Suspected B.1.1.529 (Omicron) spread at Christmas dinner in Norway

 A report, in Norwegian, in Dagbladet, suggests extensive transmission of B.1.1.529 at a Christmas party in Oslo, Norway.

The article in Norwegian is here (for those with the appropriate linguistic skills):

Var på julebord i solenergi-selskap 

I used Google Translate to extract the essentials of the article.

Discussion of the article follows after the quoted text.

The health authorities in the district of Frogner in Oslo have earlier today stated that 30-40 people are suspected of being infected by the omikron variant after a "social event under the auspices of the job". This afternoon, Dagbladet receives confirmation that it is a Christmas table in the solar energy company Scatec.

- I can confirm that it is Scatec, Tine Ravlo, assistant district chief physician and infection control chief physician in Frogner, informs Dagbladet.

120 participants

The company - which has a South Africa office - has earlier today informed E24 that an employee tested positive for corona after Christmas dinner on Friday 26 November. 120 people participated in the event, which took place at Frogner. Some of the participants had recently been to the Cape Town office.

Scatec's communications manager Stian Tvede Karlsen has stated that the company implemented a strict infection control regime at the party; only vaccinated had access, and everyone had to test negative in advance.

Facts about the omikron variant

    The variant was first discovered in South Africa, which notified the WHO on 24 November. Since then, it has been proven in a number of countries around the world.

    The WHO has classified the mutation as "worrying". The first two cases in Norway were confirmed on Wednesday 1 December in Øygarden municipality, west of Bergen.

    FHI assumes that the variant may be more contagious, but that it is unlikely to cause more serious illness.

    Norway and many other countries have introduced entry restrictions from a number of countries in southern Africa. Infected must be in isolation for seven days, and close contacts must be quarantined for ten days. This also applies to fully vaccinated.

Source: WHO, Government, NIPH, NTB

 

Infection control doctor Ravlo states that the city health service became aware of a possible omicron outbreak when a participant in the event, who had also been traveling in South Africa, tested positive for corona on Monday this week.

Then more and more partygoers tested positive. As omikron is believed to be a more contagious corona variant, originating in southern Africa, the city health service put two and two together and tested all of the participants. Now they are waiting for an answer as to whether it is an omicron.

- But if the sequencing shows that it is about omicron, we assume that the others are also infected with omicron, says Ravlo - and at the same time keeps the possibility open that it may be about other variants.

 

The facts appear to be that 120 staff attended a Christmas dinner on Friday 26th November 2021.

One person who had attended the Christmas dinner and who had also been travelling in South Africa tested positive for Covid-19 on Monday 29th November.

 City authorities then tested the other attendees at the Christmas dinner.

Reportely 30-40 attendees tested positive for Covid-19.

The attendees reportedly were all vaccinated (undefined in the article) and had tested negative for Covid-19 (timing of test relative to the Christmas dinner wasn't stated).

If, as reported, 25-30% of attendees at the Christmas dinner have Covid-19 then two possibilities exist:

• This is a super-spreader event for B.1.167 (Delta)
• This demonstrates how readily B.1.1.529 (Omicron) transmits even in a reportedly vaccinated group.
  

If, as reported, the group were all vaccinated against Covid-19 a super-spreader event of B.1.617 (Delta) seems very unlikely.

If, and I stress if, one individual who had recently travelled to South Africa and who (presumably) had the B.1.1.529 variant transmitted the B.1.1.529 variant of SARS-CoV-2 to 25-30% of a group of vaccinated people in Norway, there must be a very significant degree of vaccine escape! 

Did B.1.1.529 ("Omicron") emerge from the BSL4 laboratory in Johannesburg?

The B.1.1.529 variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is attracting frantic attention worldwide due to the risk that the Covid-19 pandemic will gather new and deadly effect around the world.

One of the intriguing features of the B.1.1.529 variant is that it has many mutations not seen in previous SARS-CoV-2 variants.

