Emergence of a Deadly Coronavirus

Post Reply New Topic

Viruses and other bugs could make a summer comeback

Rule number 1 in expert trend analysis is called the KISS Principle.
KISS stands for Keep It Simple Stupid.

When I was analyzing current trend analysis of COVID from a European perspective during the last few days, it became apparent that the Europeans have broken this rule.

They have broken the analysis down into three groups VOC, VOI, and VUM, These acronyms stand for: Variants Of Concern, Variants Of Interest and Variants Under Monitoring

World Health Organization: Tracking SARS-CoV-2 variants

How does someone determine which category each new variant falls into. Does someone put up a beautiful picture of all the variants and throw a dart at it, like one would throw a dart at a dartboard? What about all the pieces that are missing. What are we ignoring or do not even know about yet.

________________________________

p.s. There is another rule, the second rule in good analysis. The rule is never throw away the Outliers. There are always -some items that do not flow with the other pieces of information. These are called Outliers. Many people tend to throw these pieces of data away. But many times they contain valuable tools in truly understanding what is going on. I always spent as much time studying the outliers as I did the rest of the analysis. I set them aside so that they would distort the general analysis and then spent time in understanding why they were outliers. Some were just mistakes. But many times they provided me with GREAT INSIGHT.

Covid is an evil, vile, thing.

And Long Covid is yet more evil and yet more vile, even sadistic, in how it takes people away and destroys relationship.

So what is happening in the world of COVID. Well the world has turned of thinking about the virus and even tracking all the new variants that are materializing. China has even stopped trying to control the outbreak. The current version Omicron is very contagious but not as deadly as earlier variants. But will this trend change. One resent article in Nature explores what might happen next.

China’s rolling COVID waves could hit every six months — infecting millions

Because China (nor the rest of the world) no longer publishes its COVID-19 case count, it is unclear how many people are becoming infected in the latest wave; however, the Beijing health authority says the number of COVID-19 cases reported in the capital city quadrupled between late March and mid-April. Cao says it’s hard to make estimates without accurate data. But on the basis of his past research, he estimates that at least 30% of the population could become reinfected in this wave, amounting to more than 400 million people.

Scientists say having a good surveillance system to monitor and track emerging virus variants is very important, given that infection cycles will continue to happen. A new variant that could supersede current ones remains a concern, says Mokdad. “Imagine a Delta type of variant with XBB capacity of spreading. This will cause us a lot of damage.”

___________________________

Or imagine that a strange new variant, one that we haven't seen before suddenly appearing out of thin air. What is the world's Plan B.

So where are we at in the COVID wars? In a way it is a little hard to tell because we (the U.S.) and the rest of the world (for example China) have decided to stop counting. The best I can determine is the following variants in the U.S. are as follows:
According to the report published 31 May 2023:

XBB.1.5 ----- 53.8 %
XBB.1.16 ---- 15.1 %
XBB.1.9.1 --- 11.8 %
XBB.1.9.2 --- 6.1 %
XBB.2.3 ----- 4.9 %
XBB.1.16.1 -- 3.8 %
XBB.1.5.1 --- 2.2 %
FD.2 --------- 1.5 %
XBB ---------- 0.4 %
CH.1.1 ------- 0.2 %
BQ.1.1 ------- 0.1 %

Source: What COVID-19 variants are going around in May 2023?

I came across an interesting article out of the heart and soul of China.

The story of Shanghai last year reads like a dystopian novel, one written by an author with a powerful imagination. A year ago, who could possibly have guessed that the nearly 30 million residents of one of the largest and most cosmopolitan cities on the planet would be confined to quarters for nearly two months during spring? Millions scrambling (digitally of course) to secure enough food to eat, the streets looking like we’d been hit by a neutron bomb – no damage to structures, but devoid of most people.

And the lockdown wasn’t the end. Until December, we had to have our throats swabbed every few days, because otherwise we’d become pariahs – unable to access public venues and transit, most commercial establishments, schools, etc. Rolling lockdowns would engulf scores of Chinese cities through the summer and autumn.

From late November, hundreds of thousands of China’s citizenry took their complaints onto the streets, prominently in Shanghai, clamoring for an end to “dynamic zero” COVID-19 policies, and even more.

And then, instead of jackboots on streetcorners and a switched-off internet, instead of mass public arrests, we witnessed one of the most dramatic policy reversals of any government in recent times, anywhere in the world: the complete abandonment of the theretofore sacrosanct dynamic zero.

Source: After an Astonishing Year, Chinese See a Brighter Post-COVID Future

FDA panel recommends updating Covid boosters for the fall

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... 893v1.full

So where are we at in the COVID wars? In a way it is a little hard to tell because we (the U.S.) and the rest of the world (for example China) have decided to stop counting. The best I can determine is the following variants in the U.S. are as follows:
According to the report published 10 June 2023:

XBB.1.5 ----- 39.9 %
XBB.1.16 ---- 18.2 %
XBB.1.9.1 --- 12.5 %
XBB.1.16.1 -- 8.4 %
XBB.1.9.2 --- 8.4 %
XBB.2.3 ----- 6.0 %
XBB ---------- 3.0 %
XBB.1.5.1 --- 1.6 %
FD.2 --------- 0.9 %
XBB.1.5.10 --- 0.8 %
CH.1.1 ------- 0.2 %
BQ.1.1 ------- 0.1 %

Source: What COVID-19 variants are going around in June 2023?

Then I came across a recent article titled: Potential Links Between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Origin of the COVID-19 Pandemic by the Office of National Intelligence.

The link was to an unclassified version. The report is dated June 2023.

This report responds to the COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023, which called for the U.S.Intelligence Community (IC) to declassify information relating to potential links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) and the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic. This report outlines the IC’s understanding of the WIV, its capabilities, and the actions of its personnel leading up to and in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The report then goes on to say:
As of January 2019, WIV researchers performed SARS-like coronavirus experiments in BSL-2 laboratories, despite acknowledgements going back to 2017 of these virus’ ability to directly infect humans through their spike protein and early 2019 warnings of the danger of this practice. Separately, the WIV’s plan to conduct analysis of potential epidemic viruses from pangolin samples in fall 2019, suggests the researchers sought to isolate live viruses.

The impression that I had after reading this report is
That the virus might have originated from research being conducted at this lab. If so it was an accidental release.

Data still being collected in Maryland.

Although now on a weekly rather than daily basis.