Stunning new data shows risk of death from Omicron is 91% lower than Delta, CDC-funded study says



The Omicron variant of COVID-19 is far milder than Delta, according to a new study funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The eye-opening data revealed that those infected with the Omicron variant are 91% less likely to die than those who are infected than the Delta strain.

The clinical study was conducted by Kaiser Permanente Southern California health care system – which operates 138 medical offices and 13 medical centers, plus has an affiliation with 37 community hospitals in Southern California. The study analyzed 52,297 Omicron cases and 16,982 Delta cases in Southern California between Nov. 30, 2021, and Jan. 1, 2022.

The study found that those infected with the Omicron variant were 53% less likely to have symptomatic hospitalization, had 74% less chance of being administered to the intensive care unit, and had a 91% lower risk of death compared to individuals with the Delta variant. Only one person of the more than 52,000 people with Omicron died, versus 14 deaths in the 16,982 with Delta. In addition, there were zero patients with Omicron who required mechanical ventilation, according to the research.

"Hospital admissions occurred among 235 (0.5%) and 222 (1.3%) of cases with Omicron and Delta variant infections, respectively," the authors of the study said.

Patients infected with Omicron had a median duration of hospital stay of three fewer days than those with Delta.

"During a period with mixed Delta and Omicron variant circulation, SARS-CoV-2 infections with presumed Omicron variant infection were associated with substantially reduced risk of severe clinical endpoints and shorter durations of hospital stay," the authors of the study concluded.

The CDC-funded study – which has not yet been peer-reviewed – did not reveal the ages of those who died or their vaccination status.

On Wednesday, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky shared the study on Twitter.

Despite the promising news, Walensky tempered the optimism by saying, "While less severe, #Omicron is much more transmissible & we are seeing the unprecedented impact. Over 1M cases in a day, 99% of counties with high transmission & strained healthcare systems. Protect against #COVID19: get vaccinated + boosted, wear a mask & stay home if sick."

While speaking at a White House Covid-19 Response Team briefing on Wednesday, Walensky said public health officials will monitor "deaths over the next several weeks to see the impact of Omicron on mortality."

"Given the sheer number of cases, we may see deaths from Omicron, but I suspect the deaths we're seeing now are still from Delta," the CDC head revealed.

While less severe, #Omicron is much more transmissible & we are seeing the unprecedented impact.\n\nOver 1M cases in a day, 99% of counties with high transmission & strained healthcare systems.\n\nProtect against #COVID19: get vaccinated + boosted, wear a mask & stay home if sick.
— Rochelle Walensky, MD, MPH (@Rochelle Walensky, MD, MPH) 1642008210

The Omicron strain became the dominant variant in mid-December and now accounts for an estimated 98.3% of all new cases, according to CDC data.

There were 829,209 cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. on Jan. 12 compared to 90,024 cases on Dec. 12.

On Tuesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci acknowledged how transmissible the Omicron variant is and said nearly everyone will contract it.

"Omicron, with its extraordinary, unprecedented degree of efficiency of transmissibility, will ultimately find just about everybody," Fauci told J. Stephen Morrison – senior vice president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "Those who have been vaccinated ... and boosted would get exposed. Some, maybe a lot of them, will get infected but will very likely, with some exceptions, do reasonably well in the sense of not having hospitalization and death."

Also on Tuesday, U.S. Food and Drug Administration acting commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock said that "most people are going to get COVID."

"I think it's hard to process what's actually happening right now, which is: Most people are going to get COVID," Woodcock said at a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing. "And what we need to do is make sure the hospitals can still function, transportation, you know, other essential services are not disrupted while this happens."

South Africa study suggests Omicron infection could boost immunity against Delta variant



Preliminary findings from a study suggest that infection with the Omicron variant of coronavirus could boost a person's immunity against the more severe Delta variant.

South African scientists at the Africa Health Research Institute in Durban examined 33 unvaccinated and vaccinated individuals who had contracted the Omicron variant, Reuters reported. They found that people who were infected with Omicron developed enhanced immunity to the Delta variant. Their immunity was even stronger if they had previously been vaccinated against COVID-19.

The study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, also finds that Omicron could displace Delta as the dominant coronavirus variant.

