New Explosive Mutant (variant) Set To Hit USA...should this strain be in the stimulus talks?

update Jan 28

The culture of denial and the selective disclosure of information to protect us and serve selfish ends. We are all in a PTSD trance.  

 

Coronavirus updates: World caught in ‘pandemic paradox,’ a race between virus variants and vaccines, WHO says. 

I said this recently over and over again. The crux of the today's failed vaccination strategy goes like this. This is the greatest failure of a vaccination program in history. We just didn't go big enough. I don't know how many mega vaccine manufacturing facilities we have in the USA. This will give you the scale of this. Lets say we have five vaccination production facilities in the USA. We should have built 50 or more facilities. The vaccine production capabilities should have been sized to vaccinate everyone in the USA in one month. Big deal we had an excess of five facilities. In these unstable and crisis times, there is really no penalty for going too big. Big deal your are throwing a few pennies down the toilet. If you go too small, hundreds of thousand of human lives will be lost.       

update Dec 20

This variant has been around for six months. We are deep into the culture of denial. It is all over the place including the USA, albeit at very low levels. Countries are beginning to close themselves off to each other over this mutant strain. The cat has long gone out of the bag! 

Where is the call to stop all air flights from England and Europe? Trump will never do it on his own!

   

"COVID-19: Belgium joins Netherlands in halting air travel from UK following new virus strain discovery"

"Israel bans visitors from the UK, Denmark, S. Africa due to new strain"

 
"We need to close the whole world immediately," Netanyahu said in a cabinet meeting.

For some reason, Covid is beginning to mass mutate and it is going in the wrong way. 

"Israelis may be infected with new coronavirus strain from Denmark minks"

*There are most likely a lot of mutations we don’t yet know about because most of the world doesn’t consistently survey and track the mutation,” he said. “We place the focus on Britain, because that’s where the reports are coming from, but this is probably a universal issue,” Moran-Gilad said.

It is almost like we got the virus of self defeating  behavior?

"Londoners flee capital ahead of tougher Covid-19 restrictions that came into force on Sunday"

Italy banded fights. 

Biden needs to publicly talk about this today if he knows what is good for us

We traditionally with Covid, have been two weeks to a month behind Europe. 

How about the California covid spike, is this the new variant? I doubt we have been testing for the mutation? 

BBC news is filled with the variant news.

Can you even imagine the air traffic from the mega-financial centers of London and New York City?   

WHO: England’s new Covid-19 variant picked up in Denmark, the Netherlands, Australia

“It is of concern that the virus is spreading and that it has so many mutations,” she said.  

Has the testing capabilities in the USA advanced enough to detect specific mutation and variants? Are we intentionally not testing in the USA.  

Cuomo Calls for Testing or Ban on British Travelers as COVID Mutation Spreads in U.K.

 

  

***This is set to explode in the USA.

We should do widespread testing in the USA to see what the extent of this new strain is the USA. 

This strain is seventy percent more infectious. The official have no idea if this will make vaccinations less effective.  

The officials should put this in a Covid infection model to anticipate how this will effect the USA.

One has to ask if the covid virus collectively is mutating much more frequently and will it get much more fatal?

A paper about the new variant identified in England has been published by genomics researchers who say that the first two samples were recorded on September 20 in Kent...

I call this a coverup in the USA.

 

Preliminary genomic characterisation of an emergent SARS-CoV-2 lineage in the UK defined by a novel set of spike mutations - SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus / nCoV-2019 Genomic Epidemiology - Virological

We do not know if this is medical, pandemic or political response.

This response seen by this official seems way out of the bounds by these rest of the world: A member of the White House coronavirus task force questioned the danger of the coronavirus mutations that helped trigger the London lockdown and said vaccines should be effective against it.

“We don’t know that it’s more dangerous, and very importantly we have not seen a single mutation yet that would make it evade the vaccine,” Assistant Secretary for Health Admiral Brett Giroir said on ABC’s “This Week.”

