Category: Breaking News

South Korea on Wednesday confirmed more new cases of COVID-19 in a single day than it has seen so far during this pandemic. Making matters even more concerning, experts say the coming weeks could be even worse. This is the first time that the country has logged more than 2-thousand Covid-19 infections in a single 24-hour period.
South Korea on Wednesday reported 2,223 new Covid-19 infections. The greater Seoul area saw the highest number of local infections yet, with the local caseload at 1,405.Health authorities say the Delta variant is driving up cases, with clusters erupting in workplaces, indoor sports facilities, churches, and at care hospitals.
But the worst is yet to come.

Experts last month have already projected that at the virus’ current reproductive rate,.. the nation will see 2,5-hundred to 3-thousand new cases a day by late August.

Experts are also worried about the enormous strain this will put on healthcare services, saying a sudden rise could overwhelm medical staff and supplies. In that case, what can be done – that hasn’t already been attempted – to try and curb the spread. Health authorities say that in order to protect our lives and the economy, we first need to decrease the risk of infection by cutting down on travel and social gatherings. But we can’t only rely on social distancing to fix the problem. Vaccinations are of the utmost importance as well. “We need to do our best to protect the most vulnerable people and facilities by curbing the infection spread through prevention methods, and also by raising the vaccination rates.” There will be a boost in the supply of Pfizer’s vaccines today, with six million additional doses arriving.

OKYO -Japan’s top health adviser said on Thursday he would request stricter emergency measures for about two weeks to tackle a spike in COVID-19 cases in Tokyo and other areas.

Shigeru Omi told reporters the contagion should treated as a natural disaster and he called on the government to increase testing to find and contain the spread.

A few days after the end of the Tokyo Olympics, the capital reported 4,989 new daily cases on Thursday, down slightly from record 5,042 last week. The new number of patients with serious symptoms increased to an all-time daily high of 218. There has been no evidence that the Olympics https://www.usnews.com/news/top-news/articles/2021-08-07/olympics-tokyo-feared-games-would-spread-covid-numbers-suggest-that-didnt-happen directly increased case numbers in Japan, but health experts have warned that holding the Games could have encouraged people to relax infection controls. Japan is vaccinating more than 1 million people a day, but it still lags many major economies in inoculating its population. Tokyo is already under a state of emergency, the fourth so far in the pandemic, though some experts have said it should be expanded to cover the whole country. The western prefecture of Osaka reported a record 1,654 new cases on Thursday. Hospital beds are filling up rapidly, mainly with patients in their 40s and 50s, Omi said. To try to break the chain of infection, he said, authorities should try to reduce human mobility to about 50% of the average in July. His comments echoed those of a separate panel of experts who said on Thursday contagion in Tokyo had become uncontrollable.

“The number of new positive cases is rapidly increasing, making it impossible to control the situation,” Norio Ohmagari, a health adviser to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, told a panel chaired by Governor Yuriko Koike.

Koike urged residents to avoid travel and stay home to slow the transmission of COVID-19, which is causing hospitals to have to forego some standard medical care.

Alpha, beta, gamma, delta — there have been four COVID-19 variants of concern that have altered the course of the pandemic at different points in the past year and a half. First came the alpha variant, first detected in the United Kingdom, that was more transmissible and caused the surges behind the winter wave of the pandemic. The beta variant came next, triggering outbreaks in South Africa, along with gamma, the variant that took hold of Brazil in January. Now we have delta ― definitely more transmissible, potentially more virulent (though it’s hard to know for sure), and a huge problem for those who remain unvaccinated. Every day brings new concerning headlines about this variant or that mutation, which brings up the natural question: What’s next? To better understand what the next round of variants might look like, we need to take a look at what we’ve learned so far about how this coronavirus changes. Each time the virus infects a new cell, it starts to makes copies of itself — and as it copies, it makes random changes (known as mutations) all over the place. Most mutations aren’t useful and die out, but some can be tolerated and passed on, said Ben Neuman, chief virologist at Texas A&M University’s Global Health Research Complex. Coronaviruses are typically slow changers — they mutate, as any virus does, but they don’t evolve at an alarming rate.

What shocked scientists is the rate of evolution, or how quickly these variants of concern acquired new mutations, according to Nathan Grubaugh, an evolutionary virologist and associate professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health.

