Deadly Wuhan Coronavirus

nivek

nivek

As Above So Below
This is unacceptable to me, if this was required in my state I would never go into a bar or restaurant again...

I saw this link on Twitter in the coronavirus hashtags...

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Michigan Bars, Restaurants Will Require Customer’s Names And Phone Numbers Starting Monday

Michigan officials claim there have been 12 coronavirus outbreaks stemming from bars and restaurants, so now the state wants patrons to provide their name and phone number for future potential contact tracing.

The new rule from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services will go into effect on Monday, Fox News reported. Bars and restaurants will also be required to restrict the number of customers to 50 or fewer and allow no more than six people at a single table. Bars and restaurants that don’t follow the new mandate could be fined $1,000.

Scott Ellis, executive director of the Michigan Licensed Beverage Association, told Fox 17 that the state already requires restaurants to operate at 50% capacity. Further, he said, wait staff are having to deal with customers who don’t appreciate the restrictions.

“Our frontline servers have already had trouble dealing with masks and mandates and mandating masks,” Ellis told the outlet. “We did de-escalation training and all kinds of other things to help with that and now we’re taking to the next level. We have to gather someone’s personal information?”

“We just told them ‘look get names and phone numbers and write it on a piece of paper’ because if the health department calls you and says, ‘hey someone came in on this date I need the list’ they have to provide it,” he added.

If customers refuse to provide their names and phone numbers, Fox 17 reported, they may be refused service.

“You accept it when you’re ordering out it’s just something you have to do and then how many people don’t want to give it when they order out and how truthful is it? We don’t know,” Ellis told the outlet. “And I think when you’re going to sit down at a restaurant you just don’t expect someone to take your name and number because you’re coming to have a drink or a burger.”

Justin Winslow, president and CEO of the Michigan Restaurant and Lodging Association, told Fox 17 in a statement in a statement that this new mandated doesn’t match “existing science and data” showing “minimal transmission” from restaurants. He said that about 2% of cases currently being investigated by Michigan are from bars and restaurants.

Michigan health officials say that number is now 5.5%.

Winslow’s full statement:
We appreciate and respect the efforts of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services to keep all Michiganders safe as COVID-19 cases continue to rise in Michigan. We maintain, however, that a restaurant industry-specific contact tracing mandate lacks merit given existing science and data.

The COVID-19 outbreak investigation data collected by the MDHHS continues to show minimal transmission from restaurant dining, despite the rising caseloads, representing only about 2% of all cases the state is investigating. In relation to the size and scope of the industry, which serves millions of people every day and employs several hundred thousand more, this well-intended effort is more likely to result in job loss, foreclosure and fewer restaurants than it will prevent transmission.

Restaurants across this state have risen to the challenge thrust upon them in 2020, providing a place for people to safely gather, eat a great meal and feel, well, human. We remain confident that if given the opportunity, restaurants will continue to offer this experience in a safer environment than alternatives that are less regulated and less sanitized.
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Robert Gordon, director of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, however, said the new mandate was enacted to take “targeted action” to parts of the economy that are “particularly severe sources of spread.”

“We are issuing guidance that is a very clear road map for what we need to do bring cases down,” he told The Detroit News.

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Xuu

Honorable
nivek said:
This is unacceptable to me, if this was required in my state I would never go into a bar or restaurant again...
Click to expand...

Agreed.
I understand the purpose, contact tracing is important, however there's so many flaws with that way of doing it.
1) Big privacy violation problems
2) Implies that the tracing will be manual and require a ton of manual data entry. That makes it very prone to human error
3) The current state of the US makes contact tracing impossible with how many active cases there are.

I like the idea I've seen used in some areas if it could be applied nationally. Force nearly everyone to use a certain app to scan QR codes before being allowed entry. The code would send a unique device code + the location code to some server and then contact tracing would be automatic.
Avoids having a massive list of people's names and addresses, no manual data input, takes seconds for people to comply rather than having them fill out a form. Such a system wouldn't even be that expensive to build...
 
August

August

Metanoia
Australia in the last 24 hours had no new Covid 19 cases.
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The shadow

The shadow

The shadow knows!
nivek said:
This is unacceptable to me, if this was required in my state I would never go into a bar or restaurant again...

I saw this link on Twitter in the coronavirus hashtags...

