COVID-19 News and Discussions

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And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future
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Japan passes 50% fully vaccinated rate, nearing level of European nations

Today 06:33 pm JST

Japan’s government says more than 50% of the population has been fully vaccinated.

Japan’s vaccine rollouts began in mid-February, months behind many wealthy countries due to its lengthy clinical testing requirement and approval process. Inoculations for elderly patients, which started in April, were also slowed by supply shortages of imported vaccines, but the pace picked up in late May and has since achieved 1 million doses per day.

Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura, who is in charge of COVID-19 measures, told NHK public television’s weekly talk show Sunday that about 60% of the population is expected to be fully vaccinated by the end of September, on par with current levels in Europe.

The government is studying a roadmap for easing restrictions around November when a large majority of the population is expected to be fully vaccinated. That would allow fully vaccinated people and those who test negative to travel, gather for parties or attend mass events.

The progress of vaccinations has helped reduce serious cases and deaths among older people, but infections from virus variants spread explosively in August among younger generations still largely unvaccinated, severely straining health care systems.

https://japantoday.com/category/nationa ... an-nations?


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Data shows Covid booster shots are 'not appropriate' at this time, U.S. and international scientists
Source: CNBC
An expert review of scientific evidence to date has concluded that Covid-19 vaccine booster shots are not needed at this time for the general public, a group of leading U.S. and international scientists said Monday in the peer-reviewed journal The Lancet.

The conclusion by scientists, including two senior Food and Drug Administration officials and the World Health Organization, came as studies continue to show the authorized Covid vaccines in the U.S. remain highly effective against severe disease and hospitalization caused by the fast-spreading delta variant.

While Covid vaccine effectiveness against mild disease may wane over time, protection against severe disease may persist, the scientists said. That’s because the body’s immune system is complex, they said, and has other defenses besides antibodies that may protect someone from getting seriously sick.

“Current evidence does not, therefore, appear to show a need for boosting in the general population, in which efficacy against severe disease remains high,” the scientists wrote, adding the wide distribution of boosters is “not appropriate at this stage in the pandemic.”
Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/13/covid-b ... clude.html
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11% of Israeli kids who got virus now suffer from ‘long COVID’ – study

Today, 12:36 am

More than 10 percent of Israeli children who were diagnosed with the coronavirus show signs of suffering from the so-called “long COVID,” the Health Ministry announced Monday.

According to the data, gathered from a follow-up survey of parents of 13,864 children aged 3 – 18 who had recovered from the virus, 11.2% reported symptoms of “long COVID.”

Of those who reported long-term symptoms, 1.8% of children under 12, and 4.6% of those aged 12 to 18 were still suffering from symptoms six months after the illness, the survey found, noting that the probability increased with age.

Among those 12 to 18, chances of long COVID were higher among those who had coronavirus symptoms, however, researchers also found long COVID even among 3.5% of the children who were asymptomatic when they tested positive.

More than 200,000 children under 18 have tested positive in Israel, with about half of them asymptomatic, the survey said.

“The meaning of this is that there are currently thousands of children in Israel suffering from long-term effects,” the statement said.

Read more: https://www.timesofisrael.com/more-than ... vid-study/
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Mutation rate of Covid19 virus is at least 50 per cent higher than previously thought

Last updated on Friday 10 September 2021

The virus that causes Covid19 mutates almost once a week – significantly higher than the rate estimated previously – according to a new study by scientists from the Universities of Bath and Edinburgh. Their findings indicate that new variants could emerge more quickly than thought previously.

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid19, was previously thought to mutate about once every two weeks. However, new research from the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath and The MRC Human Genetics Unit at Edinburgh University, shows that this estimate overlooked many mutations that happened but were never sequenced.

Viruses regularly mutate, for example when mistakes are made in copying the genomes whilst the virus replicates.

Usually when we consider natural selection, we think about new mutations that have an advantage and so spread, such as the Alpha and Delta variants of Covid19. This is known as Darwinian selection or positive selection.

However, most mutations are harmful to the virus and reduce its chances of surviving – this is called purifying or negative selection. These negative mutations don’t survive in the patient long enough to be sequenced and so are missing from calculations of the mutation rate.

Allowing for these missing mutations, the team estimates that the true mutation rate of the virus is at least 50% higher than previously thought.

The findings, published in Genome Biology and Evolution, reinforce the need to isolate individuals with immune systems that struggle to contain the virus.

Read more: https://www.bath.ac.uk/announcements/mu ... y-thought/
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