The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 494 (994)

Non-COVID news first today. The Oxford word of the year is "goblin mode." The runner-up was "metaverse." I know what metaverse is all about, but I drew a blank on goblin mode. Fortunately, the article I was reading included a definition: "A type of behavior which is unaplogetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations." Now that I know what the term means, I don't plan on trying to use it in everyday speech or writing. I was doing fine without it before and can continue to do so.

Two independent research groups have shown a greater than 60 percent increased risk of newly diagnosed diabetes after a case of COVID. Also reported is that severe COVID can cause markers of old age in the brain. It seems that the genes active in the brains of older people are also as active in the brains of people who had serious COVID. It's the gift that keeps on giving!

Another reason for seniors to get whatever booster they can. New York and California hospital admissions for seniors with COVID is higher than it was during the Omicron BA.2 and BA.5 waves and the Delta wave. The BQ.1.1 and XBB subvariants  have surpassed their ancestors.

China classifies infectious diseases into categories that also carry suggestions for disease management. Category A diseases include bubonic plague and cholera. Category B includes SARS, AIDS, and anthrax. Category C includes influenza, leprosy, and mumps. COVID has been classified as a Category B but managed as a Category A disease. COVID appears to be on the way to being managed as a Category B or possibly even Category C disease. The reasons for this include that 95 percent of cases are asymptomatic or have only mild symptoms and that the fatality rate is now low. This sounds more and more like the end of zero-Covid to me.

 

I do have trouble with the argument that asymptomatic cases give a disease less clout or reason to be taken seriously. A person infected by someone with asymptomatic COVID will not necessarily have their own asymptomatic case of COVID; they could develop serious COVID. Many more factors are at play than how serious the case to which someone is exposed is.