Graphic images of Covid-19. Top: Ecdc.europa.eu, Front Page: Paho.org

 

TNR Staff

 

HONG KONG has found 29 people from overseas infected with the new Covid variant XBB and while the majority came from Singapore, three are from Thailand, TV Channel 7 said Thursday (Oct. 13)

 

Dr. Anan Jongkaewwattana, director of the National Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology’s Veterinary Health Innovation and Management Research Group, said in a Facebook post said the data from Hong Kong’s Public Health Authority shows that of the 29 overseas visitors found infected with the new variant 24 were detected upon arrival and five others after two days’ stay.

 

While 13 were from Singapore, five were from India, three Thailand, two each from the UK and Indonesia, and one each from the US, Germany, UAE and Czech Republic.

 

Full story: https://thainewsroom.com/2022/10/13/3-thais-found-infected-with-new-covid-strain-xbb-in-hong-kong/

 

-- © Copyright  THAI NEWSROOM 2022-10-14

 

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Get ready, here we go. I wondered what would emerge as winter draws near, is this it?

3 hours ago, ukrules said:

Get ready, here we go. I wondered what would emerge as winter draws near, is this it?

yeah, better get jab number 7?

4 hours ago, webfact said:

Director of the National Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology’s Veterinary Health Innovation and Management Research Group

Now that is what I call a title.......

Meanwhile in 2025, the headline will be 23 people have been infected with the Covid Variant XXBBYYXXBVVZZBBBXX.

 

A series of off-topic posts have been removed.

 

The reason the discovery of the COVID XBB variant in Thais is significant is only explained in the latter portion of the OP article not excerpted above.

 

The significance is, as the rest of the OP article explains:

 

"The new strain is “probably the most immune-evasive yet” due to its combination of mutations from other strains, Raj Rajnarayanan, a professor at the New York Institute of Technology’s Jonesboro, Ark., campus, told Fortune in September.

 

A preprint study from Oct. 4, authored by researchers at Peking University and Changping Laboratory, found that XBB had the greatest ability to evade antibody protections among newly emerging variants."

 

In other words, the XBB variant is likely to be even more effective than Omicron is defeating the protections of current COVID vaccines, meaning potentially greater likelihoods of more people getting infected and more people getting sick.

 

So Thailand is finally a "Hub?". Nothing to be sneezed at in that.

43 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

In other words, the XBB variant is likely to be even more effective than Omicron is defeating the protections of current COVID vaccines, meaning potentially greater likelihoods of more people getting infected and more people getting sick.

Yes, as with all flu´s, colds and other virus infections. Lucky we still can talk about Covid.

It would be nice it they'd give the symptoms of the new strain.

6 minutes ago, AgMech Cowboy said:

It would be nice it they'd give the symptoms of the new strain.

I don't think there are any.

 

Certainly not mentioned in any reports I've seen.

XBB is old news, BQ 1.1 will be the biggest threat this coming winter. All though do have the possibility to once again overwhelm health systems as more people become ill. 

 

7 minutes ago, ourmanflint said:

BQ 1.1 will be the biggest threat this coming winter.

Is that because it has the most number of changes?

Three COVID Scenarios That Could Spell Trouble for the Fall

...

Eric Topol, MD, founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute and Medscape's editor-in-chief, said about COVID this fall: "There will be another wave, magnitude unknown."

 

He said subvariants XBB and BQ.1.1 "have extreme levels of immune evasion and both could pose a challenge," explaining that XBB is more likely to cause trouble than BQ.1.1 because it is even more resistant to natural or vaccine-induced immunity."

 

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/982113

 

28 minutes ago, ourmanflint said:

XBB is old news, BQ 1.1 will be the biggest threat this coming winter. All though do have the possibility to once again overwhelm health systems as more people become ill. 

 

 

It will be the biggest threat until they find something else to try to terrify us with, personally having had it twice, I find the threat of a nuclear Armageddon a little more worrying.

39 minutes ago, AgMech Cowboy said:

It would be nice it they'd give the symptoms of the new strain.

They have not  yet decided how to scare us again.  I'm waiting for the projected death count 

What is XBB? The new ‘immune-evasive’ COVID strain that combines Omicron variants is driving cases in two countries

...

"The XBB strain is causing a small surge in cases in countries like Bangladesh and Singapore. The latter has recorded a daily average of about 5,500 cases over the past week, compared to a daily average of 2,000 cases a month ago."

...

Hospitalizations in Singapore have increased alongside the rise in cases, yet deaths remain low, with fewer than a dozen recorded in the country over the past week."

...

Experts are also concerned that monoclonal antibody treatments might be less effective against newer variants like XBB and BA.2.75.2. “We’ve not seen this type of immune evasion before,” Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP), told Fortune earlier this month."

 

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:vFtKyx05emEJ:https://fortune.com/2022/10/11/what-is-xbb-variant-covid-singapore-immune-evasive/&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-b-d

 

 

 

 

Why is everybody talking about winter we aproching summer where I live

48 minutes ago, Eleftheros said:

Is that because it has the most number of changes?

No it's because that's the sort of thing certain people like to say , Its been the same tired old narrative for 2+ years now.

