On Independence Day, this is dedicated to those who stand for FREEDOM, JUSTICE & EQUALITY FOR ALL with valor. The Truth Will Set Us Free!
Since COVID-19 was first reported in the news, we have heard two main narratives. Depending on your political affiliation or global viewpoint, you took either the “blue pill” or the “red pill”. What if the facts and data point to a new narrative, could you take a different pill? There has been an inundation of scientific information from the start 24/7 from the mainstream media. We have been over-saturated with too much information that it has been hard to see the key findings from all the noise. Along the way, censorship has come into play and the findings on the less favored side have been reduced to background noise or removed altogether. Fortunately, we have the worldwide scientific community working on COVID-19 non-stop over the past months. Like in a crime scene investigation, key pieces of evidence will surface if you work and wait long enough. There is more to know than the media and the “experts” want you to know.
For a long time, you have heard the coronavirus could mutate and these mutations could lead to significant effects. We heard of mutations in the mass media such as the S-type and the L-type.[i] In fact, at the current juncture, there are at least 10 mutant strains of the coronavirus in the world. What has not been presented to the world broadly is the presence of two dominant forms of the coronavirus and their drastic difference in spread and mortality. Yes, we are dealing with two distinct COVID-19 viruses with different infectivity and severity of disease. The two seminal work came from the Cato Institute (first published on April 15 and later updated on May 8) and the Los Alamos National Laboratory (first published on May 5 and later updated on June 26). Though they used different nomenclature for the two dominant forms, the data from each group are consistent with each other.
Pandemic Stage, Spread & Dominant Forms
There are four phases of the COVID-19 pandemic with distinct characteristics shown below. The inception of the pandemic began in China last November and the coronavirus spread throughout East Asia in mid January then gradually to rest of the world. This origin form of the coronavirus is called “East Asian” or supertype “B”. For almost three weeks, the coronavirus took a pause and spread to only two new countries (Belgium and Egypt). Then the coronavirus spread more aggressively in Europe and onto the east coast of US and other countries. In one month, the coronavirus spread to another 79 countries. The second dominant form of the coronavirus is called “European” or supertype “A”. The “European” coronavirus spreads more efficiently as demonstrated by the growth in number of cases (from 2.1x to 312.9x) and the prevalence of Europe cases (from 8.1% to 42.8%) compared to East Asia cases in just one month!
Subsequently, a significant D614G mutation at the Spike protein of the coronavirus was discovered in which the “D” aspartic acid was changed to the “G” glycine. The “D614” form is correlated with the “East Asian” / supertype “B” coronavirus and the “G614” form is correlated with the “European” / supertype “A” coronavirus. A visual breakdown of the “D614” vs. “G614” distribution is shown below for Pre-March and the month of March, as well as through May.
A University of Pittsburgh study corroborated that the “European” / supertype “A” / “G614” coronavirus was the one prevalent on the east coast, specifically in New York, the coronavirus epicenter for US. The “East Asian” / supertype “B” / “D614” coronavirus was the one prevalent on the west coast.
Morbidity & Mortality
The morbidity (incidence of infection) rate and the mortality (death) rate in “European” countries are significantly higher than those in “East Asian” countries. Their trends and data are shown in the graphs and table below. The “European” coronavirus is at least 10x more infective and approximately 20x more deadly than the “East Asian” coronavirus!
Recent publications[ii] reveal that the D614G mutation renders the “G” form more productive with its infection and more resistant against antibody neutralization. This would lead to greater infectivity and more severe outcomes. These biological findings corroborate with the human data obtained thus far.
The key take-away’s from these findings are:
- “European” / supertype “A” / “G614” form is the dominant circulating COVID-19 virus now and leads to higher infection and death rates compared with the “East Asian” / supertype ‘B” / “D614” form. There are variances in distribution of these main forms on country, state, and county levels.
- Any analytical assessment needs to take into account the distribution of these main forms. We cannot simply compare country to country and state to state. Appropriate public health policies should be based on these precise analyses instead of a “lump-sum” coronavirus approach.
- Effective management of COVID-19 mandates the tracking of present mutation forms and future mutation forms. We need to understand the precise nature of the virus we are facing or we risk the implementation of non-effective measures against the dominant form in a select geography.
- The origin of the COVID-19 virus should be resolved definitively. There remain open questions that are difficult to answer such as observation of the “Global Pause” period for three weeks followed by the explosion of the dominant “European” form. Italy recently found the coronavirus was present in sewer samples as early as December.[iii] There are many important questions unanswered.
[i] https://www.newscientist.com/article/2236544-coronavirus-are-there-two-strains-and-is-one-more-deadly/
[ii] https://www.scripps.edu/news-and-events/press-room/2020/20200611-choe-farzan-sars-cov-2-spike-protein.html; https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.20.161323v1
[iii] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-italy-sewage/italy-sewage-study-suggests-covid-19-was-there-in-december-2019-idUSKBN23Q1J9