If what Boris says is true then the UK Virus is a pretty serious variant different to initial statements.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson says the country’s new variant of COVID-19 may carry a greater risk of death.
Mr Johnson said the impact of the new variant, which is already known to be more transmissible, was putting the National Health Service (NHS) under “intense pressure”.
However, the Prime Minister said current evidence showed both vaccines remained effective against old and new variants.
There have been some of the UK Strain identified in the people arriving for the Australian Tennis Open, fortunately it hasn’t got out of hotel quarantine yet.
Personally I think it was a daft risk to allow people in for a tennis match when there are 38000 Australians trying to get home. It is a bit of an insult.
Now there is a shortage of vaccine due to production delays, not much good news on the Covid front is there?
I have to agree with you there Bruce, allowing international travel for any reason is making a mockery of the lockdown. No wonder so many people are ignoring the rules…
I don’t think people are disobeying the rules, of course there are a very small minority that do and they get fined.
Interesting that today the organisers of the “Invasion Day” march have been refused permission to hold an event of over 500 people (the maximum number allowed in outdoor events).
I wonder what will happen?
The UK Strain is being taken very seriously here with major efforts to keep it out of the country. The infection in Brisbane that got out of hotel quarantine was a wake up call but that seems to have been quashed now.
NZ is a bit of a worry now with the UK strain in the community, it has resulted in the Trans Tasman “bubble” being shut down and very much increased security over the remaining flights.
It is not just the UK strain but also one from South Africa that is causing concern as I understand it.
No they aren’t Mups. Each year a new strain of the flu circulates, hence the reason why we have to have a different flu vaccine every year. Covid is an airborne virus the same as flu (in fact Coronavirus has been around for years) and it will mutate each year and require big pharma to keep modifying the vaccines. One of the reasons why I will not have the covid jab, it’s the thin end of the wedge, enough is enough, how many vaccines do you want to put in your body, especially since I’ll probably die from a heart attack or something.
They might be new strains, you’re right there.
But for example flu is most generally called flu, regardless of variant.
People go for a flu jab, not a (for example) influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 jab.
Coronavirus has been around since the 1960’s as this extract explains…
[I]Human Coronavirus Types
Coronaviruses are named for the crown-like spikes on their surface. There are four main sub-groupings of coronaviruses, known as alpha, beta, gamma, and delta.
Human coronaviruses were first identified in the mid-1960s. The seven coronaviruses that can infect people are:
Common human coronaviruses
229E (alpha coronavirus)
NL63 (alpha coronavirus)
OC43 (beta coronavirus)
HKU1 (beta coronavirus)
Other human coronaviruses
MERS-CoV (the beta coronavirus that causes Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, or MERS)
SARS-CoV (the beta coronavirus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS)
SARS-CoV-2 (the novel coronavirus that causes coronavirus disease 2019, or COVID-19)
People around the world commonly get infected with human coronaviruses 229E, NL63, OC43, and HKU1.
Sometimes coronaviruses that infect animals can evolve and make people sick and become a new human coronavirus. Three recent examples of this are 2019-nCoV, SARS-CoV, and MERS-CoV.
[/I]
And all are basically Influenza by any other name…
Call the infection by any name but what I observe is that there’s is definitely something going around the country that is unusually and extremely threatening to health and life. It looks to be far over and above the virus threats of previous recent decades. If there’s a vaccine available that will help to prevent or negate the effects of it, that’s for me.
After reading the article mart, I find that it back’s up my thinking of that there is very little difference between Covid and Influenza, especially to the infected person.
Both are passed on by airborne or contact methods, both prosper in the cold dry winter weather, and both will kill you if you have any underlying medical issues that affect your immunity, both attack your lungs, and both can cause long lasting effects. And without spending my day sifting through long lost records (long lost to me at any rate) I think you will find that there have been previous viruses that have been responsible for many more deaths than Covid 19. I personally will not be having the vaccine just yet mart, but of course you are free to do as you wish, and I hope that the vaccine does everything you expect it to do for you…All the best mart…
There was Sars and Mers which were nowhere near as infectious as Covid but which gave the Asian countries a head start with coping with the current pandemic. I am pretty sure total deaths from these diseases were nowhere near as high as from Covid. The 1957/8 Asian flu outbreak had a mortality rate of 0.2%, the Covid mortality rate is estimated to be 1% to 2%
However just because Covid and flu are both respiratory diseases spread by droplets they can’t be compared, one is 10 times more deadly than the other and if current reports are true the new strains are even more deadly.
I said I wasn’t going to do this… Read this and tell me that Flu isn’t more or less the same as Covid 19…While I go off and look for the figures that suggest that this recent pandemic is not yet the most serious that has circulated the earth…
Go for your life but forgive me if I don’t read the articles. I can’t understand why for nearly a year now you are so determined to prove this pandemic is not serious.
To save you the trouble the Black Death killed 30 to 60% of Europe’s population or up to 200 million people but so what?
Who said I think that Covid 19 is not serious Bruce?
But what does frightening the general public half to death achieve?
Mental health, suicide, and poverty are on the increase, and risk killing more people that covid, somebody needs to try a quell the hysteria.
