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A quick thread on the new variant, pulling together information from news sources, twitter, genomic databases, and word from well-placed peers.

Cabinet has been summoned for call at lunchtime. Lots of concern about new data on virus in parts of England, feels like fast moving situation. https://t.co/308YsJEVGw
— Nick Eardley (@nickeardleybbc) December 19, 2020

The new variant in the UK consists of several mutations in the spike protein, including ΔH69/ΔV70 deletions & other receptor binding domain mutations such as N501Y.

The variant is described here in this pre-print from @GuptaR_lab.

https://t.co/ui2U1r1ANA

The ΔH69/ΔV70 variant continues to increase quite rapidly as a proportion of overall positives (roughly doubling in the last 2 to three days), and is apparently now the dominant strain in test positives in some regions.

Extensive efforts have gone into enhanced surveillance for the ΔH69/ΔV70 deletion with and without RBD mutations, and it is good that we are aware of this.

There is a need for calm and rational thinking, and more evidence is needed.

But the early data is certainly concerning

More from News

Jack Latimore
@LatimoreJack

This week marks 12 months since Josephine Cashman supplied Andrew Bolt with a letter falsely attributed to a Yolngu lawman that Bolt published via NewsCorp on Jan 26 as parcel of his persecution of Bruce Pascoe. Cashman & Bolt still haven’t provided a satisfactory explanation

Terry Yumbulul didn’t write the letter and didn’t agree with its content. He said so himself in a video published the next day https://t.co/IJ6ricZeRi and in a written statement published later the same day

The weird thing was, it soon emerged that large sections of the letter had been cribbed from other sources. Weird because as a Yolngu lawman, Terry didn’t need to borrow his knowledge from unrelated, alternate sources ... pretty much verbatim

The fallout was swift. Bolt was compelled to do a correction on his column and Cashman was just as swiftly dumped from her position of the Morrison government’s Senior Advisory Group for an Indigenous Voice to Government

There was no apology from either of them or from NewsCorp tho, and with the assistance of Sky News After Dark they desperately attempted to obfuscate the reality that everybody involved had been caught out and left red faced

Asra Q. Nomani
@AsraNomani

ALERT In hours starting 12 PM ET Fri night / 9 AM Karachi time, Omar Sheikh + 3 men convicted in Danny Pearl's murder will try to walk out of jail. Ruth + @YudaPearl ask the govt of Pakistan to stop this miscarriage of #JusticeforDanielPearl. cc: @imrankhanpti @realdonaldtrump

1/How did we get here? Born in 1973, Omar Sheikh, a British-Pakistani dropout from the London School of Economics became radicalized at Salafi mosques in London in the early 1990s. He vowed to become a jihadi. He went to Pakistan to wage jihad. And kidnap.

2/ 1994, Omar Sheikh went to India for a militant group, and he used the fake name "Rohit Sharma" to kidnap four tourists, including an American, Bela Nuss, from Connaught Place in Delhi. He was caught by Delhi police and sent to Tihar Jail.

3/ Dec. 24, 1999, militants hijacked Indian Airlines Flight 814 from Kathmandu, Nepal, and they demanded the release of 4 men from jail in India. One was militant leader Masood Azhar. Another: Omar Sheikh. On Dec. 31, 1999, they were freed. Omar was 26.

4/ After Sept. 11, 2001, Daniel Pearl went to Pakistan with his wife, Mariane, to report on the 9/11 attacks. On Jan. 6, 2002, Danny started chasing a story about a Sheikh Gilani. Omar Sheikh pretended to be the cleric's student. Their paths now crossed.

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Chris Hopson
@ChrisCEOHopson

1/42 Good to see yesterday’s @thetimes editorial attacking the pandemic of covid misinformation. Here’s my twitter contribution to fighting it, as suggested. Lockdown and covid sceptics continue to consistently misuse cherry picked data to argue NHS not unusually busy.

2/42 NHS trust leaders believe this disinformation is profoundly disrespectful to staff and risks reducing vital compliance with restrictions on social contact. Below is a long two part thread answering the main "NHS not unusually busy" and other NHS related disinformation.

3/42 Much of the disinformation comes from simplistic year on year percentage comparisons of data. Some types of NHS demand are flat or lower year on year. But it’s a huge distortion to argue that these individual statistics mean the NHS is not unusually busy.

4/42 For example, there ARE much lower levels of winter flu year - a global phenomenon. There ARE fewer elective operations - because of covid pressures. And there are many other examples. But there are five problems with cherry-picking/using these individual datasets.

5/42 1. They do not capture anything like the current total level of NHS demand which is very differently shaped due to COVID-19. Traditional, existing, NHS datasets were built to reflect “normal” levels of demand, “normal” operations and "normal" capacity. This isn’t normal.

Pam Keith, Esq.
@PamKeithFL

It is VITAL that you understand we got here because we allowed Fox News, Newsmax, Alex Jones, Brietbart and MANY MANY others to create a siege mentality in the right.

One of the most disturbing aspects of a siege mindset is a willingness to reflexively believe ANY claim against

the perceived enemy that echoes or aligns with the established belief. Put simply, the right wing talk sphere trained its listeners to be willing to believe ANYTHING about “libs,” without the least requirement for there to be evidence to support it. It obliterated reasoning as

CNN Philippines
@cnnphilippines

BREAKING: Bangko Sentral maintains key interest rate at 2%. | @meltlopez

BSP Governor Benjamin Diokno: The inflation environment remains benign. Latest trends show an increase in food prices, but this is transitory.

BSP: A resurgence of COVID-19 cases globally tempered economic activity. Optimism on vaccines has lifted market confidence, improved prospects for global growth.

BSP: further easing of quarantine measures should facilitate economic recovery in PH in the next few months.

