The highly infectious COVID-19 coronavirus variant that has been circulating in Britain is linked to higher loads of the virus in the blood, according to a research report published on medRxiv on Sunday ahead of peer review. Around 35% of patients infected by the variant form had very high levels of the virus in their samples, compared to 10% of patients without the variant, study leader Michael Kidd of Public Health England and Birmingham University told Reuters. Higher viral loads have been linked with worse COVID-19 outcomes. The tests were conducted at the Birmingham Turnkey Lab. Kidd said additional study was needed to confirm or refute the findings. If confirmed, he hopes scientists will investigate how this particular variant manages to make more copies of itself in infected patients. A specific form of a protein passed down from Neanderthals protects against severe COVID-19, and medications that boost levels of this protein could potentially help treat the disease, according to a study reported on medRxiv on Thursday ahead of peer review. The protein, called OAS1, is involved in the body’s response to viruses. People with higher levels of the Neanderthal-related form of OAS1 are less susceptible to COVID-19, and if they do become infected, they are at lower risk for hospitalization, intubation and death, the researchers found. “This protective form of OAS1 is present in sub-Saharan Africans but was lost when the ancestors of modern-day Europeans migrated out of Africa. It was then re-introduced into the European population through mating with Neanderthals” who lived more than 40,000 years ago, said coauthor Brent Richards from the Jewish General Hospital and McGill University in Montreal. An earlier study linked a cluster of genes inherited from Neanderthals to higher risks of hospitalization from COVID-19. “These findings further implicate Neanderthal ancestry in COVID-19 severity,” Richards said. The speed of patients’ antibody production – rather than the volume of antibodies they produce to fight the new coronavirus – determines whether they will survive COVID-19, new data suggest. Researchers who studied more than 200 COVID-19 patients, including 179 who were hospitalized, found those who produced so-called neutralizing antibodies within 14 days of developing symptoms eventually recovered, while those who did not produce neutralizing antibodies until more than 14 days had elapsed developed higher viral loads and more severe disease. “It is unclear why antibodies generated after this time point are unable to promote viral clearance and recovery in COVID-19 patients,” the researchers said in a report posted on medRxiv ahead of peer review. Study leader Akiko Iwasaki of the Yale University School of Medicine tweeted on Saturday, “It’s possible that virus somehow becomes resistant by hiding in inaccessible tissues.” The new findings, she added, suggest therapy with so-called monoclonal antibody drugs – such as those from Regeneron given to U.S. President Donald Trump — is likely to work only if used soon after infection.
UK and South Africa new viral variant
Trump signs massive measure funding government, COVID relief
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump signed a $900 billion pandemic relief package Sunday, ending days of drama over his refusal to accept the bipartisan deal that will deliver long-sought cash to businesses and individuals and avert a federal government shutdown. The massive bill includes $1.4 trillion to fund government agencies through September and contains other end-of-session priorities such as an increase in food stamp benefits. The signing, at his private club in Florida, came amid escalating criticism over his eleventh-hour demands for larger, $2,000 relief checks and scaled-back spending even though the bill had already passed the House and Senate by wide margins. The bill was passed with what lawmakers had thought was Trump’s blessing, and after months of negotiations with his administration. His foot-dragging resulted in a lapse in unemployment benefits for millions struggling to make ends meet and threatened a government shutdown in the midst of a pandemic.. But signing the bill into law prevents another crisis of Trump’s own creation and ends a standoff with his own party during the final days of his administration. It was unclear what, if anything, Trump accomplished with his delay, beyond angering all sides and empowering Democrats to continue their push for higher relief checks, which his own party opposes.
In his statement, Trump repeated his frustrations with the COVID-19 relief bill for providing only $600 checks to most Americans instead of the $2,000 that his fellow Republicans already rejected. He also complained about what he considered unnecessary spending by the government at large.