"The increase in Delta variant neutralization in individuals infected with Omicron may result in decreased ability of Delta to re-infect those individuals," the study's authors said.

Researchers found that neutralization of Omicron increased 14-fold over 14 days after participants were enrolled in the study. They also found there was a 4.4-fold increase in neutralization of the Delta variant.

The study's authors explained the results are "consistent with Omicron displacing the Delta variant, since it can elicit immunity which neutralizes Delta making re-infection with Delta less likely."

The increase neutralizing immunity against Omicron was expected - that is the virus these individuals were infected with. \nHowever, we also saw that the same people - especially those who were vaccinated - developed enhanced immunity to the Delta variant.
— Alex Sigal (@Alex Sigal) 1640641730

Scientists are optimistic that if Omicron proves to cause less severe disease than Delta, the pandemic may finally end. The ultimate question is whether Omicron is less pathogenic compared to Delta. "If so, then the incidence of COVID-19 severe disease would be reduced and the infection may shift to become less disruptive to individuals and society," the authors wrote.

There is reason for hope. The wave of Omicron cases experienced in South Africa quickly subsided within weeks after it was first reported, even though only 48.3% of the population is fully vaccinated, according to Our World in Data.

Alex Sigal, a professor at the Africa Health Research Institute in South Africa, explained on Twitter Monday that if Omicron behaves as observed in South Africa, it will "help push Delta out" and possibly lead to the end of COVID-19 disrupting our lives.

If that's true, then the disruption Covid-19 has caused in our lives may become less.
— Alex Sigal (@Alex Sigal) 1640641733

Previous studies from South Africa have indicated there is reduced risk of hospitalization and severe disease in people infected with the Omicron variant compared with Delta, though the authors caution that some of this is likely due to high population immunity, Reuters reported.

COVID-19 hospitalizations in the U.S. have risen in recent weeks as Omicron variant cases have surged, causing new daily average case records in several states.

As of Monday morning, more than 71,000 COVID-19 patients were hospitalized across the U.S., according to the Department of Health and Human Services. At the height of the Delta variant surge this year, more than 100,000 people were hospitalized with COVID-19, according to UPI.

US Army to announce development of pan-coronavirus vaccine that protects against all variants: Report



U.S. Army researchers at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research say they have developed a COVID-19 vaccine that is effective against all variants of the virus and even other deadly SARS-like viruses.

After two years of work on the virus, Walter Reed's Spike Ferritin Nanoparticle COVID-19 vaccine completed animal trials earlier this year with positive results. Phase 1 of human trials finished this month, also with positive results, and scientists are looking forward to phase 2 and 3 trials, Dr. Kayvon Modjarrad told Defense One in an interview.

“It's very exciting to get to this point for our entire team and I think for the entire Army as well,” Modjarrad, the director of Walter Reed's infectious disease branch, said.

Walter Reed's pan-coronavirus vaccine is different from other COVID-19 vaccines in that it uses a soccer ball-shaped protein with 24 faces, which allows scientists to attach the spikes of multiple coronavirus strains on different faces of the protein.

This will potentially allow the vaccine to offer a broader range of protection against COVID-19 variants, as well as other SARS-like coronaviruses.

A Dec. 16 press release from U.S. Army officials said the SpFN vaccine "protects non-human primates from disease caused by the original strain of SARS-CoV-2 and induces highly-potent and broadly-neutralizing antibody responses against major SARS-CoV-2 variants."

Dr. Modjarrad explained that human trials have taken longer than expected because the Army lab needed to test the vaccine on subjects who had neither been vaccinated nor previously infected with COVID. The highly contagious Delta and Omicron variants of COVID, as well as increasing vaccination rates, have made it difficult to find such people.

“With Omicron, there's no way really to escape this virus. You're not going to be able to avoid it. So I think pretty soon either the whole world will be vaccinated or have been infected,” Modjarrad said.

The next step for scientists is to study how the Army's pan-coronavirus vaccine affects people who were previously vaccinated or who have recovered from a COVID-19 infection. Defense One reports that Walter Reed is "working with a yet-to-be-named industry partner for that wider rollout."

