Covid-19 News & Updates

[buksida]

.....Doctors had advised Hun Manet, a deputy commander of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces, not to eat seafood or drink alcohol after taking the vaccine....

Special stipulations concerning Chinese vaccine? I've never read about that before.

It should stipulate that you don't eat bats ... ever ...

[PeteC]

They keep printing similar to the below day after day with no explanation. It's deceptive and makes a reader think these arriving people were not tested properly before departure. I hope one day some media source gives readers a proper explanation. As we've discussed before, we think we know the answer, which is dead virus in their systems being discovered, but it would be nice for them to confirm that.

"The 13 imported cases included eight quarantined arrivals - from India (1), the Philippines (1), Japan (1), the United States (2), Kuwait (1), Argentina (1) and Malaysia (1)."

https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/ge ... more-cases

[Big Boy]

Today's Brief:

[Big Boy]

Today's Brief:

[Big Boy]

There will be no Daily Brief over the long weekend. Next brief will be on Monday.

[PeteC]

Scientists say Thailand bats could spread similar coronaviruses

https://thethaiger.com/news/national/sc ... onaviruses

Scientists say bats in Thailand could spread other coronaviruses related to Sars-CoV-2, or Covid-19, joining what is thought to be many other bats doing the same thing across Asia. The revelation comes after scientists found bats at a wildlife sanctuary in eastern Thailand to feature a virus that closely matches that of the virus that causes Covid-19.

The team that discovered the bats featuring the virus in Thailand is led by Lin-Fa Wang of Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore. The virus found is named RacCS203, and is over 91% similar to the Covid-19 virus in terms of genomes.

It is also closely related to another coronavirus, RmYN02, which is found in bats in Yunnan, China as its genomes display a 93.6% match to Covid-19.

“We need to do more surveillance in animals. In order to find the true origin, the surveillance work needs to go beyond the border of China.”

One big concern is the ability of such coronaviruses to move between different mammals as scientists still attribute the outbreak of Covid-19 to the virus being transferred from bats to a secondary host and then to humans. But the bats in Thailand at the wildlife sanctuary are insect-eating, which workers at the sanctuary have told visitors to not be concerned about the flying creatures.

However, insect-eating bats can spread deadly illnesses and according to a New York Times article, a virologist says horseshoe bats, may be to blame for the current Covid-19 virus. Horseshoe bats are, indeed, found in Thailand caves, and are also insect eaters.

The discovery of the possible connection between horseshoe bats and the coronavirus linked to Covid-19 prompted Dr. Supaporn Watcharaprueksadee, the deputy chief of the Center for Emerging Infectious Disease of Thailand and a specialist in bat-borne viruses, to look into whether bats in Thailand, may share a similar virus.

Infectious diseases such as SARS, MERS, Hendra, Ebola and Nipah, are thought to have emerged from bats, making research into Asian bats all the more necessary.

SOURCE: BBC News https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-55998157. (More detail)

[GroveHillWanderer]

Scientists say Thailand bats could spread similar coronaviruses

https://thethaiger.com/news/national/sc ... onaviruses

Scientists say bats in Thailand could spread other coronaviruses related to Sars-CoV-2, or Covid-19, joining what is thought to be many other bats doing the same thing across Asia. The revelation comes after scientists found bats at a wildlife sanctuary in eastern Thailand to feature a virus that closely matches that of the virus that causes Covid-19.

The team that discovered the bats featuring the virus in Thailand is led by Lin-Fa Wang of Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore. The virus found is named RacCS203, and is over 91% similar to the Covid-19 virus in terms of genomes.

SOURCE: BBC News https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-55998157. (More detail)

That's interesting info. What it set me to thinking, is that one of the theories I've read, attempting to explain why a number countries in SE Asia seem to have avoided the worst effects of the Covid pandemic, is that people may have cross-immunity from being exposed to similar but less virulent coronaviruses in the past.

So I guess it's at least possible that something like the virus which is 91% similar to SARS-CoV-2 had already spilled over into the local population (without ever being detected because the symptoms were mild) and that this may have equipped people with an immune system response that is protective against this latest coronavirus?