How could a SARS-CoV-2 variant have arisen which is so different?

There are three broad possibilities widely discussed:

• B.1.1.529 circulated in a small, isolated population before reaching Gauteng
• B.1.1.529 arose in a patient chronically infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, perhaps a person with inadequately treated HIV infection
  
• B.1.1.529 arose in an animal reservoir, as yet unidentified, with recent transmission to humans
  

However, there is a fourth possibility that merits careful consideration.

Did B.1.1.529 ("Omicron") escape from a Bio Safety Level 4 (BSL4) facility in Johannesburg?

Let me explain why the question arises.

B.1.1.529 is exploding in Gauteng, South Africa.

Gauteng includes the cities of Johannesburg and Pretoria.

Johannesburg includes a facility which has Bio Safety Level 4 (BSL4) facilities.

Is it possible that B.1.1.529 ("Omicron") is spreading in Gauteng because of a leak from the BSL4 facility in Johannesburg?

The BSL4 facility at the Centre for Emerging Zoonotic and Parasitic Diseases appears to be located in Sandringham, a suburb of Johannesburg north of the city centre.

A few kilometres away is Pretoria the centre of Tshwane where B.1.1.529 ("Omicron") is growing exponentially.

The possibility exists that B.1.1.529 ("Omicron") might have arisen from the BSL4 facility at the Emerging Zoonotic and and Parasitic Diseases.

That is a possibility that must be examined, although the more pressing issue is to prevent the B.1.1.529 which is presently largely confined to Gauteng become a worldwide deadly tsunami of infection.

Letter of 7th December 2020 to Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General, World Health Organisation

On 7th December 2020, in parallel with my letter of the same date to the International Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, I wrote to Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organisation asserting that World Health Organisation pandemic policies had, as of that date, caused over 1,000,000 avoidable deaths from Covid-19.

A copy of that letter is available online at

Letter of 7th December 2020 to Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General, World Health Organisation

Letter of 7th December 2020 to the International Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response

On 7th December 2020 I wrote to the Co-chairs of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response.

A copy of that letter is available online at

Letter of 7th December 2020 to Helen Clark and Ellen Sirleaf

In that letter I asserted that fundamental failures of World Health Organisation pandemic policy had (as of that date) caused over 1,000,000 avoidable deaths worldwide from Covid-19.

As of 1st January 2021 the number of avoidable Covid-19 deaths caused by disastrously bad World Health Organisation pandemic policies has risen to over 1,800,000:

Disastrously bad so-called "science" at the World Health Organisation has caused over 1,800,000 avoidable deaths

On 7th December 2020 I submitted a manuscript to the Lancet which I included as an Annex to the letter to Ms. Clark and Ms. Sirleaf.

Disastrously bad so-called "science" at the World Health Organisation has caused over 1,800,000 avoidable deaths

The World Health Organisations's handling of the Covid-19 pandemic has been disastrous - it has caused over 1,800,000 avoidable deaths.

 For a brief explanation of my claim that the WHO pandemic policies have caused over a million avoidable deaths, see my post of 24th November 2020 here:

Disastrously bad so-called "science" at the World Health Organisation has caused over 1,300,000 avoidable deaths

 

 

 

Disastrously bad so-called "science" at the World Health Organisation has caused over 1,300,000 avoidable deaths

The World Health Organisations's handling of the Covid-19 pandemic has been disastrous - it has caused over 1,300,000 deaths.

The fundamental failure of the World Health Organisation's pandemic policies, which are founded on the International Health Regulations (2005), is that they fail to recognise that when there is substantial cryptotransmission of a novel infective agent that in-country "Identify, Test, Trace and Isolate" measures won't work. 

At least the "Identify, Test, Trace and Isolate" strategy won't work in terminating an epidemic (except where preparations have already been put in place to separate infected, or potentially infected, individuals from the susceptible general population).

