A new COVID-19 variant has emerged. Here's what we know about EG.5 so far
A new COVID-19 variant has emerged. Here's what we know about EG.5 so far
A new COVID-19 variant has emerged, serving as a reminder that the coronavirus continues to mutate and spread around the world, disproportionately affecting vulnerable populations.
The variant is called EG.5 and is a descendant of Omicron.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that EG.5 accounted for roughly 17.3 per cent — or one in six — of new COVID-19 cases in the U.S. in the past two weeks.
Idk what people are so worried about, I've been assured that the pandemic is over and we beat covid in
2020202120222023COVID-19 is now endemic, like influenza. However, we do have vaccines so every 6-12 months when we get a booster shot we can get a bivalent vaccine that contains some of the latest variant to help prevent serious illness. This allows us to recover much more easily, reduce transmission, and ultimately eliminate the clogging of hospitals.
The real danger is from people who refuse to vaccinate because they're going to be more susceptible to the endemic virus and its subvariants.
Nah, the real danger is the result of repeated cumulative reinfection damage from a still-poorly-understood virus that causes more and more damage to the vascular system and every organ connected to it. Long Covid is only beginning to be recognized for the mass disabling event it is, and the response of governments from the municpal all the way to the federal levels have been to let it rip, stop testing, shut down tracking sites, repeal mask mandates, and declare victory. Literally doing the thing they rightly mocked Trump for suggesting.
Now over a million people have died in the US alone, and our government has decided to force everyone back to work to sustain commercial real estate profits, and in the process condemned us all to a lifetime of body-destroying reinfections by a virus who's key traits are infectiousness and rapid evolution.
None of this had to happen. We could have had a real quarantine, just a month or two back in 2019, but that would require making slightly less money for a brief period of time, so instead we get to live in eternal plague world. The hobbling of any effective covid response by our ruling class in favor of more lucrative half-measures and non-measures is beyond a humanitarian disaster, it's a crime of unprecedented scale.
The problem is that the latest vaccines don't contain the latest variant - they're always going to be behind the curve because it takes time to develop them after a new variant emerges.
For example, here in NZ, we're still giving people the bivalent mix designed for the omicron BA.4/BA.5 variant (and the ones before it) which is now about 2 years old and hasn't been seen here for about 9 months.
There's a non-zero level of protection from those vaccines, but they're not keeping up with the virus in real time.
From an overseas perspective I can tell you that practically nobody in Australia is taking any form of booster. Elderly populations are, particularly those in a care setting but the general population are completely uninterested.
This is a combination of most people having been infected with CV19 at least once and not being particularly badly affected, and most people having had either direct or indirect experience of negative side effects from vaccination, and the now predominantly negative media coverage of the vaccination campaign.
If there is a marked shift towards increased mortality in any given strain, Australia is fucked. Thankfully that does not seem to be the trajectory of the virus at this time.
I thought this was pretty clever and funny, nicely done:)
Another few months and we'll have beaten it for 2024 too!
It's kinda taboo to name it after places now. No more Spanish, Hong Kong, Wuhan flu.
"it's only for a few weeks! Flatten the curve!"
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A new COVID-19 variant has emerged, serving as a reminder that the coronavirus continues to mutate and spread around the world, disproportionately affecting vulnerable populations.
The World Health Organization (WHO) added EG.5 to its list of currently circulating variants that are under monitoring on July 19.
The latest data from the UK Health Security Agency suggests that EG.5 makes up approximately 14.6 per cent — or one in seven — of all COVID-19 cases in the U.K.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that EG.5 accounted for roughly 17.3 per cent — or one in six — of new COVID-19 cases in the U.S. in the past two weeks.
Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease specialist at University Health Network in Toronto, said he expects cases of EG.5 to pop up in Canada soon, if they aren’t already.
Some of the best defences against COVID-19 have been and continue to be masks, vaccination and good ventilation or air quality in indoor spaces, Bogoch stressed.
I'm a bot and I'm open source!
I am the only person, literally the ONLY person who wears a mask anymore. No one in the city, no one during grocery shopping or in schools and no one public transportation. I get looks but I already got covid once, due to my „skeptical“ parents and I don’t intend to get it again.
I had to visit the ER a few weeks ago. Aside from me, there were two or three other people in masks, and they were patients.
I just don't understand it. Medical professionals should know better, but somehow don't??
It warms my heart when I see someone still has the heart and the guts to wear a mask.
i only mask for drs offices, the dentist, and other high risk environments.
if i worked with the general public or lived/interacted with high risk individuals on the regular, i'd behave differently.
