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New strains of covid

Accepted submission by c0lo at 2020-10-21 12:04:54 from the well-duh-rona-is-mutating dept.
/dev/random

c0lo [soylentnews.org] writes:

Ship linked to COVID-19 strain never before detected in NZ forced to anchor off Queensland coast [abc.net.au]

A cargo ship has been forced to anchor off the Sunshine Coast amid concerns a previously undetected strain of COVID-19 is on board.

The ship, Sofrana Surville, sailed into Australian waters from New Zealand via Noumea on Monday.

An engineer who worked on the Sofrana as well as another ship tested positive to coronavirus in New Zealand on the weekend.

Genomic testing of the engineer's virus found it had never before been detected in New Zealand.

NZ Health Director-General Ashley Bloomfield reported today that the country had 25 new COVID-19 cases, two of which were linked to the engineer who came into contact with the Sorfana.

He said one of those people was infected despite only spending moments with the port worker.

"Really we're talking about a few minutes in the same room," Dr Bloomfield said.

...

Dr Bloomfield said the regular circuit of the Sofrana Surville was between Brisbane, the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, New Caledonia and New Zealand.
...
Dr Bloomfield said while there were thousands of subtypes of the virus around the world, the global database was "heavily weighted" towards the strains reported by high-income countries including the UK, US, European countries, Australia and New Zealand.

This "mystery strain" (not seen until now in New Zealand and, perhaps, Australia) seems a bit more infectious. So does the one that "exploded" in Europe (based on the grow in the number of cases/day, looks like the reproducing factor is way higher than the April one. Or is it?)

Matters to (uselessly) ponder on

  1. I wonder how much different the strain that exploded the number of case in Europe is from the ones used in the vaccines currently under testing?
  2. are those strains "deadlier"? Based on the number of deaths in Europe, one could hope it isn't. I mean, picking one European country at random, say, Netherlands [worldometers.info]: in April, the had 700-1000 new cases/day and 120-150 deaths/day. Now they have 8000+ new cases/day and 30-40 death/day. What are the possible explanations?

In any case, one thing is certain, 2020 is not over yet [is2020over.com].

Original Submission