   

Preliminary genomic characterisation of an emergent SARS-CoV-2 lineage in the UK defined by a novel set of spike mutations

Report written by: Andrew Rambaut1, Nick Loman2, Oliver Pybus3, Wendy Barclay4, Jeff Barrett5, Alesandro Carabelli6, Tom Connor7, Tom Peacock4, David L Robertson8, Erik Volz4, on behalf of COVID-19 Genomics Consortium UK (CoG-UK)9.

1. University of Edinburgh
2. University of Birmingham
3. University of Oxford
4. Imperial College London
5. Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute
6. University of Cambridge
7. Cardiff University
8. MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research
9. https://www.cogconsortium.uk 279

Summary

Recently a distinct phylogenetic cluster (named lineage B.1.1.7) was detected within the COG-UK surveillance dataset. This cluster has been growing rapidly over the past 4 weeks and since been observed in other UK locations, indicating further spread.

Several aspects of this cluster are noteworthy for epidemiological and biological reasons and we report preliminary findings below. In summary:
The B.1.1.7 lineage accounts for an increasing proportion of cases in parts of England. The number of B.1.1.7 cases, and the number of regions reporting B.1.1.7 infections, are growing.
B.1.1.7 has an unusually large number of genetic changes, particularly in the spike protein.

Three of these mutations have potential biological effects that have been described previously to varying extents:

Britain Sounds Alarm About Mutant Coronavirus Strain
By Jamie Dettmer
Updated December 19, 2020 03:11 PM

British scientists were scrambling Saturday to work out whether a mutant strain of the coronavirus, which has been spreading rapidly in England this month, may be resistant to the crop of newly developed vaccines.

The strain was first identified on December 13 in the county of Kent in southern England, and initial analysis by government scientists suggested it is “growing faster than the existing variants.”

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson held an unscheduled meeting of ministers Friday amid mounting alarm about the threat posed by the mutant strain, which has been named VUI-202012/01. Johnson said at a press conference Saturday that there was no evidence so far to suggest vaccines would be any less effective against the new strain, but he added that “there is still much we don’t know.”

He noted the new strain was up to 70% more transmissible than prior strains.

The British leader announced a virtual lockdown for London and the southeast of England, with people urged to stay at home. All nonessential stores are now to close, and people should not enter or leave the British capital or large parts of southeast of England.

“We can’t continue with Christmas as planned,” said Johnson, noting that a previously announced relaxation of rules for the holidays would be reversed. In London and southern England, households now can’t mix to celebrate Christmas. Elsewhere in the country, up to three households can mix but only for Christmas Day itself.

“I must stress how complicated it is to work out, in a situation where things might be growing for other reasons, to really put your finger on that it’s actually the virus that is doing it, but the evidence is pointing in that direction,” Ewan Birney, deputy director of the European Molecular Biological Laboratory, told the BBC.

Midweek, Health Minister Matt Hancock said the new strain might be associated with the faster transmission of the virus in the southeast of England and London, but there was “nothing to suggest” it caused a worse disease, or that it might be resistant to vaccines that have only just received approval in Britain and the U.S.

England’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, said Britain had alerted the World Health Organization about the fast transmissibility of the variant strain.

“There is no current evidence to suggest the new strain causes a higher mortality rate or that it affects vaccines and treatments, although urgent work is under way to confirm this,” he said in a statement.

Jeremy Farrar, a government adviser and director of the Wellcome Trust, Britain's largest medical research endowment, warned Saturday of his concern. He tweeted: “The new strain of COVID-19 is worrying & real cause for concern & extra caution. Research is ongoing to understand more but acting urgently now is critical. There is no part of the UK & globally that should not be concerned. As in many countries, the situation is fragile.”


Johnson also held emergency talks with the first ministers of Britain’s devolved governments in Scotland and Wales. “I attended a four-nation call earlier today to discuss serious concerns over the spread of a new COVID variant,” Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford tweeted.

Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said that she would be holding discussions with her cabinet following the four-nation talks and that “preventative action may be necessary” to curb the spread of the new strain.

