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The family of missing student Riley Strain says it has been shown unreleased surveillance video that captured him walking fast or “jogging” in the opposite direction of his hotel. Chris Whiteid, Strain’s stepfather, and Chris Dingman, a friend acting as the family spokesman, revealed that Metro Nashville Police on Sunday showed them the last known video of the University of Missouri student from the night of his disappearance. “We got to see him walking,” Whiteid told NewsNation in an interview that aired Thursday. “We got to see him kind of at a fast pace walk, almost a jog. And it...

Two TikTokers taking part in the search for missing college student Riley Strain — livestreaming their search efforts for followers — found his credit card near the Cumberland River in Nashville. Two TikTok users, @nobodyleftbehind13 and @annaclendening, were sharing their search as it unfolded live with followers when they stumbled across the missing Mizzou student’s credit card. “S—. I found his credit card,” one user can be heard saying in a video that was later shared to @rileylively’s account, Fox News Digital reported. Another user filming the search chimes in, “You found his credit card? We found his credit card....

People across at least 10 states have now been infected by BA.2.86, a highly mutated variant of the virus that causes COVID-19 that authorities have been closely tracking. According to data tallied from the global virus database GISAID, labs have reported finding BA.2.86 in samples from Colorado, Maryland, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Washington. Estimates suggest BA.2.86 still remains a small fraction of new COVID-19 cases nationwide. Too few sequences of the virus have been reported to show up on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's biweekly variant estimates, which still show that a long...

Chinese health authorities are racing to catch new mutant COVID strains, as more than a third of Omicron variants detected in the crushing wave of infections slamming the country have resulted in larger outbreaks. Over the past three months, China has detected over 130 sublineages of Omicron, including BF.7, a variant incredibly adept at evading immunity and believed to be behind the current surge in infections. Xu Wenbo, head of the National Institute for Viral Disease Control and Prevention, said last week that China plans to track the virus centers around three city hospitals in each province. There, samples will...

There was quite a stir going around a couple of weeks ago when we learned that researchers at Boston University had created (possibly inadvertently) a new strain of the novel coronavirus that caused an 80 percent mortality rate in laboratory mice. (The “normal” version of the virus only causes mild illness in mice with few deaths being recorded.) Of course, you might not have been aware of that unless you were following conservative news outlets because CNN and MSNBC barely mentioned it. This type of “gain-of-function” research is highly controversial and has been the subject of many debates since the...

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, directed by Dr. Anthony Fauci, is conducting research involving the creation of a more severe strain of monkeypox in an effort to help develop better vaccines for humans, the organization said. The virus will be given to mice in order to track its progress, and help scientists understand what needs to be done to ensure humans are better protected depending on how certain genes act. Creating the new hybrid strain of monkeypox involves extracting genes from the clade 1 variant of the virus, which kills one in ten people it infects, and...

Boston University issued a statement Tuesday defending its research of a COVID-19 Omicron strain when they took the variant’s spike protein and attached it to the original COVID-19 strain, leading to a higher mortality rate in a certain species of mice, triggering concern among lawmakers.“The Omicron S-bearing virus robustly escapes vaccine-induced humoral immunity, mainly due to mutations in the receptor-binding motif… while Omicron causes mild, non-fatal infection, the Omicron S-carrying virus inflicts severe disease with a mortality rate of 80 percent,” the preprint study said.One lawmaker, Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), said that the research entailed “lethal gain of function virus...

WTF are they doing? This is incomprehensible.Researchers at Boston University have performed gain-of-function research using recombinant DNA. They combined the spike protein from the Omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus with the original strain of the virus and came up with an artificially created variant with an 80% mortality rate in mice. In mice the Omicron variant causes mild illness, not vast mortality. When I first read the article I literally could not believe it. And I mean that seriously. It was too insane to believe.But the Daily Mail has the goods, linking to the research itself, which indeed does...

The more contagious omicron subvariant BA.2 has become the dominant COVID-19 strain in the U.S., but international health experts are putting an increased focus on a new hybrid variant that may even be more infectious. The XE variant is a recombinant, meaning it is comprised of genetic material from two other strains, which in this case are BA.1, the original strain of omicron, and BA.2, known as "stealth omicron." According to an epidemiological update published March 29 by the World Health Organization, estimates show XE is 10% more transmissible than BA.2, however the findings require further confirmation.

(CNN)Fewer people are hospitalized with Covid-19 in the United States now than at any other point in the pandemic, but hospitals and staff continue to feel the strain. As of Friday, there are 16,138 people in the hospital with Covid-19 -- fewer than there have ever been since the US Department of Health and Human Services first started tracking in July 2020. Just 2% of hospital beds are currently in use for Covid-19 patients. Previously, the lowest point was in late June 2021, just before Delta became the dominant variant in the country. Covid-19 hospitalizations reached a peak in January...

