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.

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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.

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Moderna Co-founder and Chairman Noubar Afeyan discusses the progress the vaccine developer has made in the battle against Covid-19 and the different variants that have been emerging. He also talks about whether booster shots will be necessary and vaccine supply shortages.

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Seven-day hospital admissions average up 40% from last week

Daily Covid-19 cases in the US moved above 100,000 a day for the first time since February, higher than the levels of last summer when vaccines were not available, and came as health officials sounded alarm over lagging rates of vaccination driving the surge of the infectious Delta variant. The seven-day average of hospital admissions has also increased more than 40% from the week before, with health workers describing frustration and exhaustion as hospitals in Covid hotspots were again overwhelmed with patients, almost 20 months into the pandemic in the US. “As we look at our hospitalizations and as we look at our deaths, they are overwhelmingly unvaccinated people,” CDC director Rochelle Walensky said at a briefing on Thursday. About half of all new infections and hospitalizations in the past week were in seven southern states – Florida, Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi – even though the states represent less than a quarter of the country’s population, said White House coronavirus coordinator, Jeff Zients. In Mississippi on Thursday, there were 3,164 new confirmed cases, the second highest single-day caseload in the state during the pandemic. “We’re seeing a phenomenal increase in daily reported cases of Covid, and this is entirely attributable to the Delta variant, which is sweeping over Mississippi like a tsunami,” said state health officer Thomas Dobbs. The entire state had just eight ICU beds available on Thursday, officials said, and more than 1,147 people were hospitalized with Covid-19. Nichole Atherton, an intensive care nurse in Mississippi, told Reuters she was planning to resign from her hospital and find nursing work elsewhere because she couldn’t stand watching Covid’s toll on her community. “The first wave was heartbreaking, because there was nothing people could do except stay away from the people they love,” Atherton said about infections last year before vaccines were developed. “This time, there are options.” Three people have messaged her to say they will get vaccinated, Atherton said. At a White House coronavirus briefing on Thursday, officials said as cases surge, efforts were focused on communities with low vaccination rates, which are driving the pandemic. “Across the board, we are seeing increases in cases and hospitalizations in all age groups,” said Walensky. Walensky said the CDC had reported more than 103,400 new cases of Covid on Wednesday, and that the seven-day average for cases was about 89,463 per day. One bright spot is vaccination rates are now increasing again across the US. White House data director Cyrus Shahpar said that on Wednesday there were more vaccinations in a single day than since 3 July, with 864,000 new doses reported administered. Of those, 585,000 were first shots. Of the three vaccines approved for emergency use in the US, Johnson & Johnson only requires one shot, Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines need two shots several weeks apart, and all three give strong protection. Some of the same states responsible for the increase in cases are also picking up the vaccination pace. The White House said Tennessee has seen a 90% increase in first shots over the past two weeks. Oklahoma saw an 82% increase and Georgia saw a 66% percent increase. “The unvaccinated continue to be the big highway of transmission,” William Schaffner of Vanderbilt University Medical Center told CNN. “So the unvaccinated continue to be the big highway of transmission. The vaccinated, they’re little side streets. Let’s not get preoccupied with that. We need to get more people vaccinated.” A growing number of companies are requiring employees get the Covid-19 vaccine. United on Friday became the first major US airline to require all employees get vaccinated. And defense secretary Lloyd Austin is expected to soon order vaccines mandatory for the military. More than a million service members are fully vaccinated of the roughly two million active-duty, guard and reserve troops, according to the Associated Press. Meanwhile, hospitals are fighting to get financial help from state and federal officials. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) provides funding to help cover some Covid-related costs at hospitals. But state officials in Texas are denying funding requests from hospitals as cases surge across the state, after providing $5.39bn earlier in the pandemic, which was reimbursed by Fema, according to local news channel WFAA. Click the link below to Go to our store.

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Hospitalizations have grown from 12,000, a month ago, to more than 61,000 now, as states like Mississippi say the contagious variant is sweeping over them “like a tsunami.” With coronavirus infections on the rise again in the U.S., hospitals across the country are trying to meet the needs of thousands of patients who are testing positive for COVID-19, and are in need of medical care. One state that has seen a rapid increase in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations has been Nevada, where case levels have swelled by nearly 200% in the last month, the state’s highest level since February, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Basically, we’re reliving 2020 in 2021,” Dr. Angie Honsberg, medical director for the intensive care unit at University Medical Center told ABC News. “We, unfortunately, are back to having a very high number of COVID patients. We have had a break for the last two and a half months and unfortunately, now we’re back to feeling like we were back in January in February when close to half of our ICU was critically ill patients with COVID respiratory failure.” Since mid-June, the average number of patients being admitted to the hospital each day with COVID-19 in Nevada has tripled, according to the CDC. This marks the highest number of patients seeking care in more than five months. “The current group of patients seems to get sick quicker than the patients that we saw with the earlier COVID outbreak and we’re also seeing, for the most part, a younger group of patients,” Honsberg said. Some of the patients have very severe pneumonia, Honsberg added. A similar message is conveyed by Robin Ringler, charge nurse in UMC’s Medical ICU, who said that the patients she is seeing in the ICU are very sick, many struggling to breathe, and on ventilators. In fact, she said, some of these patients are so sick “that the doctors currently are talking about doing tracheostomy on them, and that is going to keep them on the ventilator for prolonged periods of time because they cannot breathe on their own.” Ringer’s team is now anticipating more COVID-19 ICU admissions, with a growing number of COVID patients appearing in the emergency room.

“In the last two weeks, we’ve had a real increase in COVID infections in the hospital. Our COVID numbers have gone up so high. They’ve almost, I think they quadrupled from two weeks ago,” Ringler said. “The number of patients seeking treatment has been getting higher every week.”

The increases are a discouraging development, said Ringler, when vaccines were introduced, and cases began to decline, her team thought they may have been finally out of the woods. Nick Note: It’s a lot worse then they are telling you. Save Your Life (Salvavida) Mask up, Vitamin up, Isolate up, Test up, We can help you now vitamins, test kits and masks are on giveaway. FREE Bonuses galore in our store.

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