The new variant includes up to 23 changes, including with the spike protein, which the virus uses to enter human cells that allow it to replicate. There have been many mutations in the virus since it emerged last year in Wuhan, China, with 4,000 mutations in the spike protein alone. Virologists say most mutations are insignificant and are part of the expected evolution of the virus, but some may lead to more efficient transmission.

According to the government’s scientific advisers, the new strain is fast becoming the dominant strain, and they said it might be present in other countries.

“Scientists are working extremely hard to work out what is going on,” Mark Walport, a member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, told The Times newspaper.

"But it does definitely seem possible that this transmits more easily. It will make the social distancing even more critical,” he added.

Government scientists said it could take two weeks to establish how the new strain reacts to vaccines, but virologists were hoping that the changes wouldn't diminish the efficacy of vaccines, which are designed to produce antibodies against many different parts of the spike protein.
Hospitals in England are seeing a record number of patients suffering from COVID-19, the disease triggered by the coronavirus. About 38 million people in England already were under tough coronavirus restrictions before Saturday’s announcement. The new measures amount to a virtual lockdown, something Johnson had said just a few days ago he would do everything to avoid.

Johnson’s decision to cancel Christmas for much of England prompted the fury of some lawmakers from his ruling Conservative Party. Many have fulminated for weeks against what they see as heavy-handed government and a lack of parliamentary oversight.

“The changes must be put to a vote on the Commons at the earliest opportunity,” said Mark Harper, chairman of the COVID Recovery Group of Tory MPs who have criticized government handling of the pandemic.

Keir Starmer, leader of the main opposition party, Labour, accused Johnson of indecisiveness. He had been calling for tougher restrictions for weeks and had warned against relaxing Christmas rules.

“Millions of families across the country are going to be heartbroken by this news — having their Christmas plans ripped up. And I'm really frustrated because I raised this with the prime minister on Wednesday and he dismissed that and went on to tell people to have a merry little Christmas, only three days later to rip up their plans,” Starmer told British broadcasters.

British health authorities announced a further 27,052 confirmed cases of infection across Britain on Saturday and 534 more fatalities.

In all, 66,541 Britons have died from COVID-19, just 4,500 short of the total British civilian death toll in the Second World War.

The Trump Stimulus Game

updated Dec 11

So why didn't the Dems blackmail the republicans with not passing this bill to the last second or vetoing it 

Congress to send defense bill to Trump with veto-proof majorities

By 
Karoun Demirjian
Dec. 11, 2020 at 1:35 p.m. EST 

The Senate passed a $741 billion defense authorization bill on Friday, sending it to President Trump with veto-proof majorities in both chambers of Congress and effectively daring him to make good on his threat to scuttle the legislation.

The tally was 84 to 13.

In recent weeks, Trump has escalated his promises to veto the annual legislation, which directs funding for the Pentagon on everything from overseas operations to health care for civilian and uniformed personnel.

Trump’s threats began over the summer, when he vowed to stymie the legislation if it included a directive to the Defense Department to rename installations commemorating Confederate figures. More recently, he has demanded that the bill repeal an unrelated law granting technology companies liability protections against content that users post to their websites.

Trump has not sounded off about his pledged veto since the House passed the defense bill on Tuesday, by a vote of 335 to 78, a veto-proof majority. But should he still elect to veto the bill, he could complicate lawmakers’ efforts to complete the legislation, which has been signed into law for each of the last 59 years, before it expires at the end of the congressional session on Jan. 3.

***Pelosi is oozing weakness and Trump and the Republicans are trying to split the democrats. Maybe it wouldn't be too bad to get another speaker?  The whole system of the speaker of the  house and the senate magority leader doesn't work...it doesn't serve our nation and country. The whole deal is too secrecy driven. Both these leaders get way too much campaign money to influence their members. We need major reforms with the House and Senate. Too many secret agendas through black money.

Defund the police took away so much opportunity for the democrats.      

