Over-50s will be offered a third Covid vaccine dose before winter, in part to tackle new variants. But according to the Head of the Covid Genomics U.K. Consortium (COG-UK), there is currently “no hint” of a variant that can fully evade the effectiveness of vaccines. If anything, future variants could be less infectious. The Express and Star has the story.
Sharon Peacock, Head of COG-UK and Professor of Public Health and Microbiology at the University of Cambridge, said it could be the case that coronavirus mutates to become less infectious, though she warned it could take years for it to become like the common cold.
Asked whether a variant will emerge somewhere across the globe that is resistant to current vaccines, Professor Peacock told Times Radio: “That’s what we’d call it, a variant of major concern. We haven’t seen anything like that to date, and the question you’re asking is the million dollar question in many ways, everybody wants to know what’s the likelihood and when is it likely to occur, if at all.
“What we don’t know is if it is likely to occur. We know that as mutations accumulate in the virus, it can actually make it more fit in terms of avoiding our immune system, but the more mutations it accumulates, it could actually lead to a virus that is less infectious, for example.
“So there’s a trade-off for the virus in terms of how many mutations it can tolerate.
“Now, some people have predicted that a virus could emerge that is pretty resistant to vaccines, but we haven’t seen any hint of that at the moment.
“And the idea that this could arise is based on models from previous viruses, not this current one, so at the moment, I remain optimistic that we’re in a good place – that the viruses that are circulating are susceptible to vaccinations.”
Despite the continual fall of Covid cases and deaths, and the success of the vaccine rollout, the Government and media narrative around the virus continues to be fairly pessimistic – largely due to the perceived threat of variants. Imperial College’s Danny Altmann said last month that the Indian Covid variant could “scupper” Britain’s “roadmap” out of lockdown – a statement which a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation criticised as “pessimistic“. Professor Neil Ferguson also believes that life in Britain will “not [be] completely back to normal” by summer because of Covid variants, despite advisers to SAGE saying last week that Pfizer’s vaccine does protect well against the South African variant after people have had both doses.
The Express and Star report is worth reading in full.
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“When I was sixteen, I went to work for a newspaper in Hong Kong. It was a rag, but the editor taught me one important lesson. The key to a great story is not who, or what, or when, but why.“
I must admit it’s not entirely clear to me why it matters what gun was used.
Cover, Major, cover.
L Rons Hubbard is the usual apologist here for the US takeover of the Ukraine, its money laundering, bio-labs, its proxy war to try and weaken Russia, its imperialism.
Looking forward to L Rons next whingefest on the same, given that Russia has handed his deified NATO its ass.
I read somewhere that it was a regular 9mm poodleshooter reasonably expertly handled (dealt competently with a cycling problem).
The curious thing is the writing on the shell cases presumably designed to give a clue as to the why.
Health care is shall we say a contentious issue in the usa and the middle classes get well shafted by a deeply corrupt and unfair system riddled with government intervention (but I repeat myself).
A thoroughly sad story all round.
This appears to be some part of the motive:
‘A report released Oct. 17 by the Senate Homeland Security Committee’s investigative subcommittee scrutinizes some of the nation’s largest Medicare Advantage insurers for their use of prior authorization and high rates of denials for certain types of care. The subcommittee sought documents and information from the three largest MA insurance companies — UnitedHealthcare, Humana and CVS — and investigated their practice of “intentionally using prior authorization to boost profits by targeting costly yet critical stays in post-acute care facilities.”
The report found that between 2019 and 2022, UHC, Humana and CVS denied prior authorization requests for post-acute care at far higher rates than other types of care. In 2022, UHC and CVS denied prior authorization requests for post-acute care at approximately three times higher than the companies’ overall denial rates, while Humana’s prior authorization denial rate for post-acute care was more than 16 times higher than its overall denial rate. The report also found increases in post-acute care service requests subjected to prior authorization and denial rates for long-term acute care hospitals, among other findings.’
Apparently his company were one of the worst for refusing claims. I hope this makes other CEOs sit up and think about the business they are in.
To be clinical it’s also a pretty decent shot. Suppressors tend to make guns less accurate, the target is moving away from the shooter (in a video clip I’ve seen) and it’s dark, with no doubt a dose of anxiety about the escape route to add to the mix.
You live by the sword you die by the sword. You live by the invisible sword and you still die by the sword.