【無了期唔知幾時完嘅武漢肺炎】國際疫情討論區09

Keep worsening. The number of new deaths has started going up.

India is tracking a new mutated coronavirus strain that health officials call 'Delta Plus' - but experts say there's no need to worry

Indian health officials have ramped up coronavirus testing and public health measures in three states, following concerns about a new strain of the virus they call "Delta Plus" - but experts worldwide say they're not concerned.

The Indian government said Wednesday that it was closely monitoring "Delta Plus," also known as AY.1, which is the Delta variant of the coronavirus, but with an extra mutation. The original Delta variant is about 60% more infectious than the Alpha variant - the most common version of the virus in the US - and has now spread to at least 75 countries.

"All Delta sub lineages are treated as a variant of concern, although properties of AY.1 are still being investigated," the Indian government said. A "variant of concern" is a virus with mutations that make it more dangerous.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden's chief medical advisor, said Wednesday that Delta now accounts for at least 20% of infections in the US, and was the "greatest threat" to the nation's efforts to eradicate the disease.

According to the Indian government, AY.1 was first discovered in India on April 5. There have been 40 confirmed cases of the new variant in more than 45,000 sequenced tests in three Indian states - Maharashtra, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh. The officials advised that these states ramp up testing and strengthen "appropriate public measures."

As of June 16, there were 161 confirmed AY.1 infections reported across at least 10 countries, including Canada, India, Japan, Nepal, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Switzerland, Turkey, and the US, according to Public Health England (PHE).

Experts aren't convinced that AY.1, with its extra mutation, is any worse than the original Delta variant.

Professor Francois Balloux, director at the Genetics Institute at University College London, told Insider that the virus was constantly changing, even within a variant.

"Each lineage, of which Delta is an example, is getting about two mutations each month, so it's difficult to predict which mutations will become a concern," he said. Balloux said that AY.1 represents 0.00002% of all Delta variants sequenced to date, and that there was no evidence that the strain was expanding in any country.

The World Health Organization (WHO) told Insider that it was tracking AY.1 as part of the Delta variant, as it does for other variants of concern with additional mutations. "For the moment, this [AY.1] variant does not seem to be common," it said.

PHE, the public health body in the UK, where Delta now accounts for more than 90% of new infections, told Insider that it was investigating the significance of the extra mutation. But there was no evidence that the mutation made the virus any more severe or reduced vaccine effectiveness compared to Delta, it said.

Eric Feigl-Ding, senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists, told Insider that we don't know enough about AY.1 yet - "just that it's got troubling mutations."

"Let's wait and see," he said.

Dr Anurag Agarwal, director of the Delhi-based CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB), one of 28 Indian labs involved in sequencing, told the BBC there wasn't any data to suggest AY.1 should cause a public-health worry panic. "We are not seeing anything worrisome yet. We are tracking it carefully, and strengthening all public health measures," he said.

A scientist says he's found 13 Wuhan coronavirus sequences that were deleted from a US database - and claims they're a 'goldmine' for research into the virus' origins

A researcher in Seattle claims he's discovered 13 partial coronavirus sequences from samples collected in Wuhan, China, that were deleted from a US database last year.

The discovery could mean scientists researching the origins of the pandemic have been working with incomplete data, he said.

Dr. Jesse Bloom, a researcher at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, said Tuesday that he had recovered the deleted files from Google Cloud, and had reconstructed partial sequences of 13 viruses. He said they came from samples taken at the early stages of pandemic in Wuhan, where scientists first discovered SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

The data initially came from a study by Wuhan University scientists, he said.

Bloom said his findings suggested the coronavirus was already circulating in Wuhan before being linked to COVID-19 outbreaks at the Huanan Seafood Market. They also suggested the sequences used in most studies into the virus' origins, including the joint WHO-China report, "are not fully representative of the viruses actually present in Wuhan at that time," he said.

Throughout the pandemic, Bloom has called for more research into the origins of the pandemic. But he told CNN that the new sequences alone didn't provide any further evidence about whether the virus spread naturally from animals to humans or was, as some claim, the result of a laboratory leak.

Bloom said that the samples, from early outpatients in Wuhan, were a "gold mine" for scientists wanting to understand the spread of the virus.

Bloom's findings, published in a paper, haven't been peer-reviewed by experts.

