Covid19mathblog.com
Looks like mask sales could double – double mask offer better protection per CDC – https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7007e1.htm?s_cid=mm7007e1_w
“Cloth masks and medical procedure masks substantially reduce exposure from infected wearers (source control) and reduce exposure of uninfected wearers (wearer exposure).”
“The receiver’s exposure was maximally reduced (>95%) when the source and receiver were fitted with modified medical procedure masks.”
Not the most optimistic article – each person is becoming a lab for the virus to mutate. They note the UK variant came form 1 person. The message is we as a human society better get well quickly as this virus will mutate to continue to attack those with multiple comorbidity. In fact those with weaken immune systems allow the virus to get more potent. – https://www.wired.co.uk/article/chronic-infection-uk-coronavirus-variant
“Every new person infected provides another opportunity for the virus to adopt a new form. So far, Sars-CoV-2 has infected at least 106 million people worldwide and taken on many thousands of mutations. Most of those changes are slow and inconsequential – evolutionary dead ends that nobody will ever realise existed. But, in some people, the virus hits the jackpot.
That is seemingly what happened in Kent in September 2020. Usually Sars-CoV-2 mutates slowly. We can watch this happen, with single letters changing one at a time in a viral genome that contains almost 30,000 letters. But, in one great leap, the UK variant picked up 17 of those changes. Eight of them happened in the gene that encodes the spike protein – the hook the virus uses to latch on to and enter human cells. If the genome of Sars-CoV-2 was a 30,000-character-long poem then the UK variant re-wrote its first line, drastically changing its meaning in the process.”
“The leading hypothesis is that the new variant evolved within just one person, infected with Sars-CoV-2 virus for so long that the virus was able to evolve into a new, more infectious, form. Out of this human pressure cooker, a new variant burst onto the scene and sent the world scrambling to react. Borders closed, countries locked down once more, vaccines were re-tested.
None of this was enough to halt the spread of B.1.1.7 – the scientific name given to the UK variant. The new variant has now been found in 75 countries and is spreading locally in Brazil, Canada, China, the United States and most of Europe. Up to 70 per cent more transmissible than other coronavirus variants, B.1.1.7 is now responsible for the vast majority of new cases in England.”
“Sars-CoV-2 may be the most surveilled virus in history. In the 13 months since virologists Zhang Yongzhen and Edward Holmes published the entire genome of the virus, more than 360,000 Sars-Cov-2 genomes have been sequenced and uploaded to GISAID – a platform for sharing viral genomes. Almost half of those genomes came from the UK, which sequences roughly ten per cent of all its positive Covid-19 tests, making the country a canary in the coal mine for detecting new variants.”
“For most people who get infected, Covid-19 lasts two weeks. People with mild cases usually test negative for the virus ten days after first showing symptoms. In more severe cases, people can continue to spread the virus for up to 20 days after their first symptoms. For an unlucky subset of patients Covid-19 infections last much, much longer.
There are multiple documented cases of patients with chronic Covid-19 infections that last several months or more. With his colleagues at the University of Michigan, Lauring documented the infection of one man who had harboured the replicating virus for at least 119 days. By analysing the genomes of virus samples taken at different points during the patient’s infection, Lauring could see the virus steadily accumulating genetic changes – a microcosm of how Sars-CoV2-2 mutates within the global population, but this time all happening within one human host.”
“People with weakened immune systems provide viruses like Sars-CoV-2 with a unique environment. Instead of clearing an infection quickly, an immunocompromised person might only partially wipe out an infection, leaving behind a population of genetically-hardier viruses that rebound and begin the cycle all over again. In these people, a virus can evolve at remarkable speed. “The whole time, their immune system is effectively beating [the virus] up. So the virus has a chance to learn how to live with the human immune system,” says Emma Hodcroft, a postdoctoral research at the University of Bern in Switzerland who works on Nextstrain – an open-source project that tracks the genetic changes of Sars-CoV-2 and other pathogens.”
“Stopping the emergence of new variants means doing more of what we know stops transmission: wearing face masks, social distancing, working from home and tracing infections. Although data from Israel shows that vaccines are a powerful tool for stopping hospitalisations and infections, alone they are no defence against the emergence of new variants. Epidemiologists fear that a combination of widespread transmission and a partially-vaccinated population might push Sars-CoV-2 to acquire vaccine-evading mutations.”
“In mid-January, genomic surveillance picked up another worrying mutation in some of the UK variant viruses: a change called E484K, also present in the South Africa variant, that helps the virus evade the body’s immune system. As our immunity to Sars-CoV-2 grows through vaccines and infection, the virus is pushed to find new adaptations that allow it to continue infecting and spreading”
US continues to be under 4K. Brazil, Mexico, and UK above 1K
Asia did see a bump but nowhere like Europe, Americas S. Korea, Japan had a bump – Japan death is still up there but their confirmation fell. Thailand is faring very well.
TX leads confirmation with CA leading deaths
Confirmation in TX in popular counties.
Modified the confirm chart from 2000 to 1000 – so other counties beyond LA would show up on chart.
LA is coming down in both death and confirmation now.