“We need to evaluate it in the real-world setting and try to understand how does the vaccine perform in much larger numbers of individuals who have already been vaccinated with something else initially … or already been sick,” Modjarrad said.

He credited nearly all of Walter Reed's 2,500 staff with having a role in the vaccine's development.

“We decided to take a look at the long game rather than just only focusing on the original emergence of SARS, and instead understand that viruses mutate, there will be variants that emerge, future viruses that may emerge in terms of new species. Our platform and approach will equip people to be prepared for that.”

These promising vaccine developments came as President Joe Biden declared Tuesday that the Omicron variant has become the dominant coronavirus variant in the United States.

However, a study released Wednesday indicated that this new wave of COVID-19 infections may be milder than previous waves.

The National Institute for Communicable Diseases in South Africa found that the Omicron variant, which appears to be resistant to current COVID-19 vaccines, resulted in 80% fewer hospitalizations compared to the Delta and other variant infections.

Study suggests breakthrough COVID-19 infections build 'super immunity' against Delta variant



A study released by researchers in Oregon finds that breakthrough infections of COVID-19 can cause the body to develop a "super immunity" against the virus after recovery.

The study's authors stressed that vaccination is crucial to preventing severe disease and death from COVID-19. But the available vaccines have demonstrated less than effective at preventing transmissions of the Delta variant of the virus, which has led to breakthrough infections among those who have been fully vaccinated with two doses of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines, or one shot of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

Public health officials have encouraged Americans who are able to get booster shots to do so in order to strengthen their protection against coronavirus variants. But lab results from the Oregon study suggest that a breakthrough COVID-19 infection creates a robust immune response against the Delta variant that is even stronger than the protection offered by the vaccine alone.

“You can’t get a better immune response than this,” said Dr. Fikadu Tafesse, assistant professor of molecular microbiology and immunology in the OHSU School of Medicine and the senior author of the study. “These vaccines are very effective against severe disease. Our study suggests that individuals who are vaccinated and then exposed to a breakthrough infection have super immunity.”

An OHSU news release about the study described how researchers measured blood samples and found that antibodies in samples from people with breakthrough cases were both more abundant and as much as 1,000% more effective than antibodies from people who only had the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine.

These results suggest that a breakthrough infection following full vaccination can actually strengthen a person's immune response against subsequent exposure to COVID-19, potentially even against new variants of the virus.

“I think this speaks to an eventual end game,” said co-author Dr. Marcel Curlin. "It doesn’t mean we’re at the end of the pandemic, but it points to where we’re likely to land: Once you’re vaccinated and then exposed to the virus, you’re probably going to be reasonably well-protected from future variants.

“Our study implies that the long-term outcome is going to be a tapering-off of the severity of the worldwide epidemic,” he added.

The study examined blood samples collected from a total of 52 people, all of whom were employees of OHSU who were fully vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine before enrolling in the study.

Researchers identified a total of 26 people who tested positive for having a mild breakthrough infection after vaccination. Among those sequence-confirmed breakthrough cases, 10 had the Delta variant, nine had non-Delta, and seven had unknown variants.

In experiments conducted in a Biosafety Level 3 lab, researchers then exposed the blood samples from people with breakthrough cases to a live SARS-CoV-2 virus and measured their immune response against blood samples from a control group. They found that the breakthrough cases generated more antibodies at baseline, and that those antibodies were substantially better at fighting off the live virus.

The study's authors are optimistic that their results show vaccination will be effective against the Omicron variant.

“We have not examined the omicron variant specifically, but based on the results of this study we would anticipate that breakthrough infections from the omicron variant will generate a similarly strong immune response among vaccinated people,” Tafesse said.

Long lasting protection against severe disease and death, which would keep people from overwhelming hospitals and end the justification for lockdowns, mask mandates, and other coronavirus restrictions, could hail the end of the pandemic.

“The key is to get vaccinated,” Curlin said. “You’ve got to have a foundation of protection.”

Horowitz: The problematic variant is the CURRENT Pfizer-Delta variant, not Omicron



Consider the fact that more people have died under the current COVID variant with mass vaccination than in 2020 before vaccination, yet the medical and government establishment is worried about a potential new variant predominating that appears to be mild. At the same time, establishment leaders are suggesting the vaccine won’t work for it, yet are demanding we get more of the same vaccine that has already failed for the current, more deadly variant. How’s that for science?

