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ear the COVID variants, say the experts. Fear for your lives! We’ve been told that the UK variant is more deadly. To combat that, wear a mask. That’s what Anthony Fauci says. That’s what the lab coats say. Wear a mask and listen to us and the variants will go away or something. Nope. Texas reopened a month ago, nixed their mask mandate, and there have been no spikes. Nothing’s happened. There is no fourth COVID wave. The vaccines are working. We’re near herd immunity. NBC News committed a grave sin recently. They actually reported that the COVID cases in...

Story at a glance Researchers reviewed the positive COVID-19 test results of 800 people--400 vaccinated and the same number unvaccinated. The South African variant was 8 times more likely to show up in the test of a person who received both doses of the Pfizer vaccine. The findings defied researchers initial expectations, although they concluded that given the relatively small sample size more research is needed. ______________________________________________________________ Israeli researchers found in a study released Saturday that the COVID-19 mutation first discovered in South Africa has a greater likelihood of “breaking through” the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine than other prominent variants. The study,...

“...A bug known as a whitefly received a gene from a plant, and that DNA influx... changed it... The bug has been causing massive damage to tomato, potato, and tobacco crops, as the new gene allowed it to evade protections that plants develop against these pests.... ...As far as we know, ours is the first example of horizontal transfer of a functional gene from plant to animal,”... ...horizontal gene transfer occurs when a species gets genetic code from another species and... incorporates those genes in its DNA. Genes are typically transmitted vertically, from parents to offspring, and don’t involve inter-species...

As Europe struggles with a "third wave" of COVID infections that's forcing more governments to reimpose at least some lockdown measures, the US is finding that the number of newly confirmed cases is climbing again, with some of the biggest week-over-week increases seen in states that had been praised for their vaccination diligence.Source: AxiosThe US is adding roughly 55K new cases per day, a level that it has plateaued over the past months (though deaths have continued to move lower). Yesterday, health authorities counted 56.9K new case, and 1,052 deaths.COVID cases are spiking in 13 states over the past week....

As CCP virus variants grow in number, scientists are increasingly concerned about whether vaccines will remain effective despite the new strains. On March 12, southern China’s Guangdong Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the B.1.525 strain had been detected in two cases. This is the first time it has been discovered in the province. B.1.525 was first found in late December in Nigeria but since then the new variant of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus has been found in 26 countries around the world, including the UK, Australia, Denmark, the United States, Canada, Italy, and most...

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...

From South Africa to Brazil to California, the list of locations linked to new strains of the coronavirus is growing — and so are concerns that viral variants could undo the vaccine rollout. The worries come at a time when most Americans still haven’t received a COVID-19 vaccine. That could change by the end of May, when President Joe Biden says there will be enough vaccine for all adults in the U.S. But by then, new and faster-spreading coronavirus strains will likely account for nearly all cases. Does that mean this whole effort is for naught? Not according to local...

Finnish scientists claim to have found another coronavirus variant which shares some of the same mutations as other troublesome strains. Only one case of the virus — temporarily named Fin-796H — has been spotted so far but experts have admitted they are unsure how widespread it is. Finland said was unlikely the variant emerged there, given the country's low infection rate. The Scandinavian nation has recorded just 51,000 cases and 700 deaths since the pandemic took off. Finnish researchers who made the discovery said the variant shared some mutations seen in the Kent and South African strains but in a...

With each passing day, covid gets closer to being a distant memory.The seven-day average of new cases in the US is down to 77,700 in the US, 69% below the mid-January peak...... while in the top 5 European nations, the seven-day average has declined to 61,800, down 55% from the mid-January peak. US Covid-related hospitalizations have dropped by 50% and Covid-related fatalities are also continue to decline, with daily deaths almost 25% below the recent peaks in the US (at 2,560) and 30% below in the five major European countries (at 2,350).Globally, the 7-day average of new cases stood at...

Following a flurry of data suggesting the first generation of COVID vaccines may not be as effective against certain COVID mutations, particularly a mutant strain first identified in South Africa, new "research" is suggesting patients may not even need a second dose of Pfizer's COVID-19 jab - or at least it could be delayed "in order to cover all priority groups as the first one is highly protective," according to two Canada-based researchers, who made the statement in a letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine.Even so, new lab study has just been released Thursday suggesting that the...

