Research by : Gan Yung Chyan, KUCINTA SETIA
News on disease naming, disease control, covi traceability
News (1)
WHO renames B.1.1.529 as "Omicron"
On 26 November 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) has renamed the covi super-mutant B.1.1.529 as "Omicron" instead of "Nu".
StayGate calls "Omicron", "B.1.1.529" simply as Covi29 after the novel coronavirus and the last two numbers in "B.1.1.529" so that it is easy to identify Covi29 as one of the covi variants of SARS-CoV-2.
News (2)
WHO skips the thirteenth and fourteenth Greek alphabets, the reasons
"Omicron" is the fifteenth Greek alphabet. WHO decided not to rename B.1.1.529 as "Nu" as this thirteenth Greek alphabet may be misunderstood as Chinese or French.
WHO has also skipped the fourteenth Greek alphabet "Xi" as this alphabet may be misunderstood as Chinese, which refers to Xi Jinping, the leader of the Chinese Communist Party and the President of CCP China. Renaming a virus after Xi may mean that CCP China created the fourteenth covi variant, thus stigmatizing CCP as the cause of another round of the pandemic.
So far, the fourteenth covi variant is not known yet.
Therefore, WHO continues its policy of defending the CCP during the course of the pandemic.
News (3)
What "Nu" and "Xi" mean in other languages
According to RT Question More, an official of WHO speaking on condition of anonymity with multiple journalists said the choice was indeed deliberate: "Nu" would have been confused with the word “new” and Xi to “avoid stigmatizing a region,” according to a senior editor at the UK newspaper Telegraph. This region refers to mainland China.
"Nu" in Greek means new in English but it exists in other languages such as Chinese (may mean slave, study hard), French (meaning naked), Javanese, Malay (meaning no).
News (4)
Xi "a common last name" causing offense
A journalist with the US outlet Washington Examiner offered even more detail, quoting the official as saying that Xi was “a common last name & WHO best practices for naming disease suggest avoiding causing offense to any cultural, social, national, regional, professional, & ethnic groups.”
It also happens to be the transliteration of the family name of China’s current president, Xi Jinping.
In that case, why use the Greek alphabets to name the covi variants from the start and claims all Greek alphabets would be used to rename the covi variants?
News (5)
WHO timeline of renaming novel coronavirus
While the first cases of the novel coronavirus pneumonia were documented in Wuhan, in China’s Hubei province, the authorities in Beijing have rejected both the “lab leak” and “wet market” theories of its origin, suggesting instead it might have been brought over from the US.
The WHO named the virus SARS-CoV-2 and the disease caused by it COVID-19 and renamed by several media as Covid-19.
By May 2021, WHO adopted the Greek alphabet naming convention for the variants and strains of the virus SARS-CoV-2, to avoid what it called a “stigmatizing and discriminatory” practice of naming them by the place where they were first detected.
News (6)
StayGate renames COVID-19 due to media misunderstanding it as virus
StayGate further renames it as covid (冠病), short for COVID-19, Covid-19, coronary disease and synonym for novel coronavirus pneumonia following disease naming convention that diseases should not be capitalized, for examples, diabetes, smallpox and cancer unless the disease is named after someone, for example Alzeimer's disease.
News (7)
China and Taiwan media call COVID-19 differently
China insists on calling COVID-19 as "novel coronavirus pneumonia" (新型冠状病毒肺炎) while Taiwan media call COVID-19 "Wuhan pneumonia" (武肺) as the disease originates from Wuhan.
News (8)
WHO needs time to complete research on Covi29
Meanwhile, the WHO statement says, "Evidence shows that SARS-CoV-2 has harmful mutations...WHO defines B.1.1.529 as a virus strain of concern and named it Omicron." The WHO stated that it may take several weeks to complete research on Omicron to find out whether there are any changes in infection, severity, and vaccines, testing, and treatment.
News (9)
Covi29 first detected on 11 November 2021
Covi29 is detected in virus samples on 11 November 2021 in Botswana before South African scientists detected it in virus samples dated from 14 to 16 November 2021, according to The New York Post.
Many countries including Singapore have banned the entry of travellers from Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa. Travellers from Hong Kong and Belgium have not been banned as the Covi29 infection cases are extremely low.
News (10)
Fear of lockdown! Covi29 epidemic broke out in the fastest two weeks
The "devil-class" covi mutant strain B.1.1.529/ "Nu mutant"/Omicron (Covi29) appeared in Africa, replacing Covi72 (for Delta variant) as the main epidemic virus strain in South Africa and six other African countries, and there have been 2 cases in Hong Kong and 2 cases in Belgium.
In this regard, Xie Zongxue, director of the Children's Emergency Department of the Hospital of Sun Yat-sen Medical University, said that neither Covi51 (for Alpha variant) nor Covi72 were so disturbed when they appeared.
