Monthly Archives: December 2021

Since 2019, when the outbreak will be coronavirus, swinging MCE after two years, remember that the whole world in the fight in the big tide of the “disease”, China is a very good control of national, others copy homework is awful, just safe living half a year in October 2020 in India found that delta new mutation, once the virus is released around the world fear, Now the emergence of the Omicron strain has led to two countries becoming “stateless”.

As of November 29, Italy, Denmark, Israel and other countries have reported confirmed cases of the omicron strain, while France and the Czech Republic have officially reported suspected cases. Suspected cases of the virus had been detected in South Africa as early as mid-November, and a dozen days later confirmed cases in South Africa shocked the world. Israel was the first to react.

On November 25, the Israeli government announced a ban on the entry of most African flights, and on November 26, it directly announced the closure of the border and banned all foreign passengers from entering the country. On November 29th Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, issued a government order banning all foreign visitors from entering the country from midnight on November 30th, while everyone was still discussing Israel’s “steady”, “precise” and “ruthless” approach.

Both countries have closed their borders so quickly that what is this omicron strain that everyone is talking about?

What exactly is the product of the Omicron strain

“Mr Mick Dijon strain” is will be the product of coronavirus variation, in early November 9, confirmed for the first time in South Africa detected, by mid to late November, national institute of infectious diseases in South Africa announced confirmed the authenticity of this virus, more powerful is that it not only has high pathogenic infectious also have escape vaccine immunization to prevent risks, the news shocked. The novel Coronavirus is actually an RNA virus. Biologically, the genetic material is an RNA molecule. The error repair mechanism during the replication of the genetic molecule is very poor, and therefore the mutation rate is very fast. Studies have shown that the Omicron strain has twice as many mutations as the Delta strain.

Nankai university medical team announced: del he strain than will be coronavirus spike protein (S) on 15 of mutant, its propagation speed has been achieved, and Mr. Mick Dijon relative delta virus spike protein in the number of mutations (S) has reached more than 50 varieties, a full three times as much.

This shift left the team wondering what causes the virus to mutate so much. The spike protein is the main transmission route of novel coronavirus infection in humans. It binds to the ACE2 receptor in human cells, and it is the detection of the spike protein (S protein) by the immune system to prevent attack on the Novel Coronavirus, which means that people with low immunity are bound to be infected with the virus and subsequently mutated in the coronavirus.

In June this year, a South African news reported that a woman with advanced HIV infection (also known as AIDS), who recovered from the novel coronavirus after more than 200 days of infection, produced 30 viral mutations in her body, including 13 spikes. This has left the medical community wondering if the omicron strain could be a combination of COVID-19 and HIV. Poverty, poor access to health care, the prevalence of HIV and low vaccination rates in South Africa have created favorable conditions for the omicron strain to grow.

The omicron strain has become a public enemy overnight. Despite the fact that COVID-19 vaccines are now widely available, for the Omicron strain, there are more than 50 mutations in the spike protein, which not only doubles the intensity of infection, but also increases the risk of escaping the vaccine.

Epidemic prevention in various countries

The Centre for Health Protection (CHP) of the Department of Health of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) officially announced on March 25 that Japan and Israel had closed their doors after two years of fighting the virus. Have confirmed by genome sequencing of Hong Kong for 2 cases were positive for confirmed cases (Mr Mick Dijon) variants, are all foreigners, two men is a South African immigration Hong Kong area, and the other is a Canadian man because two people live together hotel cross infection, and officials said two people had already received all the new vaccine.

The Department of Health of the Hong Kong regional government took emergency measures to prevent and control the two men and imposed a 14-day quarantine on 12 people who had close contact with the two men. As of the time of Posting, no confirmed cases have been reported. Netizens praised this as the speed of China.

Covid outbreak fronts by the United States economic night back to 2 years before liberation, now the emergence of new variants the dense gram si strain, let the whole world again focused on the superpower, world class infectious disease virus experts fauci said in November 27 has not yet been detected in the United States the Mick Dijon strain confirmed cases, but a great chance to the United States or have appeared did not come screening, U.S. President Joe Biden also issued an order on Monday restricting travel from South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique and Malawi.

Since November 28, almost all European countries have been immune. The Netherlands has confirmed 13 cases of the omikron strain of the virus in its country as of November 28, followed by Denmark, which also reported two confirmed cases. The confirmed cases in both countries were caused by travelers from South Africa.

In Britain, a third case was confirmed on Thursday, with 22 confirmed cases as of Wednesday. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told a news conference to limit travel and wear face masks, but did not close the country’s borders.

Germany confirmed three cases of the omicron strain on Tuesday, while France has identified more than a dozen suspected cases.

Who when evaluating the dense gram si strain has the risk as a “very high” at that time the only sweep the snow from his own doorstep, Singapore, the Philippines, South Korea, Canada, Italy has put South Africa all pull in 7 countries banned the “blacklist” go out a lot of visitors lined up at the airport, only to return journey, but because the out-of-bounds command, A large number of passengers were stranded.

How can we better guard against this sudden virus

On November 28, Zhong Nanshan, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and director of the National Clinical Research Center for Respiratory Diseases, gave an answer to the reporter about the “mutation of the Omicron virus strain” : The virus emerged, but spread extremely fast, because the molecular genetic testing found mutation point very much, but how much harm, can make the illness is more serious, isn’t study it better vaccine, should be judged according to the actual situation of follow-up, but remind you not to panic, should better be protection, Epidemic prevention and control measures for people in relevant places in South Africa.

