Several news venues have been reporting on Covid in the last few days. An ABC News headline says: "Why are more than 300 people in the US still dying from Covid every week?"
The article explains,
"Public health experts told ABC News that although the U.S. is in a much better place than it was a few years ago, Covid is still a threat to high-risk groups. 'The fact that we're still seeing deaths just means it's still circulating, and people are still catching it.' ... The experts said there are a few reasons why people might still be dying from the virus, including low vaccination uptake, waning immunity, and not enough people accessing treatments."
That last sentence is infuriating because vaccines wane in effectiveness after a few months, and vaccinations here are restricted to yearly except for people over 65 and anyone moderately to severely immunocompromised, such as organ transplant recipients, anyone HIV+, and anyone taking immunosuppressants. Furthermore Paxlovid, our only treatment option here, is only available to people over 60 or at high risk of complications from Covid. Otherwise, you're on your own.
The other frustrating is part is, yes, people aren't getting the vaccinations available to them. They stopped getting measles vaccines too. The explanation of how the vaccine works for Covid was always a problem, which helped the disinformation crowd to make some serious gains in the last five years!
In Thailand, doctors are warning of a new Covid strain, NB.1.8.1, causing deaths and more severe illnesses.
"Dr. Thira Woratanarat warned that Covid-19 was the leading cause of illness and deaths over the past month and week. ... In the past month, approximately 170,000 people sought hospital treatment. ... Covid-19 is not the same as the common cold. ... He urged people to be aware of symptoms and act responsibly to prevent spreading the virus within the community."
They had over 50,000 cases just last week, and have moved some schools online.
The new strain has hit many European and Asian countries as well. A paper in France reports that it's not more severe, but "we need to stay alert, especially for vulnerable populations," and they launched a new vaccine campaign this spring, calling for people to get a shot if they haven't had one in over six month, or over three months if immunocompromised. Unfortunately, the paper calls it a "booster," which is part of the whole problem with how vaccines rolled out in the first place. People need to understand it's like a flu shot that they need to get yearly because it targets the newest mutations. It's not boosting the original vaccine. And pharmacists, like the one at my nearest Shoppers, have to stop tracking the number of shots we get. They know it doesn't make sense to do that for flu shots, which makes it clear that even some pharmacists don't understand the shots they're distributing!
In the U.S., the FDA is providing no Covid shots for anyone who isn't "vulnerable" as if healthy people aren't at risk of longterm illness or death. It helps further the illusion that illness only happens to other people who have something wrong with them already, but many, if not most, people with longterm illnesses from a virus were healthy before they got sick!
In China, they describe the symptoms as "razor blade throat," nosebleeds, extreme fatigue, and a violent cough that lasts for weeks. A leading epidemiologist explained, "The Covid-19 virus will not disappear."
Yup. We're doing absolutely nothing to prevent the spread. Instead of getting used to wearing a mask in public, we'd rather get used to regular sickness and preventable deaths. Unlike the flu, Covid is not seasonal; it's an anytime virus! So getting shots only in the fall, like the flu, doesn't make sense. By the time we're allowed another vaccine, this variant will have hit us and done some damage. People will die. The one benefit of getting hit now is that schools, one of the biggest transmission hubs out there, will be closed for summer soon, which might help to keep our hospitalizations and deaths down.
The vaccines can prevent hospitalizations and symptom severity, which is important, but only well-fitted good quality masks actually prevent getting the virus. Remember, it travels like smoke, so if someone's a few meters away, think to yourself, "If they were smoking a cigar, could I smell it from here?" If the answer's "yes," then you could also spread or get a virus from that distance. It's also important to keep in mind we're contagious even before we have symptoms, and rapid test often show negative results for the first five days. It's fantastic to mask when sick, but if we don't mask when we're not, we risk spreading it.
ETA: a study published February 2025, on Olympic athletes: 11% were infected with Covid during the study. 37% of those had symptoms lasting over 4 weeks, and over half paused training for 4-8 weeks. Four months post-infection, 40% had reduced performance, and 64% had ongoing limitations in their sport. These were REALLY HEALTHY PEOPLE prior to getting infected! Dr. Sean Mullen recently posted a one-page fact sheet to help people (especially doctors) understand why you still wear a mask.
And an article about a study on the different ways Long Covid appears in children. "groups with and without infection demonstrated clear differences. ... Almost 6 million US children could be affected by Long Covid, which is greater than the number of kids with asthma." So, maybe let them get the shot every six months!
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