Fall COVID Colors

Posted on by Thor

Emerging COVID variants and waning immunity means there will be a wave of COVID infections in the fall and winter of 2022. BA.2, BA.4 and BA.5 are subsiding but other variants are in the wings to take it’s place. The effort to roll out a bi-valiant booster to combat the new variants has been anemic at best. Only 2% of Americans have opted to get the shot. Al the while Omicron is evolving with a new generation of immunity-dodging variants.

United Kingdom and some other European countries, are seeing the swift ascent of BQ.1 ( a descendant of BA5). In India, the BA.2.75 variant is on the rise. BA.2.3.20, is growing quickly in Singapore, and has turned up in Denmark and Australia. BQ.1.1 (a member of the BQ.1 family with one extra spike change) and BA.2.75.2 are the most immune evasive, being able to dodge most neutralizing antibodies elicited by infection with BA.5. That means your past infection will not protect you from being re infected.

BA.4.6, dubbed Aeterna by variant trackers on Twitter, is slowly but steadily climbing toward the top of the mountain of variants in the U.S. In early October 2022 it accounted for 14% of cases in the United States. It’s growth is exponential. Aeterna appears to have a nearly 6% growth advantage over BA.5, according to an Oct. 7 technical brief from the United Kingdom Health Security Agency.

I am sure your head is swimming with all the different variants which are competing to infect us. Those who have gotten vaccinated have some protection from severe disease and death but the anti vaccine folks are shit out of luck.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, predicts a coming wave of infections that will swell in October and peak in late December or early January. So far no single variant has become undeniable the most dominate. I would put my money on BA.4.6 to be knocking on your door this fall season.

Juggling Variants

Posted on by Thor

The COVID-19 virus continues to create new variants. Some hope that the new variants will be less infectious and less deadly. However this outcome is not guaranteed. When I shared an illustration titled “Vaxed and Relaxed” I got a response from a nurse saying, “Working in the ER now, Covid is very much not “over”. I wish people took health and safety more seriously.”

I sketched at an opening last week and I was one of two people wearing a mask in a crowd of perhaps 300 people pressed into two gallery rooms. For most Americans the pandemic is over as hospitalizations slowly decline. The virus however has plenty of human fuel as we head into the fall season, ignorant and unprepared.

A new variant following on the heals of BA 5 is variant BA 2.75 nicknamed ‘Centaurus’. Studies suggest that this variant is similar to BA 5 which is capable to dodge immunity conferred by infection and vaccination. The variant seems to have a “quite sizeable” transmission advantage over BA.5 according to Tom Wenseleers, an evolutionary biologist at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, who has modeled its rise.

The Centaurus variant has arrived in Florida in mid-August. Viral loads are once again rising in the Miami, Orlando and Tampa Bay areas. Coronavirus particles found in wastewater from Orange County, home to Orlando, have nearly doubled in the past two weeks. COVID tests conducted last month in Florida confirmed that the BA.2.75 omicron sub-variant, which fueled a recent wave of infections in India, is circulating among people in the state.

So, have you gotten your fall vaccine booster? If not, you may be juggling chainsaws with little experience.