...

Michigan Bars, Restaurants Will Require Customer’s Names And Phone Numbers Starting Monday

Michigan officials claim there have been 12 coronavirus outbreaks stemming from bars and restaurants, so now the state wants patrons to provide their name and phone number for future potential contact tracing.

The new rule from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services will go into effect on Monday, Fox News reported. Bars and restaurants will also be required to restrict the number of customers to 50 or fewer and allow no more than six people at a single table. Bars and restaurants that don’t follow the new mandate could be fined $1,000.

Scott Ellis, executive director of the Michigan Licensed Beverage Association, told Fox 17 that the state already requires restaurants to operate at 50% capacity. Further, he said, wait staff are having to deal with customers who don’t appreciate the restrictions.

“Our frontline servers have already had trouble dealing with masks and mandates and mandating masks,” Ellis told the outlet. “We did de-escalation training and all kinds of other things to help with that and now we’re taking to the next level. We have to gather someone’s personal information?”

“We just told them ‘look get names and phone numbers and write it on a piece of paper’ because if the health department calls you and says, ‘hey someone came in on this date I need the list’ they have to provide it,” he added.

If customers refuse to provide their names and phone numbers, Fox 17 reported, they may be refused service.

“You accept it when you’re ordering out it’s just something you have to do and then how many people don’t want to give it when they order out and how truthful is it? We don’t know,” Ellis told the outlet. “And I think when you’re going to sit down at a restaurant you just don’t expect someone to take your name and number because you’re coming to have a drink or a burger.”

Justin Winslow, president and CEO of the Michigan Restaurant and Lodging Association, told Fox 17 in a statement in a statement that this new mandated doesn’t match “existing science and data” showing “minimal transmission” from restaurants. He said that about 2% of cases currently being investigated by Michigan are from bars and restaurants.

Michigan health officials say that number is now 5.5%.

Winslow’s full statement:


Robert Gordon, director of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, however, said the new mandate was enacted to take “targeted action” to parts of the economy that are “particularly severe sources of spread.”

“We are issuing guidance that is a very clear road map for what we need to do bring cases down,” he told The Detroit News.

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nivek

nivek

As Above So Below
Hospitals overwhelmed: Exhausted staffs, surging COVID-19 cases push nation's limits

As the United States adds a new coronavirus case every second, hospitals from West Texas to Wisconsin are overwhelmed with the soaring number of critically ill Americans.

In many cases, it’s not a lack of hospital beds, therapies or equipment that worry managers amid the surge, with more than 229,000 deaths from COVID-19 in the U.S. It’s the depleted and exhausted hospitals staffs needed to care for those who need life-sustaining treatment.

The head of the Utah Hospital Association this week warned the situation is getting so dire that hospitals there might soon need to ration care. Hospitals in North and South Dakota are seeking staff reinforcements to care for patients in crowded intensive care units. And in Wisconsin, hospitals are opening makeshift ICU wings even as they desperately look for nurses and other clinicians to staff the facilities.

“We can keep converting ICU space,” said Jeffrey Pothof, an emergency room doctor in Madison, Wisconsin. “But the constraint will be the staffing … that’s the thing that worries us the most right now.”

More than 536,000 Americans tested positive for the coronavirus over a seven-day period ending Thursday, a new one-week record. Another 46,000-plus were hospitalized as of Thursday. And perhaps more troubling, the share of positive cases is increasing in 41 states – a sign cases are on the upswing.

(More on the link)

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nivek

nivek

As Above So Below
It’s Evolving: Coronavirus Genetic Mutation May Have Made COVID-19 More Contagious



The number of virus strains present in each zip code in Houston during the second wave of COVID-19 cases in summer 2020. Number of strains is represented by a spectrum of colors from blue (0 strains) to red (50 strains). Credit: Houston Methodist/University of Texas at Austin. Credit: Houston Methodist/University of Texas at Austin

A study involving more than 5,000 COVID-19 patients in Houston finds that the virus that causes the disease is accumulating genetic mutations, one of which may have made it more contagious. According to the paper published in the peer-reviewed journal mBIO, that mutation, called D614G, is located in the spike protein that pries open our cells for viral entry. It’s the largest peer-reviewed study of SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences in one metropolitan region of the U.S. to date.