“I will sign the Omnibus and Covid package with a strong message that makes clear to Congress that wasteful items need to be removed,” Trump said in the statement. While the president insisted he would send Congress “a redlined version” with items to be removed under the rescission process, those are merely suggestions to Congress. The bill, as signed, would not necessarily be changed. Democrats, who have the majority in the House, immediately vowed to prevent any cuts. Democrats “will reject any rescissions” submitted by the president, said Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey, D-N.Y. , in a statement. Lawmakers now have breathing room to continue debating whether the relief checks should be as large as the president has demanded. The Democratic-led House supports the larger checks and is set to vote on the issue Monday, but it’s expected to be ignored by the Republican-held Senate where spending faces opposition. For now, the administration can only begin work sending out the $600 payments. Republicans and Democrats swiftly welcomed Trump’s decision to sign the bill into law.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he would offer Trump’s proposal for $2,000 checks for a vote in Senate — putting Republicans on the spot.
“The House will pass a bill to give Americans $2,000 checks. Then I will move to pass it in the Senate,” Schumer tweeted. “No Democrats will object. Will Senate Republicans?” Democrats are promising more aid to come once President-elect Joe Biden takes office, but Republicans are signaling a wait-and-see approach.
Congress will push ahead Monday, with the House expected to vote to override Trump’s veto of an annual must-pass Defense bill, confronting the president on another big issue in the final days of the session. The Senate is expected to follow on Tuesday.
In the face of growing economic hardship, spreading disease and a looming shutdown, lawmakers spent Sunday urging Trump to sign the legislation immediately, then have Congress follow up with additional aid. Aside from unemployment benefits and relief payments to families, money for vaccine distribution, businesses and more was on the line. Protections against evictions also hung in the balance. “What the president is doing right now is unbelievably cruel,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. “So many people are hurting. … It is really insane and this president has got to finally … do the right thing for the American people and stop worrying about his ego.” Republican Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania said he understood that Trump “wants to be remembered for advocating for big checks, but the danger is he’ll be remembered for chaos and misery and erratic behavior if he allows this to expire.” Toomey added: “So I think the best thing to do, as I said, sign this and then make the case for subsequent legislation.”
The drug that gives ‘instant immunity’ to coronavirus
UK trials new antibody therapy that can stop people who have been exposed to COVID becoming ill and it could save MILLIONS of lives across the globe
https://youtu.be/I86AkjZo1xI
- Drug would offer immediate and long-term protection to patients when it would be too late to offer a vaccine
- It could be given as an emergency treatment to hospital inpatients, care home residents and university students to help reduce the spread of the virus
- Scientists from the University College London Hospitals NHS (UCLH) have injected ten people with the drug
A new antibody treatment with the potential to give people instant immunity after being exposed to Covid-19 and prevent illness is being trialled by scientists in the UK. The drug would offer immediate and long-term protection to patients when it would be too late to offer a vaccine, potentially saving thousands of lives. It could be given as an emergency treatment to hospital inpatients, care home residents and university students to help reduce the spread of the virus. People who live with someone has caught COVID or been exposed to them could be injected with the drug to stop them becoming infected, even if they have not had a coronavirus vaccine. British scientists from the University College London Hospitals NHS (UCLH) have already injected ten people with the drug as part of the new trial called Storm Chaser, with an aim to trial the new treatment on 1,125 people globally. The participants received two consecutive doses of the drug. They hope the treatment would provide protection from Covid-19 for between six months to a year. A new antibody treatment with the potential to give people instant immunity after being exposed to Covid-19 and prevent illness is being trialled by scientists in the UK. Pictured above a patient at a hospital in Houston, Texas Scientists from the UCLH have also begun a second clinical trial named Provent, to examine the use of the antibody for people who may not benefit from vaccines, such as patients with a compromised immune system, or those at increased risk of Covid-19 infection due to factors such as age and existing conditions. UCLH injected the ten people – including medical staff and university students – as part of the Storm Chaser trial at its new vaccine research centre after the study entered phase three trials on December 2. Key groups of the trial include healthcare workers, students who live in shared accommodation and patients who have been recently exposed to anyone with Covid-19, as well as those in long-term care, the military and industry staff such as factory workers. In the first trial, the antibody, known as AZD7442, has been developed by pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, which has also created a vaccine with Oxford University that is awaiting approval for use by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). UCLH virologist Dr Catherine Houlihan, who is leading the Storm Chaser trial, said: ‘We know that this antibody combination can neutralise the virus, so we hope to find that giving this treatment via injection can lead to immediate protection against the development of Covid-19 in people who have been exposed – when it would be too late to offer a vaccine.’ Dr Houlihan said the treatment would be an ‘exciting addition’ to the efforts being tested and developed to fight corovavirus, reports The Guardian. ‘If we can prove that this treatment works and prevent people who are exposed to the virus going on to develop Covid-19, it would be an exciting addition to the arsenal of weapons being developed to fight this dreadful virus,’ she said.
