The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 431 (931)

Another slow day on the coronavirus news front. Despite spending a good amount of time searching website after website for something new, I found only one thing to report here, and it's not all good news. We may be starting into a fall or fall-winter surge. At least New York City is starting to record increases in covid cases. It does not bode well that scientists have identified even more Omicron subvariants. While some of those have not been found in the US ... yet ... knowing that they are out there does not lift my spirits. I've mentioned BA.2.75.2 before. Dr. Fauci says that BA.2.75.2 "looks suspicious--that it might start to evolve as a [troublesome] variant." BA.2.75.2 has been identified in the US but accounts for only a small percentage of total covid cases so far. 

Another subvariant, BA.2.3.20, could be worse due to the number of mutations it carries. Evidently, a fourth mutation, XBB, is well worth watching. It seems that all these new subvariants have a "growth advantage." They carry more immune escape and may be more transmissible. BF.7, otherwise known as BA.5.2.17, could be contributing to a significant share of the new cases in Belgium and other European countries. One worry is that it may be able to evade the natural immunity coming from a BA.5 infection.

Post-covid-wise, I still tire very easily. Walking the dog twice each morning (anywhere from 1 to 1.5 miles each) eats up any energy I might be tempted to expend on other exercise. That means it helps keep me from overdoing it. If there's a new subvariant out there that can evade whatever immunity I retain from my September infection, I do not want to meet it. You don't want to either.