SARS II: Respiratory Boogaloo

Tuckerfan · May 29, 2021

Tuckerfan · May 29, 2021

Uh, oh.

Vietnam detects highly contagious new coronavirus variant as infections surge

Vietnam’s Health Ministry announced Saturday that it had detected a highly transmissible new variant of the coronavirus that has helped fuel a recent wave of covid-19 infections in the country.

Genetic sequencing indicated that the new variant was a mix of the coronavirus strains first detected in the United Kingdom and India, said Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long, according to the VnExpress newspaper.

The minister said that the new variant was particularly contagious via air and that viral cultures have revealed that it replicates extremely quickly, the newspaper reported.

“The new variant is very dangerous,” Long said in a statement.

The Health Ministry didn’t return a Saturday afternoon request for comment.

Scientists said that further study was needed to determine the effect of a variant in “real world settings.”

“A lot of different mutations happen as the virus is transmitted and most of them are not of clinical significance,” said Todd Pollack, a Hanoi-based infectious-disease expert at Harvard Medical School. “Just because they say [the new variant] has features of one and the other … doesn’t mean they got together in one patient and spit out some combined hybrid ‘supervirus.'”

There were seven known coronavirus variants in Vietnam before Long’s announcement, according to Reuters.

Vietnam, which has reported around 6,400 covid-19 infections and 47 deaths, has been one of the world’s coronavirus containment success stories. A well-run public health care system, quarantine camps operated by the military and strict, targeted lockdowns kept case numbers low until late April, when a spike in infections began.

Many of the recent infections were detected in two industrialized provinces in northern Vietnam, where factory employees often work in close proximity. Plants there that manufacture for global brands like Apple have implemented social distancing measures, Reuters reported. Such factories are key to Vietnam’s export sector, which has boomed amid trade tensions between the United States and China.

Restrictions are also in place in Hanoi, the capital, and Ho Chi Minh City, the country’s economic hub.

Singapore and Taiwan, which had effectively eliminated transmission of the coronavirus at the start of the year, recently reintroduced curbs as infections return.

Many countries that managed the pandemic with “non-pharmaceutical interventions are finding that more transmissible variants are more difficult to control with these measures,” said Pollack. “This is the biggest challenge that [Vietnam is] facing since covid-19 came onto the scene.”

Vietnam is operating one of the slower inoculation programs in the world, with fewer than 0.1 percent of its 103 million residents having been fully vaccinated as of Friday. It has approved the Oxford-AstraZeneca and Sputnik V shots and recently signed a deal to buy more than 30 million Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine doses. Vietnam is also developing its own Nanocovax vaccine, whose final-stage trials are set for completion in the second half of the year.

Hanoi has a rocky relationship with Beijing and, unlike many other middle income nations, it has not approved the use of Chinese-developed vaccines.
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Tuckerfan · May 29, 2021

Tuckerfan · May 29, 2021

The vaccine has killed one of the greatest writers of the English language. Wait...

Bard timing: Argentinian TV reports death of Shakespeare after Covid jab

Newsreader confuses Bill Shakespeare, 81, ‘the first man to get the coronavirus vaccine’ with ‘one of the most important writers in the English language’

In what can only be described as a comedy of errors, an Argentinian TV news channel delivered a stunning, if slightly flawed, scoop on Thursday night when it reported that William Shakespeare, “one of the most important writers in the English language” had died five months after receiving the Covid vaccine.

The gaffe of, well, Shakespearean proportions happened after Noelia Novillo, a newsreader on Canal 26, mixed up the Bard with William “Bill” Shakespeare, an 81-year-old Warwickshire man who became the second person in the world to get the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.

William Shakespeare died in 1616, while his namesake – an inpatient in the frailty ward at University hospital, Coventry, at the time of his first vaccination – died this week from a stroke unrelated to the jab.

Sadly, the distinction was lost on Novillo as she informed viewers of the playwright’s death during the 8-10pm slot on Thursday.

“We’ve got news that has stunned all of us given the greatness of this man,” she said. “We’re talking about William Shakespeare and his death. We’ll let you know how and why it happened.”

Over footage of Bill Shakespeare chatting as he received the vaccine, the newsreader added: “As we all know, he’s one of the most important writers in the English language – for me the master. Here he is. He was the first man to get the coronavirus vaccine. He’s died in England at the age of 81.”