UCLH infectious diseases consultant Dr Nicky Longley, who is leading the university’s portion of Provent, said: ‘We want to reassure anyone for whom a vaccine may not work that we can offer an alternative which is just as protective.’
Paul Hunter, a professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia and an expert in infectious diseases, said the new treatment in the Storm Chaser trial could save thousands of lives.
‘If you are dealing with outbreaks in settings such as care homes, or if you have got patients who are particularly at risk of getting severe Covid, such as the elderly, then this could well save a lot of lives. Providing it’s borne out in phase 3 trials, it could play a big role in keeping alive people who would otherwise die. So it should be a big thing,’ he said.
‘If you had an outbreak in a care home, you might want to use these sorts of cocktails of antibodies to bring the outbreak under control as soon as possible by giving the drug to everybody in the care home – residents and staff – who hasn’t been vaccinated. ‘Similarly, if you live with your elderly grandmother and you or someone else in the house gets infected, then you could give her this to protect her.’
The potential breakthrough in the instant immunity treatment is welcome news in the U.S. and across the globe as nearly 119,000 Americans spent Christmas Day in hospital with COVID-19 and 1,541 more deaths were recorded.
But according to the COVID Tracking Project, 20 states provided no update on their numbers on Friday, meaning the true number of deaths nationwide could be much higher. While overall hospitalizations dropped to 118,948 on Friday after setting a new record of 120,151 the previous day, the seven-day average climbed to a new high yet again on Christmas Day, reaching 117,029.
On Friday, there were 124,498 new cases reported yet the COVID Tracking Project warned that data had been affected by the holiday closures.
Must Read Story: Graham: Trump extremely determined to pass $2,000 checks
https://youtu.be/pQPgiBmJufo
President Donald Trump spent part of his Christmas with ally, Sen. Lindsey Graham, in Palm Beach, Florida, amid his awaited decision to sign the COVID-19 relief bill. Trump has previously expressed his support to provide Americans $2,000 in COVID relief funds, instead of the proposed $600 package. ‘After spending some…
President Donald Trump spent his Christmas golfing in Florida as a government shutdown looms and COVID-19 relief hangs in the balance. Earlier in the day, he renewed calls for $2,000 stimulus checks, instead of the $600 included in a $900 billion COVID-19 relief package passed in both houses of Congress and is awaiting Trump’s signature. In a Friday evening Tweet, Sen. Lindsey Graham doubled on Trump’s called for Americans $2,000 in aid.
“After spending some time with President @realDonaldTrump today, I am convinced he is more determined than ever to increase stimulus payments to $2000 per person and challenge Section 230 big tech liability protection,” Graham tweeted.
