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.

  • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      At the beginning of the pandemic someone very correctly predicted that America was going to do the plague the same way we did Vietnam: enthusiastically for a little bit, then once we realize how expensive it is we were gonna give up, run away and loudly declare victory.

      • snoons@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        Funny, I was just going to mention Vietnam; they did the lockdown as it should have been. Closed borders, no gatherings, the whole shebang. And wouldn’t you know it; economic damage from the pandemic was extremely minimal because of all the people (read: workers, read: customers) that didn’t needlessly die or were permanently disabled.

        • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          This was the case with Cuba as well. They did the damn thing right and ended up in a position where they were exporting doctors and techniques to the rest of the world.

          • girlfreddy@lemmy.caOP
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            1 year ago

            Yup. Cuba even sent personal to Canada to help us out, all because we’ve imported and adopted the American denier mindset. :(