There is simply no evidence that this new variant is worse than the current one, and most initial signals indicate it’s less virulent. According to CNBC, Dr. Angelique Coetzee, the South African physician who first identified the Omicron variant, says patients who’ve been diagnosed with the new strain show only “mild symptoms.” “No one here in South Africa is known to have been hospitalized with the Omicron variant, nor is anyone here believed to have fallen seriously ill with it,” said Coetzee, who is the head of the South African Medical Association.

Sethomo Lelatisitswe, the Botswanan assistant health minister, told Parliament this week that of the 15 known cases in his country – the first one to detect Omicron – just three had mild symptoms, while the rest had none. Eleven of the cases were vaccinated, while those unvaccinated did not show symptoms, and none of them needed oxygen support.

Of the 59 cases identified in Europe, all of them were either asymptomatic or had mild symptoms, just like the case discovered in California. Incidentally, nearly all of the cases seem to be among the vaccinated. Even Japan appears to have eased its travel restrictions after seeing that this variant appears to be mild.

The cruel irony is that the panic over the mildest variant appears to come at a time when there are record hospitalizations among highly vaccinated northern states in the U.S. and much of continental Europe. Why would public health officials focus on a random new variant that would probably portend good news if it predominated Delta, when the current iteration is what is killing so many people?

Clearly, the leaders want to distract from the existing failure of the vaccines against the current variant and sow fear about something new and unknown rather than own up to the fiasco and forge new policies to better treat people for Delta.

In reality, Delta appeared to start more like a bad cold when the U.K. got an earlier wave of it than other countries. Similar to what we are seeing now with Omicron, one would expect more contagious strains to become less virulent, following the laws of micro-evolution and the pathogen’s drive to survive more without incapacitating the host. But something peculiar seemed to happen right around the six-month marker of mass vaccination, when it began to leak. On some level, Delta appeared to get worse. In the U.S. we have had more deaths this year than before the vaccine, and continental Europe appears to be following in that trajectory. Even some Asian countries that barely tasted death from COVID in the previous variant experienced some degree of catastrophe this go-around. What gives?

New research from INSERM — the prestigious national research center of France — as well as Aix Marseille University might shed light on the mystery of Delta, demonstrating why Delta is a much bigger problem than Omicron and why the vaccines are the problem, not the solution. Using molecular modeling, researchers found that there is increased risk for antibody dependent disease enhancement (ADE) from vaccine-generated antibodies with the Delta variant more than with the original one. Typically, there are neutralizing antibodies and enhancing antibodies. The former kill the virus while the latter bind to the virus but sometimes run the risk of a Trojan horse effect, where they serve as a conduit for the virus to more easily flow into the cells and make the virus more aggressive. As it relates to the original Wuhan strain, they found no problem of ADE, but for Delta there was a serious concern.

“As the NTD [N-terminal domain] is also targeted by neutralizing antibodies, our data suggest that the balance between neutralizing and facilitating antibodies in vaccinated individuals is in favor of neutralization for the original Wuhan/D614G strain,” wrote the French researchers in a letter published in the Journal of Infection. “However, in the case of the Delta variant, neutralizing antibodies have a decreased affinity for the spike protein, whereas facilitating antibodies display a strikingly increased affinity. Thus, ADE may be a concern for people receiving vaccines based on the original Wuhan strain spike sequence (either mRNA or viral vectors).”

The authors conclude quite bluntly: “Inasmuch as neutralizing antibodies overwhelm facilitating antibodies, ADE is not a concern. However, the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants may tip the scales in favor of infection enhancement. Our structural and modeling data suggest that it might be indeed the case for Delta variants” (emphasis added).

Thus, the outcome, according to the authors, would look something like this:

Six months ago, we could have dismissed this hypothesis as one of the many speculative scientific theories that thousands of scientists are promulgating about the virus on a daily basis. But the reality of the virus being worse in so many universally vaccinated countries than before anyone was ever vaccinated lends a lot of credence to this theory. If this theory is correct, then Delta wouldn’t have been materially worse than other strains if not for the mass vaccination with leaky Trojan horse antibodies.

