A new and rapidly spreading Coronavirus XBB subvariant, named EG.5.1, has been identified in Thailand, according to reports from the Department of Medical Sciences. Although fast-spreading, it has been observed to cause predominantly mild symptoms.

 

Remarkable insights came to light yesterday when the Head of the Department, Dr Supakit Sirilak revealed that five individuals had been diagnosed with this subvariant over the last three months. The first case was identified in April, whilst three cases were detected in May and a solitary case was found in June. Interestingly, none of these individuals developed severe symptoms.

 

In a bid to offer a clearer understanding, Dr Supakit elaborated further. The EG.5.1 subvariant, also scientifically referred to as XBB.1.9.2.5.1, is linked to the Omicron subvariant XBB.1.9.2. Crucially, it exhibits a mutation in its spike proteins, namely S:F456L and S:Q52H. The outcome of such a mutation is a sharp increase in its speed of transmission – a shocking 45% more than that of subvariant XBB.1.16.

 

by Mitch Connor

File photo for reference only

 

Full story: https://thethaiger.com/news/national/thailand-detects-new-coronavirus-subvariant-eg-5-1-with-speedy-transmission-rates

 

-- © Copyright Thaiger 2023-07-15

 

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Yeah, well, nobody gives a rat's anymore.

Can I label these subvariants as common colds yet without receiving a backlash from others about their severity? 

6 minutes ago, alien365 said:

Can I label these subvariants as common colds yet without receiving a backlash from others about their severity? 

Nup. It's not a common cold virus but Omicron variants/sub-variants share similar symptoms with the common cold. 

p.s. It's also not a flu virus.

An off-topic post discussing mask usage has been removed.

1 hour ago, webfact said:

none of these individuals developed severe symptoms.

great news. 

7 minutes ago, stoner said:

great news. 

One could say it's hardly news at all. Sub-variants will keep on coming and keep on being mild and keep on being faster spreading than its predecessor. IMO we do not need to know. What's the point?  

1 minute ago, dinsdale said:

One could say it's hardly news at all. Sub-variants will keep on coming and keep on being mild and keep on being faster spreading than its predecessor. IMO we do not need to know. What's the point?  

To  stoke the dying embers of what has been very profitable, and given raison d'être to  so many!

This is a non-story now in UK...barely makes any big news site top fold of webpage...is like that virus never happened here (I know it did for the bereaved obviously)...am in indoor place all the time and not picked it up again since around New Year...last vaccive I had was early 2022 astra.

 

 

The current COVID variants may be "generally mild" for most people, but often NOT for older folks (like many posters here) and those with weakened immune systems for any variety of reasons...

 

As evidenced by the fact that COVID continues to kill and hospitalize people every week in Thailand, as it has for months now, although fortunately, the local numbers have been trending downward for the past couple weeks.

 

From the latest update from the Thai  Ministry of Public Health:

 

COVID in Thailand last week, July 2-8:

 

--25 new COVID deaths

--1,193 new COVID hospitalizations

 

--214 COVID patients hospitalized in serious condition

--144 COVID patients hospitalized requiring intubation to breathe

 

Thus far in 2023, 727 official COVID deaths and 29,697 COVID hospitalizations.

 

 

https://ddc.moph.go.th/covid19-dashboard/

Edited July 15, 20233 yr by TallGuyJohninBKK

Another post on masking has been removed. The OP is not about masking but a new variant of Covid. 

From the latest WHO weekly COVID update, giving figures for the past month, though they specifically note that more and more countries are not reporting COVID data, making the official WHO counts increasingly under-counts:

 

"Reported cases are not an accurate representation of infection rates due to the reduction in testing and reporting globally."

 

"At the country level, the highest numbers of new 28-day cases were reported from the Republic of Korea (372 557 new cases; -22%), Australia (62 748 new cases; -59%), Brazil (56 744 new cases; -50%), New Zealand (38 949 new cases; +12%), and Singapore (28 333 new cases; -59%).

 

The highest numbers of new 28-day deaths were reported from Brazil (868 new deaths; -26%), Australia (566 new deaths; +16%), the Russian Federation (423 new deaths; -18%), Peru (410 new deaths; +48%), and Italy (251 new deaths; -53%).

 

https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20230713_weekly_epi_update_151.pdf?sfvrsn=13a39384_3&download=true

 

3 hours ago, dinsdale said:

What's the point?  

To keep COVID vulnerable people out of the hospitals and out of the morgues....

 

And to remind people such as yourself that COVID continues to put people in hospitals and kill them every week, every month, here in Thailand and elsewhere.

 

And everyone should be mindful, if they have any care for others, to minimize the potential that they'll catch COVID and spread it to others around them.

 

 

 

 

Edited July 15, 20233 yr by TallGuyJohninBKK

3 hours ago, dinsdale said:

One could say it's hardly news at all. Sub-variants will keep on coming and keep on being mild and keep on being faster spreading than its predecessor. IMO we do not need to know. What's the point?  

Knowledge is cheap, ignorance expensive.

1 hour ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

To keep COVID vulnerable people out of the hospitals and out of the morgues....

 

And to remind people such as yourself that COVID continues to put people in hospitals and kill them every week, every month, here in Thailand and elsewhere.

 

And everyone should be mindful, if they have any care for others, to minimize the potential that they'll catch COVID and spread it to others around them.

 

 

 

 

As they will spread all sorts of viruses. It seems you are ignoring (deliberately?) this bit of rather important info."The first case was identified in April, whilst three cases were detected in May and a solitary case was found in June. Interestingly, none of these individuals developed severe symptoms." So very, very few cases and all had non-severe symptoms. The common cold presents with non-severe symptoms. The common cold is also very contagious. As for deaths once again you supply no information if covid is the direct cause of death or any statististics on co-morbidities in these cases.

