COVID update

Gird up your loins, boys and girls. A new strain of COVID called XBB.1.5 is rapidly increasing in frequency of new infections. This one is a bit of a stinker because it is more transmissible, including among people who have been vaccinated and/or previously infected. That's not good. 

As usual, vaccine cranks, crackpots and conspiracy creeps have fired up the online misinformation and lies machinery. The toxic machinery was recently rejuvenated by Elon Musk, who now protects lies and crackpottery on his toxic Twitter toy. That's also not good. The WaPo writes:

Three years after the novel coronavirus emerged, a new variant, XBB.1.5, is quickly becoming the dominant strain in parts of the United States because of a potent mix of mutations that makes it easier to spread broadly, including among those who have been previously infected or vaccinated.

XBB.1.5, pegged by the World Health Organization as “the most transmissible” descendant yet of the omicron variant, rose from barely 2 percent of U.S. cases at the start of December to more than 27 percent the first week of January, according to new estimates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

More than 70 percent of cases in the Northeast are believed to be XBB.1.5.  

“XBB did not evolve because people were vaccinated,” [one of the online lies now circulating] said Vaughn Cooper, a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Pittsburgh. “The way it evolved, let’s be straight, is because people were infected by multiple viruses at the same time.”

Since the omicron variant ignited an explosion of cases last winter, it spawned a host of descendants that are even more adept at slipping past antibodies and caused most infections in the United States. The XBB line emerged as a result of two other omicron subvariants swapping parts.

By Germaine: The modern-day public heath guy