconkers Thank you! Was scratching my head over that. I'm surprised more conspiracy nuts haven't picked up on it.

Cx an people please stop spreading the false information that this variant has been around since a July? It has not.

According to the WHO, it was first identified on 9th November 2021

https://www.who.int/news/item/26-11-2021-classification-of-omicron-(b.1.1.529)-sars-cov-2-variant-of-concern

@bagofconkers and I do apologise, I've only just seem that you already addressed the same point before I posted

@ChequerBoard in fairness it's only one poster doing that (although she thinks she's a scientist, which is amusing )

@LizzieSiddal

With the greatest of respect, you obviously don’t know many scientists (I speak as one!)

I do actually 🤣 and my post stands. Where has a scientist said it’s the end of humanity?

Here is an example of a scientist using their large platform to immediately promote the most fear-inducing, end-of-humanity interpretation:

twitter.com/trishgreenhalgh/status/1463962558898003975

And rightly being called out on it:

twitter.com/jeffm1981/status/1464075349252141056

Thank you OP.

There's an agenda to send us all into panic and fear again.

We all need to keep calm and turn a blind eye to the news. MSM rarely tells us the truth these days.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/11/26/new-covid-variant-less-worrying-delta-says-prof-chris-whitty/

The delta variant is of greater concern to the UK than the new Covid mutation, England's chief medical officer has said amid rising international fears about the omicron strain.

Prof Chris Whitty said ministers were right to take "precautionary" border measures to slow the arrival of the new variant into Britain.

Prof Whitty said he was more concerned about the risks posed by existing variants, describing the delta epidemic as "undoubtedly the principal thing we need to concern ourselves with between now and Christmas".

He told a Local Government Association panel discussion: "We've always known that new variants would crop up from time to time … but there's an awful lot we don't know and I think it's probably not terribly helpful to speculate."

Copied and pasted from another thread as I can't see the Telegraph as it's behind a paywall.

It's been deemed a Variant of Concern. Which suggests it is concerning.

Ooh! MSM! Make sure your tinfoil hat is on real tight and avert your eyes.

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/26/vaccine-resistant-what-scientists-know-new-covid-variant

"every clickbait scientist who predicts this variant as the end of humanity"

It is quite ironic that you chastise the media etc for being negative then use negative hyperbole instead. Show me one actual link for a scientist who has predicted the "end of humanity".

FFS stop being hysterical.

So far we don't know if it can cheat the vaccines, so far we don't know how dangerous it is in terms of mortality rate. We don't know how infectious it is.

Until we know a bit more, I don't have the energy to panic.

[quote CamQ]It isn’t even new, it was identified in July (see link below) , now is just a convenient time to wheel it out to create hysteria, restrict travel and perhaps even impose lockdowns for Christmas. Will reduce CO2 from travel and remind the population they should be fearful and compliant:

www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/07/how-scientists-detect-new-covid-19-variants/[/quote]
It was not identified in July, and that link does not suggest it was.

Your post is factually incorrect.

SA is not a good country to make predictions from. They have a low vaccine rate, yet had unusually low infections oh do they? That's interesting. Why do they have a low infection rate? Hope someone's finding out.

I think all governments have to be cautious to cover themselves, so the red listing is probably just to cover their backs should the variant turn out to evade vaccines. They need to be seen to be responding.

I personally think they already know that this variant is a problem, they have had months after all to test it against the new variants. The minute Whitty came on the news last night telling us he is worried the public won't agree to restrictions again I knew we will need them.

I am an optimist but something big is brewing. Boris all over the place (more than usual) the markets are in free fall, everyone is talking about restrictions again and you think they would allow all of this to happen on a whim and a possibility? No. I happen to think there IS a problem with this one, and they have been working on a solution for the last few months and have failed.

I wish I could be more upbeat about it, and hope you are right. My gut says otherwise. Quite how long we can contain it remains to be seen.

*test it against the vaccines

"I personally think they already know that this variant is a problem, they have had months after all to test it against the new variants"

Personally I think you need to step away from conspiracy sites....

That is odd I don't think I have ever been on a conspiracy site, or would even know how to find one - and I have no idea why you would post such a strange message.

You can close your ears and cover your eyes and say it will be fine, that does not mean much if the variant IS a problem. We will deal with it I am sure in time, it might be a short term problem for a while, but the science will adjust the vaccines and we can all look forward to another booster.

@Fairylights25

I personally think they already know that this variant is a problem, they have had months after all to test it against the new variants.

It's been known about for a couple of weeks... The idea that it was known about months ago has been debunked.... Think about it, if it has been around for months, then it's not really done anything for months - that's hardly compatible with an extremely transmissible variant!

It's been known about for a couple of weeks

In fact I think it's been known about for even less time than that. The earliest sample containing this variant was from 9 September. The genomic that testing that identified this, and then assessed that the variant was concerning has only occurred over the past week.

Even a few weeks would offer some information, they would have been looking at this variant very closely and testing it against the vaccines.

You don't honestly think they would allow the financial markets to melt down as they did yesterday, seal off several countries and start looking at contingencies simply because they were a wee bit worried about a variant, of which we have already had so many - no way, this is a problem, as far as the scientific information and results to date is concerned (that is not shared with us) and the world is reacting very strongly. Not on a whim that it might be quite bad, on the basis that it is LIKELY to be bad. We won't know for sure for another six weeks, but the omens don't look good to me. Sorry.

@Fairylights25

That is odd I don't think I have ever been on a conspiracy site, or would even know how to find one - and I have no idea why you would post such a strange message.

Presumably because you're treating the conspiracy theory that scientists have known about their variant for many months as true.

There are two South African variants actually.

You can bang on about CT if you want, but it has very little to do with the actual facts. And the facts governments and scientists don't generally overreact to variants unless there are serious reasons to suspect that it could be problematic.

"The earliest sample containing this variant was from 9 September"

Apologies, I meant 9 November! This is how conspiracies often seem to start. Someone, like me just now, makes a silly mistake.... and it gets picked up upon by people who have an agenda, who insist on treating the uncorrected version as "gospel" and ignore the correction as "fake news".

@Fairylights25

There are two South African variants actually.

You can bang on about CT if you want, but it has very little to do with the actual facts. And the facts governments and scientists don't generally overreact to variants unless there are serious reasons to suspect that it could be problematic.

I agree, but they don't need to have done many weeks of tests to be highly concerned... The initial data and analysis enough in the early data and analysis is enough to take action.

To use an analogy, you don't wait for a car to hit you whilst you're analysing its speed and the damage it's going to do. You get out of the way...

If all this supposed testing against the vaccine had already been done over many weeks , there wouldn't be so much uncertainty and we'd have had many, many more cases (if it was indeed so transmissible), and it would have been far, far too late to react by closing borders.