A New Covid Surge?

[canyonwalker]

For weeks now I've seen scattered articles in my newsfeed about how Covid cases are on the rise. What's happening? Well, it's hard to tell because so much of the tracking infrastructure we (the US) built up in 2020 and 2021 has been dismantled. And it's not just in the states run by governors and legislatures who mock and dismiss Covid out of hand as a political hoax. Even responsible states, NGOs, and our federal government have accepted Covid as just another part of the background radiation of life. The case counting websites I used to check, sponsored by reputable organizations, are gone. Health organizations are reduced to reading the proverbial tea leaves now... which includes reading literal poop trails, as analyzing the virus content in sewage is sadly one of the better barometers we have left.

Tracking the spread of the virus in this new reality is tough. News articles call attention to outbreaks— a school system in one city here, a hospital in another city over there, a waste treatment plant somewhere else. We've devolved from comprehensive statistics to, basically, anecdotes.

In a world where anecdotes are all we seem to have anymore it's hard to tell how concerned I should be. My own anecdote, based on the people around me, is that there's nothing to worry about. I'm not sick. My partner's not sick. Very few, if any, of our friends have gotten Covid or Covid-like symptoms in the past two months. Of course, we're all on the responsible end of the spectrum. I haven't bothered talking much with relatives or colleagues who refused to get vaccinated. Though last I heard most of them were on their second or third round of having Covid, anyway, so at least they've built up some antibodies the hard way.

The surge we may or may not be having right now is caused by a new strain that has a name. Actually it has multiple names. I've seen it designated EG-5 and Eris; those are the same. I've also seen references to BA.2.86, a subvariant of Omicron, and XBB; these are apparently not the same. The plethora of names being tossed around in anecdotal news articles makes it even harder to determine whether I should start taking additional precautions.

Maybe I should give up like virtually everybody else and simply accept Covid as part of the background radiation of life.

Comments

[solarbird]

A friend of mine who is 25 now has a heart condition to deal with.

Yeah, it's directly from COVID. Couple of months ago.

10% of cases are still getting long covid and dodging it once doesn't mean dodging it twice; the odds don't improve. Not overall.

So don't give up yet. The nasal vaccines are in human testing and doing well. Those are the ones that'll actually throw a wrench directly into communicability.

Hold out for those.

[canyonwalker]

I realize since I haven't blogged much about Coronavirus for several months newer readers may not understand how seriously I take it. I continue take more precautions than easily 80% of the population, possibly even 90%+. I have had 5 shots of Pfizer/Moderna vaccines and plan to get another booster in a month or so when (hopefully) the updated formulation is available.

[some_other_dave]

We do have friends who have caught it recently. B of B&J&J is recently over it; I was going to visit them when I was on the mainland last month but was unable because she had tested positive.

[canyonwalker]

Uhh... I don't remember B telling me that. Maybe I'm just forgetting. But it didn't stop the three of them from visiting us twice last month. 😨