JAPAN 🇯🇵 WARNS OF POTENTIAL “FOURTH WAVE”—Over 230 cases of highly infectious variant strains of the novel coronavirus have been confirmed in in Japan. Experts warning of a potential "fourth wave" should they continue to spread across the country. #COVID19 english.kyodonews.net/news/2021/03/0…
2) Here is one of the new Japan outbreaks of #B117 —linked to a school for kids under 10. This matches a lot of other trends on elevated B117 risk in kids.
VARIANTS IN TEXAS—An awful lot of dangerous variants in the Houston metro area. We have the more contagious & severe 🇬🇧#B117, more reinfection prone 🇿🇦#B1351, super contagious 🇧🇷#P1 & worrisome #P2, plus 2 types of CA #B1429 & #1427. #COVID19
⚠️VERY WORRIED FOR FLORIDA/US—More contagious #B117 is rising quickly, & exponentially replacing the old dying #SARSCoV2 common strain. B117 affects kids, & 64% more severe. B117 now over 40%—dominant in days. A new surge is coming. Florida inaction= Florida ➡️ US surge. #COVID19
2) Been watching this B117 situation for 2 months. We already saw very worrisome signs in Miami Dade this week.
HORRIFYING #COVID19 death curve in one of wealthiest cities in Brazil— Porto Alegre is capital of Rio Grande do Sul— with many top-notch hospitals with better rating than most US🏥. And their health system still collapsed under #P1.
📍STARK WARNING—“Whatever #SARSCoV2 variants summit that peak could be a considerably bigger problem than any variants that we know”—with “any combinations of increased transmissibility, altered virulence and/or ⬆️ capacity to escape population immunity.” medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
2) “The emergence & rapid rise in prevalence of three independent #SARSCoV2 '501Y lineages' #B117#B1351#P1 has prompted renewed concerns about the evolutionarily capacity to adapt to both rising population immunity and public health interventions such as vaccines & distancing.”
3) “Viruses giving rise to 501Y lineages have, presumably under intense natural selection following a shift in host environment, independently acquired multiple unique & convergent mutations. As a consequence all have gained properties that likely complicate control of #COVID19.”