SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus (COVID-19)

One word: Thanksgiving

 

that's crazy compared to most states

 

Food and Drug Administration lists 22 potential adverse effects for the new COVID-19 vaccine.

On page 16 of https://www.fda.gov/media/143557/download

 

The LA Times is a great place to go if you want the most up-to-date CA stats and charts:

California coronavirus cases: Tracking the outbreak - Los Angeles Times

 

scary, and that's with nice weather in much of the state

our niece and her husband live in la. she teaches remotely, and they don't leave their yard

 

Since around Thanksgiving, winter temperatures have arrived (40-70ºF day range is cold for us weaklings, anyway) driving people indoors when they gather.

The biggest sin we committed was not against physical distancing or masks but using propane heaters in our backyard Thanksgiving evening to allow us to celebrate with one other small family of 2 and their dog.

 

that's what we do, why is that a problem?

 

This being PriusChat and most of us on some quest of efficiency, diminishing fossil fuels, etc. I'm just saying I think the Pope will give us a dispensation for this.

 

i hope so, we've got two propane heaters, a grille and a fire pit. on our eighth tank so far, and there's still a good 4 months to go

 

About half of those listed are states where the population density is really LOW so they may continue in a downward direction.
The others, however, may not be so lucky.

 

we now have to wait until the middle of january (except for california)

 

Both CDC measures I'm following have now exceeded 3,000,000 all-cause deaths this year. So far, with three or four more data weeks to go. We are easily on track to exceeding 3,200,000 for the full year.

That source, which plugs in estimates for recent death reports not yet processed, now shows 3,031,000 all-cause deaths through the week ending December 5. This number will be refined as estimates are replaced with solid reports. And will climb as later weeks become available.

The other report, which does not include estimates for recent death reports not yet processed, now shows 2,800,974 all-cause deaths since the pandemic began here, January 26 through December 12. Add in 213,600 deaths for January 1-25 (taken from that first report), and we have over 3,014,000 deaths reported year-to-date to Dec 12. And that number will only climb, every business day for weeks, as more death reports for that period are reported and processed.

That page now shows 377,000 excess deaths as of Dec 16.

 

For interest, here is some work using computational fluid dynamics to explore how viral droplets might disperse behind a walking person who coughs without a mask.

The wake of viral droplets behind such a person is quite interesting and reminds me of the airflow experiments around cars, hence my posting it here:



Looks like if you are a small person, it might not be a good idea to walk in line behind a tall person who is not wearing a mask, in case he/she coughs!

The paper is also interesting because they also modelled the differences in the distribution of viral droplets between walking in a confined corridor and walking in an open space. As expected, you can see that the cloud of droplets is much better dispersed in open space:

Confined 'corridor' at 5 seconds after cough:



Open space at 5 seconds after cough:


In this modelling, there appears to be less dispersal in narrower walking spaces and higher walking speeds. In a corridor about 6ft wide, the person needs to be walking slowly to allow dispersal to take place. At around 15ft wide, dispersal took place regardless of walking speed.

"This poses a great challenge on determining the safe distance for places with high space constraint, e.g., in a very narrow corridor, as a person may still inhale viral droplets even the patient is far in front of him/her."

There are also three useful references in this paper about mask wearing.

The original article with more details here:
https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0034874

 

what's up with this new strain in london?

 

Other than an initial statement from gov.uk, no details are released yet. New variant of coronavirus identified in England - BBC News I could not find scholarly papers or reports relating specifically to this variant called VUI 202012/01. Other than 17 sequence variation and putative changes in the "spike" protein, I am not sure how the reported "70% more infectious" characteristics of the variant is determined. I suspect it could be sheer speculation at this point.

Here is what is known about the variant from sequence analyses. Source: GISAID - UK reports new variant, termed VUI 202012/01

UK reports new variant, termed VUI 202012/01
The United Kingdom reported a new variant, termed VUI 202012/01 (Variant Under Investigation, year 2020, month 12, variant 01). It was defined by multiple spike protein mutations (deletion 69-70, deletion 144-145, N501Y, A570D, D614G, P681H, T716I, S982A, D1118H). There are currently 24,746 viruses from the UK in GISAID EpiCoV with a collection date since 1. November. A small fraction of them, about 6% (all from clade GR) share several of these mutations. Based on evaluation of effect on virus structure and function, the most relevant might be N501Y (orange in Figure; host receptor and antibody binding, also reported at gisaid.org/spike) and the deletions (cyan in Figure) in positions contributing to potential spike surface variation (Y145del is where some antibodies like neutralizing 4A8 bind).

The other mutations (blue in Figure) are further down the structure and their effect is less clear. There is also an early NS8 Q27stop codon in these strains which could be relevant as ORF8 deletions have been seen before for this virus (including in Singapore, notably resulting in attenuation). As seen on many occasions before, mutations are naturally expected for viruses and are most often simply neutral regional markers useful for contact tracing. The mutations seen have rarely been affecting viral fitness and almost never affect clinical outcome but the detailed effects of these mutations remain to be determined fully.

​

 

Still early days yet about this. Headline message from the authorities are:

1. It is ‘70% more infectious’ - no idea how that was measured.

2. Currently responsible for the recent sharp rise in infections in London and South-East England. This is the reason for the recently invented Tier 4 restrictions in these areas, that came into force last night.

3. No evidence that it causes more severe illness (but more infections may lead to more fatalities)

4. No evidence that it is resistant to the vaccines. And vaccine manufacturers have responded to say they can quickly adapt their vaccine production to adapt to these mutations.

 

I've lost a lot of friends this year. I just hope 2021 is better.

 

unfortunately, it is only a date on a calendar, but we're all hoping things will improve someday