As the world still comes to grips with coronavirus’ variant, said to be highly transmissible if not deadlier than the Delta variant, that has dimmed the chances of a pandemic-free 2022, a fresh surge in US and Europe is now being blamed on a combination of the two. Delmicron, a combination of the virus’ Delta and Omicron variants, can transmit even faster. While Covid-19 infections only involve a single mutant strain, two can strike simultaneously in extremely rare cases. Omicron, accounting for 73% of fresh infections last week, has become the dominant variant in the US, the Associated Press reported....

Summarizing of our post from last might (which we urge everyone to read) for those who are just now waking up to the global chaos resulting from the B.1.1.529 variant, which today got the Greek letter designation Omicron...Omicron sounds like the name of an 80s movie's evil Robot King. — Edward Snowden (@Snowden) November 26, 2021... skipping the widely expected letter Nu (and certainly the one following it, Xi), here is what we know, courtesy of Newsquawk, Credit Suisse and Citi.BackgroundRegarded as the most heavily mutated variant of the Coronavirus, thus far, as it has 32 mutations in the spike...

South African scientists have been keeping a close eye on a new COVID-19 variant because of “its concerning constellations of mutations.”The variant, called C.1.2, was first identified in May in South Africa. The scientists have posted a preprint study, saying the new CCP (Chinese Communist Party) Virus variant shares mutations with other more transmissible variants.“The reason we were worried about the kind of combination of mutations was that many of the mutations we see in this C.1.2 are the same mutations we’ve seen in some of the other variants of concern, particularly the Beta and the Alpha and the Gamma...

A COVID-19 variant first detected in South Africa could be more infectious than other mutations – and may have the potential of being resistant to vaccines, according to a report. The C.1.2 strain has been linked to “increased transmissibility” and is said to have mutated the most from the original virus, which first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the Mirror reported. The strain has a mutation rate of about 41.8 mutations per year, almost double the global mutation rate seen in any other existing Variant of Concern, or VOC, according to experts at South Africa’s National Institute for...

The highly transmissible delta variant is now the dominant strain of the coronavirus in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Tuesday. As of July 3, the latest date for which data was available, the delta variant accounted for 51.7 percent of new Covid-19 cases that had been genetically sequenced in the country. Two weeks earlier, on June 19, the variant accounted for just over 30 percent of new cases. During a news briefing Tuesday, President Joe Biden cited the delta variant's rapid spread to urge people to get vaccinated, "especially young people who may have...

The highly contagious UK coronavirus variant is now more prevalent in the US than the original strain that devastated the country last spring, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday. “It is the most common lineage — period,” CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said at a White House press conference. “We need to remain vigilant.”

HONOLULU, Hawaii (HawaiiNewsNow) -- The state Health Department says a case of COVID with the so-called South African mutation has been detected in an Oahu adult with no history of travel. It’s the first such infections in Hawaii. Nationally, at least 80 cases have been confirmed, the CDC said. Officials are holding a news conference Monday to discuss the news. WATCH LIVE: The discovery is concerning because the B.1.351 variant is known to be more transmissible. It also contains a mutation that could make it less responsive to antibodies formed naturally by someone who has had COVID or by a...

People with the highly contagious UK strain of COVID-19 are less likely to report sky-high fevers than those with the original illness, according to a study released Wednesday. But patients with the newer virus variant report suffering from a sore throat, aching muscles and fatigue more often, according to the survey, released by Britain’s Office for National Statistics. Symptoms of the new strain differ from the three main ones associated with the original COVID-19 virus — fever, continuous cough and loss of smell or taste, the UK Sun reported, citing the survey and health officials.

A new strain of the coronavirus – different from the highly contagious UK variant – has appeared in California, where the total number of cases approaches 3 million, according to a report. The state’s Department of Public Health said it’s unclear whether the variant, which has popped up in a dozen counties, is highly contagious or is just being identified more frequently as lab work becomes increasingly sophisticated, the LA Times reported. Researchers have linked the strain to several large outbreaks in Santa Clara County, according to the newspaper.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) on Tuesday called for a travel ban from the United Kingdom over a variant strain of the Chinese coronavirus — one that is reportedly more transmissible — referring to it as the “new foe.” “Right now you can still get on a plane in London and not even have proof you have a negative test, then come to New York City and merrily spread the disease,” he said during Tuesday’s press conference, asking why that is occurring.