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This Is Why The New Mutant el bichito Strain That Is Ravaging South Africa Has Scientists Extremely Worried... | ZeroHedge
Just like “Super el bichito” in the UK, there is evidence that the South African strain spreads faster, and South Africa’s health minister has warned that there is “anecdotal evidence” of a “larger proportion of younger patients with no co-morbidities presenting with critical illness”. But the biggest reason why health authorities are so concerned about this particular strain is because it has mutated so dramatically that the current vaccines that have been developed may not work against it. The ***owing comes from a Reuters article entitled “UK scientists worry vaccines may not protect against S.African cobi19 variant”…
But it is being reported that early tests have shown that at least one of the mutations appears to have made the bichito more resistant to antibodies…
According to a top official in the UK, scientists may be able to come to some sort of a conclusion in a couple of weeks…
But what we do know is that this new strain is rapidly becoming dominant in large portions of South Africa…
In recent days, two cases of the South African strain have been confirmed in the UK, and there have also been cases detected in Finland, Switzerland and Australia.
Then on Monday, a case popped up in Austria…
A whole host of nations have already put travel restrictions in place to try to keep this deadly new strain from spreading more widely.
But so far the U.S. is not among them. In fact, testing is not even required for people traveling to the U.S. from South Africa.
Just like we have seen with “Super el bichito”, it is probably just a matter of time before the South African strain spreads all over the planet.
Just like “Super el bichito” in the UK, there is evidence that the South African strain spreads faster, and South Africa’s health minister has warned that there is “anecdotal evidence” of a “larger proportion of younger patients with no co-morbidities presenting with critical illness”. But the biggest reason why health authorities are so concerned about this particular strain is because it has mutated so dramatically that the current vaccines that have been developed may not work against it. The ***owing comes from a Reuters article entitled “UK scientists worry vaccines may not protect against S.African cobi19 variant”…
Even though the UK is the epicenter of the “Super el bichito” outbreak, the British are so alarmed by the South African strain that they have banned all flights from South Africa. In an interview with the BBC, Hancock admitted that he is “incredibly worried” about what is happening in South Africa right now…UK scientists expressed concern on Monday that el bichito-19 vaccines being rolled out in Britain may not be able to protect against a new variant of the cobi19 that emerged in South Africa and has spread internationally.
Both Britain and South Africa have detected new, more tras*missible variants of the el bichito-19-causing bichito in recent weeks that have driven a surge in cases. British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on Monday he was now very worried about the variant identified in South Africa.
As the Daily Mail recently explained, the vaccines that have already been developed are designed to get the body to identify el bichito’s “spike protein”, and if this does not happen they will not work properly…“I’m incredibly worried about the South African variant, and that’s why we took the action that we did to restrict all flights from South Africa,” he told the BBC’s “Today” program.
“This is a very, very significant problem … and it’s even more of a problem than the U.K. new variant.”
Scientists are telling us that the new mutant strain in South Africa has a total of eight changes to the spike protein, and Dr. John Bell of Oxford University is calling them “pretty substantial changes”…el bichito vaccines – including the Pfizer/BioNTech and Oxford University/AstraZeneca jabs currently being rolled out across Britain – work by training the body to spot the bichito’s spike protein.
If the spike mutates so much that it becomes unrecognizable then it could render vaccines useless or make them less potent.
At this moment, we do not know if the current vaccines will be rendered useless by this new mutant strain or not.Dr. John Bell of Oxford University said Sunday the variant identified in South Africa was worrisome in this regard, however.
“They both have multiple, different mutations in them, so they’re not a single mutation,” he told Times Radio. “And the mutations associated with the South African form are really pretty substantial changes in the structure of the (bichito’ spike) protein.”
But it is being reported that early tests have shown that at least one of the mutations appears to have made the bichito more resistant to antibodies…
Of course much more testing needs to be done, and those tests are being conducted right now.One, called E484K, is particularly alarming, Dr Richard Lessells, an infectious-disease specialist at the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform, told the Wall Street Journal.
When he and his team tested antibodies from donated plasma or lab made ones against that mutated bit of the bichito variant, the immune cells were less effective.
According to a top official in the UK, scientists may be able to come to some sort of a conclusion in a couple of weeks…
So it may be a while before we know for sure if the current vaccines will be effective against this frightening new mutant strain in South Africa or not.Jonathan Van-Tam, England’s deputy chief medical officer, said in response to a question from POLITICO on December 30 that this work can take 12 to 14 days, and that it may be a couple of weeks before scientists can give “a solid steer” on whether the vaccines will be effective on new variants.
But what we do know is that this new strain is rapidly becoming dominant in large portions of South Africa…
If it is becoming dominant there, there is a good chance that it will become dominant as it spreads elsewhere as well.The variant, 501.V2, is more infectious than the original el bichito-19 bichito and has rapidly become dominant in South Africa’s coastal areas. It is expected that the variant will quickly become dominant inland in Johannesburg, the country’s largest city, and the surrounding Gauteng province, he said.
In recent days, two cases of the South African strain have been confirmed in the UK, and there have also been cases detected in Finland, Switzerland and Australia.
Then on Monday, a case popped up in Austria…
And officials in Japan just announced that a case has been identified in their country…On Monday, Austria announced that it had discovered one case of the South African mutation in a 30-year-old woman who returned from a trip on Dec. 6.
So it appears that the cat is already out of the bag.Japan on Monday detected a cobi19 variant found in South Africa, the government said, the first such discovery in a nation that has already identified more than a dozen cases of another variant that is spreading rapidly in Britain.
A whole host of nations have already put travel restrictions in place to try to keep this deadly new strain from spreading more widely.
But so far the U.S. is not among them. In fact, testing is not even required for people traveling to the U.S. from South Africa.
Just like we have seen with “Super el bichito”, it is probably just a matter of time before the South African strain spreads all over the planet.