(And so it begins. More doom and gloom to scare people into complying with what the government thinks you should do. As an aside, thanks to the US' porous borders, we can expect this crud to arrive here within days.)
From:
https://tinyurl.com/rzevh24h
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Lambda Variant's `Unusual' Mutations May Make It Resistant to Vaccines:
Researchers
By Isabel van Brugen
July 6, 2021
Updated: July 6, 2021
Scientists are concerned that a newly labeled COVID-19 variant, first
detected in Peru, may be resistant to COVID-19 vaccines due to "unusual"
mutations.
The Lambda variant, also known as C.37, is believed to have first emerged
in Peru in August last year, but has only been recognized as a potential
global threat in recent weeks, with the World Health Organization (WHO)
declaring it a variant of interest on June 17 after it appeared in several
countries simultaneously.
The WHO said the variant's "neutralizing antibodies" could increase its
transmissibility or potentially increase its resistance. It was
"associated with substantive rates of community transmission in multiple
countries," it said.
In Peru, the Lambda strain now accounts for 82 percent of new infections.
Meanwhile, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Mexico, have
all confirmed widespread cases of the variant.
WHO virologist Jairo Mendez-Rico told DW that although the strain may
exhibit higher infection rates, there is no indication that it is more
aggressive.
Mendez-Rico told the outlet that more data is needed to compare the newly
labeled strain to other existing strains such as gamma (P.1) and delta
(B.1.617.2), which have already been categorized by the WHO as variants of
concern.
Jeff Barrett, director of the COVID-19 Genomics Initiative at the Wellcome
Sanger Institute in the UK, told the Financial Times that it is
challenging to "make sense of the threat from Lambda, using computational
and lab data" because it has "rather an unusual set of mutations, compared
with other variants."
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, no cases of
the Lambda strain have been recorded in the United States so far.
Researchers from the University of Chile in Santiago said in a study
published in a preprint last week that the variant has "a considerable
potential to become a variant of concern."
"Our data show for the first time that mutations present in the spike
protein of the Lambda variant confer escape to neutralizing antibodies and
increased infectivity," wrote researchers in the paper that has yet to be
peer-reviewed.
"Considering that this variant has rapidly spread in Peru, Ecuador, Chile,
and Argentina, we believe that Lambda has a considerable potential to
become a variant of concern," they wrote.
The WHO said that further studies are needed to "validate the continued
effectiveness of vaccines" with the Lambda strain.
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