BSP: Accommodative policy rates together with fiscal support will quicken PH recovery.

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Pegasus of Dharma
@HarduttSuhas

The BATTLE OF PAVAN KHIND (13 July 1660)

300 MARATHAS against 10000+ ADIL SHAHI TROOPS

A Sparta style last man stand at a mountain pass which ensured Shivaji Maharaj's safety.

Valour, loyalty and sacrifice!

Baji Prabhu Deshpande was one of the most able lieutenants of Shivaji. He sacrificed his life defending Shivaji in a heroic last stand known as the "Battle of Pavan Khind" in which his force was hugely outnumbered.(1)

In this battle he became a martyr, but managed to halt the enemy forces for several hours, which secured Shivaji’s safety and victory on another front. Without this heroic last stand Shivaji’s glorious career may have been cut short.(2)

Baji Prabhu was senior to Shivaji. In the beginning he opposed Shivaji being from a rival Maratha clan, but realised that Shivaji stood for national resurgence. Henceforth he became a friend and loyal supporter of Shivaji.(3)

In 1660, Shivaji was trapped in the fort of Panhala, under siege and vastly outnumbered by an Adilshahi army led by general Siddhi Jauhar.(4)

$Vibhu Vashisth \U0001f1ee\U0001f1f3$

Vibhu Vashisth 🇮🇳...
@VIBHU_Tweet

Did you know?

Rani Bhabani was the Queen of Natore, Bengal or 'Natorer Rani' as she was famously called. She made great contributions in Tarapith & renovated Benaras.

In Varanasi, Durga Kund Mandir was constructed by Rani Bhabani in the 18th century.

Born in Chhatimgram village, Bogra District,Her father's name was Atmaram Choudhury.Bhabani was married off to Raja Ramkanta Moitra,the then zamindar of Rajshahi.After his death, Bhabani became the zamindar, and started being referred to as Rani.She was known as Ardhabangeshwari.

A woman as a zamindar was extremely rare in those days, but Rani Bhabani managed the vast Rajshahi zamindari most efficiently and effectively for over four decades.
Maharani Bhavani was very pious in her personal life. She passed her life in a strict disciplined way.

She conducted the administrative work skillfully. As a Maharani she was an impartial judge. Rani Bhavani had a very hard time during the fag end of her life. The Zamindari (estate) incurred serious loss due to the change of the revenue policy of the company.

In spite of being the owner of a large Zamindari (estate), she had to depend on the stipend of the government in the later part of her life. The amount of this stipend gradually decreased and became Rs. 1000/- only in the end.

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Pat Walls
@thepatwalls

And here they are...

THE WINNERS OF THE 24 HOUR STARTUP CHALLENGE

Remember, this money is just fun. If you launched a product (or even attempted a launch) - you did something worth MUCH more than $1,000.

#24hrstartup

The winners 👇

#10

Lattes For Change - Skip a latte and save a life.

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@frantzfries built a platform where you can see how skipping your morning latte could do for the world.

A great product for a great cause.

Congrats Chris on winning $250!

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Instaland - Create amazing landing pages for your followers.

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A team project! @bpmct and @BaileyPumfleet built a tool for social media influencers to create simple "swipe up" landing pages for followers.

Really impressive for 24 hours. Congrats!

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https://t.co/og0B7gmkW6

Built by @DaltonEdwards, it's a platform for combatting conversation overload. This product was also coded exclusively from an iPad 😲

Dalton is a beast. I'm so excited he placed in the top 10.

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https://t.co/86Ay6nF4AY

Built by @jesswallaceuk, the project is focused on highlighting the experience of developers and people learning to code.

I wish this existed when I learned to code! Congrats on $250!!

David Rothkopf
@djrothkopf

If there is one thing I have learned it is that people love bullshit. They buy bullshit stories from professional bullshit artists, accept bullshit philosophies, purchase bullshit how-to-books, vote for bullshitting politicians.

At first, I resisted believing this because it is illogical and dumb and frankly, doesn't reflect well on the human race of which I am a member (and thus have long been hopeful that it is more of a distinction than it actually turns out to be.)

But if you actually are interested in facts you begin to notice how little most people care for them. Sometimes it is because they are heard to learn and bullshit is so much more widely and easily available. Sometimes it is because facts make them uncomfortable about themselves.

Sometimes it is because just one tiny fact will upset a whole worldview that has grown as comfortable as an overstuffed chair. (Settling into such worldviews is a lot like settling into chairs like that because the longer you're there and the deeper you sink...

...the harder it is to hoist yourself up and out of your fat-assed intellectual laziness.) But I actually think the reason people have such an appetite for bullshit goes deeper, goes to an aspect of ourselves we just can't accept.

Simon DeDeo
@SimonDeDeo

"I lied about my basic beliefs in order to keep a prestigious job. Now that it will be zero-cost to me, I have a few things to say."

As a dean of a major academic institution, I could not have said this. But I will now. Requiring such statements in applications for appointments and promotions is an affront to academic freedom, and diminishes the true value of diversity, equity of inclusion by trivializing it. https://t.co/NfcI5VLODi
— Jeffrey Flier (@jflier) November 10, 2018

We know that elite institutions like the one Flier was in (partial) charge of rely on irrelevant status markers like private school education, whiteness, legacy, and ability to charm an old white guy at an interview.

Harvard's discriminatory policies are becoming increasingly well known, across the political spectrum (see, e.g., the recent lawsuit on discrimination against East Asian applications.)

It's refreshing to hear a senior administrator admits to personally opposing policies that attempt to remedy these basic flaws. These are flaws that harm his institution's ability to do cutting-edge research and to serve the public.

Harvard is being eclipsed by institutions that have different ideas about how to run a 21st Century institution. Stanford, for one; the UC system; the "public Ivys".