It would seem that Covid has now worked itself into our minds in much the same way as the flu. Most people aren't worried about it because when they get sick, it's not bringing as much of an impact as it was before. I'd dare say that many people don't even think about Covid much at this point. Even seeing someone wearing a mask out in public doesn't stand out much. It's become one of those things we look past and don't really notice.In the fourth year of the pandemic, Covid-19 is once again spreading across America and being driven by the recent holidays, fewer precautions and the continuing evolution of Omicron subvariants of the virus.
New sub-variants are causing concern for their increased transmissibility and ability to evade some antibodies, but the same tools continue to curtail the spread of Covid, especially bivalent boosters, masks, ventilation, antivirals and other precautions, experts said.
Yet booster uptake has been “pitiful”, said Neil Sehgal, an assistant professor of health policy and management at the University of Maryland School of Public Health. Antiviral uptake has been low, and few mandates on masking, vaccination and testing have resumed in the face of the winter surge, which is once again putting pressure on health systems.
New Covid hospital admissions are now at the fourth-highest rate of the pandemic, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Covid hospitalizations declined somewhat after the summer wave, but never dropped to the low levels seen after previous spikes, persisting through the fall and rising again with the winter holidays.
“Hospitals are at maximum capacity,” said Brendan Williams, president and CEO of the New Hampshire Health Care Association, of his region’s current rates. “I’m not sure what the trajectory of this thing’s going to be, but I am worried.”
The majority of Covid hospitalizations are among those 65 and older, although the share for children under four roughly doubled in 2022.
In the past week, Covid deaths rose by 44%, from 2,705 in the week ending 4 January to 3,907 in the week ending 11 January.
This is one of the greatest surges of Covid cases in the entire pandemic, according to wastewater analyses of the virus. It’s much lower than the peak in January 2022, but similar to the summer 2022 surge, which was the second biggest.
And it’s not done yet. “Certainly it does not appear that we are peaking yet,” Sehgal said…….
‘People aren’t taking this seriously’: experts say US Covid surge is big risk
Fewer precautions, recent holidays and subvariants have driven rise in cases but boosters, masks and other precautions are still effectivewww.theguardian.com
The only places that require masks near me are the health facilities, which is fine. I only wear mine when I visit my dad, he's on hospice with quite a few things going on with him and I'm sure his system couldn't handle so much as a bad cold, much less Covid. He didn't get the current booster or a flu shot, so we are being careful. I do encourage everyone to become current on your boosters and get the flu shot as well. Don't let regret be the last emotion you feel.
It's the same here on the coast. The only places that require a mask is health
I'd love to be current on my boosters, but I can't get one; the UK is only giving them to front-line healthcare staff, those designated vulnerable, their carers, and the over 50s.
Peaches for free...
There is an avian flu thread already...Guess this can go here
And I’ve said it before, whenever the next pandemic happens we will have learned no lessons
And that will be true whether it’s handled by people who experienced covid or the people who read about it in history class
=================
If you wanted to kill as many people as possible, deniably and with no criminal consequences, what would you do? You’d do well to start with a bird flu. Bird flus are responsible for all the known flu pandemics: the great influenza that started more than a century ago, “Asian flu”, “Hong Kong flu” and “Russian flu”, which killed tens of millions between them. They also cause many of the annual outbreaks that slaughter hundreds of thousands of people.
Once you have found a suitable variant, two further components are required to weaponise it. The first is an amplifier. The best amplifier is a giant shed or factory in which thousands of birds are packed.
These birds should be genetically homogenous, so that your viral strain can travel freely between them. Intensive poultry farms would serve very well. Before long, a low-pathogenic strain should mutate in these circumstances into a highly pathogenic variety.
To ensure maximum transmission, you should move some of the birds around, faster than the flu’s incubation period. You might carry them across borders. Some would be shifted to free-range or hobby farms, to enhance the possibility of infecting wild birds.
But it’s difficult for a flu virus to travel directly from birds to humans, so another component is required: a mixing vessel. This is a species that can simultaneously harbour the newly pathogenic bird virus and a flu variety already adapted to humans. Then the viruses, conveniently brought together, can exchange genetic material – a process known as “reassortment”.
Pigs are reasonable mixing vessels. They might have played this role in some previous outbreaks and pandemics. But there’s a much better candidate: mink. Mink readily harbour human and avian flu viruses. As predators, they can easily acquire avian flu from the meat they eat.
The distribution of sialic acid receptors – a key determinant of infection – in their respiratory tracts is similar to that of humans. Human flu strains can pass between them through aerosol transmission.
Mink also possess, to a remarkable degree, what scientists call “zoonotic potential”: in other words, they can be infected by, and infect, many different species. During the first phases of Covid-19, they proved to be highly effective intermediaries, partly because the virus seemingly evolves faster in mink than in humans.
They appear to have generated at least two new variants that spread to humans, one in Spain and one in Italy. Mink are the only known species that both received Covid-19 from humans and passed it back to them.
To enhance their mixing ability, you would cram hundreds or thousands of the tiny cages housing them together, so that this usually solitary animal is forced into contact with others.
You would reduce genetic diversity by breeding only those with a particular fur type. In other words, you would do what mink farms do today. Then you would sit back and wait.
The next pandemic might not have been seeded by a murderous psychopath, but, unless we are lucky, the effect could be the same. H5N1 was a fairly harmless bird flu until a highly pathogenic variant was hatched in a Chinese goose farm in 1996. It is deadly to humans.
On the rare occasions when people have contracted this variant, it has proved fatal more often than not: of 868 infected up to October last year, 457 have died. Though it has been devastating to both poultry flocks and wild birds, however, its transmissibility from birds to most mammals, and from person to person, is thankfully extremely low.
But mink farming offers the mixing vessel it needs. In 2021, a paper in the journal Emerging Microbes & Infections reported that about a third of the mink the researchers tested harboured both bird flu and human flu antibodies. It warned that this joint infection could generate novel viruses “with high human infectivity”.
The public health threat “should not be ignored”, as it had “pandemic potential”.
Needless to say, it was ignored……
Be warned: the next deadly pandemic is not inevitable, but all the elements are in place | George Monbiot
Bird flu is a mass killer, and mink farms are perfect for infection and transmission. They are a grave threat and must be banned, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot
saintsreport.com
Hope you get to feeling better soon. I would imagine that at this point, the number of people who have not had at least one round, whether knowingly or not, is extremely small.
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