Bloom said that there was "no plausible scientific reason" for the sequences being deleted from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) database. The NIH said that it had removed the sequences in June 2020 at the request of the person that added them to the database, and said that allowing this was standard practice, CNN reported.

Prof David Robertson, an expert on viruses at the University of Glasgow, said in a statement that it was difficult to "conclude this is a cover-up rather than a more mundane deletion of data," based on Bloom's paper. "We also know already that the Huanan market wasn't the sole spillover event and SARS-CoV-2 was probably circulating in late October/November," he said.

Prof Martin Hibberd, of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said in a statement: "More work would need to be done to know how solid these findings are, particularly the accuracy and reasons for the sequence deletions, but it does look intriguing."

Bloom said that he was reviewing genetic data when he discovered a March 2020 study about 241 genetic virus sequences collected by scientists at Wuhan University. He said he couldn't find the research online publicly, but was able to access 13 sequences via Google Cloud.

The UK government has postponed the last stage of reopen, but they are still talk abut reopen. Last year, the government did not listen to its scientists to implement short-circuit lockdowns.

Actually, UK should implement short-circuit lockdowns now so that it can avoid full and long lockdown later.

The current surge is mostly due to new cases of young people and the immune system is stronger in the summer. So, there shold NOT have huge deaths in the coming two months. However, the government has putUK in hell. Well, it is only at the top level (level -1). Hopefully, UK will not dropped to level -18 in hell in the winter.

The FDA on Wednesday said it plans to add a warning to Pfizer and Moderna vaccines after a CDC advisory panel said data suggests a "likely association" between the vaccines and rare cases of heart inflammation in adolescents and young adults. Despite the warning, doctors and researchers say they still strongly recommend that all Americans 12 and older get vaccinated, noting that the heart problems are uncommon and in most cases very mild.

The CDC tracked more than 1,200 cases of myocarditis, which is inflammation of the heart muscle, and pericarditis, which is inflammation of the outer lining of the heart. More than 800 of the cases occurred after the second dose, and 65% were linked to the Pfizer vaccine. The largest share of the cases occurred in men under the age of 24, according to the report.

Read more at https://us.yahoo.com/news/covid-shots-may-linked-rare-231300876.html

Now CDC has confirmed what I said yesterday that the number of cases of myocarditis in USA should be at least thousands rather than hundreds!

Those of you talked at the 國際疫情討論區 series please come back to talk again because this series is probably the best in the world. Please come back and it is too hard for me alone to push this post.

新冠肺炎增76例本土、5死 陳時中︰擴大社區篩檢防Delta變異株入侵

國內新冠肺炎疫情持續，中央流行疫情指揮中心指揮官陳時中今天公布國內新增76例確定病例，均為本土個案；其中34例為居家隔離/檢疫期間或期滿檢驗陽性者。另外，確診個案中新增5例死亡。陳時中表示，為防Delta變異株（原稱印度變種病毒）入侵，未來將在社區擴大篩檢，並要求各地政府落實疫調。

陳時中表示，今日新增之76例本土病例，為39例男性、37例女性，年齡介於未滿5歲至80多歲，發病日介於今年5月18日至6月24日。個案分佈以新北市32例最多，其次為台北市20例、桃園市10例、新竹縣4例、苗栗縣3例、彰化縣及高雄市各2例，宜蘭縣、基隆市及台中市各1例。其中雙北地區以外縣市24例中，13例為已知感染源、2例關聯不明、9例疫調中；相關疫情調查持續進行中。

Improving rapidly.

7-day moving average drops to 99.57 (below 100)

理大團隊：確診地勤病毒基因屬變種病毒Delta

一名27歲任職港航機場地勤的男子，早前確診感染新冠變種病毒，理大醫療科技及資訊學系副教授蕭傑恒及其團隊發現，最新病毒基因排序結果顯示，這名患者的病毒基因屬於變種病毒Delta，是首次在本地源頭不明個案中發現這種病毒。

