Enlarge / Transmission electron micrograph of a SARS-CoV-2 virus particle isolated from a patient sample and cultivated in cell culture. (credit: Getty | BSIP )

A remarkably mutated coronavirus variant classified as BA.2.86 seized scientists' attention last week as it popped up in four countries, including the US.

So far, the overall risk posed by the new subvariant is unclear. It's possible it could lead to a new wave of infection; it's also possible (perhaps most likely) it could fizzle out completely. Scientists simply don't have enough information to know. But, what is very clear is that the current precipitous decline in coronavirus variant monitoring is extremely risky.

In a single week, BA.2.86 was detected in four different countries, but there are only six genetic sequences of the variant overall —three from Denmark, and one each from Israel, the UK, and the US (Michigan). The six detections suggest established international distribution and swift spread. It's likely that more cases will be identified. But, with such scant data, little else can be said of the variant's transmission or possible distribution.

Enlarge (credit: Raymond Gehman / Getty Images )

People in the US transmitted the pandemic coronavirus to white-tailed deer at least 109 times, and the animals widely spread the virus among themselves, with a third of the deer tested in a large government-led study showing signs of prior infection. The work also suggests that the ubiquitous ruminants returned the virus to people in kind at least three times.

The findings, announced this week by the US Department of Agriculture, are in line with previous research, which suggested that white-tailed deer can readily pick up SARS-CoV-2 from humans, spread it to each other , and, based on at least one instance in Canada, transmit the virus back to humans .

But the new study , led by the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), provides a broader picture of deer transmission dynamics in the US and ultimately bolsters concern that white-tailed deer have the potential to be a virus reservoir. That is, populations of deer can acquire and harbor SARS-CoV-2 viral lineages, which can adapt to their new hosts and spill back over to humans, causing new waves of infection. It's conceivable that viruses moving from deer to humans could at some point qualify as new variants, potentially with the ability to dodge our immune protections built up from past infection and vaccination.

Enlarge / An electron micrograph of a number of Marburg virions responsible for causing Marburg virus disease. (credit: Getty | BSIP )

Equatorial Guinea's first-ever outbreak of Marburg virus —a relative of Ebola virus that causes similarly deadly hemorrhagic fever—is continuing to grow, spreading over a wide geographic area with potentially undetected chains of transmission, officials for the World Health Organization said.

As of Wednesday morning, officials in Equatorial Guinea had reported nine confirmed cases, with seven confirmed deaths across three provinces since early February.

"However, these three provinces are 150 kilometers apart, suggesting wider transmission of the virus," WHO's Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a press conference Wednesday .

Enlarge / A negative stain electron micrograph of a monkeypox virus virion in human vesicular fluid. (credit: Getty | BSIP )

On May 7, health officials in the UK reported a case of monkeypox in a person who had recently traveled to Nigeria. The case was very rare but not necessarily alarming; a small number of travel-related cases of monkeypox pop up now and then. The UK logged seven such cases between 2018 and 2021 . But this year, the cases kept coming.

By May 16, the UK had reported six additional cases, mostly unconnected, and all unrelated to travel, suggesting domestic transmission. On May 18, Portugal reported five confirmed cases and more than 20 suspected ones. The same day, health officials in Massachusetts reported the first US case . Spain, meanwhile, issued an outbreak alert after 23 people showed signs of the unusual infection. Cases in Italy and Sweden followed .

In the past, monkeypox transmission largely fizzled out on its own. Experts did not consider the virus to be easily transmissible. Still, the cases kept coming. By May 26, the multinational outbreak had exceeded 300 cases in over 20 countries. At the time, the US had only nine cases confirmed, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that it presumed domestic community transmission was already underway. In early June, the global tally exceeded 1,300 from 31 countries, including 45 cases in the US.

Depuis plusieurs jours, la deuxième vague pandémique de COVID-19 semble être encore plus haute que la première. « Nous sommes dans une situation difficile, voire critique , a déclaré, inquiet, Jean-François Delfraissy, l’actuel président du Conseil scientifique du gouvernement français. Nous avions prévu qu’il y aurait cette deuxième vague, mais nous sommes nous-mêmes surpris par la brutalité de ce qui est en train de se passer depuis dix jours. » À l’antenne de RTL ce matin (relayée par Sciences Et Avenir et l’AFP), ce professeur de médecine et président du Comité national d’éthique avoue craindre que ces concitoyens n’aient pas encore vraiment « pris conscience de ce qui les attend. » En effet, malgré le début du couvre-feu depuis dix jours dans les zones d’alerte maximale comme l’Île-de-France, les chiffres quotidiens dépassent ceux de printemps dernier. Ce dimanche 25 octobre, la France a battu un nouveau triste record en recensant plus de 52 000 nouveaux cas de contamination en 24 heures . Au total, 1 138 510 personnes ont été affectées par le COVID-19 en France depuis janvier 2020 et 34 761 ont été victimes. Dans le monde, les autorités de santé internationales comptent actuellement 10,3 millions de malades et 1,16 millions de morts.

