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Science

Covid Variant From India Triggers WHO Concern Over Fast Spread (bloomberg.com) 56

Posted by msmash from the growing-concern dept.
A fast-spreading strain of Covid-19 first identified in India, the scene of one of the world's most fearsome outbreaks, will be classified as a variant of concern by the World Health Organization. From a report: The global health group will publish a detailed report Tuesday on the variant, called B.1.617, said Maria van Kerkhove, the WHO's technical lead officer on Covid-19. "There is some available information to suggest increased transmissibility," she said at a media briefing on Monday. A study of a limited number of patients that has not undergone peer review also suggested that the mutant can evade some key antibodies, she said. "As such, we're classifying this as a variant of concern at the global level." India's health system has been stretched to the breaking point by a virus wave that's proving highly lethal and difficult to control. The country has reported more than 300,000 new virus infections for the past 19 days straight. Fearing an influx of infections and mindful of the new variant, countries including Singapore, the U.K. and Tanzania have curbed travel to and from India.
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Covid Variant From India Triggers WHO Concern Over Fast Spread More

Covid Variant From India Triggers WHO Concern Over Fast Spread

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  • \methinks we're not out of the woods yet. I don't expect human extinction, or even the end of civilization, but I suspect a *lot* more people are going to suffer/die before COVID achieves No Big Deal status.

  • Bodies are washing up (Score:5, Interesting)

    by smooth wombat ( 796938 ) on Monday May 10, 2021 @02:21PM (#61370060) Journal
    At least 40 bodies have washed up [bbc.com] on the shores of the Ganges in the northern part of India. Some reports claim up to 100 bodies, so far, have been found. Local reports are saying these are people who died from covid due to their condition being partially burnt.

    We know India is deliberately not reporting [theguardian.com] the true number of covid deaths. This new variant could be one of the reasons why. It's more highly infectous and more deadly once caught. Not a good thing to have in a country of over 1 billion people with a healthcare system about to collapse.

    • Re:Bodies are washing up (Score:5, Insightful)

      by nehumanuscrede ( 624750 ) on Monday May 10, 2021 @04:02PM (#61370448)

      This is puzzling to me.

      This is no longer a single country sized problem. It has been a global level one for some time now so I'm curious
      why some countries think trying to suppress any data at this point is beneficial to anyone in any way, shape or form.

      What, I ask, is to be gained from suppressing the number of reported cases and / or deaths attributed to the virus at this point ?

      Well. . . . now that I think about it, I can probably guess the answer.

      The various Governments around the world are terrified of being seen as incompetent or incapable of handling such a crisis both
      in the eyes of their own people and those of the other Governments world-wide. All of them want to project an image of how awesome
      they are and that just doesn't happen when your people are dying in droves.

      So, in the end, Self-Image trumps everything. Even if it means millions more may die because of it.

      Awesome. More reasons for an Asteroid to reset this place and let another species become the dominant one. . . . . . .

      • Re:Bodies are washing up (Score:4, Insightful)

        by luis_a_espinal ( 1810296 ) on Monday May 10, 2021 @06:50PM (#61371108)

        This is no longer a single country sized problem. It has been a global level one for some time now so I'm curious why some countries think trying to suppress any data at this point is beneficial to anyone in any way, shape or form.

        Politicians that get to power through populism are counting on their political survival post-covid. And thus they create these lies, these alternative realities that pander to theri dumb bases.

        Right wing or left wing, it does not matter. The modus operandi is always the same.

        Whether is Trump in the USA, Bolsonaro in Brazil, Ortega in Nicaragua or Modi in India, it is the same. The situation is out of control, so they just pretend it is not as bad while calculating how to create political capital out of it.

        It is one of the oldest games. These rulers aren't hiding the information from the outside world. They are creating an alternative narrative to be consumed by their own bases, a truly "ends justifies the means" kind of situation.

    • Guardian is hogwash if you want to read about India. It is a British magazine that is admittedly left and has always skirts around criticizing the leftist government that ruled India for 50 years. Sure the government is misreporting numbers - but India never had any infrastructure to report correct numbers anyway.

      First of all, the only people who are getting tested are people who have to feel sick, so no reporting of asymptomatic cases.

      Then the tests are being done for free in public hospitals while private

  • The Indian Vaccine Covaxin has already proven efficacy against this variant and efforts are ongoing to bring the vaccine to the US.
    https://www.biospace.com/artic... [biospace.com]

    .

  • Clearly they've never been to India then. It's a ticking time bomb of biological spread. The sanitation there and population density makes China looks like Japan. For decades they've been saying India was the most likely to be problematic zone #1 for a pandemic.

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