SORRY - THE PANDEMIC IS NOT DONE WITH US

From a report in Forbes this past January 21:

“The Omicron subvariant BA.2, nicknamed the “stealth Omicron,” appears to be outpacing other substrains of Omicron in some regions of the world, raising fears that the even more transmissible version of Omicron could spark larger COVID-19 waves globally.

“The World Health Organization (WHO) says that Omicron, which is also referred to as B.1.1.529, has three main substrains: BA.1, BA.2, and BA.3. As of Dec. 23, the WHO reported that over 99% of the cases it sequenced were BA.1. But now the rise of BA.2 in Denmark and elsewhere suggests that BA.2 may outcompete BA.1.

“On Thursday, Denmark reported that the BA.2 substrain of Omicron accounts for almost half of the country’s cases and is quickly displacing BA.1, the original Omicron strain. Denmark reported that in the two weeks from late December to mid-January, BA.2 has gone from accounting for 20% of Denmark’s COVID-19 infections to making up 45%. Over that same period, Denmark's COVID infections have shot to record highs. Denmark is recording over 30,000 new cases per day this week, 10 times more cases than peaks in previous waves.

“Denmark’s government also said the strain is spreading quickly in countries like the U.K., Norway, and Sweden. Meanwhile, scientists in places like France and India warn that the BA.2 variant is quickly spreading and may outpace other Omicron strains.

“Researchers note that the BA.2 version of Omicron may have 28 unique mutations compared to BA.1, even as the two Omicron strains share 32 mutations.

“When scientists discovered the BA.2 Omicron substrain in South Africa in late November, they believed it was going to be more difficult to track than the original Omicron variant. Omicron's original strain, BA.1, has a mutation—the deletion in the “S” or spike gene—that shows up on PCR tests, making it easy to tell if someone is infected with Omicron. BA.2 does not have that same mutation, earning the strain its "stealth Omicron" nickname.

“Still, the variant is raising some alarms because there are early signs that it may be even more transmissible than the original strain of Omicron.

"[Consistent] growth across multiple countries is evidence BA.2 may be some degree more transmissible than BA.1," Tom Peacock, a virologist from the Imperial College of London, tweeted on Wednesday.

“Some researchers believe that BA.2 is so distinct from Omicron’s original strain that the World Health Organization should label it a variant of concern—reserved for variants that demonstrate increased transmissibility, among other factors—and give it its own name.

“I think the responsible thing to do is to relate to BA.2 as a completely different variant, outcompeting BA.1,” Shay Fleishon, a researcher affiliated with the Israeli government's Central Virology Laboratory, wrote on Twitter. “Oh and if someone in the WHO is here—The letter Pi is still waiting. Just saying."

From today’s WaPo:

“Consider six blue areas that either implemented statewide mask mandates as omicron emerged or that recently announced plans to scale back mask-wearing. We’re focused on cases here and not deaths because cases precede death totals by several weeks (for obvious reasons) and because mask-wearing effectively targets infection at the front end.

.”.. the trajectory of new cases in places that implemented new mandates certainly does suggest that the need for such mandates has diminished. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention thinks it’s too early and one could certainly wonder if this isn’t an example of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s famous line about rolling back voting rights: It’s like “throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.” Maybe the masks were the reason those cases had dropped.

“Americans will, by now, largely do what they want to do in containing the virus: Mandates likely helped spur more people to wear masks than otherwise would; people whose opposition would prompt them to grumble but not go so far as to record themselves yelling at the Home Depot clerk in the hopes they’d go viral on Rumble. But just as many Americans won’t get vaccinated, many won’t wear masks or scale back large gatherings, even as cases in an area increase.

““This has been the complicating factor for the government’s response for more than a year, and one that has overlapped with partisan politics.

It’s easy to see how this poses a potential future challenge. Revoking a mandate while expressing cautious optimism that one won’t be needed in the future is very different than revoking a mandate and declaring victory. What happens if this fall a new variant emerges that has a high mortality rate but can be well-contained by a cloth mask? Would Murphy and Polis not mandate mask-wearing? Again, this is the DeSantis bet: Keep your head down and hope things don’t get too bad.

“The Democratic Party and President Biden for two years have argued that they are the party of following the science. A narrative about giving up containment efforts due to political pressure severely undercuts that argument. Consider the confidence in the roots of decision-making by health officials that was captured in a Pew Research Center poll released on Wednesday. When guidance changed, most Democrats saw it as a reflection of increased understanding and new research. Republicans viewed the changes with skepticism.

