"Unless we get the world vaccinated, this virus is going to win." - Chris Hayes last night, on All In,
"The pictures coming back from India—and the world's worst COVID-19 outbreak since the pandemic was declared over a year ago—look more like images from a medieval Black Death plague than anything you'd expect to see in the 21st century."- Will Bunch, on Indian COVID catastrophe (smirkingchimp.com)
As 24% of Americans play the fool and refuse Covid vaccinations, and 5 million others haven't shown up for their second shots - India is in the midst of a viral tsunami. India is now identifying more than 1 million coronavirus cases every three days, with many times more thought to be going unregistered in a vast country of 1.3 billion, where public health surveillance is often poor. Daily deaths exceeded 2,800 on Sunday, and so many corpses they are having to be cremated in the streets. There were 352,000 infections reported yesterday - which is likely low by a factor two.
India’s underfunded health system is tattering as the world’s worst coronavirus surge wears out the nation, . India has confirmed 16 million cases so far, second only to the United States in a country of nearly 1.3 billion people. India has recorded 2,263 deaths in the past 24 hours for a total of 186,920.
The most ominous aspect of the Indian COVID calamity is the emergence of a new variant, designated B 1.617. According to a WSJ report ('Double Mutant Variant Hits India Hard', April 24-25, p. A7):
"The Indian variant has 13 mutations but gets its name (double mutant) to two mutations similar to those seen separately in other variants. Specifically, one mutation is associated with making the virus more infectious - and appears better at evading antibodies. The other mutation is similar to one that has shown signs of being able to sidestep the body's immune responses."
If this report is accurate it means we face a serious threat - globally - if this variant, this double mutant - gets out of India. Especially if it finds its way to the U.S. where too many dummies are still resisting vaccines and thus preventing us from getting to her immunity.
The way things look now, if we don't get our national act together in respect to the vaccines, we could be overrun as well by the B. 1.617 Indian double mutant. Will we see horrific scenes like those in India, burning bodies in the streets in vast pyres? Stacking bodies like cordwood to be burned up, and buses used as makeshift ICUs? It's possible, especially as too many seem to think the pandemic is over and are ready to spike the ball five yards short of the goal line.
In India, from the WSJ report, the variant now makes up 70.4 percent of the samples collected over the week ended March 25. This compares with 16.1 % just three weeks earlier. This means there is an exponential increase at work and scope for many further mutations as the infections continue unabated. According to Alina Chan, a researcher based at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, quoted in the WSJ piece:
"Once it becomes a dominant variant somewhere, it becomes concerning because that means it might soon become the dominant variant somewhere else."
Most worrisome, "Even without knowing how the variant reacts to vaccines or the body's immune response, scientists say the double mutant has the potential to drive other infection worldwide."
In other words, we could be looking at an agent that could conceivably have an effect equal to or greater than the Spanish flu mutation that caused tens of millions more deaths in the fall of 1918. This is especially given so few in the world at large have been fully - or even partially - vaccinated. Even in the U.S. we are nowhere where we need to be.
As if to underscore the seriousness, a report in Physics Today (April, p. 20), noted: "The inevitable mutations of the coronavirus threaten to block or at least render less effective, the vaccines gaining widespread usage".
Further.
"Already, research is showing that the antibodies produced by the Pfizer–BioNTech and AstraZeneca vaccines are far less effective against the variant originating in South Africa than against earlier SARS-CoV-2 strains, "
This according to Dave Stuart who heads the biosciences program at the UK's Diamond Light Source, and is joint head of structural biology at the University of Oxford. The remaining sections of the article underscore the need to prepare a far more potent arsenal to combat this virus.
Marti Head of Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), who leads the molecular design project of the National Virtual Biotechnology Laboratory (NVBL) told Physics Today (ibid.):
"Tackling a virus requires a multipronged approach in the big-picture way of not only having an arsenal to respond with as the virus changes over time, but also recognizing that trying to kill something that’s not really alive is a very hard task,"
Trying to kill something that's not really alive. Hmmm....how many are processing that, say here in the U.S. who believe they can just jump into unmasked gathering, and with few vaccinated either? At least the vaccines currently provide some protection, but going without them is like a soldier traipsing through enemy territory without a weapon, helmet or flak jacket. It's foolhardy and ultimately self-defeating. It will not get us over the goal line.
Meanwhile, researchers will have to focus on the Covid spike protein to keep us within the scope of ultimate victory - using the vaccines. The spike is a powerful antigen and the standout vaccine target because the immune system immediately mounts a strong response to it. Of the coronavirus’s 28 proteins, the spike also is the most prone to adapt via mutation. As with influenza vaccines, annual boosters may be needed to keep pace.
Lastly, the graph below probably conveys the viral tsunami India is experiencing now better than anything else - or any word:
This race, this battle - is from over and false optimism is not our friend.
Update: 4/30
The Indian double mutation variant B. 1.617 , as reported on NBC News, has now been found in Michigan.
See Also:
Physics Today, May 2020, page 22
And:
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How much should the U.S. care about the Covid crisis unfolding in India? As the death toll soars, the Biden administration has gone from disinterest to desperate overdrive in a bid to avert catastrophe. Who knows how much of a difference this will make, but it’s clear that the global stakes are higher in India than just about anywhere else.
On Wednesday the country recorded 379,459 Covid cases and 3,647 deaths—the eighth straight day of more than 300,000 cases a day—and nearly a quarter of the world-wide deaths from the pandemic that day. More than a year after Covid erupted in China, India has become the virus’s global epicenter.
Since last week, the U.S. has swung into action. From President Biden down, a slew of officials pledged assistance to their Indian counterparts. Washington has diverted filters it ordered for vaccine production to India’s Serum Institute, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer. It will also ship oxygen and related equipment, supplies of the drug remdesivir and testing kits and personal protection equipment, and provide advice from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention experts. The U.S. will likely donate a large share of its roughly 60 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which are unauthorized by the Food and Drug Administration and thus unusable domestically. The U.S. Agency for International Development and the CDC earmarked $75 million for India from a global fund.
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by Vijay Prashad | April 26, 2021 - 5:14am | permalink
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