Ravi Gupta, a professor of clinical microbiology at Cambridge University, said work in his lab found that two of the mutations on B.1.1.529 increased infectivity and reduced antibody recognition. “It does certainly look a significant concern based on the mutations present,” he said. “However, a key property of the virus that is unknown is its infectiousness, as that is what appears to have primarily driven the Delta variant. Immune escape is only part of the picture of what may happen.”

Quote from nemo's post - In a string of tweets, Peacock doubled down on his warning, insisting the variant "very, very much should be monitored due to that horrific spike profile", and said he expected it "would be worse antigenically than nearly anything else about" – including the lethal Delta variant which has wreaked havoc across the world.

I would think it is not out of the ordinary to say that respiratory viruses work especially easily on a person who has that of a low immune system, such has the alleged B.1.1529 variant by the means of an untreated HIV/Aids patient. You could also think that the scientists are down playing this new found variant, or in fact they are not in the game of "scare mongering", just providing facts from their ongoing work.

To myself there are two key elements named above, new variant's, meaning the virus is still able to mutate to its advantage. A step ahead of the science and prevention we may have today. And that of a person person who has a low immune system, that could be because the person has another illness, or even simply on the day is a little rundown.
It might, may be fact that Cambodia have done a marvellous job by the means of their vaccination program at such a rapid ongoing effort that are keeping the number of infections down. Because I do think that any developing countries are probably prone to illnesses obviously more than a first world country with a substantial health system in place. What would be a concern to me at this time or the very near future, is to treat the numbers of people that have been left behind because of the pandemic. That is the sufferers of such respiratory illness, Tuberculosis infected people, due to being prone to being targeted by the Covid19 virus, also passing on both illnesses to others, "only my speculation" there also is the chance in this case again the Covid19 virus can once again migrate too another deadly variant.

This variant seems to give quirky results (known as an S-gene dropout) in the standard tests and that can be used to track the variant without doing a full genetic analysis.

That suggests 90% of cases in Gauteng may already be this variant and it "may already be present in most provinces" in South Africa.

This is causing grave concern

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-59418127

Stock markets are being affected by the news

This is why we should be copyright busting and pumping vaccines to everybody on the planet for free.
- for our sake, if can't raise the compassion for the poorer 80% of humans on earth.

Every unvaxed population is a new variant development lab and our super-duper rich man's vaxxes won't be worth tuppence before very long.

maybe, or am i getting carried away??

This news is on every outlet of whatever bias. UK has banned flights from Southern Africa.
"The Science" will not know much more than what has been published for 2-3 weeks in any provable way.
I look for Europe to adopt the flight bans.
If vax is unreliable with the new strain, lockdowns are the only tool left.
We would be back to square one if this strain is "worse".

Jerry Atrick wrote: ↑Fri Nov 26, 2021 4:28 pm

nemo wrote: ↑Fri Nov 26, 2021 4:08 pm This news is on every outlet of whatever bias. UK has banned flights from Southern Africa.
"The Science" will not know much more than what has been published for 2-3 weeks in any provable way.

As I said last year; when newspapers are running scaremongering headlines over a virus mutating then those headlines won't stop forever. Viruses constantly mutate

This is fearmongering and a knee jerk reaction on the part of whoever banned flights today

Or taking precautions given the analysis already done on the mutation. Wait and see is a viable approach.

Germany plans to declare South Africa a "virus variant area" from Friday night, which will mean that airlines may only enter from the country to repatriate German citizens.
Fellow EU nations Austria, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Malta have all announced imminent entry bans to all travelers who've entered South Africa, Lesotho, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Namibia and Eswatini in the past two weeks.
French Health Minister Olivier Véran said the "rapid" circulation of the variant in South Africa "means that it's probably contagious or very contagious," justifying France's precautionary stance.
Singapore has opted to ban all non-residents from Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe from entering, while nationals and permanent residents returning from any of these countries will be required to serve a 10-day stay home notice (SHN). Malaysia has also taken similar steps.
The developments have led to speculation that some of the strict curbs on travel brought in at the start of the pandemic could be on their way back.

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/new- ... index.html