Trick

Posted on by Thor

Scary new variants, or scariants abound as we approach the Halloween season. As the weather cools, we are entering another pandemic winter. BA.5 is beginning to be overtaken my a wide variety of new variants. BA.4.6, makes up about 12 percent of COVID cases in the U.S, and BQ.1 and BQ.1.1, make up more than 11 percent of cases, as of October 2022, according to the CDC’s variant tracker. And those are steadily taking over. in Singapore, a sub-variant called XBB has been driving a surge in cases, and may be the most immune-evasive variant yet

Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical advisor, called this rising wave of variants “troublesome.” monoclonal antibody treatments are becoming ineffective against the new variants. Dr. Jha the White House’s Covid response coordinator, is advising people to get their omicron-specific Covid booster by Halloween, He said, ‘You don’t want to be that person who gives it to your grandma’. “Why Halloween? Because three weeks after Halloween is Thanksgiving, and there’s a lot of travel, and you’re seeing family, and you’re seeing friends — and a few weeks later, it’s the holidays,” said Jha.

Over the past two-plus years, we’ve learned new ways to enjoy pandemic holidays, and “outside is always safer” has been the mantra for these holiday gatherings. Luckily, that’s easy to do on Halloween, because trick-or-treating generally involves plenty of outdoor time.

CDC advice includes the following:

  • Stay home if you’re sick. Skip the Halloween party if you aren’t feeling well.
  • Get tested if you have COVID-19 symptoms.
  • Take precautions in crowded or indoor events as informed by your county’s COVID-19 Community Level, like wearing a high-quality mask (and Halloween masks don’t count). Consider making the mask part of the costume—like a doctor, nurse, ninja, or cowboy.
  • If you’re hosting celebrations, review options for improving ventilation in your home. This can help you reduce virus particles in your home and keep COVID-19 from spreading.
  • Keep your hands clean. If you’re out trick-or-treating, bring hand sanitizer. If you’re giving out candy, wash your hands frequently.

 

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.

COVID Super Dodgers

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Have you not been infected by COVID-19 yet? How is that even possible? You are a member of a very exclusive and ever shrinking club. BA-5 invaded our home when a house guest caught COVID from a summer camper. Somehow by taking simple precautions of masking hand washing and social distancing, we manged to dodge that very close bullet. At some point, we all will get infected. There are no winners in a pandemic.

Over 80% of all school children have already been infected and they brought the virus home for the parents and grand parents. As of September 13, 2020 COVID-19 has infected over 600 million people. The CDC estimated that at least 60% of all Americans have already been infected at least once. Re- infections are now the new normal.

Some of us want to keep dodging the virus. Even being fully vaccinated, there is a risk of long COVID which could drag on for months or even years. Americans are acting like the pandemic has ended. I however am still ducking and dodging for as long as is humanly possible. In grade school I enjoyed playing dodge ball. At some point however, it becomes statistically impossible to keep from getting hit.

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.

Vaxed and Relaxed

Posted on by Thor

With mid term elections coming up, all politicians will campaign on a Vaxed and Relaxed platform. They all will brag about what has been accomplished and ignore the steady state of over 400 deaths a day from COVID-19. If you say life has returned to normal enough times the sheep will believe you. The government cut its free at home testing program because they would prefer that you believe that the pandemic is behind us. It is not.

The vaxed and relaxed population took every precaution at the beginning of the pandemic. They locked down, social distanced, and wore masks.  Yet the virus just will not go away. It persists. These folks got vaccinated and some even got boosted and with that done they decided the pandemic for them was over. They decided that for them the COVID virus was no worse that the flu.

The BA 5 virus is the most transmissible variant of the virus ever and we do not yet know the lingering effects of long COVID. Since testing is so lax, we have no clear picture of just how many people are being infected every day. BA 5 now seems to have peaked and cases are starting to fall.

During a typical flu season you might see on average 800 to 1,780 deaths a day. Right now there are about 2,3oo deaths a day from COVID-19. COVID is not like a mild flu. If the rates of death due to COVID remains the same for a year there would be 832,600 deaths globally. OCID is the number 4th cause of death in America right now.

COVID is here to stay. Any hopes of mitigation or eradication have long since passed. The virus will continue to mutate. The virus has found ways to escape the protections offered for the vaccinated. Though vaccines that were designed to offer specific protection against the Omicron variants are now becoming available, the uptake will likely be limited. That leaves plenty of human fuel to stoke the viral fire.

