What Will More Coronavirus Variants Mean For The U.S.? : Consider This from NPR : NPR

What Will More Coronavirus Variants Mean For The U.S.? : Consider This from NPR : NPR There's evidence of at least seven U.S. variants of the coronavirus, while another that emerged from the U.K. is poised to become the dominant strain here by the end of March. One adviser from the Food and Drug Administration tells NPR there's a tipping point to watch for: when a fully vaccinated person winds up hospitalized with a coronavirus variant.

The Next Pandemic: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) - YouTube

The Next Pandemic: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) - YouTube:As COVID-19 continues to spread, John Oliver discusses what could cause the next pandemic, what we can do to avoid it, and why you shouldn’t kiss pigs.

Covid-Linked Syndrome in Children Is Growing and Cases Are More Severe - The New York Times

Covid-Linked Syndrome in Children Is Growing and Cases Are More Severe - The New York Times: Doctors across the country have been seeing a striking increase in the number of young people with the condition Braden had, which is called Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children or MIS-C. Even more worrisome, they say, is that more patients are now very sick than during the first wave of cases, which alarmed doctors and parents around the world last spring. “We’re now getting more of these MIS-C kids, but this time, it just seems that a higher percentage of them are really critically ill,” said Dr. Roberta DeBiasi, chief of infectious diseases at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C. During the hospital’s first wave, about half the patients needed treatment in the intensive care unit, she said, but now 80 to 90 percent do.

New UK Coronavirus Variant - Covid Updates

New UK Coronavirus Variant - Covid Updates: The sudden appearance of a large group of mutations in an otherwise slow mutating virus is concerning and raises the question of how it might have occurred. The working hypothesis is that it came from a single infected individual. This person was likely immuno-compromised (due to some unrelated condition) and sustained a long-term severe infection from SarsCoV2. This would provide the right environment for a wide range of mutations to develop. At some point, the patient was likely treated with Convalescent Plasma and/or Remdisvir. This cleared most of the more normal variants of the virus but left a more highly resistant and more aggressive strain behind that then fully re-infected the patient. And at some point, this variant got spread to other individuals and became a new highly contagious wildtype.

Mental Health Problems and Social Media Exposure During COVID-19 Outbreak by Junling Gao, Pinping Zheng, Yingnan Jia, Hao Chen, Yimeng Mao, Suhong Chen, Yi Wang, Hua Fu, Junming Dai :: SSRN

Mental Health Problems and Social Media Exposure During COVID-19 Outbreak by Junling Gao, Pinping Zheng, Yingnan Jia, Hao Chen, Yimeng Mao, Suhong Chen, Yi Wang, Hua Fu, Junming Dai :: SSRN:Our findings show there are high prevalence of mental health problems, which positively associated with frequently SME during the COVID-19 outbreak. These findings implicated the government need pay more attention to mental health problems, especially depression and anxiety among general population and combating with “infodemic” while combating during public health emergency.

Covid: CDC director says lifting mask requirements is a mistake

Covid: CDC director says lifting mask requirements is a mistake:

A coronavirus variant with a mutation which 'likely helps it escape' antibodies is already in at least 11 countries, including the US

A coronavirus variant with a mutation which 'likely helps it escape' antibodies is already in at least 11 countries, including the US: This newly-reported variant carries the E484K mutation. This mutation was also found in the B.1.1.7 variant that originally was detected in the UK, and the B.1.351 and B.1.1.28 variants that emerged from South Africa and Brazil respectively. The fear is that this mutation could help the vaccine escape from neutralizing antibodies. Professor Ravi Gupta, a clinical microbiology expert from the University of Cambridge, said that apart from the E484K, the variant also carries another mutation "that likely helps it escape from our antibodies", The Irish Times reported.