Make sure you get N95/KN95/KF94 masks, they are better than cloth or surgical masks. Personally I don't wear a mask anymore except in doctor's offices, although I did receive 4 doses of the vaccine and I think both myself and my family would almost definitely be okay if we did get it.
With that said, I also have a job where I work remotely 100% of the time so that probably helps too.
I feel this.
My immune system is shitty and terrible (suspected condition, but docs have no clue), so getting sick will cause a slew of awful things to happen to me. Last tiny sick bout I had a few months ago caused a chain reaction that landed me in the hospital. I was literally shitting blood due to a tiny infection! The specialist half-jokingly told me "Well, next time, just don't get sick!" Ha. Ha ha. Ha.
I've only had a single person comment on me wearing a mask in 3 years, thank god. My response was "How about you mind your own fucking business?" Don't wear a mask. Whatever. I won't comment on it. But leave me the fuck alone if I choose the wear one. I'm not about to explain my medical history to some snide asshole. Fuck off. I like not suffering.
I personally haven't given a shit about COVID for over a year now. I haven't even gotten sick in that time. I'm not trying to attack your position here, but at what point is it considered paranoia? I remember seeing the death numbers fall in line with other stuff like the flu. At what point do we just return to normal?
I think a lot of it depends on your personal situation. For some immunocompromised people, the risk may be legitimately higher. And so in terms of it being "just like the flu", I think it's maybe more of a realization for people in those groups that it probably would have been a good idea to wear a mask in crowded public places before covid too, to protect against things like the flu. Masking has long been common in East Asia.
Last I saw, Covid death rates were still almost double that of influenza. And that's even with (generally) higher vaccination rates for covid over the flu.
I still mask up. I get "you know, you don't have to wear that any more" concern trolling from
and 
and 
alike sometimes.I only wear masks when I'm the one who's sick so I don't infect everyone else. And maybe at the hospital or clinic since I'll be in the same room as other sick people or because I'm the one who's sick.
Otherwise, unless you're immuno compromised, I don't see the point and wearing a mask all the time might be too much.
You do you, and don't let anyone get you down. There's something to be said about masking on the subway or whatever, I wouldn't hate on anyone for that. I personally haven't worn a mask for awhile, but anyone who freaks out about it, is just plain stupid.
Yes. I work in a hospital and people tend not to bother anymore among the staff.
No indicator on severity of this strain in the article
This is my issue with the article.
Headline: Here's what we know about EG.5 so far
Body: Apparently not much. We uhh, know the name of it? Severity, how contagious it may be, symptoms, breakthrough rate...like umm, anything??
sick right now in Ireland (can't be sure but we're exploding with this variant)
for me, fatigue, stuffed & runny nose which is making me cough. on day 1 I had a headache but only for that day. I had a fever for about 6 hours. sneezing, gastro fun.
Wife has a dry cough. she had a wicked fever with chills. also gastro fun, which is fun for me by proxy.
That's because we literally don't know much. EG.5 has only had 183 sequences submitted to GISAID, and EG.5.1 has had 3400 sequences submitted. This means we only have about 3600 cases confirmed as EG.5, but it's growth rate since May is crazy fast. 10% of sequences submitted to GISAID by the end of July were for EG.5, compared to 0.02% in May.
Part of the problem is that people have stopped going to the doctor when they can just do a COVID test at home, so we are less able to track individual strains and calculate things like transmission rates. When's the last time you heard the phrase "contact tracing"?
Source: https://GISAID.org/lineage-comparison and also I work in COVID monitoring.
Presumably as a descendent of omicron... It is probably easier to catch and less serious. But you'd think they'd address it...
"I don't know that it's time to worry about this (EG.5) just yet. We know very little about this new variant. There's currently no evidence to suggest that it causes more severe illness. And the CDC is indicating that it does appear to be susceptible to COVID vaccines, which is good news."
From an AMA gathering on July 26, (speaker is Andrea Garcia, JD, MPH, vice president, science, medicine & public health, American Medical Association)
Less serious than what? If my aged brain remembers correctly, Omicron severity is comparable to the original strain, only making it less serious than Delta. As I understand it, the primary factor in reduced severity was that vaccines were available and most people got the vaccine.
Other articles has said it’s nothing special. Not any deadlier.
Huh. I did notice a sudden wave of infections, including me. I wonder...
Covid cases are rising everywhere right now, stay safe out there lemmings!
Well that's concerning
Is it though? It’s an omicron subvariant that doesn’t seem to be any worse that its predecessors and the annual booster update is likely to get authorized in a few weeks.