Remember, on page 52 of the FDA's "Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for an Unapproved Product Review Memorandum," it states that there appears to be no concern of ADE in the short run (during the original strain), but "risk of vaccine-enhanced disease over time, potentially associated with waning immunity, remains unknown and needs to be evaluated further in ongoing clinical trials and in observational studies that could be conducted following authorization and/or licensure."

Now consider where we are a year later, with most of the world suffering the worst spread ever – tracking closely with the growth of countries’ vaccination curves.

Netherlands, one of the most vaccinated nations on Earth, has had two covid waves after vaccinating 50% of the population and they are now adding even more restrictions.\n\nClearly, mass vaccination doesn't end the pandemic or buy back your freedom.\n\nhttps://www.travelawaits.com/2713644/amsterdam-netherlands-business-curfew/\u00a0\u2026pic.twitter.com/5en67BeR6Y
— PLC (@PLC) 1638467974
Cases in Vietnam are up 44,739% since \u201cexpert\u201d Gavin Yamey said they had done \u201csuperbly at suppressing viral transmission\u201d with masks & other interventions, and 448,295% since their mask mandate started, so get ready for more mask mandates & gaslighting from experts & politicianspic.twitter.com/yj0HvSFC42
— IM (@IM) 1638393745
Cases in Denmark have reached a new high, 3 weeks into vaccine passports for most businesses & major events & with ~90% of adults fully vaccinated\n\nAdvocating for vaccine passports, as experts, politicians & the media are currently doing, requires a willful disregard for realitypic.twitter.com/dQvjZ0JRm7
— IM (@IM) 1638390163
Hospitalizations in Vermont have reached a new high, with 99% of seniors fully vaccinated and ~65% having had a booster shot, but the important thing to remember is that this is all the fault of college football fans in the Southpic.twitter.com/dumAuL85kO
— IM (@IM) 1638383728
Hospitalizations in Michigan are the highest they\u2019ve ever been despite 93% of seniors having had at least one vaccination dose, well exceeding Fauci\u2019s 50% target, but the good news is that it\u2019s not the Governor\u2019s fault because she isn\u2019t Ron DeSantispic.twitter.com/QI2AxfSomq
— IM (@IM) 1638296008
Germany today announced they\u2019re starting a lockdown for the unvaccinated, which is bizarre because I was told by The Atlantic six weeks ago that all of their mask mandates, vaccine passports and mass testing were helping them \u201cbeat COVID\u201d\n\nWonder why everything stopped working!pic.twitter.com/RNiTH5JbOr
— IM (@IM) 1638470925
It\u2019s incredibly impressive how the media seamlessly moved from blaming unvaccinated Southerners for the big increase in cases over the summer to completely ignoring huge increases in countries like Iceland, with 92% of adults fully vaccinated\n\nAmazing how that works, isn\u2019t it?pic.twitter.com/hcEr5ZvPNX
— IM (@IM) 1638229235

And the rest is history.

The lesson here is that it’s not any one variant that is a problem in a vacuum. The only reason for panic is the concern of the ability of mass vaccination with a leaky, narrow-spectrum, non-sterilizing vaccine to expose any mild variant to evolutionary pressure that will make it stronger. The vaccine is the problem, not the solution. Delta should not have been worse than a previous variant and, in fact, should have been less virulent. But it might have gotten worse because of vaccine-mediated viral enhancement caused by suboptimal evolutionary pressure with a leaky, narrow-spectrum vaccine.

Which brings us to Omicron. We now see that this is clearly starting out as very mild, along the lines of the typical principle that in order for a virus to become more transmissible, it ratchets down its virulence. If that is the case, we should be praying for Omicron to box out Delta. As Dr. Coetzee said, "If, as some evidence suggests, Omicron turns out to be a fast-spreading virus with mostly mild symptoms for the majority of the people who catch it, that would be a useful step on the road to herd immunity."

However, if this variant in the coming weeks takes a sudden turn for the worse, we will know clearly that the vaccine unnaturally made it more virulent. Hopefully, Omicron is less prone to ADE than Delta. But either way, the reality of the past year has shown that fighting the virus with the current vaccines is akin to pouring gasoline instead of water on a fire.

