On Emergence of New Strains of Covid-19 Viruses

The Blogger’s Note: 

It was reported on 14 December, 2020 that a new variant of the coronavirus that may be associated with faster spread has been identified in southeast England, UK. Over 1000 cases involving this variant have been identified in the UK. 

For further reading: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9052077/Matt-Hancock-blames-new-strain-coronavirus-surging-cases-London-South-East.html 

My most learned e-buddy Dr. Lim Ju Boo commented as follows:

 

Thank you for this info from England where several new strains of Covid 19 viruses have emerged and more deaths resulted.  

I am not surprised from the way we try to prevent it from spreading since not only us but this virus too needs to adapt and survive against all odds and adversities. It's just part of Nature.

Read my further feelings about this in Ir. TO Lau’s blog here: 

https://taionn.blogspot.com/2020/10/list-of-dr-jb-lims-articles-inside-this.html?m=1 

Especially articles No. 136 on “2020 War of the Worlds. Earthlings vs the Coronavirus”and article no. 138 on “The Mystery of Life on Earth: The Origin of Coronavirus”. 

Ever since the first pre-biotic chemistry started 4,000 million years ago and the first RNA world and evidence of chemical fossils were discovered 3,800 million years ago, followed down through natural history especially during the Cambrian Explosion of all life beginning from 542 to 488 million years ago, every life being already evolved will try to adapt and survive through adverse challenges till today.  

For instance, mosquitoes first appeared 226 million years ago and they have been vectors of diseases such as malaria, yellow fever, Chikungunya, West Nile, dengue fever, filariasis, Zika and other arboviruses.

 

Until today we have not been able to defeat the mosquitoes or any of the disease they transmit. Scientists have not been able to develop any effective vaccine against them. 

Neither have we been successful with any other diseases carried by other insects or parasites. 

There is even a Malaysian scientist by the name of Dr Betty Sim (pic. right) who was my colleague at IMR but now settled down in the US, who is trying to develop the malaria vaccine, now in Phase 3 of clinical trial. But i have not followed up with her since I met her again 2 years ago.

By transmitting these diseases, mosquitoes have caused the deaths of more than 800,000 people a year, more than any other animal taxon each year, and more than Covid 19 deaths. 

What I am trying to explain here is, we can never defeat Covid-19 no matter how hard our medical scientists try. 

Our only choice is to let this disease fizzle out naturally by itself by natural selection like all other pandemics since ancient history of plagues and pestilences have clearly demonstrated.

Whatever kind of vaccine we try to develop, whether traditional or novel, this virus will mutate for its own survival when challenged whether inside or outside the human body.  

This is how all life were evolved and protected their existence once emerged.

I hope other scientists understand this natural biological law, maybe not, unless and until they study evolutionary biology just like I did for my postdoctoral at the University of Cambridge in 2019 just before this Covid-19 pandemic outbreak. 

Somehow an unseen Hand guided me there so that I will not be blind in understanding how He is going to work. 

I think we are all fighting a vain battle against Nature, including using an artificially created vaccine against this virus, both will then combine and rise up against us. 

The folly of mankind,

 

Jb lim 

(Written and posted on December 15, 2020 @ 1.30pm in a WhatsApp Chat Group) 

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Feedback from Dr. JB Lim on December 16, 2020 @ 6.19pm in WhasApp group:

 

Dear Sifu Lau,

 

Thanks for the post on the Covid-19 vaccine and my opinion on this issue.  I notice in your blog you posted a photo of Dr. Betty Sim, the Malaysian inventor-scientist of the malarial vaccine, in white lab. coat in her research laboratory in the United States. 

https://magazine.scientificmalaysian.com/issue-12-2016/ama-session-dr-betty-kim-lee-sim/

I have a better photo of her taken together with me at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya and also together with Professor Dr. Lau Yee Ling, Professor and Head of the Department of Parasitology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, where I was sandwiched timidly as a “beast” in between these two beauties and their brilliant scientific brains 

 

The photos were taken two years ago when Dr. Betty came back to Malaysia to explain to members of our medical society how she developed her vaccine against malaria.  Dr Betty Sim was my colleague at the IMR in the in 1980's - 1990s. Here are the two photos among many with Dr. Betty.

 

Cheers!

 

jb lim 

Pic. from left: Dr. Betty Sim Kim Lee, Dr. JB Lim, Prof. Dr. Lau Yee Ling 

Dr. JB Lim with Prof. Dr. Lau Yee Ling

The blogger's comment:  

Dr. JB Lim humbly mentioned that he was the "beast" with two beauties in the above photo.  But according to the fairy tale and musical romantic fantasy film of "Beauty and the Beast", the beast is actually an enchanted prince who has been cursed. 

And we are sure that Dr. Lim is a "prince" all right in the fields of science and medicine.

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Further feedback from Dr. JB Lim on December 17, 2020 at 2.19am via WhatsApp chat group: 

 

Wow! My dear Sifu Ir. TO Lau, 

 

You really caught me by surprise that I was actually a prince-in-disguise when I mentioned I was a beast sandwiched timidly and humbly between two highly brilliant medical-scientific brains and their beauties. 

 

I never even have the faintest idea that the beast in the mythology was actually a prince, whether charming or not?

 

But one thing is very certain.

 

Dr. JB Lim and Mrs. Sally Lim (Photo by courtesy of Dr. Lim), the beauty and her prince-charming

The “beauty” (wife) in my own house has always asked me to practice water and civil engineering in her house. When I protested as I have no license to practice any kind of engineering whether inside or on the top of my house, she told me as a beast in the house it is okay to practice it quietly without being qualified to save professional engineer’s consultant fees. 

 

There goes another example I have always been a beast of burden in my own, or rather her house, till I die in harness, far from being a“prince charming”. 

 

This is a true story not taken from the fairy tale of “The Beauty and the Beast”. 

 

I am just a Bogus Engineer and a“Prince Charming”in my own house. 

 

Jb lim     

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The Blogger’s conclusion:

 

The subject of this post is about the mutation of Covid-19 viruses and interestingly it has somehow extended to the “mutation of a prince” into “the beast” humbly assumed by the Great Sifu, Dr. JB Lim.  

The princehood in Dr. Lim manifests that he is truly a “prince charming” for being a “Jack of All Trades”, excelling in not only the fields of medicine, science but also engineering, a talent first discovered a long time ago by his sister’s classmate when he managed to fix a faulty home radio as a kid. (Refer to: https://taionn.blogspot.com/2020/06/dr-jb-lims-brief-introduction-of.html)