It's increasingly becoming clear that persistence is the norm with #COVID and that the distinction with #LongCovid sufferers and recovered may just be onset and severity of symptoms.
I'm now beginning to see the LongCovid label function very similarly to the vulnerable label. Both take something that is nearly universal (with different onset and severity of suffering OFC), and turn it into something that most 'normies' would want to run away from.
Or loathe, hate even.
While they furiously deny even their own suffering -- [#AnythingButCovid]
If they admit to being vulnerable, suffer from LC, they are quickly cast aside as useless eaters. Who would ever want that?
I know it’s popular to tell people to “wear a mask indoors” to avoid #AnythingButCovid
BUT, if you don’t work in person or travel by train/plane, it’s WAY more likely that you’ll get it from your nearest and dearest than grocery shopping.
Public Health is not there to enlighten us about risk levels, so we’re stuck hearing extremes (always a mask (even outdoors) vs never a mask).
Covid-19 is one of the most infectious diseases humans have ever faced, and worldwide cases are currently surging, approaching or in some cases surpassing previous peaks.
To think it's more likely that people are sick with influenza (which traditionally a person gets, on average, once every 5 years) or some other unknown "mystery illness" is, to say the least, ludicrous.
>SARS-CoV-2 is a protean virus. It seems designed to reinfect a previously infected host, changing its outer coat as well as some of its properties.
>We all remember Omicron and how it swept the world that had already experienced several waves of Covid cases. There were so many changes in the outer spike protein of Omicron that previous infections did little to protect from new infections. How much previous infection protects from disease still remains in question.
>BA.2… contained 54 amino acid mutations from the original Wuhan virus. The cause for concern with BA.2.86 is that it contains 41 amino acid mutations on top of the BA.2 mutations, totaling 95 mutations from the Wuhan virus.
>BA.2.86 is likely a common descendant of one of the original Omicron variants, BA.2, [?and a more recent variant, XBB?]. In the spike protein of BA.2.86, we see 60 amino acid mutations, including substitutions and deletions. For context, the Alpha variant, which fueled the second-largest surge of cases in the United States behind the initial Omicron surge, contained just ten spike amino acid mutations. Dr. Eric Topol describes BA.2.86 as "Omicron Squared."
>…the updated Covid vaccine set to be released this fall is designed to protect against the XBB.1.5 variant, but not BA.2.86. The hope is that the vaccine will protect against BA.2.86 should it widely circulate, but it would be unsurprising if the variant evaded booster protection, given the degree to which BA.2.86 is mutated in the spike is extreme.
There may or may not be as many deaths in the acute phases [depends on how many are weakened from the previous waves, etc -- remember we killed off several million already, the survivors may need to be weakened some more to succumb in the acute phase]
What we will see is increased deaths/disability all around that will be attributed to #AnythingButCovid