‘The Delta Variant Of Trumpism’: Van Jones Calls Glenn Youngkin A Disease During Election Coverage

CNN’s Van Jones referred to Republican Virginia gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin as a disease during Tuesday night’s election coverage. Jones said that Youngkin was essentially the “Delta variant of Trumpism” who posed a danger because he could potentially spread faster and farther. (RELATED: ‘People In The Black Community Don’t Trust You’: Sunny Hostin Challenges Van […]

Study says vaccinated people easily spread Delta variant in households, COVID vaccine protection wanes earlier than previously believed



The Delta variant of COVID-19 can transmit easily from vaccinated people to members of their households, a year-long British study found. Scientists at the Imperial College London published a study in the Lancet Infectious Diseases medical journal on Thursday that discovered that the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine wanes earlier than previously believed.

The study involved 621 people in the U.K. and found that their peak viral load was similar regardless of vaccination status.

The study found that of 205 household contacts of people who had the Delta infection, 38% of household contacts who were unvaccinated tested positive for COVID-19, and 25% of vaccinated contacts tested positive for the Delta variant of coronavirus.

"By carrying out repeated and frequent sampling from contacts of COVID-19 cases, we found that vaccinated people can contract and pass on infection within households, including to vaccinated household members," Dr. Anika Singanayagam, co-lead author of the study, said.

Ajit Lalvani, a professor of infectious diseases at Imperial College London who co-led the study, said, "Vaccines are critical to controlling the pandemic, as we know they are very effective at preventing serious illness and death from COVID-19. However, our findings show that vaccination alone is not enough to prevent people from being infected with the Delta variant and spreading it in household settings."

"The ongoing transmission we are seeing between vaccinated people makes it essential for unvaccinated people to get vaccinated to protect themselves from acquiring infection and severe COVID-19, especially as more people will be spending time inside in close proximity during the winter months," Lalvani added.

The study revealed that the median length of time since vaccination that the vaccinated infected contacts were recruited for the study was 101 days compared to an average of 64 days for uninfected contacts. This could point to a timeframe when COVID-19 vaccines lose their protective immunity — which is a much shorter time period than previously reported.

Lalvani, who is the director of the Health Protection Research Unit in Respiratory Infections for the National Institute for Health Research, was shocked by how quickly the vaccine lost its efficacy and advised people to get booster shots.

"What we found, surprisingly, was that by three months after the second vaccine dose, the risk of acquiring infection was high compared with being more recently vaccinated," Lalvani stated. "This suggests that vaccine induced protection is already waning by about three months after the second dose."

"We found that susceptibility to infection increased already within a few months after the second vaccine dose — so those eligible for COVID-19 booster shots should get them promptly," he recommended.

Imperial epidemiologist Neil Ferguson said, "Immunity wanes over time, it is imperfect, so you still get transmission happening, and that is why the booster program is so important."

Singanayagam hypothesized, "Our findings provide important insights into... why the Delta variant is continuing to cause high COVID-19 case numbers around the world, even in countries with high vaccination rates."

In April, Pfizer and BioNTech proclaimed that their COVID-19 vaccine provides protection for at least six months.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that eligible people get the booster at least six months after their second shot. The CDC says those who are eligible to receive a booster shot include anyone age 65 and older and anyone over 18 who is in long-term care settings, has an underlying medical condition, or works/lives in high-risk settings.

Scientists are monitoring a new COVID subvariant spreading in the UK that could be more contagious than ​Delta



A new coronavirus subvariant that could be more contagious than the Delta variant has begun to spread in the U.K. — and scientists around the world are taking notice.

What are the details?

In a report issued last week, the U.K. Health Security Agency noted that AY.4.2, a descendant or sublineage of one of the Delta variants, has started to spread in the country and is now under "monitoring" status.

While data so far on the new subvariant is sparse, U.K. scientists said the viral strain "accounted for approximately 6% of all sequences generated" and was "on an increasing trajectory" in the week beginning Sept. 27.

According to BBC News, AY.4.2 was first discovered in July and had been slowly increasing since then, up until a few weeks ago, when the new subvariant's trajectory rose signififcantly.

