UK variant was responsible for 98% of Thai infections, says leading virologist - Indian variant not detected yet

[webfact]

Picture: Daily News

 

Chula virologist Dr Yong Pooworawan told the media yesterday that the so-called Indian variant of Covid-19 has so far not been detected in Thailand.

 

He observed that viruses mutate quicker when there is greater spread of the disease and it was very important that returnees from India were quarantined strictly.

 

He continued to advise standard measures like 100% wearing of masks, social distancing and hand washing to stop the spread of the virus in Thailand. 

 

He said that France and Germany were forced to lockdown again after the UK variant got into their countries around December 2020.

 

It had sneaked into Thailand too via a neighboring country, he said.

 

Reports have suggested that transmission of the variant came via Cambodia, notes Thaivisa. 

 

The UK variant has been responsible for 98% of infections in the latest wave, said Dr Yong.

 

Conditions in Samut Sakhon had abated. 

 

He explained how viruses mutate in comments reported by Daily News saying that limiting the overall spread of infection was key in limiting the impact of new strains.

 

He said that fears that vaccines would be less effective against the Indian variant are being monitored but there was no evidence of this as yet or that it was faster spreading. 

 

-- © Copyright Thai Visa News 2021-04-26

 

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[Mr Meeseeks]

Very dangerous assigning country names to variants of this virus, as we are not 100% sure where they originated, only where they were first discovered.

 

Of course the original strain came from China, of that there is no question, however I believe the Chinese are now claiming the virus came from Europe originally. 

[Excel]

The UK were the first to detect the variant possibly because they are at the forefront of research.  However it is anybody's guess where this variant actually mutated.  The Indian variant he claims is not detected yet, but as we all know if you don't look you don't find and nobody, other than a Thai, would put Thailand at the forefront of medical research anyway.  So just like other variants the probability of the Indian variant and others already being here is possibly very high and it was only yesterday I think the Thai embassy in Delhi announced that Indians were being stopped from coming here. Too late as usual and whilst I'm sure none of us would want it, could the Indian variant be a pre-curser to a 4th, far more deadly phase here ?

[petermik]

That`s it...blame the pesky foreigners once again ????

[robblok]

28 minutes ago, Mr Meeseeks said:

Very dangerous assigning country names to variants of this virus, as we are not 100% sure where they originated, only where they were first discovered.

 

Of course the original strain came from China, of that there is no question, however I believe the Chinese are now claiming the virus came from Europe originally. 

So its ok to claim its from China but not ok to claim the mutation came from the UK..  talk about dual standards. I guess your a Brit ?

 

Fact is the UK strain was first discovered in the UK. They THINK it might have come from France. But there is no proof for that. France did testing for genome too and did not discover it first.

 

So its all factual correct. Bit strange that on one side you think its ok to name a country and other side it does not. 

 

Anyway that is discovered in a country from a country does not mean anything. Viruses mutate and appear. Its foolish to attribute blame. Unless of course it comes from a laboratory. 

[richard_smith237]

4 minutes ago, robblok said:

So its ok to claim its from China but not ok to claim the mutation came from the UK..  talk about dual standards. I guess your a Brit ?

 

Fact is the UK strain was first discovered in the UK. They THINK it might have come from France. But there is no proof for that. France did testing for genome too and did not discover it first.

 

So its all factual correct. Bit strange that on one side you think its ok to name a country and other side it does not. 

 

Anyway that is discovered in a country from a country does not mean anything. Viruses mutate and appear. Its foolish to attribute blame. Unless of course it comes from a laboratory. 

 

Ultimately, it matters little where a strain originated, where it was identified and what the variant is called - it just matters that it exists and more variants will.

 

People have small minds, most read a headline and draw an opinion before an article or news piece is read - The media don’t want to keep discussing variant B.1.1.7 its boring, not dramatic enough there needs to be an element of sensationalisation, the British Strain is far more ‘grabbing’ than just B.1.1.7.

 

Now we have a new ‘buzz word’ or would that be ‘buzz strain’...  the ‘Double Mutant Indian Variant’.... its a media wet dream and serves to continue the hysteria. 

 

But, thats the way both the media and we work... Does anyone know what the D614G variant is ??? (its the initial variant which spread across the world in the early phase of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak).

 

I’m sure more phrases will be thought up to frighten the living daylights out of the general public... i.e. the Tropical Variant, the East African Variant,  the Reaper Variant....

 

 

 

 

 

 

[richard_smith237]

17 minutes ago, robblok said:

Its foolish to attribute blame. Unless of course it comes from a laboratory. 

 

You mean a bio research facility in an area that was also centre of the outbreak. 

