61 Covid cases from 2 flights from South Africa to Amsterdam.

[ssfc72]

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/dutch-find-61-covid-cases-among-south-africa-passengers-looking-new-variant-2021-11-27/

Last Friday 2 flights arrived at Amsterdam from South Africa and 61 passengers tested positive for Covid.

Saturday, 5 flights arrived at Pearson airport with passengers from South Africa.   Hmmm!

https://www.insauga.com/travellers-from-south-africa-to-arrive-on-five-flights-tomorrow-at-mississaugas-pearson-airport-amid-new-covid-19-variant-concerns/

[Jason]

You're probably already aware but numbers in SA have been exploding. They tripled their news cases in days; I imagine it's worse today. The vaccination rate is really bad there, too. I think it's around 25 percent. My feeling is that Omicron was already here even before the 2 cases were discovered in Ottawa.

As for how many got infected, it's been found that 10-20% of the people cause 80% of the cases. That is, most people that are infected don't even pass it onto one other person but one person passes it onto dozens or more. There have been cases where someone infected more than 50 people. The choir is quite a sad case referred to in the article. So it doesn't necessarily mean that it spread to that many because of Omicron but the new variant more than likely is going to be more contagious with 30+ mutations. So, still scary. Are you worried those five flights are going to be as bad?

I told my wife "we're all gonna die" as a bit of dark humour to break the tension. She wasn't amused. I just hope we don't need a new vaccine. I don't mean boosters; I mean a completely new vaccine.

[buster]

We've each had the booster shot now, but that doesn't necessarily make us safe from Omicron.

The longer covid has people to infect and carry, the more chances to mutate into more deadly varieties. The Black death in Europe is an extreme example of a virus that managed to create havoc. This is from the Britannica:

"The population in England in 1400 was perhaps half what it had been 100 years earlier; in that country alone, the Black Death certainly caused the depopulation or total disappearance of about 1,000 villages. A rough estimate is that 25 million people in Europe died from plague during the Black Death. The population of western Europe did not again reach its pre-1348 level until the beginning of the 16th century."

[ssfc72]

. So, still scary. Are you worried those five flights are going to be as bad?

I believe flights from SA have now been stopped from arriving in Canada, but of course that won't stop someone from SA, from travelling to another country and then flying to Canada.

For the passengers on the flights from SA that did land in Canada, I hope the Feds would have made all the passengers ( even vaccinated passengers) quarantine in a designated hotel near the airport, for 2 weeks, but somehow I don't think that would probably have been done.

[Jason]

I believe flights from SA have now been stopped from arriving in Canada, but of course that won't stop someone from SA, from travelling to another country and then flying to Canada.

For the passengers on the flights from SA that did land in Canada, I hope the Feds would have made all the passengers ( even vaccinated passengers) quarantine in a designated hotel near the airport, for 2 weeks, but somehow I don't think that would probably have been done.

I don't know about quarantine but all travellers, even those who are vaccinated, are required to have had a molecular test 72 hours or less before entering Canada as well as the usual screening questions. They also have randomized testing. I'd expect but don't know that they will all require testing from SA. As for those travelling from SA but through another country, it will still show up in the passport, no? If they were there less than two weeks ago, I suspect they're not going to let them in (other than Canadian nationals, obviously).

https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/diseases/2019-novel-coronavirus-infection/awareness-resources/fully-vaccinated-travellers-covid-19.html

[Jason]

The longer covid has people to infect and carry, the more chances to mutate into more deadly varieties. The Black death in Europe is an extreme example of a virus that managed to create havoc. This is from the Britannica:

Jeez, Buster. Invoking the black death, already? Read the room. At least start with the Spanish Flu! We don't know yet but with the 50+ mutations, 30+ on the spike protein alone, it's almost certainly more contagious. We don't know if it causes higher severity than delta or is more vaccine-resistant. But so far we don't have evidence that patients with it are having a more severe illness. So maybe we'll be lucky.

The vaccines approved in Canada are 70-85% effective (from the limited articles I've seen) at preventing infection (Astra-Zeneca is the lower end of the scale) with Delta but are still in the high 90s in preventing hospitalization. We're likely going to have to live with COVID, like with the flu.

The experts agree with you, Buster, that the more it spreads, the greater the number of variants. And there have been many other variants we don't hear much about because they're considered only VOIs (variants of interest), a lower ranking than a variant of concern. A VOC is labelled as such if it's proven (or believed) to be highly contagious and/or causing more COVID. Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta were all VOCs. The Theta (I think that was its name) Lamda VOI was showing up in several South American countries. The virologists worry about VOIs for us so we'll leave them to it.

Incidentally, the vaccines are being tested against cultures of omicron right now and we should have results within 2 weeks. I don't know how long it will take before we know Omicron's severity. Maybe we don't have a large enough sample size to know. It would have to be more contagious than delta to crowd it out.



Update: Edited to be briefer and to fix a couple of errors that Fox embarrassed me with. Believe it or not, it really is briefer. I'm just not great at editing. It's hard to separate what I can leave out from what I'd prefer not to leave out.

[Jason]

I just found this related guidance from the Government of Canada:

Canadians citizens, those registered under the Indian Act, and permanent residents, who have been in the Southern Africa region within the previous 14 days, including South Africa, Eswatini, Lesotho, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Namibia:
     * must follow new pre-entry testing before continuing their journey to Canada, and post-arrival requirements
Foreign nationals who have been in these countries within the period of 14 days will not be permitted entry into Canada.

The linked statement also says:

Canadian citizens, permanent residents and people with status under the Indian Act, regardless of their vaccination status or having had a previous history of testing positive for COVID-19, who have been in these countries in the previous 14 days will be subject to enhanced testing, screening, and quarantine measures.

There's more there about a requirement to quarantine in a government-designated facility for those travelling in by air (until the arrival test) or isolating at home if by ground. I think that's the standard entry procedure for those vaccinated or not.

[fox]

.... There have been many other variants we don't hear much about because they're considered VOIs (vaccines of interest), a lower ranking. A VOC (vaccine of concern) is labelled as such if it's proven (or believed) to be highly contagious and/or causing more severity. Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta were all VOCs. Theta (I think that is its name) was showing up in several South American countries. It's a VOI. We don't have to worry about the VOIs, that's what virologists are for!

....

VOI/VOC = variants, not vaccines.

[Jason]

That's embarrassing. I knew that but somehow managed to enter it wrongly, twice! I guess I guess I had vaccines on my mind in that post. Fixed it now. Thanks.

[Jason]

The topic started to stray a little bit so I split the posts into a new topic here:

https://plugintolinux.ca/forum/index.php/topic,1625.msg10414.html#msg10414