Xie Zongxue posted on the Facebook page in the early morning of 27 November about Covi29. Because more mutation sites are associated with increased transmission, it is currently speculated that the transmission is higher than Covi72, which actually increases the transmission rate. The number has not yet been released, but from the Covi29 analysis report, it is found that this mutant strain has quickly replaced Covi72 as the local mainstream virus strain, and it is almost certain that the transmission power has increased significantly compared with Covi72.
The protective power of the vaccine decreases is also the focus of observation.
Xie Zongxue believes that Covi29 has two main points worth observing, including whether the severe illness rate of covid has increased and the vaccine protection has declined. If the severe covid rate has increased significantly and the vaccine protection has decreased significantly at the same time, countries are afraid to return to blocking the borders and lockdown will present the tragic situation of the outbreak in March 2020.
Xie also said that when Alpha and Delta appeared, he was not so upset. This time the number of mutation sites in the new mutant strain made him feel like a tremor. He believes that the border blockade will protect everyone from Covi29.
In recent months, countries around the world have gradually lifted their anti-epidemic policies due to the increase in vaccine delivery rates. Xie Zongxue predicts that Covi29 is likely to have been lurking in the community. If strict border control and social distancing measures are not taken, "soon within 2 to 4 weeks, a new wave of epidemics is likely to erupt on a large scale, paralyze the medical system, and the mortality rate may soar."
Xie Zongxue also emphasized that in the past few months, many people have laughed at Taiwan for only blocking the border, the epidemic prevention strategy is backward, and the lack of openness is reduced to the post-epidemic shift but now he feels that this "only tactic" will once again protect us from the threat of Covi29. Only after April 2022 will it be a better time to gradually liberate the border with reference to the pandemic.
Refs: https://www.rt.com/news/541479-who-nu-xi-omicron-covid/, https://news.tvbs.com.tw/world/1645303, https://nypost.com/2021/11/26/who-names-new-covid-variant-omicron, https://www.8world.com/singapore/covid-19-south-africa-variant-sg-tighten-border-1657291, news.tvbs.com.tw/life/1645306, https://staygate.blogspot.com/2021/11/b11529-nu-covi-variant-originates-from.html, https://twitter.com/BWGovernment/status/1464184386912501764?s=20&fbclid=IwAR2s2XDTGsAgnfCHhhgz60cPFFT-xfRE-TSIzmVhZGSS7LQ5sf3BkZyKN9s, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10248767/Was-new-variant-named-Omicron-avoid-angering-China.html
News (11)
Show time of previous two doses of vaccination before receiving booster jabs
To get booster jabs, the vaccination centres, clinics, home covi vaccination teams require the people to show proof of two doses of covi vaccination either by paper or handphone. The proof must reflect the dates and time of covi vaccination. So far only Moderna vaccination in Singapore shows the time and dates of covi vaccination. The Pfizer-BioNTech/Comirnaty vaccination does not show the time of vaccination and thus many people discarded or lost the vaccination appointment documents after completing two doses of vaccination!
Only Pfizer vaccination centres accept vaccination cards indicating the dates of vaccination.
News (12)
There are still risks! U.S. FDA: Pregnant women should not take Merck’s oral medicine
In its preliminary report on 27 November 2021 (Asia time), the US Food and Drug Administration recognized the effects of Merck's oral anti-covid drug but the advisory group warned that pregnant women might not use this drug called molnupiravir. The benefits do not outweigh the risks, so it should not be taken.
This report aims to provide guidelines for the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) expert group meeting to be held on the 30th to consider whether to approve the emergency use authorization of molnupiravir.
Merck Pharmaceuticals (Merck) in the United States today stated that the final analysis of clinical trials showed that the administration of "monapiravir" at the early stage of the infection has only 30% of the protection effect on reducing the hospitalization and death of high-risk patients, which is much lower than the early data of 50%.
Agence France-Presse reported that the FDA's preliminary report recognized that "monapiravir" is effective for patients with mild to moderate illness and at risk of hospitalization. However, the report warned pregnant women not to use molnupiravir and stated that no pregnant women participated in clinical trials.
The report pointed out that in the trial of pregnant mice and rabbits, after taking "molnupiravir", the incidence of fetal underweight and malformation was higher.
In the authorization application, Merck stated that the data provided comes from a trial conducted in collaboration with Ridgeback Biotherapeutics. The subjects are patients with mild to moderate covid and have at least one additional risk factor. They take the drug within 5 days after the first symptoms appear.
The British "Guardian" reported that the FDA pointed out that Merck agreed that molnupiravir would not be provided to children. In addition, the FDA has pointed out another concern that molnupiravir will cause small changes in the spike protein of covi. The FDA warned that, theoretically, these changes could lead to the emergence of dangerous new virus variants. (Central News Agency)
No comments:
Post a Comment