The paper shows “the virus is mutating due to a combination of neutral drift — which just means random genetic changes that don’t help or hurt the virus — and pressure from our immune systems,” said Ilya Finkelstein, associate professor of molecular biosciences at The University of Texas at Austin and co-author of the study. The study was carried out by scientists at Houston Methodist Hospital, UT Austin and elsewhere.

During the initial wave of the pandemic, 71% of the novel coronaviruses identified in patients in Houston had this mutation. When the second wave of the outbreak hit Houston during the summer, this variant had leaped to 99.9% prevalence. This mirrors a trend observed around the world. A study published in July based on more than 28,000 genome sequences found that variants carrying the D614G mutation became the globally dominant form of SARS-CoV-2 in about a month. SARS-CoV-2 is the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

So why did strains containing this mutation outcompete those that didn’t have it?

Perhaps they’re more contagious. A study of more than 25,000 genome sequences in the U.K. found that viruses with the mutation tended to transmit slightly faster than those without it and caused larger clusters of infections. Natural selection would favor strains of the virus that transmit more easily. But not all scientists are convinced. Some have suggested another explanation, called “founder’s effects.” In that scenario, the D614G mutation might have been more common in the first viruses to arrive in Europe and North America, essentially giving them a head start on other strains.


Most coronavirus strains circulating in Houston in the summer of 2020 had the D614G mutation in the spike protein. Credit: Houston Methodist/University of Texas at Austin


The spike protein is also continuing to accumulate additional mutations of unknown significance. The Houston Methodist-UT Austin team also showed in lab experiments that at least one such mutation allows spike to evade a neutralizing antibody that humans naturally produce to fight SARS-CoV-2 infections. This may allow that variant of the virus to more easily slip past our immune systems. Although it is not clear yet whether that translates into it also being more easily transmitted between individuals.

The good news is that this mutation is rare and does not appear to make the disease more severe for infected patients. According to Finkelstein, the group did not see viruses that have learned to evade first-generation vaccines and therapeutic antibody formulations.

“The virus continues to mutate as it rips through the world,” Finkelstein said. “Real-time surveillance efforts like our study will ensure that global vaccines and therapeutics are always one step ahead.”

The scientists noted a total of 285 mutations across thousands of infections, although most don’t appear to have a significant effect on how severe the disease is. Ongoing studies are continuing to surveil the third wave of COVID-19 patients and to characterize how the virus is adapting to neutralizing antibodies that are produced by our immune systems. Each new infection is a roll of the dice, an additional chance to develop more dangerous mutations.

“We have given this virus a lot of chances,” lead author James Musser of Houston Methodist told The Washington Post. “There is a huge population size out there right now.”

Several other UT Austin authors contributed to the work: visiting scholar Jimmy Gollihar, associate professor of molecular biosciences Jason S. McLellan and graduate students Chia-Wei Chou, Kamyab Javanmardi and Hung-Che Kuo.

The UT Austin team tested different genetic variants of the virus’s spike protein, the part that allows it to infect host cells, to measure the protein’s stability and to see how well it binds to a receptor on host cells and to neutralizing antibodies. Earlier in the year, McLellan and his team at UT Austin, in collaboration with researchers at the National Institutes of Health, developed the first 3D map of the coronavirus spike protein for an innovation that now factors into several leading vaccine candidates’ designs.

The researchers found that SARS-CoV-2 was introduced to the Houston area many times, independently, from diverse geographic regions, with virus strains from Europe, Asia, South America and elsewhere in the United States. There was widespread community dissemination soon after COVID-19 cases were reported in Houston.

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nivek

nivek

As Above So Below
Man with flu-COVID infection found in the US – but he's not the first

As many of us get closer to our first COVID-19 winter, we have many things to feel optimistic about: vaccine results are on the horizon, mortality rates for those infected have fallen and established therapeutic strategies, such as treatment with the antiviral drug remdesivir, seem to be reducing illness. Unfortunately, winter also brings with it a whole swath of respiratory viruses, with influenza leading the charge. So should we be concerned about our chances of catching both influenza and SARS-CoV-2 viruses at the same time, known as a co-infection?

