Coronavirus (San Francisco, Pomona, Bradley: schools, living, safe)

[CA4Now]

The ever-expanding omicron brood has maintained its dominance through what's known as "convergent" evolution — when entities independently develop similar traits because of similar environmental pressures, according to Manon Ragonnet-Cronin, who studies viral genetics at the University of Chicago.

"We seem to be seeing for the first time evidence of widescale convergent evolution," Ragonnet-Cronin says. "We have what people are calling a swarm of omicron viruses, which have different ancestries within omicron, but which have the same set of mutations."

...."We are literally dealing with a completely novel virus here," says Kristian Andersen, an immunologist at Scripps Research. "We don't know how many other paths this particular virus might have. We just don't know at this stage."

https://www.capradio.org/articles/20...-our-immunity/

[Carpenter858]

Originally Posted by CA4Now

The ever-expanding omicron brood has maintained its dominance through what's known as "convergent" evolution — when entities independently develop similar traits because of similar environmental pressures, according to Manon Ragonnet-Cronin, who studies viral genetics at the University of Chicago.

"We seem to be seeing for the first time evidence of widescale convergent evolution," Ragonnet-Cronin says. "We have what people are calling a swarm of omicron viruses, which have different ancestries within omicron, but which have the same set of mutations."

...."We are literally dealing with a completely novel virus here," says Kristian Andersen, an immunologist at Scripps Research. "We don't know how many other paths this particular virus might have. We just don't know at this stage."

https://www.capradio.org/articles/20...-our-immunity/

This same Kristian Andersen, where he says the virus looked potentially engineered back in Jan 2020? Too funny. Hope the screenshot of the email comes across ok.

[CA4Now]

Originally Posted by Carpenter858

This same Kristian Andersen, where he says the virus looked potentially engineered back in Jan 2020? Too funny.

Yes, that one.

"In early 2020, Kristian Andersen wrote to Anthony Fauci about the possibility of an engineered coronavirus. His research has since dispelled those suspicions."

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/14/s...-andersen.html

"The issue isn’t whether papers are “market origin” or “lab origin” - published studies are agnostic to that question. The issue is whether papers are scientific or not - and the scientific evidence on SARS-CoV-2 origin is clear and points to a market in the middle of Wuhan."

https://twitter.com/K_G_Andersen/sta...7Ctwgr%5Etweet

[Carpenter858]

Originally Posted by CA4Now

Yes, that one.

"In early 2020, Kristian Andersen wrote to Anthony Fauci about the possibility of an engineered coronavirus. His research has since dispelled those suspicions."

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/14/s...-andersen.html

"The issue isn’t whether papers are “market origin” or “lab origin” - published studies are agnostic to that question. The issue is whether papers are scientific or not - and the scientific evidence on SARS-CoV-2 origin is clear and points to a market in the middle of Wuhan."

https://twitter.com/K_G_Andersen/sta...7Ctwgr%5Etweet

Yeah, sure believe what you want. Don't ever remember seeing a so-called "natural origination" virus hanging around this long. They can say it's dispelled all they want, plenty of scientists think it was engineered.

[CA4Now]

Originally Posted by Carpenter858

Yeah, sure believe what you want.

I will.

“Our paper recognizes that there are different possible origins, but the evidence towards zoonosis is overwhelming,” says co-author Danielle Anderson, a virologist at the University of Melbourne. The report, which includes an analysis that found the peer-reviewed literature overwhelmingly supports the zoonotic hypotheses, appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) on 10 October.

Originally Posted by Carpenter858

plenty of scientists think it was engineered.

David Relman, a microbiome specialist at Stanford University who thinks the different origin scenarios are equally plausible, believes the PNAS and Lancet commission reports are “not at all contradictory or inconsistent with each other.” And Relman, who was interviewed by the task force, compliments it for highlighting the need to better prepare for a new pandemic. “At the end of the day,” he says, “this much is true: Spillovers, outbreaks, and pandemics are the result of human activities, for which much greater scrutiny, mindfulness, and insight are desperately needed.”

https://www.science.org/content/arti...lab-panel-says

[joosoon]

Originally Posted by CA4Now

...."We are literally dealing with a completely novel virus here," says Kristian Andersen, an immunologist at Scripps Research.

What does the CDC say about that? Let's look together. A "literal" novel virus would no longer be covid19 so even for an off the cuff statement, that's pretty irresponsible. Is any one of these new offspring of omicron at a minimum, a VOHC?

{checks notes and link above}


CDC: "Currently, no SARS-CoV-2 variants are designated as VOHC"

[CA4Now]

Originally Posted by joosoon

A "literal" novel virus would no longer be covid19 so even for an off the cuff statement, that's pretty irresponsible.

In medicine, "novel" usually refers to a virus or bacterial strain that was not previously identified. COVID-19 is a new disease, caused by the novel, or new, coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 that was not previously seen in humans.

Q: What is a novel coronavirus?
https://www.medschool.umaryland.edu/...irus-COVID-19/

[joosoon]

If your point is to agree that it's irresponsible for someone to say these omicron variants are "literally novel" viruses when they're not, ok. Good. If it's something else, please refer to what I already posted.

[goodheathen]

https://www.yahoo.com/gma/police-fir...040101255.html
All macho occupations where the death rates were highest. Where people probably were/are against vaccines and masks. Consider it a warning re long-term issues for those acting like the virus now only is dangerous to the immunocompromised or whoever.

[sav858]

Originally Posted by mayonnaiseandjelly

Why are republicans still so upset by this? The US was less restrictive than virtually every other modern counterpart. states which didn’t observe any Covid precautionary measures were more negatively affected (death, economy) than states which did.

The initial precautionary measures (total lockdown) were initial mandated by trump. The initial monetary government spending for Covid was by trump.

And only conservatives still rant about Covid, acting like they are still prejudiced and inconvenienced when everyone else has moved on with their lives

Neither of those things are true. When you look at overall excess mortality CA didn't really do any better than places like Florida. Trump never initiated any sort of lockdown, not sure the president even has that power. Those were all done on a state by state basis.

Rant? Maybe but there seems to be many on the left that keep it an issue. One of the local newspapers here, the SF Chronicle, typically has 6-12 COVID related articles linked on it's homepage per day while many other cities have zero to one at most. Still a fair amount of people around here with masks too.