 

Forget Occam's razor, lets blame the outbreak on zoonotic transmission.

 

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-56581246

[Excel]

2 minutes ago, richard_smith237 said:

 

You mean a bio research facility in an area that was also centre of the outbreak. 

 

Forget Occam's razor, lets blame the outbreak on zoonotic transmission.

 

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-56581246

Some of these comments are getting truly batty 

[robblok]

4 minutes ago, richard_smith237 said:

 

You mean a bio research facility in an area that was also centre of the outbreak. 

 

Forget Occam's razor, lets blame the outbreak on zoonotic transmission.

 

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-56581246

Like i said if it came from there then yes you can blame a country. But not for mutations or natural emergence of a virus. (i was just keeping my options open as it was not proven)

[rabas]

45 minutes ago, richard_smith237 said:

But, thats the way both the media and we work... Does anyone know what the D614G variant is ??? (its the initial variant which spread across the world in the early phase of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak).

Actually that is not quite right.

 

D614G aka G614 refers to more virulent strains that wrecked the West.

D614 refers to milder earlier strains that made life easy for Asia.

D614G technically means the mutation from 'D' to 'G' at spike position 614.

 

You are right that names like UK, Spain, China, Wuhan, etc are just memory devices. NASA uses such memory devices for even the smallest rocks and outcrops on Mars.

 

[Bluespunk]

1 hour ago, webfact said:

It had sneaked into Thailand too via a neighboring country, he said.

Pesky foreign viruses entering Thailand via pesky foreign countries...

[herfiehandbag]

2 hours ago, Mr Meeseeks said:

Very dangerous assigning country names to variants of this virus, as we are not 100% sure where they originated, only where they were first discovered.

 

Of course the original strain came from China, of that there is no question, however I believe the Chinese are now claiming the virus came from Europe originally. 

Marco Polo was responsible!

[Ventenio]

Somebody heard me say UK today and started running!!!!!

 

Then I looked up and saw a bat.  OMG, it was crazy.

 

Everyone laughs when they call it the XXXX country Virus........

 

until it's your country.  

 

and people think we can all live under one flag?    ah...... no

[Pattaya Spotter]

And to think, a few months ago the government was touting a possible "travel corridor" with India.

[RichardColeman]

2 hours ago, petermik said:

That`s it...blame the pesky foreigners once again ????

I agree, let's blame them. Migrants in boats in Kent ! 

[faraday]

3 hours ago, webfact said:

It had sneaked into Thailand too via a neighboring country, he said.

 In the dead of night, I expect......????

 

What dreadful, unprofessional & xenophobic assumptions, from this 'Professor'. 

 

To go & blame another country being 98% responsible, is ludicrous. Especially when that country is 6000 miles away. 

 

 

[trainman34014]

3 hours ago, Mr Meeseeks said:

Very dangerous assigning country names to variants of this virus, as we are not 100% sure where they originated, only where they were first discovered.

 

Of course the original strain came from China, of that there is no question, however I believe the Chinese are now claiming the virus came from Europe originally. 

Finger pointing achieves nothing but Vaccinating the local Population does and these Nerks should concentrate on that !

[ourmanflint]

If 98% of infections come from the B 1.1.7 variant? Why aren't the govt taking steps to ensure Thailand doesn't follow the UK's terrible decisions? Thailand cannot cope with anything like the cluster* that hit the UK over the past 3 months. I cannot fathom why anyone on here thinks this is under control 

[Excel]

2 minutes ago, ourmanflint said:

So 98% of infections come from the B 1.1.7 variant? So why aren't the govt taking steps to ensure Thailand doesn't follow the UK's terrible decisions? Thailand cannot cope with anything like the cluster* that hit the UK over the past 3 months. I cannot fathom why anyone on here thinks this is under control 

Most don't think it is under control. The minority though being deniers will attempt to subvert facts to feed their own ignorance.

[ukrules]

3 hours ago, robblok said:

I guess your a Brit ?

 

I'm noticing a pattern to your posts. It's very consistent.

 

[Flying Saucage]

26 minutes ago, faraday said:

What dreadful, unprofessional & xenophobic assumptions, from this 'Professor'. 

 

Exactly. Since I read the first article about him, it became clear to me that this man is just a xenophobic junta hugger. If he is such a fantastic and competent specialist:

 

WHY did he never chase the government to order sufficient vaccines timely?

 

WHY did he never criticize the government for its policy of appointing this infamous vaccine duopoly Siam Bioscience & Sinovac/CP?

 

WHY did he never complain that Thailand does not join the COVAX program?

 

WHY did he never criticize the government for blocking private sourcing of the vaccines by private companies and hospitals?

