Denmark is sequencing all coronavirus samples and has an alarming view of the U.K. variant

[donsutherland1]

There is bad COVID-19 news from Denmark. That news highlights the importance of dramatically scaling up vaccination efforts.

The Washington Post reported:

Like a speeding car whose brake lines have been cut, the coronavirus variant first spotted in Britain is spreading at an alarming rate and isn’t responding to established ways of slowing the pandemic, according to Danish scientists who have one of the world’s best views into the new, more contagious strain...

Danish public health officials say that if it weren’t for their extensive monitoring, they would be feeling a false sense of confidence right now. Overall, new daily confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Denmark have been dropping for a month...

“This period is going to be a bit like a tsunami, in the way you stand on the beach and then suddenly you can see all the water retracts,” as cases drop, Krause said. “Afterward, you will have the tsunami coming in and overwhelming you.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...faf420-5453-11eb-acc5-92d2819a1ccb_story.html

 

[Moot]

Sure didn't need to hear that.

 

[Antiwar]

I heard that the UK strain is more harmful.

 

[Lursa]

These (not surprising) mutations are making vaccination a free-for-all. We already dont know how long immunity will last. Now we cant be sure all the mutations will be affected, or affected at the same rates. And how long immunity will last for them. There's one variant that they said infects people that have already had CV19.

It's going to be a total crap shoot on when to...if ever...to consider us at a safe level again after people are vaccinated to the 70-80% goal for herd immunity. For all we know, by the time people get their 2nd shot in the summer...the people who got them in December may have their immunity seriously waning. We may have the Johnson & Johnson vaccine approved sometime this spring...that's only 1 shot but the timeframe seems about the same.