In a tweet thread posted on Saturday, University College London Genetics Institute Director Francois Balloux indicated that the subvariant may be 10% more contagious than the most dominant Delta variant, called AY.4, which erupted like wildfire across the globe during the late summer months.

"As such, it feels worthwhile keeping an eye on it," Balloux noted, though he added that early indications show AY.4.2 to be only "marginally" more transmissible than its parent strain.

"It's nothing compared with what we saw with Alpha and Delta, which were something like 50% to 60% more transmissible," he told BBC.

What has been the reaction?

At this juncture, most scientists are in agreement with Balloux that the subvariant is not a cause for panic.

The new strain has not yet been elevated to a "variant of concern" status by the U.K. government, and in other places where it has been found — such as in Denmark and the U.S. — it has not shown a notable upward trajectory.

But everyone seems to agree that further testing and continued monitoring are needed.

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who served as the commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration under former President Trump, acknowledged that the strain is likely not a "cause for immediate concern," but called for "urgent research" to figure out if it is more transmissible or has partial immune evasion.

"We should work to more quickly characterize these and other new variants. We have the tools," he tweeted over the weekend. "This needs to be a coordinated, global priority for Covid same as similar international efforts have become standard practice in influenza."

Dr. Jeffrey Barrett, a director of the COVID-19 Genomics Initiative at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge, tweeted that AY.4.2 is the only Delta descendent "steadily increasing," which suggests it has a "consistent advantage" over other strains.

Why does it matter?

The new data could be a fluke and the new subvariant's spread could fizzle, but it's worth pointing out that data out of the U.K. in the late spring foreshadowed the Delta variant's eventual spread in the U.S. months later.

My Response to the New York Governor’s Vaccine Sermon | Ep 496

My Response to the New York Governor’s Vaccine Sermon | Ep 496

Federal judge blocks Tennessee from letting parents opt their kids out of school mask mandates



A federal judge on Friday blocked the Republican governor of Tennessee from requiring schools to allow parents to opt their kids out from mask mandates, arguing that the order makes schools unsafe for special needs children during the pandemic.

U.S. District Judge Sheryl Lipman issued a preliminary injunction against Gov. Bill Lee's order after parents of students with health conditions sued, claiming their children were unable to attend in-person classes because some kids weren't wearing face coverings, the Associated Press reports.

The parents' lawsuit argues Lee's executive order violates the Americans with Disabilities Act, which bans schools from excluding students with disabilities from public education programs and activities. The argument says that by permitting some children to go maskless, disabled students and others with health conditions that make them more vulnerable to COVID-19 are effectively excluded from attending class in-person because of the risk.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that children with underlying medical conditions are at an increased risk for severe illness from COVID-19 compared to those without such conditions.

"It is that unmasked presence that creates the danger to these Plaintiffs," Judge Lipman wrote.

"Plaintiffs offered sufficient evidence at this stage to demonstrate that the Executive Order interferes with Plaintiffs' ability to safely access their schools," she declared.

The injunction follows a temporary restraining order Lipman issued against Lee on Sept. 3, which prohibited schools from letting parents opt out of mask mandates. According to the AP, the injunction applies to seven public school districts in Shelby County, where the local health department implemented a universal mask requirement before the start of school on Aug. 9. There are 100,000 students in these districts, which include parts of Memphis.

"The Governor has put the parents of medically vulnerable students in the position of having to decide whether to keep their children at home where they will likely suffer continued learning loss or risk placing them in an environment that presents a serious risk to their health and safety," the lawsuit asserts.

The Tennessee attorney general's office unsuccessfully argued that parents have options for relief they could have pursued before filing a lawsuit against Lee's order. State attorney Jim Newsom told the judge Individualized Education Programs run by the state education department are available to meet the needs of students with health conditions.

A similar lawsuit was filed in Florida against Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis' order requiring school mask mandates to give parents an opt out. But in this case a federal judge on Wednesday denied a request from parents of disabled children to block DeSantis' order, writing that parents should have pursued administrative claims before filing a lawsuit.

Last month, the Biden administration Department of Education opened civil rights investigations in five states, including Tennessee, to learn whether statewide restrictions on school mask mandates discriminate against students with disabilities.

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona accused Republican governors of "putting politics over the health and education of the students" in his statement announcing the investigations.