Couvre-feu vs. Reconfinement

« 2 options sont sur la table : un élargissement du #CouvreFeu ou un #confinement moins dur. Dans les deux cas, les écoles devraient rester ouvertes », selon le président du conseil scientifique Jean-François Delfraissy invité de #RTLMatin avec @BSportouch pic.twitter.com/xxqSqHZNKG

— RTL France (@RTLFrance) October 26, 2020

Pour enrayer cette deuxième vague au plus vite, Jean-François Delfraissy a dit sur RTL (ci-dessus) mettre « deux options sur la table » du gouvernement. La première est celle d’un durcissement spatio-temporel du couvre-feu actuel . Il serait établi plus tôt, y compris le week-end, mais serait aussi mis en place dans davantage de régions de l’Hexagone. Il conseille de voir si la courbe des contaminations s’inverse ou non dix jours ou deux semaines plus tard. Si rien n’y fait, un retour au confinement du mois de printemps sera nécessaire. La seconde consisterait à reconfiner immédiatement mais de manière plus douce qu’auparavant . « Ce reconfinement permettrait probablement de conserver une activité scolaire et aussi un certain nombre d’activités économiques » , envisage le président du Conseil scientifique tout en laissant aux pouvoirs politiques de décider des modalités précises. L’idée serait ensuite, une fois la courbe inversée, de déconfiner beaucoup plus progressivement avec le retour à un couvre-feu.

Ce professeur en santé publique préconise un confinement dès maintenant pour qu’il soit plus « éco-compatible »

Voici les mesures que Philippe Amouyel propose pic.twitter.com/mLeZwShbKF

— BFMTV (@BFMTV) October 26, 2020

D’autres experts en santé publique, comme le professeur à l’université de Lille Philippe Amouyel interrogé par BFMTV (ci-dessus), conseillent de passer dès maintenant à un reconfinement afin d’éviter d’assister à « un doublement des chiffres voire à un quadruplement dans trois semaines. » Le professeur de médecine de Lille suggère, par exemple, d’élargir les plages horaires pour désengorger les transports en commun mais aussi d’accentuer le télétravail. L’ensemble des commerces, hormis les supermarchés, resteraient néanmoins fermés jusqu’à nouvel ordre.

Couvre-feu plus strict ou reconfinement moins dur : les 2 options à l’étude

Enlarge / WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND - AUGUST 13: Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern speaks with media at a COVID-19 briefing on August 13, 2020. COVID-19 restrictions have been reintroduced across New Zealand after four new COVID-19 cases were diagnosed in Auckland. Auckland has been placed in Level 3 lockdown for three days from Wednesday, August 12, with all residents to work from home unless they are essential workers and all schools and childcare centers are closed. The rest of New Zealand has returned to Level 2 restrictions. The new cases are all in the same family, with health authorities working to trace the source of the infection. (credit: Getty | Mark Tantrum )

New Zealand officials are scrambling to halt a growing cluster of COVID-19 cases that has baffled health investigators trying to understand how the pandemic coronavirus regained a foothold on the island nation.

Officials on Tuesday announced four cases in one family in Auckland, the largest city in New Zealand. Before that, the country had gone 102 days without any local transmission. Throughout the pandemic, New Zealand has been among the most successful countries in the world at responding to and holding back the pandemic coronavirus, relying on swift and thorough testing and tracing as well as rigorous social distancing and lockdown orders.

But the new cluster has stumped investigators, who are now exploring all the possible ways the coronavirus may have slipped back in—including that it arrived on the packaging of frozen-food shipments and infected a worker unpacking them.

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Enlarge / Crowds of people walk along the Ocean City Boardwalk during Memorial Day weekend on Sunday, May 24, 2020. (credit: Getty | Caroline Brehman )

Much about how the new coronavirus spreads from one victim to the next remains a maddening mystery. But amid all the frantic efforts to understand transmission, there is one finding that appears consistent: that it is inconsistent.

Some people—most, even—don’t spread the virus to anyone in the course of their infection. Others infect dozens at a time.

It’s a phenomenon that looked, at first, like anomalous anecdotes—a large outbreak from a Washington choir practice , a South Korean megachurch , a wedding in Jordan —but it has become a fixed feature of the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. And researchers have started to settle on numbers for it.

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