Pelosi looks to lock down speaker's vote in shadow of coronavirus

The longtime Democratic leader faces tight margins, and Covid could complicate her math.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's thinner majority will require a near-perfect showing from rank-and-file Democrats to again lock down the speakership. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

By SARAH FERRIS, JOHN BRESNAHAN and HEATHER CAYGLE

12/11/2020 04:30 AM EST

Speaker Nancy Pelosi had a blunt message for her junior members: I need your vote on Jan. 3.

That’s the opening day of the 117th Congress, and Pelosi was making her pitch ahead of the crucial floor vote for speaker. No one on Capitol Hill believes Pelosi is really at risk of losing the gavel. But the vote has become much more complicated with a shrunken Democratic majority and the coronavirus pandemic shadowing the proceedings.

“If someone votes for Colin Powell, it counts for the GOP,” Pelosi warned the group at a virtual breakfast Wednesday, adding: “We need people to vote with the nominee. That would be me.”

Pelosi and her allies have been ratcheting up their lobbying campaign in recent weeks to ensure House Democrats are in the Capitol that first Sunday in January. Pelosi has had help from her top deputies, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), according to several sources familiar with the effort. She and her supporters have also deployed former Obama administration alumni and big donors to help squeeze undecided Democrats, in addition to influential politicians and labor leaders in lawmakers’ home states.

House Democrats are expected to hold 222 seats on Jan. 3 versus 212 for Republicans, if all members are in attendance, say lawmakers and aides in both parties. Rep. Anthony Brindisi’s (D-N.Y.) tight race against Republican Claudia Tenney may not be called by then.

According to House rules, Pelosi must win a majority of votes cast “for a person by name” of the members who are in attendance and voting. So Pelosi can afford to allow a handful of her members to vote “present,” but a vote for anyone else is more problematic. In January 2019, some Democrats cast votes for Joe Biden, Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) and the late Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), among others, as an alternative to Pelosi. With the narrower Democratic margin next year, that won’t work for the speaker.

“I think it’s a lot tougher for her this time,” said Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.), a senior Democrat who opposed Pelosi as speaker in 2019. Schrader said in an interview he’s still undecided, but several top Democrats said they expect him to support Pelosi this time.

“It’s not all black and white. Everyone wants it to be all or none but that’s not the way it works,” he added.

BY NICK NIEDZWIADEK

Pelosi’s thinner majority will require a near-perfect showing from rank-and-file Democrats to again lock down the speakership, a far more difficult task in a year when the coronavirus has sidelined dozens of members over the course of the year.

One shift in Pelosi’s favor is that she will have far fewer Democrats to flip this time around compared with her 2019 bid, when she had to confront a whole group of disgruntled rebels. That negotiation ended with her agreeing to term limits, allowing her to return to the speaker’s chair after an eight-year absence with the upcoming two years in theory her last.

But with less room for error, Pelosi and her allies have begun applying pressure with hopes of winning over several of the defectors who opposed her in the past.

The lobbying blitz hasn’t gone without hiccups. House Rules Chair Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), a Pelosi ally, angered moderates after he wrote in a letter to the caucus that a vote for anyone other than Pelosi would be a vote for “the QAnon wing of the Republican Party.”

Still, Pelosi already has flipped several key Democrats, some without any direct outreach. Rep. Jim Cooper of Tennessee, a senior Blue Dog, told POLITICO this month he would support her. Cooper voted “present” last time. Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado also plans to back Pelosi after voting for Duckworth in 2019. And Democratic sources predicted Schrader will likely vote “yes” as well. Schrader voted for Rep. Marcia Fudge of Ohio two years ago.

“I’m going to talk to anybody and everybody. I think it’s absolutely essential that we be able to elect our speaker,” Hoyer said in an interview. Asked about any floor issues, Hoyer said: “I think we’ll get there.”

At least two Democrats plan to vote against Pelosi on the floor: Reps. Conor Lamb of Pennsylvania and Jared Golden of Maine, according to several sources. A third, Rep. Abigail Spanberger of Virginia, could also vote “no,” though she declined to comment in a recent interview. All three voted for other candidates last time.