Why?

Because when cryptotransmission is substantial, the "Identify" element of the "Identify, Test, Trace and Isolate" tetraptych doesn't work.

You can't identify all those who are infected.

If you can't identify all those who are likely to be infected then you can't test those infected individuals that you have failed to identify.

If you can't test all infected individuals you won't be able to trace all their contacts, to some of whom they may have already spread the novel infective agent.

If you can't trace their contacts you can't isolate those infected individuals that you haven't tested or their contacts.

The whole strategy fails. 

Infection continues to be spread in-country by cryptotransmission.

The more cryptotransmission there is the more serious the effect of the failure of the "Identify" element of the "Identify, Test, Trace and Isolate" tetraptych.

Expressed colloquially, if you can't identify all those with the disease the "Identify, Test, Trace and Isolate" strategy won't work.

When the "Identify, Test, Trace and Isolate" strategy doesn't work (because of substantial cryptotransmission) then an infective agent with high transmissibility and moderate mortality will cause hundreds of thousands of deaths around the world.

The deadly spread of Covid-19 around the world demonstrates the truth of that assertion.

The International Health Regulations (2005) are not fit for purpose.

When a novel infective agent has moderate mortality, high transmissibility and substantial cryptotransmission - as the SARS-CoV-2 virus has - the deadly effects around the globe are entirely predictable. 

In 2005 the 58th World Health Assembly approved International Health Regulations that are predictably deadly when a novel infective agent has the characteristics of moderate mortality, high transmissibility and substantial cryptotransmission that the SARS-CoV-2 virus has.

The International Health Regulations (2005) need to be binned and replaced with International Health Regulations which are designed properly to protect global Public Health.

There was a global public health emergency on 7th January 2020

On 7th January 2020 Chinese scientists identified a new coronavirus, later named SARS-CoV-2, as the cause of an outbreak of pneumonia of unknown cause in Wuhan, China.

On 7th January 2020 a global public health emergency existed.

The global public health emergency was all the more dangerous because the World Health Organisation's pandemic strategy was incapable of responding properly to the identification of a new coronavirus like SARS-CoV-2 which had infected human beings.

The SARS-CoV-2 virus

• Caused significant mortality
• Was readily transmissible between human beings
• Had significant cryptotransmission
  

It took another 23 days until the World Health Organisation's Emergency Committee formally recognised the global public health emergency as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.

Worse still, on 30th January 2020 the World Health Organisation's Emergency Committee asserted that international travel and trade should not be interfered with.

The Emergency Committee stated,

"The Committee does not recommend any travel or trade restriction based on the current information available."

See

Statement on the second meeting of the International Health Regulations (2005) Emergency Committee regarding the outbreak of novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) 

Later in the same statement the Emergency Committee stated,

"Under Article 43 of the IHR, States Parties implementing additional health measures that significantly interfere with international traffic (refusal of entry or departure of international travellers, baggage, cargo, containers, conveyances, goods, and the like, or their delay, for more than 24 hours) are obliged to send to WHO the public health rationale and justification within 48 hours of their implementation. WHO will review the justification and may request countries to reconsider their measures. WHO is required to share with other States Parties the information about measures and the justification received."

The message was clear.

The WHO didn't recommend any border controls and any country that implemented border controls had to report them within 48 hours to the WHO and could expect the WHO to shame them publicly if they couldn't prove that the border controls were necessary.

The WHO Emergency Committee was complying with the International Health Regulations (2005), at least as interpreted by WHO lawyers.

That decision of the WHO Emergency Committee in effect prohibited the only Public Health measure that could be expected to prevent a pandemic of Covid-19.

The Covid-19 pandemic has killed more than a million people and counting.

The World Health Organisation and its Emergency Committee are reponsible for those deaths.

There is an urgent need for radical revision of the International Health Regulations (2005) since they have caused over one million avoidable deaths from Covid-19.