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[LDC]

Not sure if this is the best thread for it, but thought it'd get more traffic here, so... here's a talk on the growing field of planetary health and its relationship to things like the emergence of zoonotic pandemics. I'm only ten minutes in but I know the speaker and he's sharp and very sound, so should be a interesting talk.

Planetary Health: approaches to zoonotic spillover, indigenous health, and rainforest conservation

<p>As industrial civilization assaults the worlds remaining rainforests the health and cultural diversity of indigenous peoples is threat...

media.ccc.de

"As industrial civilization assaults the worlds remaining rainforests the health and cultural diversity of indigenous peoples is threatened along with much of the biodiversity of the planet. In turn these human changes to ecosystems, combined with vast expansion of domestic animal populations, cause spillover of zoonotic diseases which threaten the health of people worldwide. As with HIV and Ebola, every death from COVID-19 is an environmental effect."

 

[Indeliblelink]

Identification of novel bat coronaviruses sheds light on the evolutionary origins of SARS-CoV-2 and related viruses

A study of 411 bat samples collected in Yunnan province, China between 2019 and 2020 yields 24 full-length coronavirus genomes, including four viruses highly related to SARS-CoV-2 and three to SARS. The closest relative to SARS-CoV-2 infects a species of bats that is found in regions that extend...

www.cell.com

Despite the discovery of animal coronaviruses related to SARS-CoV-2, the evolutionary origins of this virus are elusive. We describe a meta-transcriptomic study of 411 bat samples collected from a small geographical region in Yunnan province, China, between May 2019 and November 2020. We identified 24 full-length coronavirus genomes, including four novel SARS-CoV-2 related and three SARS-CoV related viruses. Rhinolophus pusillus virus RpYN06 was the closest relative of SARS-CoV-2 in most of the genome, although it possessed a more divergent spike gene. The other three SARS-CoV-2 related coronaviruses carried a genetically distinct spike gene that could weakly bind to the hACE2 receptor in vitro. Ecological modeling predicted the co-existence of up to 23 Rhinolophus bat species, with the largest contiguous hotspots extending from South Laos and Vietnam to southern China. Our study highlights the remarkable diversity of bat coronaviruses at the local scale, including close relatives of both SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV.

 

[not-bono-ever]

Why are new ventilators being trashed in a Miami-Dade landfill?

A resident who was taking some garbage to the South Dade Landfill was stunned to see pallets full of medical ventilators dumped as bulky trash.

www.local10.com

 

[2hats]

New wave signal in many African countries (combinations of B.1.351 and B.1.617.2) and a couple of other notable ones.

 

[Badgers]

The UK are doing better than Rwanda

 

[sparkybird]

Brazil has 500,000 Covid deaths and warnings of more to come as they go into winter with only 15% vaccinated and Bolsonaro refusing to put in any measures to prevent the spread.

Covid: Brazil hits 500,000 deaths amid 'critical' situation

Experts warn the outbreak could worsen amid a slow vaccination programme and the start of winter.

www.bbc.co.uk

Why do we hear so little about what's going on in Latin America?

 

[cupid_stunt]

Brazil has 500,000 Covid deaths and warnings of more to come as they go into winter with only 15% vaccinated and Bolsonaro refusing to put in any measures to prevent the spread.

Covid: Brazil hits 500,000 deaths amid 'critical' situation

Experts warn the outbreak could worsen amid a slow vaccination programme and the start of winter.

www.bbc.co.uk

Why do we hear so little about what's going on in Latin America?

It's grim at 2,340 deaths per million/number 10 position, according to worldometers, but it's a lot worst in Peru, which is now in top position at 5,692 deaths per million, and is well ahead of Hungary on 3,108, in second position.

Two other South American countries are in the top 20, Argentina on 1,946, and Colombia on 1,932, taking positions 17 & 18, the US is no. 20 on 1,854, all the other top 15 are European countries, with the UK at no. 19 on 1,876.

Eastern Europe has been hit very hard with the latest wave, and we also hear so little about that.

Although, of course, there's the question of accuracy of reporting, e.g. there's plenty of reports that the death rate in India could up to 10 times or more than the 278 deaths per million officially reported.

Grim all round TBH.

 

[elbows]

Lets remember that the death figures figures for Peru are so high not just because of how bad its been there, which it has, but also because their government eventually did the right thing and had proper estimates done of what the real death numbers might be, as opposed to sticking with the huge undercount that was previously present in their official figures. If every country did the same then we would have a different impression of how countries compare.

Peru has world’s worst per capita Covid toll after death data revised

Updated figures give country a per capita death toll of 500 per 100,000 people – double that of Brazil

www.theguardian.com

 

[Flavour]

The official global death figure is sitting just under 4 million at present, but if we imagine that everywhere the undercounting has been similar to Peru, where they've just almost-tripled the death count, we can imagine the real global total of deaths to be well over 10 million. And if the actual confirmed number of cases is now not far off 200 million, we can safely assume the actual number of people who've had Covid is much higher. It could be 10% of the entire global population who've been infected at some point over the last 18 months.