After the clip exploded across social media, Novillo explained that she had expressed herself badly and blamed the error on absent punctuation.

“Over the past few hours, as I’m sure you will have seen, a report has gone viral. I actually knew what I was saying to people, just like I always do,” she said on Friday.

“I expressed myself badly; I missed out a full stop, a comma, some brackets. I wanted to clear up something that was very unclear and of course people misinterpreted it.”

But by then, the damage had been done and the snarking had begun.

“There were only a few years between them,” wrote one Twitter user.

“Let us not weep for William Shakespeare,” urged another. “He lived his life and enjoyed people’s affection for centuries.”

Another added: “Such a fuss over William Shakespeare’s death, but they didn’t mention that he was in such a bad way that he hadn’t produced a hit in centuries. Overrated.”
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Tuckerfan · May 29, 2021

Nutbag pastor Rick Wiles may have the virus.

Tuckerfan · May 30, 2021

Tuckerfan said: ↑

Nutbag pastor Rick Wiles may have the virus.
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He's in the hospital and on oxygen.

MikeH92467 · May 30, 2021

Fuck him.

steve2^4 · May 30, 2021

Unfortunately either way it will play to his audience.

He's under attack by evil and if he succumbs it's his sacrifice to allow you, the saved, to live free. Everyone else is going to burn in hell.

oldfella1962 · May 30, 2021

steve2^4 said: ↑

Unfortunately either way it will play to his audience.

He's under attack by evil and if he succumbs it's his sacrifice to allow you, the saved, to live free. Everyone else is going to burn in hell.
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way to ruin my long weekend Mister Wetblanket.

ed629 · May 30, 2021

steve2^4 said: ↑

Unfortunately either way it will play to his audience.

He's under attack by evil and if he succumbs it's his sacrifice to allow you, the saved, to live free. Everyone else is going to burn in hell.
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More of the if he/she survives it was God's miracle, if he/she dies, it's God's will. There's no winning with those idiots.

Tuckerfan · May 31, 2021

WHO renames variants.

WHO renames COVID-19 variants of concern using Greek letters

Coronavirus variants with clunky, alphanumeric names have been assigned letters from the Greek alphabet in a bid to simplify discussion and pronunciation while avoiding stigma.

The World Health Organization revealed the new names amid criticism that those given by scientists — such as the so-called South African variant, which goes by multiple names including B.1.351, 501Y.V2 and 20H/501Y.V2 — were too complicated.

As such, the four coronavirus variants considered of concern by the UN agency and known generally by the public as the UK, South Africa, Brazil and India variants have now been given the letters alpha, beta, gamma, delta according to the order of their detection.

Other variants of interest continue down the alphabet.

"While they have their advantages, these scientific names can be difficult to say and recall, and are prone to misreporting," said the WHO, explaining the decision.

The choice of the Greek alphabet came after months of deliberations in which other possibilities such as Greek gods and invented, pseudo-classical names were considered by experts, according to bacteriologist Mark Pallen who was involved in the talks.

But many were already brands, companies or alien names.

Another idea to refer to variants of concern as VOC1, VOC2 et cetera was scrapped after it was pointed out they resembled an English swear word.

Historically, viruses have often been associated with the locations from which they are thought to have emerged, such as Ebola which is named after the Congolese river.

But this can be damaging for the places and often inaccurate such as with the so-called "Spanish flu" pandemic of 1918, the origins of which are unknown.

"No country should be stigmatised for detecting and reporting variants," WHO epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove said.

Before the new WHO scheme, some scientists had adopted their own simplified nomenclature for variants such as a February paper using bird names.

However, it was criticised on the grounds that this could imperil birds and people with names such as Robin or Robyn.
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Order2Chaos · Jun 1, 2021

That’s not going to last. We’ve already used up more than half the Greek alphabet. Still, distinguishing B.1.17 from B.1.1.7 verbally is rather important. And what’s the wild-type in that system?

Unless it’s only the VoCs that get Greek designations in which case the rest of the time we’re still stuck with other systems, so the problem isn’t really solved.

tafkats · Jun 1, 2021

We could use the hurricane naming system. How much would that suck?

