Why a highly mutated coronavirus variant has scientists on alert
Why a highly mutated coronavirus variant has scientists on alert
Research is under way to determine whether the mutation-laden lineage BA.2.86 is nothing to worry about — or has the potential to spread globally
![[HN] Why a highly mutated coronavirus variant has scientists on alert](https://lemmy.uhhoh.com/pictrs/image/2ae9970a-f474-49fc-839a-4bf12682d8e6.jpeg?format=webp&thumbnail=196)
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And yet most people stopped masking for no real reason whatsoever. Now what?
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No reason? In my area the health authority relaxed their suggested action to "stay home with any suspect symptoms"
Sure I see the value In masks, especially when I am the sick one, but public messaging from professionals has certainly changed.
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But what's the reasoning? There isn't any. COVID is still as present as ever.
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Source? Total infections, and especially total hospitalizations per unit time are much reduced from a year or more ago.
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_weeklyhospitaladmissions_select_00
Scroll down to the weekly graph, going back to 2020
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That data is almost meaningless since governments at all levels stopped recording and reporting pandemic data. Of course things will look like they've gotten better if you just pretend the problem doesn't exist.
It's an infant's solution to the crisis. Covid went away because our leaders decided object permanence is for losers.
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Lol mmk, as if the CDC doesn't document their collection methods
Watch out for the 5g
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From September 2022:
The number of reported Covid cases is currently a quarter of what it was at its peak last winter. But Chris Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, estimates that only 4% to 5% of infections are being reported, because so many are uncovered through at-home tests and aren't reported to public health departments, or they aren't being detected at all.
The decline in PRC testing and a shift to at-home tests also leaves public health officials increasingly flying blind with regard to the spread of infections because few at-home test results are reported to public health departments, unlike with laboratory tests.
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As a response to the assertions you shared, particularly the second paragraph:
This is all true, but it doesn't mean that we can't have a good idea what's going on without testing individual potential cases - most cities are still monitoring sewage that gives incredibly accurate data on how prevalent COVID (among other diseases) is, which neighborhoods are having surges, which variants are infecting people, etc. Plus limited sampling and testing of individuals can still be pretty darn accurate at identifying what's going on with the rest of the population.
But yeah, a layperson looking at raw case numbers without any kind of error correction is going to come to the wrong conclusions on how things are going with COVID.
I don't necessarily blame governments for ending the major individual testing efforts - large chunks of the population were disregarding masking / isolation / quarantine protocols anyway and there was little of any means of enforcement. Sucks that it makes it much harder for an individual to protect themselves and their family, but the responsible people will continue to mask up and isolate when warranted, and doing all that testing for a bunch of assholes to disregard anyway is quite a waste of resources.
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bro, your sources are just as good.
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Deaths are a very small fraction from the US height in Oct 2021.
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Yet disabilities keep climbing, right in step with warnings about covid's long-term effects: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU00074597
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But we're not testing so we don't really know, and it's still really bad to get COVID even if you live. You don't want any virus.
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While at-home testing kits are hard to come by now, and community testing is all but shut down, hospitals still have plenty of availability to run tests. If someone is admitted as an inpatient to a hospital for respiratory issues so severe they end in death, there is an overwhelming likelihood that patient is getting tested for COVID. Particularly due to their legal liability for allowing someone to die due to an undiagnosed infection.
So yeah, we don't have good numbers for a raw number of active community infections anymore, but the fatality numbers should still be around as accurate as they ever were.
Completely agree on your other points though!
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Did you read the article? The virologist interviewed basically said that we shouldn't panic and I'm a month or two we will likely forget about the variant.
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