BA5 Father of…

Posted on by Thor

So what variants will follow BA 5? Most folks seem to be of the mindset that things can never get worst than the last horrific wave of COVID-19. We are now in the midst of the BA 5 wave and more people around me are infected than at any time in the pandemic. To date there have been 1,051,912 deaths due to COVID-19 in America with between 500 and 600 people dying every day. This has become the new normal that Americans seem content to shrug off while going unmasked and gathering in large superspreader groups.

A year ago Omicron was an unknown variant. It seemed to come out of nowhere, being a completely unique branch of the COVID-19 family tree. The BA variants are off shoots of Omicron. The hope was that each new variant would become less virulent and less infectious. The opposite has become the truth. BA 5 is the most infectious variant of COVID-19 to date and more importantly it is highly effective at evading people’s immunity from previous infection and vaccinations.

I am fully vaccinated and have both booster shots. That means nothing in terms of protection from infection. It does protect against serious infection and possible death from the virus. President Joe Biden is also fully vaccinated with both boosters. Despite this he has tested positive for COVID-19 on July 21, 2022. Biden tried to stay shielded by testing staff regularly before meetings and press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said they still wear masks and stay 6 feet away from him during meetings. I however have seen plenty of public appearances in which he was unmasked including his meetings with Saudi princes. When asked where Biden may have been infected, the press secretary deflected saying that was not an important consideration. Like the past president, denying and deflecting seems to be the way the White House staff deal with the virus.

Some talking heads hope that future variants of COVID will become less infectious, but hope is not a way to conduct public health measures. I had hoped that when cases and hospitalizations rose then politicians would adjust and re-instate masking and social distancing requirements. Politicians lack the balls to roll with the punches and thus COVID is continuing to win the fight.

Rajendram Rajnarayanan, PhD, an assistant dean of research and associate professor at Arkansas State University, who has been tracking BA 2.75 which was first found in India and will likely peak in  September 2022, in America  “Right now, BA.2.75. seems to be the fastest of them all” he said. As of July 17, 2022 he had tracked just 14 cases in seven states: California, Illinois, New York, North Carolina, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin. By now people should understand how exponential growth of a virus works, but then again ignorance is bliss for most.

COVID Variant Pile Up

Posted on by Thor

Rather than becoming a seasonal virus, variants of COVID-19 like BA 4 and BA 5 are piling up one one another, with one variant quickly rising on the heals of another. You can be sure another variant will follow ion the heals of BA 5.  BA 5 is rampant right now in America and in England. Long COVID is as rampant with BA 5 as it was in previous variants like Delta. With so many people getting re-infected with BA 5, the chances of Long COVID symptoms are a growing concern.

The following are percentages of of total laboratory confirmed infections in triple vaccinated people who are complaining of symptoms after 12 to 16 weeks after infection.

Delta, 5%, BA 1, 4.5%, BA 2, 4.2% Unfortunately vaccines are not offering very good protection against long COVID.

We are in the midst of a huge BA 5 surge right now. President Biden is infected as are a number of Democrats who attended a Democratic Convention in Tampa Florida. My household just had a positive case of COVID and we managed to contain it under quarantine. BA 5 spread all over the world at an incredible rate while most people went about life as if there were no pandemic.

No political has the balls to suggest re-imposing masking, or social distancing requirements. They all fear the backlash. Instead mild “suggestions” are offered. “In the face of BA.5, the Administration is encouraging Americans to use at-home tests before attending large, indoor gatherings, traveling, or visiting indoors with immunocompromised individuals.”

Immune Escape

Posted on by Thor

The pandemic has never followed a simple linear path. New variants pinball around as people ignore the virus, and continually change the game.

In Early May 2022, The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) designated the BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron subvariants as variants of concern (VOC) and said they could fuel increases in infections in the region in the weeks and months ahead.

At least 24 countries outside of South Africa have now reported the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants. In US developments, key outbreak markers continue to rise, especially in the Northeast and Midwest. New daily cases are now over 100,000 and that is of course an under count. If you just go by your social media contacts who have been infected it seems the virus is everywhere.

With 12% to 13% growth advantage over BA.2, the ECDC estimated that BA.5 will become dominant. The growth advantage is probably due to immune escape from earlier infection, including from the original Omicron variant, and vaccination. Vaccine protection against Omicron infection has been shown to wane over time, though it still protected against hospitalization and death. Countries should have plans in place for the rapid deployment of booster doses for individuals who are 60 years and older to combat this immune escape.