THE SECOND WAVE OF CORONAVIRUS IS HERE, with ferocious “spikes” that more easily attach themselves inside noses. In the United States, the mutant “G” version of covid-19 surpassed the original “D” version by the end of March—and states now lowering the drawbridge invite a much more contagious foe.
Viruses make mistakes while copying themselves in every person they infect. Each mistake is a mutation, and there are millions of them, but almost all die. Only the very strongest survives. The “G” version is that super-Coronavirus—outperforming its “D” parent. This mutant covid-19 swept through Europe, ravaged New York City, and has spread as far as Washington state.
At the end of February, Washington had zero “G” infections. By March 30, “G” grew to almost 60 percent of Washington infections. Now in May, the “G” supercorona dominates U.S. cases. This map shows the “G” version at over 75% of U.S. cases for March 31 to April 10, and over 90% for April 11-20: < https://cov.lanl.gov/apps/covid-19/map/ >. (You can trace its progress by changing the “Time range” selector.)
From Los Alamos National Laboratory: “The mutation Spike D614G [“G”] is of urgent concern; after beginning to spread in Europe in early February, when introduced to new regions it repeatedly and rapidly becomes the dominant form. Also, we present evidence of recombination between locally circulating strains, indicative of multiple strain infections. These finding have important implications for SARS-CoV-2 transmission. . .” So says a major international study led by U.S. scientists.< https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.29.069054 > and < https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.29.069054v2.full.pdf >
U.S. States Opening Gates To Vicious Contagion
Now states with previously low infestations are opening their doors to a spectacularly vicious virus, one as deadly as the original, but much more contagious, and with every invisible bit of the coronavirus’s silent, sneaky stealth. It’s not a wolf at the door, it’s a pack of invisible wolves.
The suffering only begins with coughing, fever, chills, muscle pain, runny or stuffy nose, sore throat, diarrhea, fatigue, headache, nausea, phlegm, and vomiting. And of course, difficulty breathing, as the virus works down from nose into lungs.
More symptoms are discovered every month, such as strokes killing young and middle-aged people. And now even children suffer and die, too. < https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/04/24/strokes-coronavirus-young-patients/ > and < https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/08/new-york-investigates-coronavirus-in-children-after-5-year-old-nyc-boy-dies-from-complications-gov-cuomo-says.html > and < https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/496803-nih-launching-study-into-coronavirus-impacts-on-children >.
Massive Malevolence?
Every single day, Trump continues to refuse requests for testing kits and the processing chemicals to complete the tests and tell you if you have the virus or not. So we don’t know how many tens of millions of Americans have the virus. But one thing tells us how fast this mutant menace spreads.
Deaths.
Because without testing, there’s no way to know who might be spreading the disease. And I shudder to imagine the magnitude of the massive malevolence that would suppress virus testing so as to hide the size and scope of their mistakes.
But almost everybody counts the deaths—and the counts will rise faster and spike higher than they should had Trump mobilized American industry to produce enough tests for “everyone who wants”—as he promised—and enough protective equipment (PPE) for all our heroic medical people and essential workers.
It’s clear as crystal: We need full tests and PPE to get back to work safely and get back on our feet financially.
Gruesome Gauntlet, Governors
Americans will die in the tens of thousands a week, relentlessly choking as each breath gets harder—similar to the agony of crucifixion—your body heaving and gasping trying to get enough air, trying to escape the horror within you, until finally your brain can’t get enough oxygen and your organs start shutting down, and your body takes emergency action—twisting, spasming, jerking, rolling—until extreme effort races your heart so fast it can't keep up sprinting and it collapses in cardiac arrest, or actually physically bursts, ripped apart by the pressure of the coronavirus avalanche.
That’s the death the liars in the White House offer your parents. Your family. Your friends. You.