團隊亦將個案的基因與早前帶有L452R變異病毒的輸入個案做比對，發現這名男患者與最近的印尼輸入個案比較相近，但仍然未能確定感染源頭個案。

南韓連續三日新增逾600宗新型肺炎確診

南韓新增634宗新型肺炎確診個案，再多一名患者死亡。

新增確診個案較前一日多24宗，連續三日超過600宗，其中602宗屬於社區感染。

韓聯社報道，由於首都圈接連出現群組感染，加上最先在印度發現的變種病毒Delta蔓延，令抗疫工作再添變數。

宮內廳長官稱感到德仁擔心舉辦奧運會否令疫情擴大

日本宮內廳長官西村泰彥說，自己的體會是日皇德仁對目前的新型肺炎疫情，感到非常擔憂，亦擔心舉辦奧運會會否令疫情擴大。

西村強調，並非直接從德仁口中，聽過有關說法，只是在每日交談中，感受到對方的憂慮。

德仁是東京奧運及殘奧會的名譽總裁，宮內廳正探討他出席開幕儀式並宣布開幕的安排。西村說希望各界以東京奧組委為首，攜手在防疫方面做到萬無一失，以免疫情擴大。

至於皇室成員對奧運的參與，包括會否出席開幕儀式或觀看比賽等，西村說正與相關機構協調，未到可以向外界介紹的階段。

Sydney lockdown: Workers unable to claim COVID payments

Large swathes of Sydney will enter a seven-day lockdown from midnight on Friday to curb the spread of the highly infectious COVID-19 Delta strain, however many will be unable to access financial support.

While residents of the four Woollahra, Waverley, Randwick and City of Sydney areas are permitted to leave home to work, hospitality businesses are unable to open for dine-in customers, potentially affecting workers’ hours.

"If you are a business in those four local government areas, unfortunately, unless you're providing essential food and services – that is, takeaway food and services or grocery services of that nature – we don't expect those businesses to remain open in the next week," Premier Gladys Berejiklian said on Friday morning.

Under the current policy, Sydneysiders will be unable to access COVID-19 disaster payments unless the lockdown is extended beyond the first seven days.

The COVID-19 disaster payment was introduced during Melbourne’s recent lockdown and offers between $325 and $500 as a one-off payment to workers in declared hotspots.

The payments are available to workers who aren’t receiving other paid leave entitlements from their employers or other forms of income support from the government.

However, the payments don’t kick in until the affected worker has been unable to work for the eighth day in a row due to a lockdown.

Additionally, the payments are only valid for periods when the area is defined by the Federal Government as a hotspot. As it stands, the Government has described the four Sydney areas as a hotspot from Wednesday 23 June to Wednesday 30 June.

As the lockdown is set to last until at least midnight on Friday 2 July, the Government will also need to extend the hotspot category until at least Saturday for workers to be able to access payments.

Unions call for JobKeeper style payments
The lockdown has reignited union calls for a JobKeeper-style payment to be introduced to support workers affected by lockdowns.

The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) expressed concern over the one-week requirement to access the payments.

“The Federal Government’s emergency Covid payments are grossly insufficient. They make it look like the Morrison Government is helping, when in reality these payments are below the poverty line, inaccessible during one-week lockdowns and don’t give workers job security,” ACTU secretary Sally McManus said.

“The Morrison Government must bring in JobKeeper 2 and give workers and businesses security not just to survive, but to keep the economic recovery rolling.”

What support is available for Sydney residents in lockdown?
If you’re a worker without access to paid leave, a salary or other forms of income support who needs to self-isolate, quarantine or care for someone with COVID-19, you could be eligible for other payments.

This includes the Pandemic Leave Disaster Payment. This is a lump sum payment designed to help people who are unable to work for 14 days.

In order to access this payment, you need to have been directed by NSW Health to self-isolate or quarantine. You also must be an adult and an Australian resident or hold the right to work in Australia.

Additionally, you must be unable to work during your 14 days of isolation and have no other paid leave entitlements.

South Africa Cases Rise to Third-Wave High

South Africa’s daily Covid-19 infections rose to 17,493, the highest number recorded in the country’s third resurgence of the virus.

The number of infections, announced by the National Institute of Communicable Diseases on Wednesday, is the highest since Jan. 14. Of those tested 24.9% were positive for Covid-19 and 62% of the new infections were in the commercial hub of Gauteng, the NICD said.

92 new cases in Israel

20,393 new cases and 601 new deaths in Russia

Keep worsening.

A&E units in UK report rapid rise in children’s infections

A&E units are treating a sudden surge in young children suffering from infections usually only seen in winter after the rules on social contact were relaxed, doctors have revealed.

Anxious parents are bringing in preschool age children who have a high temperature and difficulty breathing, increasing demand on emergency departments that are already “overwhelmed”.