Recent news of a confirmed case of a flu-COVID co-infection in the Bay Area, California, is a stark reminder of the challenges that still lie before us in tackling this pandemic. The Solano County Department of Health and Social Services broke the news of an unfortunate person who suffered from both an influenza infection and COVID-19, but who now appears to be fully recovered. This is by no means the first case of such a co-infection, and it won’t be the last.

At this stage of the pandemic, we are aware of many patients that, through sheer bad luck, have experienced a flu-COVID co-infection. The first reports of such patients appeared in a preprint for The Lancet on March 25. It was reported that nine patients from a total of 1,054 from Wuhan and neighbouring regions tested positive for both SARS-CoV-2 and influenza viruses (five influenza A and four influenza B). Of these nine patients, only one had not recovered from COVID-19 by the time of publication.

Since then there have been at least 83 published reports from across the world of patients infected with both influenza and COVID-19. Interestingly, in many of these studies the researchers found that the influenza infection did not make the COVID-19 patients’ medical outcomes any better or worse. But the number of co-infected patients is still quite low because it is hard to know whether patients have a flu-COVID co-infection. This is because once a COVID-19 positive test comes back, doctors rarely seek further tests for other viral infections. Instead, they proceed to treat the COVID-19 symptoms, which can look remarkably similar to influenza symptoms.

How the viruses co-exist

The influenza virus is known for its ability to recombine and essentially pick up additional features from other influenza viruses during a co-infection, which can result in animal-to-human transmission, as the world witnessed during the 2009 swine flu pandemic. However, SARS-CoV-2 is a coronavirus, a completely different virus family to influenza viruses, and this potential for recombination doesn’t exist. But the potential danger of an immune system overload due to the co-infection of both these viruses is still a possibility.

The importance of the flu vaccine in the 2020-21 winter season cannot be stressed more, both to reduce the chance of flu-COVID co-infections in the general public and also to reduce the number of hospitalisations due to influenza while medical staff are focused on rising COVID-19 cases.

It is still unclear exactly how people will react to a flu-COVID co-infection, and although the California patient fully recovered, others may not be so lucky.

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nivek

nivek

As Above So Below
 
X

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nivek said:
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I'm torn.
Anti-lockdown protests like Farage is planning on stirring up shouldn't be allowed to occur. It's idiocy which will only extend the lookdown and necessitate the need to extend it further. We've only just left a 6 month lockdown, and these idiots threaten to put us in another equally long one.

On the other hand, safe protests can work - as shown in some of the article's images which had protests along with social distancing measures. If anything such protests would be even more effective since they'd take up practically the whole city.
 
nivek

nivek

As Above So Below
Xuu said:
I'm torn.
Anti-lockdown protests like Farage is planning on stirring up shouldn't be allowed to occur. It's idiocy which will only extend the lookdown and necessitate the need to extend it further. We've only just left a 6 month lockdown, and these idiots threaten to put us in another equally long one.

On the other hand, safe protests can work - as shown in some of the article's images which had protests along with social distancing measures. If anything such protests would be even more effective since they'd take up practically the whole city.
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I don't really agree with lockdowns anymore and I believe it's going to do more harm than good especially because a lot of people are going to uprise against it and protest causing more infection and spread of the virus...If everyone 100% wore masks and practice social distancing along with hand sanitizing I think that's about the best we can do at this point...

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nivek

nivek

As Above So Below
Coronavirus mutation that has become the dominant strain worldwide may be MORE contagious than the original - accounting for over 85% of global cases

A mutated version of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus which now dominates the world may be more infectious than the original version. A study of more than 5,000 Covid-19 patients at a hospital in Houston, Texas, revealed that 99.9 per cent of infections were caused by this altered version of the virus, called D614G.

The finding adds credence to the theory the mutation, which accounts for 85 per cent of global cases, is more contagious than the original strain.

D614G is by far the most common strain of coronavirus affecting humans worldwide and first appeared in February in Europe. International travel allowed this variant to spread across the continent and into the Americas, Oceania and Asia within weeks.

Scientists are still trying to determine why the D614G strain has become the principle form of SARS-CoV-2, and think it may be due to the mutation increasing the amount of virus in the upper respiratory tract.

This makes it more likely to spread when the infected person talks, coughs or sneezes.

