Category: UK
UK: 5% of children hospitalized with Covid-19 develop brain or nerve complications
A new UK study has found that around 1 in 20 of children hospitalised with COVID-19 develop brain or nerve complications linked to the viral infection. The research, published in The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health and led by the University of Liverpool, identifies a wide spectrum of neurological complications in children and suggests they may be more common than in adults admitted with COVID-19.
Image by Engin Akyurt from Pixabay
UK: Is Delta already making way for a fitter variant?
One thing that we have been keeping on eye on recently is the possible successor variant to Delta B.1.617.2 in the UK. The Alpha B.1.1.7 variant had a shelf life of about 5 months before it was displaced by Delta. Will Delta have a similar shelf life?
Delta seems to have been on the wane in the UK over the couple of weeks, so is it already making way for a stronger, fitter variant? If it is, it won’t be long before that successor variant becomes apparent, and the removal of all Covid mitigations on UK “Freedom Day” has given it plenty of opportunity to spread quickly.
Below, Alpha had a shelf life of about 5 months in the UK. Delta already seems to be waning. What will take its place?
Below, Delta may have peaked worldwide, but there is no clear successor variant yet.
Below, It doesn’t look like the successor variant will be Delta AY.3 in the UK from this chart, but it’s too early to tell….
Below, Delta peaked in early May 2021 in India, but hasn’t immediately been followed by another stronger variant. The next variant could be waiting for a fall in the population’s antibody levels from the Delta wave which could take 3-6 months, creating an opportunity from August 2021 onwards. The shelf life for Delta in India, in a largely unvaccinated population, was just three months.
The problem for the UK government, though, is that by dropping all mitigations on 19th July 2021, they may have encouraged Delta to peak early and, as a consequence, left enough time for a second larger, and perhaps far worse, autumn or winter wave to form.
As we said in this post in on 16th July:
“According to the UK’s Chief Medical Officer, the idea is that a Covid-19 wave in the summer will prevent an even worse wave in the winter. Our prediction is that Johnson will simply get two waves for the price of one – the wave he is promoting now, by removing all mitigations, and an even worse winter wave caused by yet another new variant.”
UK SAGE Bombshell Report: The Long Term Evolution of Sars-CoV-2
Scenario One: A variant that causes severe disease in a greater proportion of the population than has occurred to date. Scenario Two: A variant that evades current vaccines. Scenario Three: Emergence of a drug resistant variant after anti-viral strategies. Scenario Four: SARS-CoV-2 follows an evolutionary trajectory with decreased virulence.
Scenario One: A variant that causes severe disease in a greater proportion of the population than has occurred to date. For example, with similar morbidity/mortality to other zoonotic coronaviruses such as SARS-CoV (~10% case fatality) or MERS-CoV (~35% case fatality).
Likelihood of increased severity phenotype: Realistic possibility.
Scenario Two: A variant that evades current vaccines. This could be caused by: Antigenic ‘shift’: Natural recombination events that insert a different spike gene sequence (or partial sequence) from human CoVs MERS-CoV (highly unlikely due to the low frequency of MERS-CoV infections), or from currently circulating endemic human CoVs (more likely due to the prevalence of these viruses). This would recombine into the ‘body’ of SARS-CoV-2 that is capable of high replication in human cells. The consequence could be a virus that causes disease at a level similar to COVID-19 when it first emerged but against which our current battery of spike glycoprotein-based vaccines would not work.
Likelihood: Realistic possibility.
Scenario Three: Emergence of a drug resistant variant after anti-viral strategies. This could be caused by: Emergence of new variants following the administration of directly acting antiviral therapies. As we begin to use directly acting antiviral drugs it is highly likely a variant will be selected that had resistance to individual agents. For example, drugs that target the viral 3C protease, drugs that target the polymerase, monoclonal antibodies that target the spike glycoprotein. If the drugs are used as a mono therapy, then resistant variants have a high probability of emerging. This may render all drugs in that category unusable.
Likelihood: Likely – unless the drugs are used correctly.
Scenario Four: SARS-CoV-2 follows an evolutionary trajectory with decreased virulence. This could be caused by: Variants arising with increased transmissibility but decreased pathogenesis/virulence as the virus becomes fully adapted to the human host becoming an endemic infection. Coupled with the likelihood of eventual high populations immunity the infection produces less disease. In other words, this virus will become like other human CoV that causes common colds, but with much less severe disease predominantly in the old or clinically vulnerable.
Likelihood: Unlikely in the short term, realistic possibility in the long term.
Download the entire report here
So what is Plan B if the vaccines fail with a new #coronavirus super-variant?
UK: active Covid-19 cases are still rising sharply according to Zoe app
The UK government have been trumpeting lower daily Covid-19 infection numbers on their dedicated coronavirus portal (below) for a week, but the UK Covid-19 app Zoe is showing that the number of active cases is still rising sharply. The number of patients being admitted to hospitals for Covid-19 is still above 800 a day, and deaths are nearly 100 a day.
UK Government Coronavirus website
England: Care home Covid-19 deaths double in a fortnight
Latest Care Home (CH) COVID death data (to last Friday) unfortunately shows a significant increase (doubled in a fortnight) after several low weeks.
