Scientists reveal how often fully vaccinated people spread COVID-19 at home

Scientists reveal how often fully vaccinated people spread COVID-19 at home: The chances of anyone spreading the coronavirus to unvaccinated people or others in the home is about 38%, per BBC News. That number drops to 25% if the housemates are fully vaccinated.

This is absolutely crazy--the vaccine only gives us a 13 percent advantage.

New variant? No masks? Here's what's driving the U.K.'s Covid surge

New variant? No masks? Here's what's driving the U.K.'s Covid surge: 

Mandatory-mask rules do exist on public transport systems, with face coverings required across the Transport for London network, which includes the capital’s underground train system, but those rules are not always complied with, nor regularly enforced.

Ravi Gupta of the Cambridge Institute of Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Disease agreed with Gurdasani that maintaining restrictions might have helped avoid the U.K.'s current predicament.

"The relaxation [of rules] that happened over summer was a fairly drastic month going from, you know, quite, quite tight measures to very few restrictions," Gupta said. "And I think that, in retrospect, a more graded approach may have prevented the surge that we’re seeing."

Look, I am pro restrictions if we have hard science showing they help.  With waning levels of antibodies among the vaccinated and winter approaching, as we approach almost two years of pandemonium, I'm filled with a sense of dread and fear, not just for the illness and deaths caused by the virus, but am wondering what social chaos will ensue as this drags on forever.

Delta plus variant raises concerns. Here's what the science shows : Goats and Soda : NPR

Delta plus variant raises concerns. Here's what the science shows : Goats and Soda : NPR: Question 2: So what about this new "delta plus" that's spreading in the U.K.? Scientists have named it "AY.4.2." And it now accounts for more than 6% of the cases there. Does that mean it's more transmissible than the current version of Delta dominating in the U.S.? "No one knows yet," says virologist Jeremy Luban at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. "It's too early to really know." That's because there isn't enough data yet to measure its transmissibility. "That said," Luban adds, "if it is more transmissible, it's likely to be a small increment." Hanage estimates that it's likely about 10% more transmissible than the original version of delta.

So here they're saying 10 percent more infectious, perhaps.  Nobody knows at this point.  Of course, I thought Delta was being hyped and it was not.

12ft | SARS-CoV-2 is following the evolutionary rule book | The Economist

12ft | SARS-CoV-2 is following the evolutionary rule book | The Economist

This is from January, and their prediction that none of the variants would last long was incorrect, when you think about the deadly Delta variant.

I have three people in my neighborhood who chose to not get vaccinated who now have Covid pneumonia.  I wonder how they acquired this harmful disbelief, and if the perpetrators will ever be punished.

The delta variant has a mutation: what we know so far

The delta variant has a mutation: what we know so far:

“This sublineage is currently increasing in frequency,” the U.K.’s Health Security Agency said last week, noting that “in the week beginning 27 September 2021 (the last week with complete sequencing data), this sublineage accounted for approximately 6% of all sequences generated, on an increasing trajectory. This estimate may be imprecise ... Further assessment is underway.”

Read more: The UK has one of the highest Covid infection rates in the world right now: Here’s why

The U.K. is currently seeing a prolonged and worrying spike in Covid cases, reporting between 40,000-50,000 new infections per day in the last week, prompting experts to question why the U.K. is so vulnerable to Covid right now.

The delta subtype is reported to be 10-15% more transmissible than the standard delta variant, but it is too early to say for certain whether it has been causing a spike in cases in the U.K.

Study saying COVID-19 vaccines cause heart inflammation that was hyped by anti-vaxxers, withdrawn due to miscalculation

Study saying COVID-19 vaccines cause heart inflammation that was hyped by anti-vaxxers, withdrawn due to miscalculation

The risk is apparently much, much lower.

Is the Coronavirus Getting Better at Airborne Transmission? - The New York Times

Is the Coronavirus Getting Better at Airborne Transmission? - The New York Times: Newer variants of the coronavirus like Alpha and Delta are highly contagious, infecting far more people than the original virus. Two new studies offer a possible explanation: The virus is evolving to spread more efficiently through air. The realization that the coronavirus is airborne indoors transformed efforts to contain the pandemic last year, igniting fiery debates about masks, social distancing and ventilation in public spaces.

This explains a lot.  Maybe I can get my vaccinated friends to mask up.