Fudan university, huashan wen-hong zhang, director of the hospital infection of medical doctors on weibo post also said the Mick Dijon strain is a recent incident, mutation point number than found in all varieties, are expected to be in the host experience is evolving out of a long time, at present most think it could be a variant in long-term immune function defects, such as HIV/AIDS patients carry change over a long period of time. We also hope that people will pay more attention to protection measures.

The infectious disease experts fauci said: probably need two weeks to get about Mr Mick Dijon strains of infectious, severity, more specific information, but the current covid vaccine will provide a certain degree of protection to new champions severely affected, urging people to covid vaccine booster shot as soon as possible, if you don’t have to be vaccinated against covid of children and adults should be vaccinated immediately.

Immunofluorescence staining of infected cells shows abundant nucleocapsid protein expression (middle and right), while the uninfected group is shown on the left, hkU said.

(Courtesy of HKU; Photo source: RTHK)

The department of Microbiology of the University of Hong Kong (HKU) announced that the successful isolation of the omicron mutant virus strain from clinical specimens will be used in the development and production of inactivated whole virus vaccine, marking the first successful isolation and culture of the omicron mutant virus strain in Asia.

Hku said the team would use the cultured virus in animal models to assess transmissibility, immune escape and pathogenicity, and explore possibilities for joint development and production of an inactivated whole virus vaccine. Study leader Yuen Kwok-yung, chair professor of hkU’s Department of Microbiology, described the isolation of the mutant virus as the first step in launching urgent research on the mutant virus.

On 27 November, the scientific team at the Children’s Hospital in Rome released the world’s first images of the novel Coronavirus variant omicron strain. The images show that the Omikron strain has more spike protein mutations than the Delta strain of the novel coronavirus variant. These variations vary and are mostly located in areas that interact with human cells.

Contrast of spike protein mutations in Delta and Omicron strains.

Omicron may have entered Europe before reporting to South Africa

Omicron continues to spread globally, with confirmed cases now reported in 20 countries. In Europe, 44 cases of the new variant have been detected in 10 European Union countries, according to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control. Germany has reported confirmed cases with no history of travel abroad and no contact with people traveling abroad. Authorities are watching closely to see if community infections have emerged.

Although Omicron was first reported to the WHO by South Africa, its origin may change as scientists learn more about the mutated strain.

According to the Washington Post, Dutch officials said in a statement On November 30 that they had detected the omicron variant in samples collected on November 19 and 23. “It is not clear whether the individuals had traveled to South Africa,” which reported its detection on November 25.

The earliest known confirmed cases of Omicron were in southern African countries, the report said. According to the GISAID global database, the first confirmed sample was collected in Johannesburg, South Africa, on 9 November; Five confirmed omicron samples were collected in Botswana on Monday.

But experts warn that omicron could have originated in another country. Even countries with world-leading genetic sequencing programmes have assessed only a fraction of cases. Gene-sequencing laboratories in many countries are combing through recent samples, not just in the last few days, but in the past month.

Modena: It’s less effective on Omicron
At present, the symptoms of infection caused by Omicron are relatively mild. Angelique Coetzee, president of the South African Medical Association, said omichron can cause mild illness, with symptoms including sore muscles, tiredness and a mild cough. But so far, it has not been found that the infected people have lost taste and smell, nor obvious symptoms, and some patients can be treated at home.

However, according to experts from the National Health Commission, novel coronavirusS protein mutations in K417N, E484A or N501Y suggest enhanced immune escape ability; The triple mutation K417N+E484A+N501Y was found in Omicron. In addition, omicron has several other mutations that may reduce the neutralization activity of some monoclonal antibodies. The superposition of mutations may reduce the protective efficacy of some antibody drugs against omicron mutant strains, and the ability of immune escape against existing vaccines needs further monitoring and research.

However, Stephane Bancel, head of Modena Pharmaceuticals, said in a statement to the Financial Times that existing COVID-19 vaccines may not work as well against omicron as against the Delta variant, which first appeared in India last year and has since spread rapidly around the world.

As for the specifics, Bansel added, “We need to wait for the data.” He noted that adjustments to current vaccine production may be needed and that it would take months for pharmaceutical companies to mass produce a new vaccine against the newly mutated strain.

For its part, Oxford University rejected Bansell’s comments in a statement, saying that there is no evidence to date that existing vaccines are ineffective in preventing the emergence of severe infections with new mutated strains because there is currently a lack of available data on omicron. “Caution should therefore be exercised in assessing the impact of vaccines on mutants,” it said. Oxford University also said it was ready to work with Astrazeneca to speed up development of a vaccine against the new variant.

Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson also said on Monday that they, like rival Modena, had begun studying vaccines for Omicron in case their vaccines did not work against the new mutants. But a new vaccine for Omicron could take up to 100 days to develop.

In China, a number of vaccine companies have said that they are closely monitoring the situation of the mutant strain, or are starting new vaccine research and development. Sinovac said that it has started to actively collect and obtain information and samples of the new strain through its global partner network. It will carry out evaluation and research as soon as possible to understand the impact of the omicron strain on the existing novel Coronavirus inactivated vaccine and the necessity of developing the vaccine of the new strain. If required, the company can rapidly advance the development and mass production of new vaccines and is able to meet the vaccine demand. Concino said the company has begun developing a vaccine against the new mutant strain. Abbot responded that it had been working on the vaccine since the evening of November 26. Wantai Biotechnology, Wuhan Bovo Biotechnology And Guangdong Huanan Vaccine Also said they were developing vaccines against the omicron variant.