This is a population that is ~99% fully vax'd, although staff are only around 77% fully vax'd.
— John Roberts (@john_actuary) July 27, 2021
Please check your care home lockdown plans now, this could escalate quite quickly.
Portugal: coronavirus infection rates rising fastest amongst the 80+ age group
Kirsty Allsopp: We have to learn to live with Covid
The number of people who, very clearly, do not want this drop in the number of Covid cases to be true is quite staggering. What is wrong with people? Is that they like the control/the drama/the restrictions and know that they will lose all this as we learn to live with Covid?
— Kirstie Allsopp (@KirstieMAllsopp) July 26, 2021
Learn to live with Covid?
- Over 4 million dead in 18 months
- Nearly 200 million infections
- 5%, 10% or even 30% of Covid-19 infections become Long Covid cases – that’s between 10 million and 60 million Long Covid cases so far
- An estimated 1,134,000 children experienced the death of primary caregivers from Covid-19, including at least one parent or custodial grandparent.
- Vaccine breakthrough cases already account for more than 50% of new Covid-19 infections in some countries
We’ll be adding more reasons why it’s impossible to learn to live with Covid here as more and more people become fascinated by this glib solution to a raging pandemic.
#learntolivewithcovidindeed
Israel: We have to learn to live with Covid
“We all need to change our thinking and draw a road map for living with Covid,” says Dr. Manfred Green. We disagree, and we will be explaining why we disagree in a post later.
Editors note: This report comes just 48 hours after our warning that Boris Johnson’s government was proposing to his countrymen that they should also “learn to live with Covid” (see original post below).
Have you ever wondered what happens when you search for “We have to learn to live with Ebola”? Try it.
It’s an idea so insane that only one person in recorded history has actually written it down.
UK Health Minister accuses 150,000 dead Britons of “cowering” from coronavirus
An utterly contemptible message from UK’s Health Minister today, dismissing as cowards the 150,000 people who have lost their lives to Covid-19 in Britain and taunting tens of millions who were ORDERED TO STAY AT HOME by HIS GOVERNMENT.
Loose talk costs lives, and this crass comment will certainly cost many more lives to the virus in future.
Full recovery from Covid a week after testing positive.
Symptoms were very mild, thanks to amazing vaccines.
Please – if you haven’t yet – get your jab, as we learn to live with, rather than cower from, this virus. https://t.co/OmuaUGp173
— Sajid Javid (@sajidjavid) July 24, 2021
We have to learn to live with Covid.
“Learning to live with Covid” will be coming to your country soon. Be prepared.
Boris Johnson tells Britons to “learn to live with Covid”
UK: Third Covid-19 wave is the worst yet
The peak of the second Alpha wave was the 9th January 2021. Interactive maps produced by the UK government show infections in the third Delta wave are clearly worse than the peak of the second wave despite the “wall of protection” supposedly offered by the vaccines.
The official Covid-19 figures, the hospitalizations and the deaths have yet to catch up with what is happening on the ground.
UK: ONS estimates over 800,000 had Covid-19 this week
The latest ONS survey of UK Covid-19 infection has confirmed our suspicion that the Covid-19 epidemic has spiralled out of control in Britain, with more than 800,000 estimated to have been infected in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland last week.
England: 741,700estimated
Scotland: 65,100
Wales: 14,400
Northern Ireland: 10,900
Total: 832,100
UK: No wonder the app is pinging – around 1 million people currently have Covid-19 in Britain
UK: world-beaters in Covid-19 infection rates and hospitalisations
Yet more pictures that say a thousand words about the UK’s abysmal response to Covid-19. This is not government in any recognizable sense, this is cold, calculated, mass murder through neglect.
UK: No wonder the app is pinging – around 1 million people currently have Covid-19 in Britain
UK: No wonder the app is pinging – around 1 million people currently have Covid-19 in Britain
The ZOE UK Covid-19 app is showing that nearly ¾ of a million people currently have symptomatic Covid-19. Around 30% of Covid-19 cases tend to be asymptomatic, which means the total number of people with the virus in Britain could be around 1 million at present. No wonder the app is pinging!
On the 22nd July 2021, the UK Zoe Covid-19 app is showing new daily cases in Britain at more than 60,000 a day, whereas the official UK.gov website is showing new daily cases at less than 40,000…..
UK: Covid-19 study shows 40% vaccine breakthrough after changing its methodology
The UK Zoe Covid-19 study has changed its methodology for counting new Covid-19 cases and vaccine breakthroughs, possibly following the reaction to this article last week which showed vaccine breakthroughs in the UK at nearly 50%.
The new Zoe methodology shows that vaccine breakthroughs are now at 40% of new Covid-19 cases – see the chart at the top of this post. The chart also shows that there are now more Covid-19 cases in the fully vaccinated than in the partially vaccinated.
Meanwhile, the Zoe study have said that they will stop counting new unvaccinated Covid-19 cases soon as “the numbers of unvaccinated people of all age groups are so low“.
“As you see in the graph below, when we overlay our previous estimate (red line) and new adjusted estimate (orange line) in a single graph, we can see our updated methods align more closely to trends observed in government confirmed cases (blue line)”
Embarrassing.
CDC: The Covid-19 report that changed the CDC’s view on facemasks