Section 230 is “a provision in a 1996 law that protects companies on the internet like Twitter and Facebook from being regulated as publishers of third-party content like tweets and Facebook posts.” It is part of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 and allows the aforementioned internet companies to govern content on their platforms. Trump has regularly railed against this provision and vetoed the National Defense Authorization Act due to the fact that it did not include changes to Section 230. Trump, at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach for the holidays, had no events on his public schedule after throwing the future of a massive COVID-19 relief and government funding bill into question. Failure to sign the bill, which arrived in Florida on Thursday night, could deny relief checks to millions of Americans on the brink and force a government shutdown in the midst of the pandemic. The White House declined to share details of the president’s schedule, though he was expected to golf Friday with South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a close ally. White House spokesman Judd Deere said Trump was briefed on the explosion in downtown Nashville early Friday that authorities said appeared to be intentional, but the president said nothing publicly about it in the hours after. Trump tweeted that he planned to make “a short speech to service members from all over the world” by video conference Friday to celebrate the holiday, but declared: “Fake News not invited!” Without giving details, the White House said only that Trump would work “tirelessly” during the holidays and has “many meetings and calls.” Trump’s vacation came as Washington was still reeling over his surprise, eleventh-hour demand that an end-of-year spending bill that congressional leaders spent months negotiating to give most Americans $2,000 COVID relief checks – far more than the $600 members of his own party had agreed to. The idea was swiftly rejected by House Republicans during a rare Christmas Eve session, leaving the proposal in limbo. The bipartisan compromise had been considered a done deal and had won sweeping approval in the House and Senate this week after the White House assured GOP leaders that Trump supported it. If he refuses to sign the deal, which is attached to a $1.4 trillion government funding bill, it will force a federal government shutdown, in addition to delaying aid checks and halting unemployment benefits and eviction protections in the most dire stretch of the pandemic. “Made many calls and had meetings at Trump International in Palm Beach, Florida. Why would politicians not want to give people $2000, rather than only $600?” he tweeted after leaving the golf course Friday afternoon. “It wasn’t their fault, it was China. Give our people the money!”
Trump’s decision to attack the bill has been seen, at least in part, as political punishment for what he considers insufficient backing by congressional Republicans of his campaign to overturn the results of the Nov. 3 election with unfounded claims of voter fraud.
“At a meeting in Florida today, everyone was asking why aren’t the Republicans up in arms & fighting over the fact that the Democrats stole the rigged presidential election?” Trump tweeted Thursday. “I will NEVER FORGET!” he later added. Trump for weeks now has refused to accept the results of the election and has been pushing new, increasingly outrageous schemes to try to overturn the results. He has been egged on by allies like his lawyer, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who accompanied the president to Florida aboard Air Force One. Meanwhile, the nation continues to reel as the coronavirus spreads, with record infections and hospitalizations and more than 327,000 now dead. And millions are now going through the holidays alone or struggling to make ends meet without adequate income, food, or shelter thanks to the pandemic’s economic toll. To mark the holiday, the president and first lady Melania Trump tweeted out a pre-recorded video message in which they wished Americans a Merry Christmas and thanked first responders and members of the military. “As you know, this Christmas is different than years past,” said Mrs. Trump, who focused on the acts of “kindness and courage” the pandemic had inspired. Trump hailed the vaccine doses now being delivered and thanked those responsible. “It is a truly a Christmas miracle,” he said. Meanwhile, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin have been trying to salvage the year-end legislation to try to prevent a shutdown. Democrats will call House lawmakers back to Washington for a vote Monday on Trump’s $2,000 proposal, though it would probably die in the Republican-controlled Senate. They are also considering a vote Monday on a stop-gap measure at least to avert a federal shutdown and keep the government running until Democrat Joe Biden is inaugurated Jan. 20. In addition to the relief checks, the COVID bill that passed would establish a temporary $300 per week supplemental jobless benefit, provide a new round of subsidies for hard-hit businesses, restaurants and theaters and money for schools, and provide money for health care providers and to help with COVID vaccine distribution.
