The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 377 (877)

Let's do a roll call of diseases about which to worry. There's covid followed by monkeypox followed by polio followed by Langya. Huh, you ask? What is this new disease of concern? Langya virus was first detected in China in 2018 but was only formally identified last week. There have been no deaths so far and, for now, no evidence of person-to-person transmission. The human cases have been zoonotic or tied to exposure to an animal carrier. Langya was found in one-fourth of 268 shrews caught in Taiwan as well as in two percent of domestic goats and five percent of dogs. Langya is a henipavirus, a category of RNA viruses that also includes Hendra virus and Nipah virus, both of which have been associated with high fatality rates. Fortunately, cases of these are very rare. Climate change and the destruction of nature have greatly increased the risk of zoonotic spillover of viruses from animals to humans. Want to know what to look for in Langya? Symptoms include fever, fatigue, cough, loss of appetite, and muscle aches. 

Also in China, covid cases have been reported in Tibet and Hainan, both tourist hubs. There are no Shanghai-style lockdowns in Tibet yet, just mass testing in Lhasa and Shigatse, the gateway to the Everest region. 

A recent survey of 1,580 adults demonstrates how too many (in my humble opinion) people think we're over and done with the coronavirus. The survey was done while Omicron was surging. Some 54 percent of respondents said they personally knew at least one person who had died of covid while 31 percent know someone who experienced long covid. More than half know someone who had a breakthrough infection, getting covid even though vaccinated. And 53 percent say they think it is likely that someone vaccinated but not boosted will catch covid in the next three months. That's all well and good, but 54 percent of respondents say that they rarely or never wear a mask indoors around people not in their household, more than double the percent found in January. In January, 16 percent of respondents said that they had returned to their "normal, pre-COVID-19 life." That has gone up to 41 percent now.