There’s a new strain of Covid-19 that is allegedly more contagious than the other strains and it is causing utter chaos in the UK and Europe tonight:
EU source tells me they just don't know how serious this new strain is, but for the moment they have to take the British prime minister at his word that it is dangerous enough to ban all travel from the UK.
— Dave Keating (@DaveKeating) December 20, 2020
With Christmas canceled in the UK because of it, European nations have begun to close their borders just in case:
Right now there is confusion in Europe about whether this new variant in the UK cited by Johnson as the reason for cancelling Christmas is actually a significant danger, or being used as political cover to reverse course on the UK's planned Christmas lockdown easing. https://t.co/1PfLBet17D
— Dave Keating (@DaveKeating) December 20, 2020
Let’s just say it’s a bit chaotic:
Just landed at Berlin airport on last flight from UK. Federal police triaging between German citizens and the rest of us. Curious to see what happens next as we're held at passport control.
— Tom Nuttall (@tom_nuttall) December 20, 2020
There’s a new strain of Covid-19 that’s highly contagious and let’s see if we can get as many people as possible infected with it?
Held in close quarters with no possibility to social distance. Some already complaining to police.
— Tom Nuttall (@tom_nuttall) December 20, 2020
Canada has banned flight from the UK as well:
Canada bans flights from Britain to block new strain of virushttps://t.co/e0rO6KOGPw pic.twitter.com/erO5iqe1zj
— The Washington Times (@WashTimes) December 21, 2020
Tick-tock, America. Are we going to make this mistake again?
Why haven’t we done this yet? #1 lesson on travel bans from the last year is “don’t wait” https://t.co/BHmX5EVXfy
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) December 21, 2020
Gov. Cuomo is warning about the danger this new strain coming to America (chances have to be high that it’s here already since it was spreading in the UK since at least September):
Gov. Cuomo: UK's COVID-19 mutation 'is on a plane to JFK' without testing https://t.co/iACD3xJ9lK pic.twitter.com/KpOlktRdjH
— New York Post (@nypost) December 20, 2020
And here’s a good thread from the NYT’s Apoorva Mandavilli — the same journo behind their report that busted PCR testing — on just “how scary is this new variant.”
NEW: The British dampened some vaccine joy yesterday with news of a possibly hyper-transmissible variant. How scary is this new variant?
Bottomline: Scientists should watch and worry, yes, but the rest of us need not panic. 1/xhttps://t.co/zFul84KhhA
— Apoorva Mandavilli (@apoorva_nyc) December 20, 2020
The new variant has 23 mutations. Some are also in the new South African variant, and others were in the Danish mink and more importantly, showed up in an immunocompromised person, decreasing response to convalescent plasma. 2/x
— Apoorva Mandavilli (@apoorva_nyc) December 20, 2020
The big worry, of course, is that the virus will mutate to become resistant to the vaccines. But for that to happen, it will likely take years and many more mutations, multiple experts told me 3/x
— Apoorva Mandavilli (@apoorva_nyc) December 20, 2020
In the meantime, is this variant more transmissible? Maybe. Some of the mutations are in the spike and might allow the virus to infect cells more efficiently. But the data could also be explained by behavioral changes in the population 4/x
— Apoorva Mandavilli (@apoorva_nyc) December 20, 2020
Viruses mutate by random all the time, and this coronavirus is turning out to mutate more often than we thought. Some of these are going to turn out to be beneficial. Scientists are (and should continue to) tracking the changes carefully 5/x
— Apoorva Mandavilli (@apoorva_nyc) December 20, 2020
This is a super complicated topic, and I am grateful to the many scientists who took the time to walk me through it all. Please read the story for full details. 6/6
feat. @jbloom_lab @mugecevik @GuptaR_lab @dgurdasani1 @ChandranLab @firefoxx66 @trvrb https://t.co/zFul84KhhA
— Apoorva Mandavilli (@apoorva_nyc) December 20, 2020
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