Trump slams Senate for blocking $2,000 check proposal
he COVID-19 relief deal remains in limbo over Christmas after House Republicans rejected President Donald Trump’s demand for $2,000 stimulus checks on Thursday, while the president spent the day golfing in Florida. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi put forward a unanimous consent request to raise direct payments that was quickly blocked by Republicans in a rare Christmas Eve session of the House. The White House reportedly told congressional Republicans to vote for the $900 billion stimulus package, but Trump surprised lawmakers when he branded the bipartisan deal a “disgrace” on Tuesday—a day after it overwhelmingly passed through the House and Senate following months of stalemate. The president hinted that he wouldn’t sign the legislation unless it was amended to raise stimulus payments from $600 to $2,000, an idea that was quickly embraced by Democrats who had been pushing for higher payments. But he left Washington, D.C. for Florida on Wednesday without clarifying whether he does intend to veto the bill. “I don’t know what’s going to happen next. And that should be scary for the American people right now,” Democratic Rep. Andy Kim told CNN. “That we have a president who’s unhinged here and playing politics with our lives.” Without the president’s signature, desperately needed aid including unemployment benefits and eviction protections are at risk. Two expanded unemployment programs from the CARES Act expire on December 26 and without additional aid, millions of struggling Americans would be pushed into poverty next month. And because the coronavirus relief package was tied to a $1.4 trillion government spending bill, the federal government is heading for a shutdown next week unless an agreement is reached. Lawmakers will return to the House for a recorded vote on a standalone bill for $2,000 stimulus checks on Monday. In a statement after Thursday’s session, Pelosi said: “To vote against this bill is to deny the financial hardship that families face and to deny them the relief they need. Hopefully by then the President will have already signed the bipartisan and bicameral legislation to keep government open and to deliver coronavirus relief.” She accused House Republicans of “cruelly” depriving Americans of the $2,000 payments the president had agreed to support and urged Trump to get them on board. “If the President is serious about the $2,000 direct payments, he must call on House Republicans to end their obstruction,” she said. Trump, meanwhile, spent Thursday golfing and railing against Republicans including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for failing to back his efforts to subvert the results of the presidential election. McConnell has stayed largely silent since Trump threatened to upend the coronavirus relief package unless stimulus payments were increased, which the majority leader and Republicans had resisted during negotiations. In his first tweet since telling Americans on Monday they can “rest assured that more help is on the way, immediately” after the deal passed through Congress, McConnell shared a video Friday morning wishing Americans “a healthy and Merry Christmas.”
Coronavirus aid at risk as U.S. lawmakers block Trump’s changes
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. lawmakers on Thursday blocked attempts to alter a $2.3 trillion coronavirus aid and government spending package, rejecting President Donald Trump’s demand for extensive changes and leaving benefits for millions of Americans at risk. Democrats in the House of
Representatives sought to increase direct payments to Americans included in the bill from $600 to $2,000 per person as part of a coronavirus economic relief initiative, acting on one of Trump’s requests. Trump’s fellow Republicans, who oppose the higher amount, blocked that effort.
Republicans sought to change the amount of foreign aid included in the package, seeking to address another one of Trump’s complaints. Democrats blocked that request. The House then adjourned for the day. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the chamber would hold a recorded vote on the stimulus-check increase on Monday. The flurry of activity on the House floor did nothing to break a standoff that threatens desperately needed assistance for millions of Americans and raises the prospect of a partial government shutdown at a time when officials are trying to distribute two coronavirus vaccines. Many Democrats say the $892 billion coronavirus aid package is not big enough to address a pandemic that has killed nearly 320,000 Americans, and they have welcomed Trump’s call for larger stimulus checks. “How ironic it would be to shut down the federal government at a time of pandemic crisis, the very time when government services are needed the most,” House Democratic Leader Steny Hoyer said at a news conference.
Republicans opposed larger direct payments during negotiations as they sought to keep the overall price tag of the coronavirus aid below $1 trillion.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump was in Florida, where he was due to play golf on Thursday. The 5,500-page bill took months to negotiate and was supported by Trump’s administration. With the status quo unchanged, it was unclear whether Trump would sign the package into law or hold out for further action.
Without his signature, unemployment benefits for those thrown out of work by the pandemic are due to expire as soon as Saturday, and the U.S. government would be forced into a partial shutdown starting on Tuesday.
House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy said on Thursday Democrats should be willing to address foreign aid and other elements of the bill that he has derided as wasteful spending. “House Democrats appear to be suffering from selective hearing,” he wrote in a letter to other House Republicans. Congress could keep operations running by passing a fourth stopgap funding bill before midnight on Monday. To successfully do that, lawmakers would need Trump’s cooperation at a time when he is still consumed by his November loss to Democrat Joe Biden, who is set to take office on Jan. 20. The stopgap bill would not include coronavirus aid, however. The House will also on Monday try to override Trump’s veto of an unrelated defense-policy bill.