This is the new normal. Covid mutates like flu, and each year will have covid and flu shots in the fall.
It isn't, really. Barely newsworthy, but it's something.
How come Canada still has no many anti-vax/lockdown nut jobs still?
Ours went away faster than the virus, what’s going on in Canadian society that they’re still falling for that shit? Kinda had more respect for youse than that.
Canadians are, more than ever before, influenced by American media and social media and that includes the dogmatic and polarizing rightwing anti-science narratives rooted in conspiracy theories and anti-intellectualism. We're being absorbed into the American weltanschauung since the advent of the Internet and our culture diluted. You can see it in our politics.
Lead poisoning with the boomers and christofacists funding the Conservatives up here. Keep them dumb so they can further attack healthcare and other Canadian values so they can turn us into Americans.
Yeah I dunno. It’s gross. I found one at work unfortunately. He started going off on 15-minute cities and I’m just like, “Dude, you’re telling me an insane misinterpretation of the concept. I’ve heard it. I like you, but stop with this shit. I’m just trying to work.”
So this is the first time I've heard of the 15 minute city concept, especially as a bad thing. I live on a farm but if I wanted to move to the city... 15 minutes to everything sounds great. Isn't that sort of convenience kind of the whole point of a city?
My ex lives in Moose Jaw and that's a pretty good description of it, it's 15 minutes drive from edge to edge and it's honestly a really nice little city. No traffic jams and you can also walk or bike most places you want to go, as long as the weather permits.
EG.5 -> G.5 -> 5G
YOU KNOW WHAT CAUSED THIS!!!Primes
1,2,3,5
E + 3 = H
G+ 5 = L
5 -2 = 3
Half Life 3 confirmed.
Hahaha!
Good one!
Who the fuck is in charge of naming these?
This last one was named after a famous battle Droid
(But really the new strains seen are given greco alpha numeric names. There are a bunch of strains that get named that we don't hear about because they Peter out.)
It takes more than fast servomotors and bad programming to kill a Jedi.
Look up pangolin COVID naming.
Okay when are we gonna be done with omicron? We got alpha, delta, then we hit omicron and just stopped, now we just get omicron v2 and omicron v3. We need some new ideas, when are we gonna get the xi variant?
Someone get the marketing team on this. We need fresh new ideas!
I dunno if we need to worry in Canada. There's been almost no deaths al associated with COVID in a while now. Worst case, people get hospitalised but that's it. We've built a pretty good social immunity thanks to vaccination.
It's the other countries who don't have our resources that are more at risk. We need to send them vaccines so the can immunize themselves properly.
I mean there's plenty to worry about besides death. I don't understand why people discount all the other potentially life altering effects of COVID.
Ah yes, you're right. There are potential lifetime effects to COVID. I forgot about those. A couple of friends of mine have been permanently affected with various problems like asthma since catching it.
The death count is low because immunity is up. If we relax on things like vaccinations or quarantine orders it will come back.
I think if we get a yearly immunization shot for influenza and covid we should be fine. And people should just quarantine if they're sick, COVID or not. I hate it when people go to work sick when they have the option to work from home. Especially in an office setting. Like haven't they learned anything? Why spread the disease to all your colleagues?
Do people even follow quarantine orders anymore? My employer stopped giving us covid sick days.
Pandemics over, actually
LoL
That's true, it is, but you need to check your definitions. A pandemic is an emergency when something dangerous and new spreads rapidly, threatening to overwhelm health care systems. Now that we have vaccines, treatments, and are working on health care capacity, the emergency is over.
That doesn't mean the danger has passed or that our "death from disease" rate has fallen to pre-COVID levels. In fact, it looks like the new normal will be to have about twice as many COVID deaths each year as flu deaths. All of those COVID deaths are new deaths that would not have occurred in the absence of COVID.
That death rate will continue until the vulnerable populations have been nearly wiped out, forever changing our demographics and life expectancy. By that time, we'll start seeing whether long COVID is as disastrous as it looks like it might be. If it goes the way many reasonable people think, we'll still need all the long term care programs that aren't being used by the elderly and infirm who got wiped out by the immediate effects of COVID infection, because we'll have a new class of infirmity requiring care.
On the plus side, all those 50- and 60-year old people forced out of the workforce will open up a lot of good jobs and promotions for the youth. On the downside, it'll still be demographically difficult, with too many in care, not enough working.
So, yeah, pandemic is over, but the endemic isn't going to be all that much fun for millions of people.
Can we go back to naming them after countries? I was looking forward to the Micronesia variant