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Fast-Spreading More-Infectious COVID-19 Mutant Strain Lands in USA
It was only a matter of time.
While governments dithered in the Low State of Suppression with ineffective, punitive and arbitrary policies instead of allowing or even encouraging faster spread among low-risk people over the summer months (when people are healthier and spend more time outdoors), the virus had time to mutate.
Now COVID is more infectious. Later, it might become much more deadly. Who knows?
WSJ: First U.S. Case of Fast-Spreading Coronavirus Strain Reported in Colorado
Colorado reported the first case in the U.S. of a fast-spreading variant of Covid-19 that was first detected in the United Kingdom and led to a widespread lockdown and travel restrictions there.
Health officials said the case was confirmed by a state lab and found in a man in his 20s in Elbert County who had no history of travel. The man had been placed into isolation and details of his case reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
...Scientists say the new variant might be as much as 70% more transmissible than more established strains, officials in the U.K. have said. Though it transmits more easily from person to person, there is no evidence it is any more deadly or resistant to vaccines, authorities have said.
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WIND: if that patient really hasn’t traveled and lives in a backwater town of Elbert County, then this new mutated COVID-2020 is already out in the wild and likely unstoppable.
Good luck with those leaky dumb-ass surgical masks, cotton masks and similar, which do not protect the wearer in any meaningful way.
Everyone should have been using a properly fitted N95 or N100 for self protection by now (especially indoors!). But on this point, the government has failed miserably, and some organizations actually prohibit masks that allow you to protect yourself (masks with valves, which leak less than the masks that are widely in use and filter much of the outgoing air).
WSJ: What We Know About the New Covid-19 Strain in England
Variant is believed to spread 70% faster than earlier versions of the virus.
Scientists are hurrying to understand why a new strain of the coronavirus that emerged in England in September appears to be spreading far more rapidly than earlier variants.
The early conclusion, according to British scientists, is that the virus has mutated to change the so-called spike protein on the surface of the virus, increasing the protein’s ability to cling onto and enter human cells. These changes allow the mutation, known as N501Y, to spread 70% faster than earlier versions of the virus, early analysis suggests.
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WIND:who would have thought it possible? Duh! Doh!
Another mutation could result in a much more deadly variant that is also more infectious.