Embittered by his defeat to Biden, Trump is pressing Congress to dramatically alter the coronavirus and government-spending package, which passed by wide, bipartisan margins on Monday.
Trump sparked a record 35-day government shutdown two years ago when he rejected a federal spending bill over what he said was insufficient funding for building a U.S.-Mexico border wall.
Mutant Covid strain’s full impact won’t be known for ‘several weeks’
Professor Peter Horby, chairman of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag), said today scientists were still exploring the new strain which is thought to spread 70% faster but is no more lethal.
Experts are looking into if the vaccine will still work and if recovered patients will have some degree of immunity caused by prior infection, as reports claim most of England will soon be living under tier four restrictions. There is no evidence the strain affects vaccines and treatments, although urgent work is underway to confirm this, England’s Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty told the nation on Saturday.
Speaking during an evidence session of the Commons Science and Technology Committee on Wednesday, Nervtag member Professor Neil Ferguson said: ‘There is an enormous amount of work underway. ‘This is very early and it will take some weeks before we properly understand the characteristics of this virus, both in terms of the details of transmission but also in terms of clinical outcomes.’ Professor Horby added that scientists believe the new strain started from one person in Kent, and could have been caused by ‘random errors’ when the virus copies. He said: ‘What we don’t know yet is if there’s any difference in the severity of disease, the age distribution of cases, or most importantly whether there is any immune escape.’ A new strain of the Covid-19 virus has led to France closing ports to British goods for 48 hours from Sunday night. This has led to a number of UK supermarkets warning of potential food shortages just a few days before Christmas. Asked if a lax attitude towards lockdown measures could have caused the mutant strain to spread, Nervtag member Professor Neil Ferguson said corroboration of other data suggested otherwise. He said: ‘There was nothing special about what was going on in Kent and the south of England during lockdown compared with other areas of the country. ‘We saw the non-variant decline in a particular week and place, whilst the variant increased in the same week and place in the same population.’ Professor Peter Horby also denied suggestions that Boris Johnson overstated transmission rates of the mutant strain in order to cancel longstanding Government plans for Christmas. Preppers switch to ‘survival’ mode as they sit out Christmas rush to shops He said: ‘I don’t think there’s been any “egging up”, as far as I can tell. This is a new variant which is of concern.’ The prime minister said the strain could increase the UK’s R Rate by 0.4 as he cancelled Christmas for people in London and the south-east on Saturday afternoon. The festive bubble policy across tiers one, two and three has also been dramatically scaled back, with rules allowing three households to mix now restricted to Christmas Day only.
CDC: New COVID strain could be spreading in US uncharted
- The new coronavirus strain that was first detected in the United Kingdom could already be in the United States, the CDC said Tuesday.
- The agency said it doesn’t know why the new strain of the virus emerged, but it could have been “by chance alone.”
- “Alternatively, it may be emerging because it is better fit to spread in humans,” the CDC said.
The new coronavirus strain that was first detected in the United Kingdom could already be circulating in the United States without notice, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday. Nick Bit: Do you want to know why the US did not “discover” this new mutation. Simple you can not find what you are NOT looking for. Big pharma does not want you to know the billion dollar golden shot may not work. The DNA sequencing to formulate your great white hope vaccine used the Whulan mutation which is three generations old.
While the variant hasn’t been found in the U.S. yet, the CDC noted that scientists haven’t sequenced the genetic coding for many Covid-19 infections here. The agency said “viruses have only been sequenced from about 51,000 of the 17 million US cases,” so the new strain could have slipped notice. “Ongoing travel between the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as the high prevalence of this variant among current UK infections, increase the likelihood of importation,” the CDC said in a statement. “Given the small fraction of US infections that have been sequenced, the variant could already be in the United States without having been detected.”
