• IHU: New Covid variant with 46 mutations worries experts in France

    From slider@1:229/2 to All on Tuesday, January 04, 2022 14:04:46
    From: slider@anashram.com

    While the world is grappling with the highly infectious Omicron, strain of Covid, scientists in France have identified a potentially worrying new
    variant, which has 46 mutations.

    Named IHU, the new B.1.640.2 variant has so far infected 12 people living
    in southeastern France. The first case was linked to a person with a
    travel history to Cameroon, western Africa, said researchers in a paper published on medRxiv.

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/france-new-covid-variant-mutations-b1986241.html

    However, experts were quick to announce that just because a new variant
    had been discovered, that did not necessarily mean IHU will prove as
    infectious as other strains, including Omicron.

    In the analysis, the authors found “46 mutations” which had not been spotted in other countries, nor labelled a variant under investigation by
    the WHO.

    The genomes were obtained by next-generation sequencing. The authors of
    the paper claimed that the person who was idenitifed with the IHU variant,
    was fully-vaccinated. The person tested positive for covid after returning
    from a three-day trip to Cameroon.

    The authors of the research paper said "subsequent detection... of three mutations in the spike gene to screen for variants... did not correspond
    to the pattern of the Delta variant involved in almost all SARS-CoV-2 infections at that time”.

    Arguing that the emergence of the new variant emphasised the importance of “genomic surveillance”, the authors said their observations once again showed the “unpredictability of the emergence of new SARS-CoV-2 variants”.

    In a long Twitter thread, epidemiologist and a fellow at Federation of
    American Scientists, Eric Feigl-Ding said the new variant was being
    monitored to evaluate how infectious or dangerous it could prove to be.

    “There are scores of new variants discovered all the time, but it does not necessarily mean they will be more dangerous.

    “What makes a variant more well-known and dangerous is its ability to multiply because of the number of mutations it has in relation to the
    original virus.”

    He added: “This is when it becomes a ‘variant of concern’ - like Omicron, which is more contagious and more past immunity evasive. It remains to be
    seen in which category this new variant will fall.”

    ### - ahh no... not another one!?

    so AFTER the omicron ride we gots the IHU ride to look forward to now??

    LOL ! this is rapidly turning into the theme-park from hell haha :)))

    can our wallyworld even sustain such continuous blows without it all... collapsing!?

    maybe not, in which case perhaps a complete 'redesign' of it is also in
    the wind huh...

    wallyworld 2.0 haha :))))

    (which couldn't be much worse than 1.0 was huh)

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)