The “Botswana” variant

And so it begins. 

The moon is high up on a mountain

The lunatics have taken over the asylum

Waiting on the rapture

Singing, "We're here to keep your prices down

We'll feed you to the hounds

To the daily mail, to get up, together"

Classic hiding the important stuff way down the article.

Scientists told MailOnline, however, that its unprecedented number of mutations might work against it and make it 'unstable', preventing it from becoming widespread. 

"It carries 32 mutations, many of which suggest it is highly transmissible and vaccine-resistant, and has more alterations to its spike protein than any other variant."

The Botswana variant only works when aces are wild and spades are declared dormant. Then the application of Cockburn’s Presumption allows the dealer to cut obliquely, thereby forcing the receiver to dummy the drift or declare a used rubber and foul the drain. Voyeurs can thrust out if they have the stance but a quick Finnegan’s Trick by any player may open the wound. The best pre-emptive manoeuvre is to bait the jack, force a droit de singe dans l’arbre and freeze the spraint.  A lack of intimate piercing may make matters far worse. 

  • The variant.
  • The scariant.
  • Maybe you should all.
  • Get Covid.
  • Find out.
  • It is not.
  • To be feared.
  • A mild cold.
  • For which.
  • You.
  • Risked myocarditis.
  • With your beloved.
  • Wünder jabs.

Something really bad just occurred

 

or good- I cant tell

 

I just read my 21.27 and laughed at my own joke so much I have tears flowing down my cheeks. 

it is not that funny 

 

ok it is funny and fook me I’m still laughing 

 

but it id the fact that it’s Sails -sorry but- and I need laughs.

Sadly someone died. Family. Not Mum.  Sad days. So a moment’s lunacy and crazy laughter is welcome. 
 

if so, fatso. 

 

This actually looks rather concerning. If this is transmissable, and immune escapes our current antibodies, we could be back to march, 2020. Let's hope for the best. 

Ta. Long awaited passing, much relief but some sadness particularly for those closer. I am sad for them. 
I wonder how Crypto is feeling today?
 

creds to Hotnow for the Okovango Delta variant gag

‘Covid proved a godsend for newspapers with space to fill - the gift that keeps giving.  No wonder they don’t want to let go.‘

it really did. I genuinely think historians will conclude that Covid was exaggerated out of all perspective by the need to fill 24 hour media.

It’s vaccine escaped but so unstable it will probably prove incapable of infecting more than a handful of people.  I’m not going to get excited about it.

Imagine doing the same again. And the same again. And the same again.

But that's pretty much how you were describing "the pointlessness of existence" back in 2019.

Is there a clear line here?

People with rubbish lives think existence is pointless.

Team chin just love life and have lots of friends and family to celebrate it with.

That would explain a lot of things.

 

 

In all seriousness, if there is a new variant it will have definitely arisen from a place with low vaccination rates.

Once again showing anti-vaccers will cause any further lockdowns.

That's critical thinking by them

“It's vaccine escaped. We are back to 2020.”

er

there is no evidence that it has “vaccine escaped”

infections have been detected in vaccinated people, but that’s true of every strain including the wild strain

given that these vaccines do not stop infection/transmission in any event, the question is whether this (or any) new variant makes it harder for those vaccines to do what they actually do, which is prevent serious illness

“vaccine escape” in the case of covid means causing serious illness despite vaccination

Imagine doing the same again. And the same again. And the same again.

I saw The Comedy of Errors the other night.  Never seen it before.   Pretty good production and I enjoyed it.  Would recommend (particularly on a £10 rush ticket). 

Tbh I was pretty cool about it until I saw Laz step in with his measured tone and ‘nothing to see here’ attitude.

But that then took me right back to Jan/Feb 2020.

I fear we is fooked all over again m8s.

Good point worf 

We exist in a strange world where Laz and the queen anti-vaccer have taken opposing sides.

For once, one of them will be right. Imo it will be Laz but then my chin is wet, my bed is dry.

I can see pigs flying 

“We exist in a strange world where Laz and the queen anti-vaccer have taken opposing sides.” 

This isn’t actually strange, is it, given the frequency with which it occurs on covidious topics 

Yeah but at the moment I imagine Laz and Clergs policies are the same - carry on chinning etc.

TBH me too. But arent you a but nervous the new variant will set us right back? If it does not escape vaccine and and painfully built up natural herd immunity and it is much more tranimissible than Delta (which initial twitter quasi science hot takes are suggesting), then we are back with a similar logic to March 2020.

Assuming for the moment that IFR remains the same and assuming also thst there is still some residual immunity - Im sure there will be - you could still be looking at serious (100Ks deaths) worst case scenarios. And that leads to the remorseless NHS collapse, lockdown BS, logic.

We should certainly be trying very hard to keep it out as long as poss whilst we work out its dynamics. We seem to be doing better there than eg Delta where we kept the relevant borders open for a few extra weeks whilst we pursued a post Brexit trade deal - a decision which probably caused a few Ks of deaths in UK and extended LD 2 by a couple of months. Third time lucky I guess.

That said once this wave gets going, I would be very reluctant to start up the LD BS again given how hard it is for people to get out of it and how ruinous it is to the economy.

The right thing to do this time around will be to tell the vulnerable to self isolate. Thats gonna be a fun discussion on the Guardian.

Obviously there is the potential for it to be bad, but I’m not interested in anyone’s Twitter hot take. I’ll wait for the facts.

It’s also worth mentioning that if and when the mooted benign mutation emerges - something that, in the course of evolving to maximise transmissibility, has become less pathogenic - it will probably look like this; it will have many of the existing transmissibility upgrades but loads of other weird shit, some of which will probably further increase transmissibility and some of which will, f it is indeed a benign mutation, will reduce pathogenicity.

In the case of this particular newcomer, we just don’t know. So worried a bit? Sure. But not in a. flap yet. Also, to reiterate, total escape of the vaccines is very unlikely.

On the wireless this morning: there is no evidence yet to suggest that this new variant is any more transmissible or resistant to vaccines than the delta variant.

Until there is, I’m not going to unduly panic.

We were one of the first to have delta but also one of the first to get it over with. Keeping it out only sets up hysteria and delays the inevitable.

The lockdown mentality always and inevitably meant locking down again and again and again. Sadly nobody regrets it yet.

The right thing to do this time around will be to tell the vulnerable to self isolate.

the problem with this cw is that they can’t - too many people are vulnerable to covid and it’s too contagious

just telling them to and then washing our hands of it might be one option i guess, but it won’t avoid the deaths 

anyway as you say we’ll all cross that bridge if we come to it

No, and it's unlikely to escape vaccines so far as hospitalisation and death go. Covid would have to really go some to escape our current immune response, likely to the point of instability (such instability could wipe it out entirely). 

So far it's been found in people in the third world who in many cases are immuno compromised so let's wait and see what the scientists think it will do when confronted with someone well fed with a good immune system.

It will take weeks to tweak a vaccine if necessary so I can probably get jabbed against this when I go for my booster in the new year.  Given our experience of rolling out extra doses shouldn't be overly hard to jab all the oldies again if they need it.   

In other words it's not like 2020.

Maybe - but that all sounds a bit like the ‘people in wuhan dont have a health system and smoke too much’ schtick we heard back in 2020.

It does look like it is much more transmissiblenthsn delta. It is delta that it appears to be replacing in the effected states.

But I suspect that it will only partially escape our high levels of vax and herd immunity. Probably still enough to trigger some sort of policy response. Not sure I will agree with it, but i bet that will happen. Triggering more debate/blame/annoyance etc.