Edited July 15, 20233 yr by dinsdale

19 minutes ago, dinsdale said:

As for deaths once again you supply no information if covid is the direct cause of death or any statististics on co-morbidities in these cases

The Thai MoPH is classing them as COVID deaths... not people who died mainly from other causes and just happened to have COVID.

 

The Thai MoPH never has been in the business of OVER-inflating Thailand's COVID stats... just the opposite in fact.

 

And if the Thailand COVID deaths had comorbidities as many have based on past reporting, that's hardly surprising.

 

Most COVID deaths these days are in older people, and most older people have some kind of chronic condition... But in the end, in these reported deaths to the extent they had comorbidities, it's COVID that provided the coup de grace.

 

Edited July 15, 20233 yr by TallGuyJohninBKK

1 hour ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

From the latest WHO weekly COVID update, giving figures for the past month, though they specifically note that more and more countries are not reporting COVID data, making the official WHO counts increasingly under-counts:

 

"Reported cases are not an accurate representation of infection rates due to the reduction in testing and reporting globally."

 

"At the country level, the highest numbers of new 28-day cases were reported from the Republic of Korea (372 557 new cases; -22%), Australia (62 748 new cases; -59%), Brazil (56 744 new cases; -50%), New Zealand (38 949 new cases; +12%), and Singapore (28 333 new cases; -59%).

 

The highest numbers of new 28-day deaths were reported from Brazil (868 new deaths; -26%), Australia (566 new deaths; +16%), the Russian Federation (423 new deaths; -18%), Peru (410 new deaths; +48%), and Italy (251 new deaths; -53%).

 

https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20230713_weekly_epi_update_151.pdf?sfvrsn=13a39384_3&download=true

 

As usual - you cherry pick the worst statistics, while failing to acknowledge the very good news, which show a huge decrease in cases and deaths globally. From the source:

 

"At the regional level, the number of newly reported cases within a 28-day period has decreased across all six WHO regions: the Eastern Mediterranean Region (-77%), the South-East Asia Region (-67%), the European Region (-65%), the Region of the Americas (-45%), the Western Pacific Region (-36%), and the African Region (-31%). The number of newly reported deaths within a 28-day period has decreased across five regions: the European Region (-67%), the Eastern Mediterranean Region (-60%), the South-East Asia Region (-57%), the Western Pacific Region (-23%), and the Region of the Americas (-19%); while deaths increased in the African Region (+43%).

22 minutes ago, anrcaccount said:

As usual - you cherry pick the worst statistics, while failing to acknowledge the very good news, which show a huge decrease in cases and deaths globally. From the source:

 

"At the regional level, the number of newly reported cases within a 28-day period has decreased across all six WHO regions: the Eastern Mediterranean Region (-77%), the South-East Asia Region (-67%), the European Region (-65%), the Region of the Americas (-45%), the Western Pacific Region (-36%), and the African Region (-31%). The number of newly reported deaths within a 28-day period has decreased across five regions: the European Region (-67%), the Eastern Mediterranean Region (-60%), the South-East Asia Region (-57%), the Western Pacific Region (-23%), and the Region of the Americas (-19%); while deaths increased in the African Region (+43%).

You cite an increase in deaths of 43% in Africa as "good news"?

13 minutes ago, ozimoron said:

You cite an increase in deaths of 43% in Africa as "good news"?

Cherry picking at it's finest again. 

 

Did you read the report?

 

Clearly not. Africa had 20 reported deaths only!!! So the 43% is off a very small base. 

 

"The number of new deaths over the 28-day period in the Region increased by 43% as compared to the previous 28-day period, with 20 new deaths reported. " 

 

Every region of the world apart from Africa reporting big drops in deaths.

 

That's good news. 

 

 

2 hours ago, freedomnow said:

This is a non-story now in UK...barely makes any big news site top fold of webpage

Although the UK makes trivial stuff like tittle tattle into the main headline rather too often....

5 hours ago, dinsdale said:

What's the point?

The point is to keep pretending that this virus is still a matter of special concern, and thereby help to prolong the fiction that the unprecedented hysteria of the past three years was justified.

1 minute ago, Eleftheros said:

The point is to keep pretending that this virus is still a matter of special concern, and thereby help to prolong the fiction that the unprecedented hysteria of the past three years was justified.

Yep, tell that to  the nearly 7million it killed!

1 minute ago, jacko45k said:

Yep, tell that to  the nearly 7million it killed!

It's easier to tell it to the 8000 million it didn't kill.

5 minutes ago, Eleftheros said:

It's easier to tell it to the 8000 million it didn't kill.

True enough,,,, the dead have no voice,  they just leave behind people who forget them.

We both have now, she’s on the back end of it and I’m in the middle of it. So much for masking and vaccinations. We bought several tests kits and all were negative, she got a positive test at the hospital. 

An emoji post has been removed

3 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

To keep COVID vulnerable people out of the hospitals and out of the morgues....

 

And to remind people such as yourself that COVID continues to put people in hospitals and kill them every week, every month, here in Thailand and elsewhere.

 

And everyone should be mindful, if they have any care for others, to minimize the potential that they'll catch COVID and spread it to others around them.

 

 

 

 

How I miss the times before COVID, when nobody ever died of anything.

30 minutes ago, jacko45k said:

True enough,,,, the dead have no voice,  they just leave behind people who forget them.

The upside though.... when we had the covid malarky there was very few flu deaths.

Spike proteins isn't that in vaccines? ????

No Nooooooo!!!!  I just spilled my beer!!!!