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No, I'm not forming a new band, though I think it would make a great name. Covid & the Variant's and their number one hit 'You're all gonna die', there is certainly potential, but no, let's talk about the new chapter in of the pandemic.

Let's talk about these variants; because for the past 6 weeks this has been the major talking point by the government and their 'let's pretend' scientist friends.

Just today Boris 'bla bla, bumble bumble' Johnson spoke to the British People in yet another live televised broadcast about the new variant:

Early evidence suggests the variant of coronavirus that emerged in the UK may be more deadly - BBC News[1]

Scary, huh?

Sir Patrick Vallance, the UK's chief scientist, suggested that there was an increased risk of dying from the new UK derived variant first found in the South East of England.

There is some evidence that a new coronavirus variant first identified in southeast England carries a higher risk of death than the original strain, the British government's chief scientific adviser said Friday -- though he stressed that the data is uncertain. - 6ABC[2]

In reality, there is no science to back up such claims, or at least no science has been published or presented to support these claims. It would seem they have simply plucked this out of a little data analysis over the past couple weeks.

Sir Patrick Vallance said:

"the average risk is that for 1,000 people who got infected, roughly 10 would be expected to unfortunately die. With the new variant, for 1,000 people infected, roughly 13 or 14 people might be expected to die," - 6ABC[2]

That's a 30 to 40% increase in death if this is believed to be true, but the very fact that they later make the statement:

"the evidence is not yet strong" - 6ABC[2]

Ultimately, this has to come from comparing death rates in people infected with either the new or the old versions of the virus. Which has so much room for error and what was the data sample size, because unless we are talking about a significant number of people, the results are meaningless.

But anyway, I procrastinate, let's talk about COVID and the Variants.

SARS-CoV-2 Variants

If you only sourced your information from the daily new and government announcements, you might assume that SARS-CoV-2 only began mutating in the past couple months. Of course this is a ridiculous thing to believe when you really consider it, but it does seem many do not consider much they are being told these days.

Take a look at this sub-heading from an article in The Mirror just last week:

Since Covid-19 - technically called Sars-CoV-2 - began spreading across the globe last year, three new main strains have been found in Brazil, the UK and South Africa - The Mirror[3]

Three new strains! (they are not strains, but variants - I'll get into this later) Oh no, the virus has mutated!

Yes, it is, in fact is has been mutating daily since the virus was first identified (still not isolated though...)

Nextstrain.org[4] has been tracking the genome of the SARS-CoV-2 virus since early on in the pandemic and at time of writing this the number of variants is at 4046. Yes, you read that correctly, not three, not five, over four thousand.

So why only now are we hearing of these variants. Why now is the media reporting on the new variants as something to fear?

It is either because it makes great headlines and they think their readers are too dumb to see through their fear-mongering nonsense, or it's a narrative now being pushed by whoever is directing Westminster right now, and the lamestream media are just doing what they do best, echoing the wisdom of their masters, without question. Likely it's a combination of both.

All viruses mutate and RNA viruses more so than DNA based viruses, this is one of the main reasons a vaccine has never been produced in the past, because it mutates so quickly that traditional methods of developing vaccines just wouldn't be able to keep up with how quickly the virus mutates.

Virulence

Virulence is a pathogen's ability to do harm to the host, with the most extreme being death. The debate to what mutation does to virulence is still undecided.

On the one hand, there is the logical assumption that natural selection would be in favour of a less virulent mutation, because a dead host equals a dead virus. Many argue that a very virulent strain would be more contagious due to the extreme symptoms pre-death.

The Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 is often used to strengthen this theory, however, as many of my readers probably know, the Spanish Flu pandemic was not as clear cut as the official narrative would have you believe. I delve into this in more depth in a previous article here[5]

The high case-fatality rate—especially among young adults—during the 1918–1919 influenza pandemic is incompletely understood. Although late deaths showed bacterial pneumonia, early deaths exhibited extremely “wet,” sometimes hemorrhagic lungs.

The hypothesis presented herein is that aspirin contributed to the incidence and severity of viral pathology, bacterial infection, and death, because physicians of the day were unaware that the regimens (8.0–31.2 g per day) produce levels associated with hyperventilation and pulmonary edema in 33% and 3% of recipients, respectively.

Recently, pulmonary edema was found at autopsy in 46% of 26 salicylate-intoxicated adults.

Experimentally, salicylates increase lung fluid and protein levels and impair mucociliary clearance. In 1918, the US Surgeon General, the US Navy, and the Journal of the American Medical Association recommended use of aspirin just before the October death spike.

If these recommendations were followed, and if pulmonary edema occurred in 3% of persons, a significant proportion of the deaths may be attributable to aspirin. - academic.oup.com[6]

But as I said earlier, this topic is very much still up for debate.

We are being led to believe some of the new strains of the SARS-CoV-2 virus are more virulent, however what actual evidence do we have to justify such claims?

Strain or Variant?

Once again, the Government and the media are using terms incorrectly. The terms Strain and Variant are being used interchangeably. But let me be clear, a new variant is not the same as a new strain.

As Prof Ian Jones, Professor of Virology at the University of Reading correctly points out:

The changes in the SARS-CoV-2 sequence are variants not strains. The virus exists as a cloud of variants known as quasispecies and individual viruses are selected at the time of infection, much like lottery balls. When the virus multiplies it regenerates extensive variation but retains a relatedness to the original infecting virus. - Science Media Centre[7]

This misuse of terminology is typical behaviour, it ensures the public remain dumbed down in their understanding of exactly what is going on. We still see daily updates of COVID19 cases, when in actual fact they mean SARS-CoV-2 infections, two very different things. But it is this type of misinformation that has kept this scam going.

Does the vaccine work on new variants?

Again Boris Johnson has made the irresponsible claim that:

All current evidence continues to show that both the vaccines we are currently using remain effective both against the old variant and this new variant. - Express[8]

Some of the media have reinforced Johnsons statements with outragous headlines like this one from The Express[8]:

Britain's coronavirus vaccines FULLY effective against new more deadly strain - Express[8]

Really, FULLY effective? This implies it was fully effective against the old variant, which of course it isn't.

It is this continual deception from all sides that has left the public feeling helpless, fearful and most importantly(for them), obedient.

In reality, there is no evidence to support these claims, how do I know?

Well, the giveaway is in this last paragraph from The Express article:

But he said there was no evidence to suggest the new variant was more resistant to our Oxford University/AstraZeneca and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines than its predecessors - Express[8]

Their evidence is based on not having any. It's as simple as that.

Business as Usual

In a nutshell, this is no more than just another narrative to keep the public on their toes. Fear over time wanes, therefore it is important to keep adding to the narrative new and scary information.

There are literally thousands of variants, possibly millions. This is what viruses do and what they will always do.

Please leave your comments below.

Sources:

bbc.co.uk
6abc.com
mirror.co.uk
nextstrain.org
oye.news
sciencemediacentre.org
express.co.uk

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Originally published on our website over at OYE NEWS : https://oye.news/news/health/covid-the-variants/

borisjohnson

Experts

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