Especially if we chose the names by going through the most popular baby names from, say, 2008 to 2013. "My mom got the Kayleigh variant!" "My uncle got the Brayden strain!"

We could traumatize an entire generation of kids.

Tuckerfan · Jun 1, 2021

Tuckerfan said: ↑

Tuckerfan said: ↑

Nutbag pastor Rick Wiles may have the virus.
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He's in the hospital and on oxygen.
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Damn it!

MikeH92467 · Jun 2, 2021

Tuckerfan said: ↑

Tuckerfan said: ↑

Tuckerfan said: ↑

Nutbag pastor Rick Wiles may have the virus.
Click to expand...

He's in the hospital and on oxygen.
Click to expand...

Damn it!

View attachment 46464
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Shit.

Tuckerfan · Jun 2, 2021

Tuckerfan · Jun 2, 2021

We Are Borg · Jun 2, 2021

Fuck his dead corpse in the arse and I will not be wasting any prayers on his family.

P.S. - the comments in that Twitter thread are delicious.

We Are Borg · Jun 2, 2021

Free Budweiser? That's a great way to encourage people not to get vaccinated.

matthunter · Jun 2, 2021

UK finally hit the first day with no COVID deaths yesterday, though we're still at around 3000 cases. Still, good news.

The Original Faceman · Jun 2, 2021

Hard pass!

MikeH92467 · Jun 2, 2021

Faceman said: ↑

Hard pass!
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A potential Onion article would be an "actuarial study" showing that more people would be killed by vaccinated people in drunk driving accidents than by Covid 19...

Rincewiend · Jun 2, 2021

Dutch news...

Over half the people donating blood to the Sanquin blood donation service now have coronavirus antibodies, the organisation has confirmed.
The percentage of donors with antibodies rose in May from 32% to 54%, largely driven by the vaccination programme, Sanquin said. The agency carries out checks on 2,000 donations a week, on behalf of the health ministry.
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https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2021/...nors-now-have-coronavirus-antibodies-sanquin/

tafkats · Jun 2, 2021

Although I wonder if the people most inclined to donate blood are also among the most likely to get vaccinated ... sense of civic responsibility and so on.

matthunter · Jun 2, 2021

tafkats said: ↑

Although I wonder if the people most inclined to donate blood are also among the most likely to get vaccinated ... sense of civic responsibility and so on.
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I'd give blood more often if the damn nurses would listen to me. I had an excellent nurse the first time. She told me "you don't give well out of your right arm, so ask them to take from your left in future".

No fucker listens, and I had a black bruise right down my right forearm for 2 weeks because they knew best and kept jiggling the needle about looking for a decent vein, and still only ended up with a quarter bag.

Gave up after a couple of experiences like that.

Vaccines though? My arm could be bright green for a month as long as it means I can go about my business and not worry about infecting or being infected by folk (and yes I know no vaccine is 100%).

oldfella1962 · Jun 2, 2021

matthunter said: ↑

tafkats said: ↑

Although I wonder if the people most inclined to donate blood are also among the most likely to get vaccinated ... sense of civic responsibility and so on.
Click to expand...

I'd give blood more often if the damn nurses would listen to me. I had an excellent nurse the first time. She told me "you don't give well out of your right arm, so ask them to take from your left in future".

No fucker listens, and I had a black bruise right down my right forearm for 2 weeks because they knew best and kept jiggling the needle about looking for a decent vein, and still only ended up with a quarter bag.

Gave up after a couple of experiences like that.

Vaccines though? My arm could be bright green for a month as long as it means I can go about my business and not worry about infecting or being infected by folk (and yes I know no vaccine is 100%).
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one word.....vascularity. This a very close approximation of my arms, and it makes getting stuck about as efficient & painless as it gets - I'm not a fan of pain.
That said you might have to put some hard work in young fella!

Tuckerfan · Jun 2, 2021

The Original Faceman · Jun 2, 2021

Why not bullets?

MikeH92467 · Jun 2, 2021

My veins are so wimpy I got thrown out of a plasma center a few years back.

Bickendan · Jun 2, 2021

Faceman said: ↑

Hard pass!
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I'd only do it to have beer on hand for when friends come over. They can drink it for me.
I'll take the 'wimpy' stuff like Truly or White Claw

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