Having a good day? Need something to distract you though perhaps not in a good way? I'll start with the last item I found before taking The Family Dog for her afternoon walk, a walk that took longer than usual because of the number of Nice Day Drills she did. A Nice Day Drill is when the dog lies down the better to savor the breeze or other weather.
A new covid variant has been found in England and China. It's being called XE in England and Voc/Omicron variant BA.1.1 in China. It's a recombinant form of BA.1 and BA.2 and unidentified in previously found strains worldwide. There are 637 cases so far in England. The early growth rates are not significantly different from BA.2. There's not much data so far, but some suggest that the growth rate of the new variant could be 9.8 percent above that of BA.2. So far, though, there haven't been enough cases to draw conclusions about transmissibility, severity, or vaccine effectiveness. When that information does come out, I'll let you in on it.
China is sending 2,000 military medics and 10,000 medical workers to Shanghai, where there have been over 60,000 cases in the last month. There were 9,000 on Monday alone. Those numbers may not seem large when compared to some other cities, but in zero-covid China, they're humongous. Taiwan, meanwhile, is relaxing restrictions in the middle of an outbreak. They've shortened the quarantine period for people testing positive or in close contact. Borders are still open only to international business travelers, though.
The top groups hit hard by the pandemic are older people, residents of nursing homes, and diabetics. The last group accounts for 30 to 40 percent of all covid deaths. Diabetes impairs the immune system but also has risky underlying conditions such as high blood pressure and obesity. Diabetics in ICUs are more apt to be intubated and more apt to die. Thirteen percent of American adults have diabetes, offering the coronavirus a nontrivial number of potential patients.
The UK has expanded their list of covid symptoms from three to a dozen. The three that were (and remain) on the list are fever, new and persistent cough, and loss of or change in taste or smell. The nine new ones are shortness of breath, feeling tired or exhausted, aching body, headache, sore throat, blocked or runny nose, loss of appetite, diarrhea, and feeling or being sick. I don't know about you, but those sound quite general to me. They do come with the note that "the symptoms are very similar to symptoms of other illnesses, such as colds and flu." The lead scientist of the Zoe Covid-19 symptoms tracker app adds, "Pity they have the order wrong, but it's a start and could help reduce infection."
Maybe it's not a bad thing that a new variant may be cropping up just as restrictions are being relaxed en masse. It's a reminder of why we had those restrictions in the first place and may need them again. And it makes me feel better about that second booster shot on Friday.
1 comment:
I am a Zoe contributor. They have been trying to get the government to recognise that the three classic symptoms (the only three you could get a lab test with) haven't been relevant since year one. With 4.7m contributors who log how they are feeling every day they have seen which symptoms go on to result in a positive test. The additional symptoms have been added in the same week as free testing withdrawn.
I think it's just care staff that will be tested now so good look with finding that variant.
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