 

WHY? Rhetorical question, of course!

[Flying Saucage]

Just now, Flying Saucage said:

 

Exactly. Since I read the first article about him, it became clear to me that this man is just a xenophobic junta hugger. If he is such a fantastic and competent specialist:

 

WHY did he never chase the government to order sufficient vaccines timely?

 

WHY did he never criticize the government for its policy of appointing this infamous vaccine duopoly Siam Bioscience & Sinovac/CP?

 

WHY did he never complain that Thailand does not join the COVAX program?

 

WHY did he never criticize the government for blocking private sourcing of the vaccines by private companies and hospitals?

 

WHY? Rhetorical question, of course!

 

And here my answer to this rhetoric question:

 

 

[robblok]

15 minutes ago, ukrules said:

 

I'm noticing a pattern to your posts. It's very consistent.

 

Yes it is calling out people who deny that this is the Brit variant and at the same time identify covid as Chinese. Most of these are Brits. I like to expose double standards.  And yes i have been consistent. I have also consistently said you can't blame countries for the mutations. Its not like the Brits, Brazilians and Indians mutated the virus on purpose. Neither did the Chinese. 

 

 

[robblok]

39 minutes ago, faraday said:

 In the dead of night, I expect......????

 

What dreadful, unprofessional & xenophobic assumptions, from this 'Professor'. 

 

To go & blame another country being 98% responsible, is ludicrous. Especially when that country is 6000 miles away. 

 

 

I always thought you were good at reading. He said the Brit variant. Since when is that blaming an other country ?. Also the fact that it probably came over the land border is highly likely. 

 

I don't see the guy saying that people from the UK are  responsible for this just that the variant first found in the UK is responsible for this. Huge difference.

[bluedoc]

4 hours ago, webfact said:

It had sneaked into Thailand too via a neighboring country, he said.

Who writes his lines. Just another idiot talking nonsense. Must be Anutin speech writer.

[peleid]

And your point is?

[Flying Saucage]

4 hours ago, robblok said:

So its ok to claim its from China but not ok to claim the mutation came from the UK..  talk about dual standards. I guess your a Brit ?

 

Exactly the opposite Robblok!

 

The whole world talks about the British mutation, and about the South African and the Brazil and now the Indian mutation. This terminology is widely accepted. But whenever someone talks about the Chinese virus or the Wuhan virus, it is not accepted and not allowed. Why?

 

Because of political pressure applied by the Chinese government on the WHO and others. This is a political move of China where the whole disaster originated from, in order to blame others and to lead the question of guilt away from this perfect country and its perfect leaders.

 

I was reluctant to use the terms China virus and Wuhan virus till now, but I will changed that from now on. This is only fair.

 

 

[Bkk Brian]

1 hour ago, ourmanflint said:

If 98% of infections come from the B 1.1.7 variant? Why aren't the govt taking steps to ensure Thailand doesn't follow the UK's terrible decisions? Thailand cannot cope with anything like the cluster* that hit the UK over the past 3 months. I cannot fathom why anyone on here thinks this is under control 

Exactly. This seems to have missed in this tread. It took severe lockdowns coupled with a massive vaccine plan to bring it under control there. Its not to that level here of course but the lessons are there to be learnt and one of the main reasons that they should know to take this more seriously then anything they have ever faced in the past.

[robblok]

1 minute ago, Flying Saucage said:

 

Exactly the opposite Robblok!

 

The whole world talks about the British mutation, and about the South African and the Brazil and now the Indian mutation. This terminology is widely accepted. But whenever someone talks about the Chinese virus or the Wuhan virus, it is not accepted and not allowed. Why?

 

Because of political pressure applied by the Chinese government on the WHO and others. This is a political move of China where the whole disaster originated from, in order to blame others and to lead the question of guilt away from this perfect country and its perfect leaders.

 

I was reluctant to use the terms China virus and Wuhan virus till now, but I will changed that from now on. This is only fair.

 

 

Of course its fair if you use one you should use the other too. While the poster i replied to did not want to call it the Brit strain but did want to call it the Chinese flu. So either you go treat everyone the same or you dont. 

 

But people still seem to attribute blame to those names. I doubt there are many people thinking that the Brits did it on purpose wrecking their country with the new strain and then exporting it. Same goes for India and China too. Nobody wants this so.

 

Anyway i still don't believe the lab things untill its really proven and posted in respectable newspapers not something like the daylymail. 

[EricTh]

Luckily, they are going to ban all non-Thai from India soon from May 1.

 

If not, Thailand is going to be dealing with two variants i.e. UK and Indian variants.