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We are awash in new COVID-19 variants

COVID-19 has entered a new stage of super aggressive evolution:

The pace of evolution is so fast that many scientists depend on Twitter to keep up. A month ago, scientists were worried about BA.2.75, a variant that took off in South Asia and spawned a cloud of other concerning sublineages. In the United States, BA.4.6 and BF.7 have been slowly picking up steam. A few weeks ago, BQ.1.1 started to steal the spotlight — and still looks like a contender to take over this fall in Europe and North America. A lineage called XBB looms on the sidelines, and threatens to scramble the forecast.

....XBB appears to be the best at evading immunity. Researchers in China have found that XBB can elude the protective antibodies generated by a breakthrough BA.5 infection, raising concern that fall boosters engineered to target the BA.4 and BA.5 versions of omicron may be quickly outpaced. Still, those booster shots remain the best tool on the shelf.

All of these are variations of Omicron. Hopefully this means that although they evade immune defenses effectively, they aren't especially deadly. Hopefully.

10 thoughts on “We are awash in new COVID-19 variants

  1. Salamander

    The United States might be better served by working to get updated vaccines out to the rest of the world, instead of wasting resources on our inveterate trumpers, who are unreachable, anyway.

    1. Jasper_in_Boston

      Vaccine (boosters at this point) reluctance/indifference has moved way beyond MAGA. Only 4% (FOUR!) of eligible Americans were boosted as of two weeks ago.

    2. gesvol

      I'm sure there will be some more takers as I think some were waiting like me to do the flu and.covid boosters at the same time and try to time it as best as possible against the peak period for both. That said I don't think that many people ever got the 3rd shot even so it has definitely moved beyond MAGA. I think most people of all persuasions are just done with it (with the rest of us just crossing our fingers that the variants that are brewing don't reach the stage of total vaccine resistance.)

  2. KawSunflower

    More businesses in my county have removed protective shields between employees & customers, one cashier without a mask practically scolded me for wearing mine & I meet fewer people who have even kept up with the booster shots. Whether it's "only" 400 or 500 of us dying daily - not just contracting covid, not "just" being hospitalized - I know this doesn't bode well for the winter counts.

    So few days to lose as many as those killed on 9/11, but it doesn't cause as much concern - because we're killing ourselves?

  3. golack

    Viruses evolve to protect themselves, not so much to kill the host. Of course, once it has spread, it doesn't care what happens to the old host.
    This is the first time we've been able to follow a pandemic in near real time. We really don't know what to expect. The emergence of strains resistant to antiviral treatment(s), others that are better at eluding the immune system, etc., is amazing--though scary. However, vaccinations still seem to preventing serious outcomes even if one gets infected. Still--keep a mask handy....

      1. golack

        You mean a cowpox to its small pox?

        That's the logic in using the live attenuated polio vaccine. It spreads a little and typically does not cause severe disease, so helps to inoculate those who didn't get the vaccine proper.
        Of course now that wild polio is close to being eradicated, most new cases are from the attenuated vaccine.

        The army is working on a universal SARS vaccine....we'll see how it goes...

        1. cld

          I didn't mean an immune response but something the virus itself does against other variants while evolving to a more symbiotic relationship.

  4. Art Eclectic

    Sadly, a whole lot of people have decided that Covid was a nothingburger (people still alive, that is). This bodes ill for the next pandemic.

    But it also goes to show exactly why we humans aren't going to do anything about climate change as long as it has either a convenience or economic impact. People have no tolerance left for being inconvenienced and they are seeming to be more than willing to trade women's reproductive rights for a protest over gas prices.

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