Category: Coronavirus
Coronavirus News
Italy: Two cases of XJ recombinant confirmed in Reggio Calabria
“A new variant of Omicron, called XJ was isolated for the first time in Italy from a laboratory in Reggio Calabria. More...
BMJ: If we are no longer following the science, what are we following?
British ministers have now abandoned any pretence that they are “following the science” on Covid-19. More...
Up to one hundred times more super-spreaders with Omicron
“A much larger proportion of individuals infected with the new variants are high, very high or super-emitters of airborne viruses: for the original wild type, one in 1,000 infected was a super-emitter; for Delta one in 30; and for Omicron one in 20 or one in 10, depending on the viral load estimate used. More...
Canada: Ontario Risk Assessment for BA.2 to April 5, 2022
“Close monitoring of epidemiological trends since March 21, 2022 (date of mask mandate removal) suggests a corresponding temporal association with a subsequent increase in confirmed COVID-19 cases, percent positivity, and hospitalizations.” More...
WHO: 800 million Covid infections in Africa
Up to 65% of Africans have been infected by SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes COVID-19, a World Health Organization (WHO) analysis finds. More...
UK ONS: 2.7% of the British population reporting Long Covid symptoms
An estimated 1.7 million people living in private households in the UK (2.7% of the population) were experiencing self-reported long COVID as of 5 March 2022
The estimates presented in this analysis relate to self-reported long COVID, as experienced by study participants who responded to a representative survey, rather than clinically diagnosed ongoing symptomatic COVID-19 or post-COVID-19 syndrome in the full population. More...
France: XD Deltacron recombinant update
France has issued its latest epidemiological update which gives more details on the growth and characteristics of the XD Deltacron recombinant. More...
UK: XE growth rate now 12.6% higher than BA.2
“Earlier published growth rates for XE were not significantly different from BA.2, but using the most recent data up to 30 March 2022, XE has a growth rate 12.6% above that of BA.2. More...
China: 24,000 Covid cases reported in new pandemic high
China has reported 24,101 new Covid cases on 8th April 2022, with Shanghai accounting for more than 21,000 of those cases. More...
Preprint: L452R mutation increases Omicron variant fusogenicity and infectivity
Here, we developed an L452R mutated Omicron variant (Omicron-L452R) and found that the Omicron-L452R variant rescued fusogenicity and strengthened the high infectivity by enhancing the cleavage of the spike protein. More...