35149166-8905605-image-a-4_1604325694694.jpg
The orange portion of the graph shows percentage of coronavirus cases which are the original D strain. Blue shows how common the G Strain is. Over time, the G variant supplanted the D strain


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These graphs show the ascension of the D614G strain over time. The blue line and coloured area shows how common, as a percentage, the D614G is among all coronavirus cases in different continents. The G strain is now by far the most common, supplanting the original variant, all around the world.
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In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, the dominant guise of the virus was a variant now called the 'D strain'. However, the D614G mutation sprung up at one specific location, called position 614, on the spike protein of the virus.

This spike hijacks the human receptor ACE2 and this is how it infects human cells. The location of the mutation sits at a critical juncture which affects how the virus cleaves in half after infiltrating a cell. The mutation is very small and simple, one amino acid is changed from a D (aspartate) to a G (glycine), hence the moniker D614G.

It is believed the D614G strain emerged first in Europe at the start of February 2020 and spread quickly. As Italians, Britons and others from coronavirus hotspots travelled to Asia, Australia and America, the D614G virus then took hold in these regions.

Data from a study published last week shows a spike of the G strain in Europe at the start of February, followed by another resurgence of the G variant a fortnight later. By the start of March, cases of D614G were spotted around the world and this specific mutation made up around a quarter of all cases.

It continued to take over and constituted more than 70 per cent of all cases by May, and the number is now thought to exceed 85 per cent.

However, in some localised areas the virus is almost ubiquitous. A September study from the US found 99 per cent of cases in a New York hospital were of the G strain, similar to the latest figures from Houston.

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nivek

nivek

As Above So Below
 
nivek

nivek

As Above So Below
Almost a 100,000 new cases again today in the US...

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nivek

nivek

As Above So Below
These are yesterday's numbers with the US still decrepit in their approach to this pandemic with over 100,000 new cases in one day again and over 1200 covid and covid related deaths...ugh

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nivek

nivek

As Above So Below
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Denmark Will Eliminate Its Entire Mink Population as COVID Mutation Spreads to Humans

Denmark plans to cull its more than 15 million mink population over fears that a mutation of the novel coronavirus in the animals has spread to humans.

During a press conference on Wednesday, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said that at least 12 people have been infected with the mutated virus, which originated in its mink farms.

According to ABC News, Health Minister Magnus Heunicke said that half of the 783 human COVID-19 cases in northern Denmark ”are related” to mink. (In total, the country has at least 51,042 COVID-19 cases in humans and over 725 deaths, per The New York Times)

“It is very, very serious,” Frederiksen said, adding that their decision to eliminate the country's entire mink population also stemmed from fears that the mutation may create difficulties for the efficacy of future vaccines. “We have a great responsibility towards our own population, but with the mutation that has now been found, we have an even greater responsibility for the rest of the world as well,” she said, according to Reuters.

According to ABC News, it will cost Denmark — the world's largest producer of mink furs — up to 5 billion kroner ($785 million) to cull the country's 15 million minks.

Overall, there are between 15 and 17 million minks on about 1,100 farms in Denmark.

A COVID-19 outbreak in mink population has also recently spread in the United States, specifically at fur farms across Wisconsin, Michigan and Utah.

Last month, a spokesperson for the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection confirmed to PEOPLE that more than 2,000 minks have died since animals at a farm in Taylor County tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, a virus that causes COVID-19 in humans.

The Michigan Department of Agricultural & Rural Development also announced last month that minks at one of the state's fur farm in the state tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. In Utah, nearly 10,000 minks have died of COVID-19 at nine different fur farms, NBC News reported on Oct. 9.

"Minks show open mouth breathing, discharge from their eyes and nose, and are not sick for several days before they pass away," Utah veterinarian Dr. Dean Taylor told NBC News. "They typically die within the next day."

Minks were first discovered to be susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 in April when farms in the Netherlands suffered several outbreaks in its animal population, the Associated Press reported. Outbreaks among minks in Spain have since been detected.

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nivek

nivek

As Above So Below
118,204 new cases in the US today and 1,124 deaths with 35 states having more than 1,000 new infections and Illinois with almost 10,000 cases today...

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August

August

Metanoia
Tasmania has officially opened its borders to New South Wales. No 2 weeks quarantine just health check at the airport on arrival. They will be monitored in their travels within the state and asked to report if they become ill.
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