Pelosi does have one way to release the pressure valve with other swing-district moderates: Several Democrats can vote “present” instead of “no” on the floor, which would shore up her path to the speakership without putting vulnerable Democrats on the spot.

Rep. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan confirmed Thursday that she plans to vote “present” on the floor, as she did in 2019.

“I made a pledge in the spring of 2019, before I was elected. I’ve discussed that personally with [Pelosi], one on one,” Slotkin said in an interview. “That, to me, is a commitment that I made to my district. It just doesn’t change based on the ups and downs here.”

Democrats are closely circling another national security freshman, Rep. Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, who could vote “present.” Reps. Kathleen Rice of New York and Ron Kind of Wisconsin, vocal Pelosi opponents in 2019, have also said they are undecided.

Of the 15 Democrats who voted against Pelosi on the floor in 2019, 10 survived reelection. An eleventh, Rep. Jeff Van Drew, has since switched to the Republican Party.

Making sure everyone is in attendance for several key early January votes is also on the minds of leaders of both parties. The Capitol physician has privately advised that members should be summoned back to Washington as early as Dec. 27 to ensure the House can safely hold its first vote on Jan. 3, although that is not official guidance, according to lawmakers and aides.

A single Democrat forced to stay home because of an infection or quarantine period — not to mention other health issues — could upset Pelosi’s careful balancing act. It could also complicate other key floor votes, such as the vote to certify the votes of the Electoral College for President-elect Joe Biden. That vote takes place on Jan. 6.

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Lawmakers heading into the Biden administration like Fudge or Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.) shouldn’t affect the math; they are expected to remain in the House until Jan. 20, when Biden is sworn in.

“The only way she won’t win is — I’m always a little nervous about Covid. That’s the most frightening aspect of this. But it’s a problem for both sides,” Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) said.

Update Dec 7

Out of all of this, Trump is a given and there nothing new. The Democrats have behaved abysmally and this pretends a very difficult next for years. 

I bet you Trump is going to precipitate a economic and market crash to weaken the Biden presidency years?   

I guess for the democrats they think it is more important to win the Georgia election that fix widespread starvation in the USA. The mealy mouth Democrats we see today really worries me. This is all high a high stake situation and lives will be staved or died with the outcome. Will the democrats hold their tongues and always cave to win a few republicans votes next election for the next four years? Be afraid to use the full power we gave them. Right, the Democrat's are sitting the stage with the Republicans for the next. Will they use their full power to confront these republican psychopaths or will it just be a pat on the ass to punish these guys for the serious transgression against our way of life and our constitution. What about dum dum Biden hinting a stimulus check might still be in the cards? The crooked Republicans will only respond to a over whelming show of force. I still feel the republicans strategized with this weak covid response, to put the country into a terribly unstable condition so as to weaken Biden opening presidency. I guarantee you if it is seen Biden floundering around in the opening stages of the presidency, the public will turn against him. He will have a failed presidency in the worst crisis this nation ever had. God help us all if we have a failed presidency!  

I never seen this coming. So the skinny bill is not happening. It will all be in the year end spending bill. The Republicans have all the cards. Like I said, now the dems need to blackmail the Republicans with shutting down the gov with the spending bill. We won't let you startup the government until we get that 3 or 4 trillion covid money. Even if we get the two senators, you know, the republicans will do nothing but obstruct Biden's government. 

"The $908 billion aid package to be released Monday would be attached to a larger year-end spending bill needed to avert a government shutdown this coming weekend." 

***Seems the $900 million dollar stimulus program is going to get passed. The much wider multi-trillion dollar program seems to going into the Dec 11 debt appropriation bill. Remember Trump threatened to not sign this bill. 

I see this as a widespread ploy by the republicans to split the democrat's party. This is a far sighed strategy. Already the left-wing says they won't sign the skinny bill. The left is terribly upset about the skinny bill and they feel left out.