 

[elbows]

Yes the real death figure could easily be millions more than the official total. I dont try to come up with estimates at this stage though, I dont know how many millions it really is. I expect that eventually there will be more attempts to come up with global estimates and I will get round to reading the detail of some of them, but I cant bring myself to do that just yet.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

Looks like they've found the body of that soldier who was on the run in Belgium.

Body discovered after search for Belgian far-right soldier

Initial evidence indicates body found in woods is that of Jurgen Conings

www.theguardian.com

 

[Badgers]

Delta PLUS variant incoming then?

 

[elbows]

Delta PLUS variant incoming then?

AY.1? What have you heard/seen in news etc that has led to this comment?

 

[2hats]

Delta PLUS variant incoming then?

You refer to AY.1 (B.1.617.2.1), which is B.1.617.2 with S:K417N, originally first observed in a number of travellers from Nepal to Japan? Only 6 more sequences added in the UK in the last week (so far).

 

[Badgers]

AY.1? What have you heard/seen in news etc that has led to this comment?

'Delta Plus' variant of coronavirus found in MP: Officials

The development came even as the second wave of the pandemic is waning in Madhya Pradesh and restrictions imposed to prevent the spread of the infection are being eased.

m.economictimes.com

 

[2hats]

It's been around in India since at least 5 April 2021.

 

[Badgers]

It's been around in India since at least 5 April 2021.

Ah, cheers

 

[Buddy Bradley]

I was just browsing the Worldometers Covid data. I hadn't realised that Peru's deaths are at nearly 200k for a population of only 32m, which means that almost 1 in every 200 people in the country have died from Covid. I can't imagine how devastating that will be for their future.

Edit: I see others had mentioned it recently too - haven't been following this thread regularly.

 

[bimble]

er. according to my folks, Switzerland is about to open its borders, no quarantine and no covid tests required at all, to anybody from any country incl the Uk, india, whatever, who can show they've been vaccinated. From saturday. That seems a bit mad / desperate.

 

[weltweit]

er. according to my folks, Switzerland is about to open its borders, no quarantine and no covid tests required, to anybody from any country who can show they've been vaccinated. That seems a bit mad / desperate.

Yep, seems a bit odd. Perhaps their tourism industry is powerful there, but I imagine the ski season is well gone so summer tourism? Did you get an idea when they are going to make their announcement?

 

[bimble]

They announced it today i believe, comes into effect this weekend. The Swiss usually so pragmatic, this does seem odd.
They'll get all the tourists who can afford to go on holiday there I suppose, where a pizza is £30 etc.

 

[elbows]

They've not got the best pandemic record, have made errors before. I think they pissed off some major EU countries by refusing to shut their ski resorts last winter, to give just one related example.

 

[bimble]

They've not got the best pandemic record, have made errors before. I think they pissed off some major EU countries by refusing to shut their ski resorts last winter, to give just one related example.

Yes their vaccination system was truly shitty too, with no excuse for it.
Slow, late, madly regional & my dad still being told by his doc to not bother with a second jab because he had the covid.

 

[elbows]

The situation is difficult in New South Wales and they might have another lockdown.

I'm also quoting from this article as a demonstration of the sort of info you get when authorities have a rather different approach to this sort of thing compared to the UK.

Sydney locked in a time warp as Bondi cluster, exposure locations swell

In a significant escalation of her rhetoric, Gladys Berejiklian told Parliament on Wednesday the government “will not hesitate to go further and harder if we have to” with restrictions.

www.smh.com.au

Four NSW Nationals MP, including Agriculture Minister Adam Marshall and upper house MPs Ben Franklin and Trevor Khan, are isolating after being contacted by NSW Health and told to get a COVID-19 test immediately. The group was at Christo’s Pizzeria.

Other alerts were issued on Wednesday for north-west Sydney’s 600 and 665 bus routes, bus 333 from Oxford Street, and trains running from Bondi to Mascot, Mascot to Central and Central to Glenfield. Diners who were at Surry Hills’ Lumiere Cafe on Monday and Nando’s Wetherill Park on Sunday night were also told to isolate and get tested.

Late Wednesday night, diners at Tropicana Cafe in Darlinghurst on Friday between 12pm and 2pm and Ikaria Bondi in Bondi Beach on Sunday between 5pm and 7pm were told to get tested and isolate for 14 days. Alerts were also issued for Coles Express, Woolworths Metro in Bondi, BWS Mascot, United Cinema Narellen, Meadowbank Tafe, 338 Pitt Street and Coles King Cross in Potts Point.

 

[elbows]

Israel is going to demonstrate how a pretty well vaccinated country may reimpose measures to try to cope with Delta.

 

[High Voltage]

We now live in a post pandemic world... Except we don't. It's June and the world has already experienced more deaths from covid than we did in all of 2020--- IN JUNE

 

[Petcha]

Hmm.. so apparently having stadiums full of screaming football fans, who are then let out to party the night away in a city which is completely ignoring covid and then flying them back to the own countries wasn't a good idea. Granted I'm not an epidemiologist. But er...

This does not look good. The city held six matches in ten days, and a number of Finnish fans returned home to test positive.

 

[Flavour]

quelle surprise

 

[Numbers]

This is not going to go well I suspect.

Covid-19: Crowds flee Dhaka ahead of strict Bangladesh lockdown

 

[TopCat]

I’m getting anxious again.