Coronavirus - International stories and thoughts

Covid: Nations impose UK travel bans over new variant - BBC News

Ireland, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium are all halting flights. The measures vary and are initially short-term but the French rules also affect Channel freight.

An EU meeting on Monday morning will discuss a more co-ordinated response.

The new variant has spread quickly in London and south-east England.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Saturday introduced a new tier four level of restrictions for those areas, scrapping a planned relaxation of rules over the Christmas period for millions of people.

 

Food supplies from EU now in jeopardy.

From Brexit to the pandemic, Boris Johnson has led UK into an abyss of overlapping crises -- analysis - CNN

Industry groups say they are confident of food supplies in the final days before Christmas but warned of major disruption if the freight situation is not resolved. Sainsbury's, one of the country's leading supermarket chains, said if nothing changes the UK will start to see gaps on lettuce, some salad leaves, cauliflowers, broccoli and citrus fruit -- all of which are imported from European countries at this time of year.

 

South African variant has reports of making children much sicker

Two cases of 'highly concerning' South Africa virus variant detected in UK (telegraph.co.uk)

Two cases of a “highly concerning” new coronavirus variant first identified in South Africa have been detected in the UK, triggering stringent new quarantine restrictions on anyone arriving from the rainbow nation.

The variant, known as 501.V2, “is yet more transmissible” than the strain wreaking havoc in Britain, according to the health secretary Matt Hancock.

In South Africa 501.V2 has been blamed for a rapid resurgence in infections, with some experts estimating that it makes up between 80 and 90 per cent of new cases. There are also growing fears that it may be spreading more rapidly in younger populations.

“The new 501.V2 variant has troubling details: it seems to spread faster, has a higher viral load and [is] possibly more severe among young adults,” said Dr Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist and senior fellow at the Federation American of Scientists.

 

is there a biology for dummies summary of this somewhere?

 

India tells Trump, hold my beer with the other half of your Moderna.

Approves vaccine with no published data. smdh

Covaxin: Concern over 'rushed' approval for India Covid jab - BBC News

It said that there were "intense concerns arising from the absence of the efficacy data" as well a lack of transparency that would "raise more questions than answers and likely will not reinforce faith in our scientific decision making bodies".

The statement came after India's Drugs Controller General, VG Somani, insisted Covaxin was "safe and provides a robust immune response". He added the vaccines had been approved for restricted use in "public interest as an abundant precaution, in clinical trial mode, to have more options for vaccinations, especially in case of infection by mutant strains".

The All India Drug Action Network, however, said it was "baffled to understand the scientific logic" to approve "an incompletely studied vaccine".

One of India's most eminent medical experts, Dr Gagandeep Kang, told the Times of India newspaper that she had "not seen anything like this before". She added that "there is absolutely no efficacy data that has been presented or published".

 

This is n Britain. Has anybody confirmed their numbers or ran similar numbers on any school district in the US? You would think this would be national news if true

 

there is data about school employee infection rates in Britain. He posted some data about school employees infected here in Florida. Seems related

 

589 employees out of how many? how does that compare to rest of county?