[hhinner]

^^ So, would this immune response be inherited genetically or acquired through personal exposure? How long would a foreigner have to be here to reasonably expect to acquire this immune response?

[HHTel]

The research to date shows that recovering from Covid only gives immunity for a while. The antibodies deteriorate after a few weeks. It's also been noted that people recovering from the severest infections produce a stronger immune capability. The milder the symptoms, the weaker the antibody response.

With that in mind, it's unlikely that mild symptoms from similar coronaviruses would produce a lasting immunity.

It's too early to say but the general concensus is that it won't mimic the measles vaccine, for example, which gives immunity for life and will be more like the 'flu shot which needs to be taken annually to cope with the latest mutation.

[handdrummer]

How do the bats gets the virus? Is there a source for the virus?

[HHTel]

Like much of wildlife, bats are host to a number of coronaviruses. They live and reproduce in the host while not necessarily making them ill. Wildlife has for decades been host to a variety of diseases. Some of these can affect humans but in the main, they do not affect the host.

It's nature.

Malaria doesn't affect the female mosquitos that carry the disease but because of their appetite for our blood, it certainly isn't good for us.

[GroveHillWanderer]

The research to date shows that recovering from Covid only gives immunity for a while. The antibodies deteriorate after a few weeks. It's also been noted that people recovering from the severest infections produce a stronger immune capability. The milder the symptoms, the weaker the antibody response.

With that in mind, it's unlikely that mild symptoms from similar coronaviruses would produce a lasting immunity.

It's too early to say but the general concensus is that it won't mimic the measles vaccine, for example, which gives immunity for life and will be more like the 'flu shot which needs to be taken annually to cope with the latest mutation.

It's true that the humoral response, consisting of antibodies, often fades quite quickly but that's because it's the body's response to an ongoing infection. What's more important in the long run though, is the cellular response - T cells and B cells. There's a reason why subsets of these are called "memory" T and B cells.

That's because long after the antibody response has died away, these cells retain a memory of the pathogen the body was exposed to, allowing for a much quicker response upon a subsequent exposure.

Various studies have shown that some people that had not even been exposed to SARS-Cov-2, still had B and T cells that were able to respond to it.

The obvious theory that would explain this, is that they had previously been exposed to other coronaviruses that were similar enough to the current one, that a cross-reactivity was present.

The article linked to below from the "Frontiers in Immunology" website is just one of many I've read that present evidence for cross-reactivity. As it states:

There is also evidence that pre-existing T cell immunity to common cold coronaviruses can prime the response to SARS-CoV-2.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10 ... 67710/full

[handdrummer]

"There is also evidence that pre-existing T cell immunity to common cold coronaviruses can prime the response to SARS-CoV-2."

I've never had a cold, so maybe I'm immune to SARS-CoV-2? That would be nice.

[GroveHillWanderer]

"There is also evidence that pre-existing T cell immunity to common cold coronaviruses can prime the response to SARS-CoV-2."

I've never had a cold, so maybe I'm immune to SARS-CoV-2? That would be nice.

They're not going so far as to say that T cell immunity from the common cold can make you immune to this coronavirus, just that it might help. I mean for one thing, we know that having had a cold and recovered once, doesn't make you immune to getting colds in future so it's hardly going to stop something like SARS-CoV-2 in its tracks.

However, I would have thought having been exposed to something that is 91% similar to CoVid-19 (if that has ever happened) would have a much more beneficial effect.

[handdrummer]

"There is also evidence that pre-existing T cell immunity to common cold coronaviruses can prime the response to SARS-CoV-2."

I've never had a cold, so maybe I'm immune to SARS-CoV-2? That would be nice.

They're not going so far as to say that T cell immunity from the common cold can make you immune to this coronavirus, just that it might help. I mean for one thing, we know that having had a cold and recovered once, doesn't make you immune to getting colds in future so it's hardly going to stop something like SARS-CoV-2 in its tracks.

However, I would have thought having been exposed to something that is 91% similar to CoVid-19 (if that has ever happened) would have a much more beneficial effect.

Another day, another disappointment.