“The good news is that much of American life is approaching something like normal. Many employers still mandate masks, and there are still frustrating rules around possible exposure that are upending workplaces and schools. Both of those should presumably loosen as omicron cases recede and, hopefully, remain low. (The author of this article should have consulted the Forbes article quoted above)

“So the danger for Democratic governors is not in pulling back containment measures; it’s in pulling them back predicated on the pandemic being effectively over instead of as a step toward normalcy. It not only undercuts the ability to reintroduce recommendations or mandates in the future, it also undercuts the rationale for doing so, the trust Democrats (at least) have that decisions are being made based on consideration of the available evidence. And it’s just strange: If mask mandates are revoked, how much complaint will there be if it’s accompanied with a “but we’re watching to see what happens”?”

The last paragraph of the article is the one to pay attention to:

“The political reality is that the past year of the pandemic has largely been shaped by the minority of Americans who object to taking any precautions against the virus... Democratic governors could recognize that reality without acquiescing to that approach. By not doing so, they’re weakening, not improving their political position.”

Anecdotally, my nephew and his family (two kids), all fully vaxxed and boosted, spent the last two weeks all with Covid, brought home by Youngest Son from school (where they pay attention to the rules). And he told me of a mother there who told him her son had come down with Covid a second time, only six weeks after the first.

Omicron BA.2 anyone?

With a new variant that apparently infects even those who have had the BA.1 variant, meaning that immunity from having successfully fought the disease may not work with this variant, telling everyone that all is well and spring will be great after the disappointment of last summer not returning to normal is going to make all official attempts to contain this useless if it turns out they’ve guessed wrong again. People will stop believing “the boy who cried wolf.”

Except the wolf is still Out There in the woods.

Right now, the virus keeps mutating to increase transmissability, and to get past the defenses provided by vaccination and “natural” immunity from fighting off infection.

What happens if it starts to “backtrack” to the higher danger of fatality from the earlier variants, now that it’s more transmissable?

I’m not making a prediction here. I will quote an infectious disease researcher, who was asked what she thought the future of the virus was: “I’ll let you know when we find it.”

One thing I have learned in life is that planning to deal with the worst outcome is always a good idea. If nothing else, you have reason to celebrate when it doesn’t happen. But too often it does happen. I think here of the friends who said “It can’t happen to me” about AIDS. And I’m not thinking of gays; I’m thinking of the heterosexuals who forgot that when you have sex with someone, you’re having sex with everyone they’ve had sex with.

A scientist friend said to me back then that “A pandemic is evolution’s IQ test. It has one question, pass/fail: are you intelligent enough to take this information and change your behavior in such a way as to maximize your potential to survive?”

Back then, I took the information that was coming out and concluded that it was time to change from a lifestyle that at the time included lots of “getting around.” As a result, I’m still here. I recall that when She Who Must Be Obeyed and I decided to join our futures, she said we should get AIDS tests. We did. I was actually afraid of what the possible result was; I breathed a big sigh of relief when the test came back negative. I passed Evolution’s IQ Test.

So, pardon me, but I don’t see a good reason yet to go celebrating the end of a pandemic that is still killing 2,000 people a day and is even more transmissable now. Maybe I’d survive getting it now better than I would this time a year ago, before there were vaccines. But that’s a roll of the dice I’m not willing to take.

Just remember that the vast majority of the world hasn’t gotten one vaccination shot yet. That’s a nice big evolutionary pool for the virus to be swimming in.

The great daredevil pilot Jimmy Doolittle once explained that he had done everything he did in a cockpit from looking at it as a “calculated risk.” That included taking into account a lot of factors - his skill and ability foremost, the capability of the airplane, etc. But the important thing was that when the conclusion was 50-50, he didn’t do it. As wild as he got, he never went past 60-40 in favor of success. Jimmy Doolittle was 97 years old when he died.

A good friend gave me a nice big box of N95 masks his production company didn’t use one day on a shoot, back in December. There’s still more than 200 of them in there.

I’ll continue using them, thank you very much.

And I’ll still have only one complaint about the virus: it’s not killing anywhere close to enough morons. We’re plumb out out of sabretooth tigers to keep the lid on the moron population and the morons have overpopulated the meadow.The result of overpopulating the meadow isn’t fun for the deer. Or us.

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