The highly contagious COVID-19 variant that first emerged in the United Kingdom appears to have evolved again to include a “worrying” new mutation, researchers said. Nearly a dozen cases have been identified that include a mutation known as E484K, which has already been identified in the South Africa and Brazil variants, the BBC reported.

When the number of COVID-19 cases began to rise again in Manaus, Brazil, in December 2020, Nuno Faria was stunned. The virologist at Imperial College London and associate professor at the University of Oxford had just co-authored a paper in Science estimating that three-quarters of the city’s inhabitants had already been infected with SARS-CoV-2, the pandemic coronavirus—more than enough, it seemed, for herd immunity to develop. The virus should be done with Manaus. Yet hospitals were filling up again. “It was hard to reconcile these two things,” Faria says. He started to hunt for samples he could sequence to find...

At least 10 state health departments in the United States have detected the highly contagious B.1.1.7 variant of COVD-19, the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, according to a new report. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in an update on Jan. 15, said that a “more highly transmissible variant of SARS-CoV-2, B.1.1.7, has been detected in 10 U.S. states.” SARS-CoV-2 is another name for the coronavirus that is believed to have emerged in Wuhan, China, in late 2019. Health officials warned that models have shown the B.1.1.7 strain of the virus has the...

A variant of the coronavirus identified in South Africa is more problematic than the mutation found in the U.K., Britain’s health minister said Monday, as both strains spread rapidly. Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the BBC the variant found in South Africa was especially concerning. “I’m incredibly worried about the South African variant, and that’s why we took the action that we did to restrict all flights from South Africa,” he told the BBC’s “Today” program. “This is a very, very significant problem ... and it’s even more of a problem than the U.K. new variant.” Both countries are struggling...

Just when we thought there was cause for hope in the Covid-19 vaccines, we’ve hit a wall. Christmas is off and we might all be locked down for months longer. In reality, the vaccines, even once proved to be safe and efficacious, had little chance of impacting the virus this winter. Production, distribution and application to all of those in need in such a short timeframe was never feasible. However, an increasing drift towards some sort of normality by the spring appeared possible. The UK government’s decision to introduce tier four lockdown restrictions across London and much of the south...

Singapore and Denmark have confirmed their first cases of the new coronavirus variant found spreading rapidly in parts of the United Kingdom. Singapore has confirmed one case, while 11 others in quarantine have returned preliminarily positive results. Denmark has identified 33 infections with the new strain. "There is currently no evidence that the B117 strain is circulating in the community," Singapore's health ministry said late on Wednesday, referring to the new, potentially more infectious UK strain. Singapore has been conducting viral genomic sequencing for confirmed COVID-19 cases who arrived from Europe recently. The patient with the new variant came to...

The new strain of the CCP virus that emerged in the UK spreads over 50 percent faster and could make up nine out of 10 cases in the southeast of England by mid-January, according to a preliminary study.The study (pdf), by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, used mathematical modeling to project the spread of the new strain in the southeast quarter of the country where it is already beginning to dominate.“We estimate the transmission rate of this variant is 50-74 percent higher than existing variants,” said study author Dr. Nick Davies.Echoing comments made by government scientists, he...

A new mutant strain of COVID-19 that has been dubbed “501.V2” has gotten completely out of control in South Africa, and authorities are telling us that it is an even bigger threat than the “Super COVID” that has been causing so much panic in the United Kingdom. Of course viruses mutate all the time, and so it isn’t a surprise that COVID-19 has been mutating. But mutations can become a major issue when they fundamentally alter the way that a virus affects humans, and we are being told that “501.V2” is much more transmissible than previous versions of COVID and...

On December 20, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced an unprecedented Tier-4 lockdown due to a new strain of COVID-19. This will increase the rules for the Christmas holiday and completely shut down some areas of the country. Travel restrictions are in place inside the U.K., yet international travel has not been restricted from other areas.The purported reason: This new strain of COVID-19, discovered in September, is 70% more contagious than the previous version of the virus. According to Sky News:The action was prompted by the government’s fears over a new strain of coronavirus – known as VUI 2020/01 –...

Reports from Britain and South Africa of new coronavirus strains that seem to spread more easily are causing alarm, but virus experts say it's unclear if that's the case or whether they pose any concern for vaccines or cause more severe disease. Viruses naturally evolve as they move through the population, some more than others. It's one reason we need a fresh flu shot each year. New variants, or strains, of the virus that causes COVID-19 have been seen almost since it was first detected in China nearly a year ago. On Saturday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced new restrictions...