So called experts appearing from under their rocks repeatedly telling us that its going to  be  "Even worse this time" secure in the knowledge that when their doomsday predictions don't come true they will never be called out. 

1 hour ago, Eleftheros said:

I don't think there are any.

 

Certainly not mentioned in any reports I've seen.

Regarding the impact of XBB in Singapore...

 

COVID cases are not hospitalized for having no symptoms:

 

"Hospitalizations in Singapore have increased alongside the rise in cases, yet deaths remain low, with fewer than a dozen recorded in the country over the past week."

 

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:vFtKyx05emEJ:https://fortune.com/2022/10/11/what-is-xbb-variant-covid-singapore-immune-evasive/&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-b-d

 

10 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

"Hospitalizations in Singapore have increased alongside the rise in cases, yet deaths remain low, with fewer than a dozen recorded in the country over the past week."

Yes, I read that, then I read this - the above is wrong. Someone is hyping XBB all over the internet and incorrectly so according to the Government of Singapore.

 

Source of the following is the Singapore Government and published today : https://www.gov.sg/article/factually141022-a

 

Quote

• There has been no evidence of XBB subvariant causing more severe illness than previous variants. In fact, our local data in the last two weeks shows that XBB cases are estimated to have a 30% lower risk of hospitalisation compared to Omicron BA.5 variant cases. 
• No increases in COVID-19 deaths have been observed over the past month.

 

7 hours ago, PJ71 said:

yeah, better get jab number 7?

Lol, it will always change, lets not assume that the situation doesn't change for the better, see my 'snippet' from the Singapore Governments response to the recent misinformation.

 

1 hour ago, ukrules said:

Yes, I read that, then I read this - the above is wrong. Someone is hyping XBB all over the internet and incorrectly so according to the Government of Singapore.

 

Source of the following is the Singapore Government and published today : https://www.gov.sg/article/factually141022-a

 

 

 

That government statement is responding to different claims in a different article, which was not the one I linked to above...

 

What they saying in the report you cited may well be true, but it does NOT claim that their hospitalizations aren't increasing -- which is what my linked report said...

 

And the Sing. govt's own website indeed does show that their COVID hospitalizations have been increasing in recent weeks -- even if they believe the XBB variant has a lower hospitalization rate than a different variant.

 

 

The government's own website also shows the rise in COVID cases that's been occurring there in their latest wave.

 

 

https://www.moh.gov.sg/covid-19/statistics

 

Links from TallGuyJohnInBangkok and ukrules are both correct.  If you look at the page TallGuy linked to, there's obviously a big jump in cases, and further down a big (but slower) jump in hospitalizations.   Really too early to tell, esp. since different populations also have different vaccine type histories.    Still, a rise in cases might not mean things are getting worse, but it's a necessary precondition.  

 

I'm just glad I live in Bangkok where pretty much everybody still wears masks.

-- Retiree 

Same in Singapore's latest weekly COVID update dated Oct.  12:

 

7-Day Moving Average of Local Cases

 

COVID hospitalizations and those requiring oxygen supplementation

 

https://www.moh.gov.sg/docs/librariesprovider5/local-situation-report/ceg_20221012_weekly_report_on_covid-19.pdf

 

But what the above reports don't appear to be doing is giving a breakdown of how much of the recent new case and hospitalization increases are tied to XBB vs other variants.

 

20 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

What they saying in the report you cited may well be true, but it does NOT claim that their hospitalizations aren't increasing -- which is what my linked report said

Sure, infections are up so hospitalisations will increase, but what they appear to be saying is that they're not going up in proportion with the number of infections - which is where I assume they're getting the '30% lower risk of hospitalisation'.

 

If the percentage of the newly infected who end up in hospital goes down compared to BA.5 then it's a very good thing, especially when you take into consideration that the number of hospitalisations already plummeted with BA.5 compared to the previous variants from 2021 and 2020.

It suggests that things are moving in the right direction.

7 minutes ago, ukrules said:

It suggests that things are moving in the right direction.

When you see local cases and hospitalizations for COVID BOTH rising, I'd suggest things are moving in the WRONG direction.

 

The burden of COVID on people and the local health system isn't just based on the rate of illness among those infected, but also the numbers of people infected (how transmissible a variant is). It's the combination of the two that drives the outcomes.

 

And one of the concerning issues about the XBB variant (compared to others prior) is that it's said to have a higher escape capability both from vaccine and prior infection induced immunity, meaning greater propensity to spread.

 

 

3 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

In other words, the XBB variant is likely to be even more effective than Omicron is defeating the protections of current COVID vaccines, meaning potentially greater likelihoods of more people getting infected and more people getting sick.

Probably untrue. As viruses evolve they tend to become more infectious but less harmful. Many will be infected but very few will die.

A flame post has been removed.

 

25 minutes ago, polpott said:

Probably untrue. As viruses evolve they tend to become more infectious but less harmful. Many will be infected but very few will die.

The problem with the ongoing COVID pandemic and continuing emergence of new variants is that you never really know what each new one might bring.

 

The tendency toward being less harmful may be the case in general, but there are and have been plenty of prior viral diseases where the opposite has been the case.

 

As long as people don't follow [read "ignore"] recommended public health precautions, they increase the risks of continuing to spread COVID and with each new infection, more chances for mutation into who knows what.