And governors who kowtow to Donald, the president of lies, will find themselves bereft, bamboozled, and abandoned when this second wave of coronavirus pillages their populace, and when everyone who suffers even a “moderate” case of this horrible plague knows damn well that Trump and his buddies brought this pestilence down upon them, and deserve all the wrath of the survivors, all the rage of those who lost and will lose family and friends, and all the retaliation from every American with a sense of fairness, or morality, or plain-and-simple human decency.
P.S. Think I’m exaggerating? Consider the meaning and consequences of the quote from the fourth paragraph of this story: “recombination between locally circulating strains, indicative of multiple strain infections.” I’ll try explaining that next week.
P.P.S. Oh, and 150 U.S. cough syrups make coronavirus worse. Can you say dextromethorphan? DM? Check here to see if your cough syrup could hurt you: < https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/5/1/1941969/-150-Cough-Syrups-Make-Coronavirus-Worse >.
→→ →→→ → ADDENDUM ← ←← ←← ←
I’ve re-reviewed the Los Alamos study, its supporters and detractors (including the early comments below) and I'm standing by its findings. Because it’s the best available information, from serious scientists and a U.S. national laboratory, based on open-source facts from GISAID, the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data < https://www.gisaid.org >.
Despite the brutal incompetence the Trump administration has used to make coronavirus worse, 44 states are opening right now, bringing the fight into our streets. Since “You go to war with the army you have,” you need to know that the virus we face today is more dangerous than the one most of us faced in February.
“G” Pervasion
For states other than New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Florida, the now-dominant “G” mutation is the second wave of coronavirus, even more contagious than the original “D” version that hit the West Coast. (New York and those other four states got the “G” virulence as their first wave. They suffered early and often.)
The “G” mutation features an enhanced “spike” to penetrate cells and use them to make copies of itself. In addition to its improved infectiousness, it’s a big problem because medicines and vaccines often focus on disabling the virus’s spike, and now the “G” spike has undoubtedly changed. The GISAID genetic sequences prove that. That’s why the Los Alamos paper was released in “pre-print.” Because it’s URGENT.
Reading The Detectives
The Los Alamos study is a fascinating piece of detective work. Much of the “Full Text” version is readable by non-scientists, here: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.29.069054v2.full >.
For instance: “In Europe, where the G614 first began its expansion, the D614 and G614 forms were co-circulating early in the epidemic, with D614 more common in most sampled countries, the exceptions being Italy and Switzerland. Through March, G614 became increasingly common throughout Europe, and by April it dominated contemporary sampling.
“In North America, infections were initiated and established across the continent by the original D614 form, but in early March, the G614 was introduced into both Canada and the USA, and by the end of March it had become the dominant form in both nations. Washington state, the state with the greatest number of available GISAID SARS-CoV-2 sequences from the USA, exemplifies this pattern, and a similar shift over time is evident in many other states with samples available throughout March.
Blitzkrieg Epidemics
“Taken together, the data shows that G614 confers a selective advantage that is repeatedly reflected by dramatic shifts to G614 forms in regional epidemics over a period of several weeks [emphasis added].”
The paper’s Discussion section states its importance in developing a vaccine: “When we embarked on our SARS-CoV-2 analysis pipeline, our motivation was to identify mutations that might be of potential concern in the SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein as an early warning system for consideration as vaccine studies progress; we did not anticipate such dramatic results so early in the pandemic.”
Further on: “Tracking mutations in Spike has been our primary focus to date because of the urgency with which vaccine and antibody therapy strategies are being developed; the interventions under development now cannot afford to miss their contemporary targets when they are eventually deployed.”
Packages, Plastics, Predictions
So please be extra-careful out there. And although the “D” coronavirus is said to last 24 hours on delivered packages, the tape on them is plastic, on which the virus is said to last three days. I give them five days to “cool off,” or spend precious gloves and wipes to handle them < https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200317-covid-19-how-long-does-the-coronavirus-last-on-surfaces >.
P.S.: Tune in next week for what the future holds. That could be the really scary part. (I know, bearer of bad news and all that. But we need to know this stuff to survive.)