The new coronavirus “mutates regularly,” the CDC noted, but the overwhelming majority of mutations are insignificant. The significance of the new variant found first in the U.K. has yet to be determined, but the CDC noted that based on early data from the U.K., the new strain could “potentially be more rapidly transmissible than other circulating strains.” The CDC noted that there have been several mutations of the coronavirus, saying scientists are studying how that’s affected its ability to spread or whether it’s made it more lethal or resulted in milder infections. Scientists are also looking at whether the changes make testing less effective, the CDC said adding that the Covid-19 tests are designed to detect the virus in multiple ways, “such that even if a mutation impacts one of the targets, the other PCR targets will still work.”
The mutations, however, could potentially decrease the effectiveness of monoclonal antibodies in treating the virus, the CDC said. Monoclonal antibody treatments, like the ones received by President Donald Trump, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, have been hailed as some of the few lifesaving tools in fighting the virus.
“Among these possibilities, the last—the ability to evade vaccine-induced immunity—would likely be the most concerning because once a large proportion of the population is vaccinated, there will be immune pressure that could favor and accelerate emergence of such variants by selecting for ‘escape mutants,’”
CDC said. “There is no evidence that this is occurring, and most experts believe escape mutants are unlikely to emerge because of the nature of the virus.” President Donald Trump’s coronavirus vaccine czar Dr. Moncef Slaoui said Monday that he expects Pfizer’s and Moderna’s Covid-19 shots will be effective against the new strain.
Dollar whipsaws as virus mutation rattles traders
SINGAPORE (Reuters) – The dollar was firm on Tuesday but traded well below peaks hit on a wild ride higher overnight, as a new coronavirus strain in Britain sent jitters through holiday-thinned currency markets. Sterling fell as much as 2.5% to $1.3190 as countries from Europe to Asia sealed off travel links with Britain to try and contain the highly-infectious mutation. Low liquidity exaggerated dollar gains in other currencies, too, as short sellers bailed out. But moves largely unwound as investors took their chance to buy in to the dollar’s downtrend. The pound, helped by a Bloomberg report which said the European Union was considering a compromise on fishing rights – a stumbling block to a trade deal – recovered to trade at $1.3418 in Asia, though it remained on edge as talks progress. The euro recovered to sit at $1.2229 on Tuesday after falling a cent to $1.2130. The yen was steady at 103.30 per dollar and the Australian and New Zealand dollars a little soft with the nervous mood, but well above overnight lows. “The euro found an abundance of buyers on the deep dip,” said Stephen Innes, Bangkok-based chief strategist at currency broker Axi. “The ‘short dollar’ clear-out is probably nothing more nefarious than stretched positioning getting taken out to the woodshed on Brexit scares. However, it shows the potential dangers of universally bearish dollar sentiment,” he said. Wagers on a falling dollar as the global COVID-19 recovery lifts world trade and commodity prices, tending to benefit export-driven economies and their currencies, is becoming an increasingly crowded trade as momentum funds pile in. The value of overall bets against the dollar eased a fraction last week, positioning data showed, but remains near nine-year highs struck in September. Against a basket of currencies the dollar is headed for a third quarterly loss in a row and is down 12.5% from a three-year peak in March. The dollar index was last at 90.145 having been as high as 91.022 overnight. Nerves over the new strain of coronavirus are keeping it above last week’s 2-1/2 year trough of 89.723. Together with a new outbreak in Sydney, that held the Australian dollar at $0.7566, 0.3% lower for the session, despite roaring retail sales figures.
Experts said there was no evidence that vaccines would not protect against the new virus variant, but Britain’s chief scientific adviser said that in the meantime tighter restrictions on public life in Britain were likely. Nick Bit: What they forget to tell you the London strain of the virus HAS NOT BEEN TESTED on the golden shot vaccines rolling out. So what they should have said is they have not had enough evidence to conclude if the vaccines will stop this most contagious strain we have seen yet.
Investors are looking ahead to confidence data in the U.S. and Germany later on Tuesday and have been cheered by the expectation that stimulus checks could go out to Americans next week. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has warned that there are still “problems” in securing a trade deal with Europe, but financial markets remain hopeful that something can be struck before Britain’s exemption from tariffs expires on Dec. 31.