At the present rate of a doubling every fortnight, there will be more than 20,000 patients in hospital by mid-November. That would be higher than at the peak of the first wave.

Neil Mortensen, president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, said he feared hospital staff becoming infected. “Once the prevalence goes high, then it’s like a pack of cards, and one by one all the staff go down. And then you don’t have any operating facility,” he said.

Current 78,381 average new cases per day is a 41% increase over past two weeks.  Average US  deaths per day increased 15% over same period to 862/day.

According to the paper, international biospecimen data repositories indicate as early as December 10, 2019 COVID patient records were being created by PLA personnel, weeks before the Chinese government informed the WHO of the pandemic.

The paper documents four patients from the PLA Hospital that have the earliest genetic signature of direct human-to-human coronavirus transmission. 

It also includes the patient whose coronavirus is genetically closest to a bat virus from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) that WIV scientists call “the closest relative of 2019-nCoV''

Here I report that the earliest genomic cluster is a group of four  patients associated with the General Hospital of Central Theater Command of People's Liberation Army (PLA) of China in Wuhan. 

This cluster contains the “Founder Patients” of both Clade A and Clade B, from which every SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that has infected every patient with COVID-19 anywhere in the world has arisen

The observation that the genomic files for these patients were created on December 10, 2019 but the PLA Hospital did not record the collection of the specimens until weeks later is unusual and unexplained. 

However, it would be consistent with a vaccine challenge clinical trial (in which case files are set up in anticipation of getting samples later) 

or it suggests that the collection dates were actually before December 10, 2019 (in which case the reported dates for specimen collection are not accurate but may have been recorded incorrectly to suggest the infection was spreading later than it really was). 

The PLA Hospital is about one mile from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) and the closest hospital to WIV. Both the PLA Hospital and WIV are serviced by Line 2 of the Wuhan Metro System.

likelihood that all early patients were seen at hospitals only near Line 2 by chance is about 1 in 68,500 (p-value = 0.0000146). The inference then would be that the early spread of SARS-CoV-2 was through human-to human infection on Line 2

Meanwhile, a deliberate biological attack may resemble an outbreak of natural or accidental origin, and a natural or accidental outbreak may be misattributed as an attack.

A 1993–94 outbreak of hantavirus cardiopulmonary syndrome in the Four Corners region of the United States illustrates how the relationships of the epidemiological triangle drive infectious disease emergence and re-emergence (Figure 4).10 After a multi-year drought diminished the local predator population, the 1991–92 El Niño- southern oscillation caused increased precipitation that resulted in extensive pine nut overgrowth, which in turn fueled an explosion of the local deer mouse population (Peromyscus maniculatus). This deer mouse is the animal reservoir for Sin Nombre virus, a novel hantavirus that is excreted in the rodents’ feces, urine, and saliva. Subsequent inhalation of this excreta by humans leads to the life- threatening disease hantavirus cardiopulmonary syndrome. During the 1993–94 outbreak, the exploding deer mouse population brought the viral reservoir into closer contact with nearby human populations, increasing the probability of zoonotic transmission and ultimately causing 52 cases of human disease.11

On August 2, 2007, a cluster of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) was identified on a farm near Normandy, United Kingdom, a short distance from the Institute for Animal Health in Pirbright

Collected samples were sent to the local Institute for Animal Health for analysis, which identified the infecting agent as FMD virus strain O1BFS 1860. 

The strain was strikingly similar to a 1967 reference strain used at the same Pirbright laboratory for vaccine production.

Because the strain lacked the years of amassed mutations that would be expected in a naturally occurring outbreak, a laboratory origin was all but assured.

In conclusion, in light of the data exposed in Fig. Fig.11 and given the susceptibility parameters such as aging and health status, only aged mice appear to be a correct animal model for testing an anti-SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein vaccine to be used in humans

No-one has ever produced a safe and effective vaccine against a coronavirus. Birger Sørensen, Angus Dalgleish & Andres Susrud

THE VACCINE STORY IS ANOTHER MYTH

What if, as I fear, there will never be a vaccine. I was involved in the early stages of identifying the HIV virus as the cause of Aids. I remember drugs companies back then saying there would be a vaccine within around 18 months. Some 37 years on, we are still waiting. Prof ANGUS DALGLEISH @MailOnline

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We argue that Africa’s much younger population explains a very large part of the apparent difference. 

Some of the remaining gap is probably due to under reporting of events but there are a number of other plausible explanations. 

These range from climatic differences, pre-existing immunity, genetic factors and behavioural differences.

Genetic factors may also be important. A recently described haplotype (group of genes) associated with increased risk of severity and present in 30% of south Asian genomes and 8% of Europeans is almost absent in Africa.

In March 2020, the first cases of COVID-19 were reported in South Africa. The epidemic spread very fast despite an early and extreme lockdown and infected over 600,000 people, by far the highest number of infections in an African country. To rapidly understand the spread of SARS- CoV-2 in South Africa, we formed the Network for Genomics Surveillance in South Africa (NGS-SA). Here, we analyze 1,365 high quality whole genomes and identify 16 new lineages of SARS-CoV-2. Most of these unique lineages have mutations that are found hardly anywhere else in the world. We also show that three lineages spread widely in South Africa and contributed to ~42% of all of the infections in the country. This included the first identified C lineage of SARS- CoV-2, C.1, which has 16 mutations as compared with the original Wuhan sequence. C.1 was the most geographically widespread lineage in South Africa, causing infections in multiple provinces and in all of the eleven districts in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), the most sampled province. Interestingly, the first South-African specific lineage, B.1.106, which was identified in April 2020, became extinct after nosocomial outbreaks were controlled. Our findings show that genomic surveillance can be implemented on a large scale in Africa to identify and control the spread of SARS-CoV-2.

This included 16 South Africa specific lineages, defined as being lineages that are presently predominant in South Africa by cov-lineages.org as of 15 September 2020

Major contributor to linage amplifications in South Africa were hospital outbreaks For example, as previously mentioned, lineage C1 was amplified in a nosocomial outbreak in the North West Province in April 202018 before spreading to KZN and other provinces. Another South African lineage, B.1.106, also emerged in a nosocomial outbreak in KZN in April 2020. This was a large outbreak that infected 100 heath care staff and 65 patients, and dominated most of the early infections in Durban, South Africa (Figure 4B).

It is important to note that the four main lineages in South Africa contain the D614G mutation on the spike gene. 

Tanzania's opposition on Saturday called on supporters to take to the streets to protest President John Magufuli's landslide election victory, which it says was fraudulent, demanding a fresh vote.

Martin Aglo, a law student from Benin, told Reuters: “After the Arab Spring, this is the Black Spring”.

We need to ask ourselves; how many people can incumbent shoot stone cold dead in such a situation – 100, 1,000, 10,000? 

This is another point: there is a threshold beyond which the incumbent can’t go. Where that threshold lies will be discovered in the throes of the event.

He is running against independent candidate Bertin Konan Kouadio, who received less than 4% of ballots in 2015. 

While Ouattara’s former ruling coalition partner, ex-President Henri Konan Bedie, 86, and Pascal Affi N’Guessan, the leader of a smaller opposition party, appear on the ballot paper, they’ve asked voters to stay away because they consider the third-term bid unconstitutional.