“On Monday, we set a new record for the number of children seen in 24 hours in our department, and that’s in the middle of summer,” said Dr Dan Magnus, a consultant in children’s emergency medicine at Bristol Royal hospital. “We are effectively running a winter-level emergency department response in the summertime.”

Long article, read more on https://uk.yahoo.com/news/e-units-uk-report-rapid-050017418.html

The UK government should come here and read 【無了期唔知幾時完嘅武漢肺炎】國際疫情討論區09 because I have said a bit earlier that
(1) UK should have a some short and small shutdown.
(2) UK is in hell (OK. only on level -1 of the 18 levels hell).

I forgot to say clearly that the inflections mentioned in the above report is NOT COVID-19. However, those inflections couple with the COVID-19 inflections is very serious problem for the hospital.

There are at least 200 known cases of the Delta Plus coronavirus variant worldwide. Here's what we know

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/06/25/health/delta-plus-variant-explainer-intl-hnk-scn/index.html

南韓新增確診個案連續第4天超過600宗

南韓再多668宗新型肺炎確診個案，連續第4天超過600宗，總感染人數超過15萬4400。另外，新增3宗死亡病例，疫情至今共2012名患者死亡。

新增病例中，611宗是社區感染，超過七成來自首都圈，其中學校、教會及娛樂場所等地，再有新的感染群組。衛生部門表示，目前南韓超過8%的變種病毒個案，都涉及變種病毒株Delta，Delta病例在全球蔓延，憂慮病例將持續上升，令抗疫工作再添難度。

World

The 7-day moving average of new cases has been increasing since 22 June.

This is a bad sign. The improvement in India has been more than offset by the surges in several countries.

Thailand

Thailand reported 4,161 new cases in the past 24 hours, the highest single-day tally this month, as new clusters continued to emerge in capital Bangkok and its adjoining provinces. While Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha has resisted calls for a lockdown of the capital to quell the outbreak, his government on Friday ordered residential camps for construction workers in Bangkok and four other provinces with high numbers of Covid cases to be locked down for a month from Monday.

Construction sites and prisons have emerged as the biggest clusters of infections in Thailand, which is suffering from its worst wave so far. More than 211,500 new cases have been detected since early April, official data showed Saturday. The country also reported 51 new deaths, taking the cumulative tally to 1,870.

Some British Olympic Athletes Skip Vaccines

A small number of British athletes declined Covid vaccinations before the Tokyo Games because they’re worried about the potential of side effects impairing their performance, the Times of London reported, citing Andy Anson, chief executive officer of the British Olympic Association.

All 375 athletes and 500 support staff will undergo a PCR test 14 days before flying out and take regular lateral flow tests during the build-up to the Games.

Iceland to End Covid Restrictions Saturday

Iceland is abolishing all domestic Covid-19 restrictions, with officials saying 87% of those 16 and older have received at least one vaccine dose.

The island nation, with a population of about 369,000, has seen 6,637 cases, with 30 deaths. About 48% of those 16 and over are fully vaccinated.

Iceland could be one of the first European countries to end restrictions, Health Minister Svandis Svavarsdottir said in announcing the move. The limits will officially end on Saturday.

U.S. Halts Shipments of Lilly Antibody Combo

U.S. health officials paused distribution of Eli Lilly & Co.’s combination antibody therapy because of fears it won’t combat two increasingly common coronavirus variants.

Resistance to the antibody treatment was detected among the gamma and beta variants of the virus, according to a statement from the Department of Health and Human Services. Medical providers should use other antibody treatments from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. and GlaxoSmithKline Plc instead, they said.

Lilly had developed the treatment consisting of two antibodies, called bamlanivimab and etesevimab, to safeguard against variants, and the government halt highlights growing concern about how mutated forms of the virus could undermine medical tools. The gamma and beta variants together make up more than 11% of sequenced U.S. cases, according to the statement.

Seychelles Extends Curbs Indefinitely

Seychelles extended curbs imposed on movement and gatherings indefinitely as the world’s most-vaccinated nation fights a persistently high number of infections.

The palm-fringed Indian Ocean archipelago has seen cases increase since early May even though 70% of its 98,000 people are fully vaccinated with either Sinopharm or AstraZeneca vaccines. It had rushed to conduct an inoculation campaign and reopen to tourism, the lifeblood of its economy.