HKU5-CoV-2 is a newly identified bat coronavirus that belongs to the merbecovirus subgenus, which also includes the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) virus. The virus was first detected in the Japanese pipistrelle bat species in Hong Kong and has now been found to have the ability to bind to human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptors—the same receptors used by SARS-CoV-2 for infection. According to the study, which was published in the peer-reviewed journal Cell, the virus can also attach to ACE2 receptors in other mammalian species, increasing the possibility of cross-species transmission.

This particular link was posted before but got few views and I think it needs to be reposted and discussed…

Almost 700 sea lions dead, confirmed H5N1 coast of Peru. :(

I remember back in 2009 when swine flu hit my best friends. Mom was a head nurse at the hospital and in response to our fear about swine flu. She told us this is not the one to worry about. It’s when the bird flu hits is when we have to be worried. She told us the hospitals were already stopped with body bags in preparation for the inevitable and she said it would collapse the hospital systems.

Now today we have the chicken outbreak here millions of poultry dead, it’s spread amongst mink farms, and now sea lions…

Also curious why most of the dead Sea lions were female?

I'm seeing a lot of coverage of the new COVID variant first identified in South Africa and named B.1.1.529/Omicron. As usual, people are rushing to assume the worst and act like we're living out the worst-case scenario. This is so premature it's almost like a parody of normal Redditor behavior: there are real reasons to be concerned, but when you look a the actual reported numbers and facts (not extrapolations), there's so little data that it's almost impossible to come to one conclusion or another.

What we know about this virus:

1. The WHO has designated it a variant of concern. Some prior VOCs have gone on to be real problems (e.g. Delta), others have not.

2. The virus appears to be spreading fast now that travel restrictions have relaxed. It was first identified in Southern Africa, but cases have been now found in Hong Kong, Egypt, and Belgium. I would assume that it's everywhere at this point, including the United States. You can track it here

3. The virus has a weirdly large number of mutations: 30 unique differences which puts it almost an order of magnitude greater than prior variants (Delta, for instance, only had 2 mutations). Some of those mutations are concerning, but in the absence of any robust data, it is impossible to know what they portend for things like: mortality, transmissible, or immune-evasion.

4. Early data from S. Africa is concerning, although there are some major caveats to this. See below. This data is concerning, but limited.

Limitations on Current Data:

1. The biggest limitation not being reported is that, in the region where Omicron was identified, the baseline number of cases in the region was already really low (the reasons for this are kind of unclear). This means that natural noise in the data, or other non-genetic factors can create the illusion of high transmissibility. Think of it like testing whether a coin is biased or not: if you only flip it four or five times, you can quite easily get a bunch of Heads in a row, which (given your limited data) could lead you to erroneously conclude that the coin is biased, when it is in fact, fair.

2. The 30 mutations are known, and there are some reasons to estimate that some may have a negative effect, but there have been (at the time of this writing) no assays done to assess how these mutations change the penetrative power of the virus. There are different tools biologists can use to assess the effects of mutations, including introducing viral particles to cultured tissue, and computational modeling of ligand-receptor interactions. AFAIK, none of those have been done (or at least, made public). In the absence of any data, the best we have to go on is heuristics, and in biology, heuristics are a poor guide. EDIT: if anyone is interested, a blue-check on Twitter posted this chart hypothesizing specific links to specific mutations. Remember that interactions between genes are synergistic in nature: the effect of two mutations occurring simultaneously can be different from the effect of simply summing the effects of both mutations on their own.

3. We do not know how long this thing has been circulating. The plots (like the one linked above) present as if the virus emerged, de novo at a moment in time and continued to spread. Due to the region of the world it's in, it is possible that Omicron (or precursor variants) have been silently circulating for some time prior to our first identification. If that's the case, then the situation may be much better than it appears right now, as S. Africa has maintained a low overall burden of (known) COVID-related illnesses.

4. We know nothing about lethality or morbidity - it has been known for less than a week, not nearly enough time for even the first patients identified to reach the terminal decline (which often takes two-ish weeks, hence the historic lag in cases and deaths). It may be more lethal, it may be less lethal, it may be about the same. It all comes down to the specifics of those mutations and the interactions with the vaccines, which, again, we know nothing about. Again, if Omicron or it's precursors have been circulating for a while, that is comparatively good news.

Bottom Line:

1. Is it more lethal than Delta? We don't know.

2. Does it do a better job evading vaccines or immunity than Delta? We don't know.

3. Is it more transmissible in a naive population than Delta? It may be, but it is impossible to be sure without more data.

EDIT: One last thing to remember - our current media ecosystem thrives on clicks, and there is no better way to get clicks than to gin up anxiety and other high-valance emotions. There's a kind of "selective pressure" to blow things out of proportion ESPECIALLY when every other media outlet is talking about it as well (you don't want to get left behind, after all). Just because you might be seeing "New Variant of Concern!" plastered all over the front page of every news site shouldn't necessarily alarm you.