In general, the coronavirus acquires about one or two mutations a month. But the variants of concern have acquired many more mutations much more quickly. Alpha, for example, didn’t just acquire one or two mutations, it picked up 17. The leading hypothesis is that it took a prolonged infection ― probably in an immunocompromised person whose body had a tough time clearing out the virus ― to collect this many mutations so rapidly. From there, the virus spread to somebody else before taking off and shooting through entire communities. According to Grubaugh, the same sort of rapid increase in mutations was identified with the beta variant detected in South Africa and the gamma variant that popped up in Brazil. “This phenomenon that we’re watching, of these variants that arise very quickly, I think caught a lot of us off guard,” Grubaugh said. It’s impossible to predict exactly what future variants will look like, but it’s pretty undeniable that we are going to see new variants emerge. “We haven’t seen the end of variants and we certainly haven’t seen the end of variants that are more transmissible,” Grubaugh said. The development of new variants that rise to the level of concern is actually extremely rare. There have probably been hundreds of thousands of events where a host of new mutations have occurred, but those versions of the virus weren’t very fit so they died out before becoming a variant of concern. Just because the virus evolves, doesn’t mean it’s going to become a variant of concern.

https://youtu.be/bbYngJYy1GQ

• Shi Zhengli told Chinese state media that the virus will continue to mutate.
• The delta variant was first discovered in India and is now the dominant strain of COVID-19.
• Scientists are also monitoring the lambda variant, which is becoming a prominent strain in South America.

Mutant strain could lead to a return to tighter restrictions and lockdowns, while delivering another huge economic blow to the country

A new variant of Covid that kills one in three people is a “realistic possibility”, scientists have warned. A report by SAGE – the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies – says the future strain of coronavirus could be as deadly as MERS. MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) is caused by another type of coronavirus and kills 35 per cent of those it infects. It was first recorded in Saudi Arabia in 2012. And science advisors to the Government fear that a new version of the Covid-19 virus could be just as much of a threat. Mutations are most likely to occur when the virus is widespread – as it is currently in the UK. The emergence of such strains could lead to a return to tighter restrictions and lockdowns, while delivering another huge economic blow to the country, Scientists suggested the new strain could be resistant to vaccines if it evolved from the jab-resistant ‘South Africa’ Beta variant along with the more transmissible Alpha or Delta variants.

Dr Philippa Whitford, vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Coronavirus, urged those in charge to pay attention to the alarming report

“This report, which should have sent shock waves through the UK Government, was instead quietly snuck out among a glut of reports during parliamentary recess,” she told Mail Online. “Recommendations and comments made by SAGE bring home the simple reality — that we have not yet ‘defeated’ this virus.” In another report, scientists warned that the protection offered by vaccines against coronavirus infection and potentially severe disease is likely to diminish over time. As a result, vaccine campaigns will have to continue for years to come.

The document, titled “How long will vaccines continue to protect against COVID?”, was written by prominent virologists and epidemiologists from Imperial College London, University of Birmingham and Public Health England.

Britain has approved and is using three vaccines – Oxford-AstraZeneca, Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna – in a programme that started in December 2020. Data shows that these vaccines protect with 95 per cent or greater effectiveness against the Alpha variant that dominated in Britain in early 2021, the scientists said, although the ability of the shots to protect against infection and onward transmission was lower. They said it vaccines could remain effective against severe disease but effectiveness against mild disease and infection could fall off over time. Anecdotal reports from Britain and Israel, which rolled out a comprehensive early campaign, supported that concept, they said. France, Israel. Germany and Great Britain will begin offering a third shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to people aged over 60, a world-first in efforts to slow the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant.

https://youtu.be/JcMTI-0gFhs

London’s FTSE 100 slipped on Tuesday as fears over a spike in global COVID-19 cases dented optimism about strong corporate earnings, while Flutter Entertainment jumped after saying it expected its U.S. business to turn a profit by 2023. The blue-chip FTSE 100 inched 0.1% lower as gains in travel and leisure stocks were outweighed by weakness in heavyweight banks, which tracked benchmark bond yields lower. Travel stocks have gained nearly 12% since the UK eased lockdown restrictions on July 19. The industry has been among the top sectoral performers this month on optimism travel demand would pick up pace, but still underperforms the mid-cap and blue-chip indexes. “The outlook for travel and leisure stocks is kind of mixed at the moment, with most shares clocking gains but still being off their highs due to rising uncertainties regarding the Delta variant,” said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets. The domestically focussed mid-cap index climbed 0.3% with sports goods retailer Frasers being the top gainer, as surveys showed sporting events and the summer holidays prompted a big increase in British consumer spending in July. The FTSE 100 has gained 10.4% so far this year on re-opening optimism and record-low interest rates, but a recent jump in global coronavirus infections and rising inflation have spurred worries that central banks could pull back support sooner than expected. Among stocks, British insurer and asset manager M&G dropped 1.4% to the bottom of the FTSE 100 even after it posted an above-forecast 6% rise in first-half operating profit and said it was on track to meet its end-2022 capital generation target.

(Reuters) – A U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advisory panel will meet on Friday to discuss considerations for booster doses of COVID-19 vaccines, as the United States deals with increasing cases from the Delta variant of the coronavirus. The meeting of CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will also discuss updates on additional doses in immune compromised individuals.Lat month, top U.S. infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci said Americans who are immune compromised may end up needing COVID-19 vaccine booster shots.