Could Omicron be the last major variant of COVID? Note, the more recent variants have not been renamed after the Greek alphabet. They have changed the Omicron just a tiny bit. No major changes to the virus itself.
I suspect that's because they see themselves running out of the Greek alphabet very, very quickly if we keep on this way, and the traditional continuation--that is, the Hebrew alphabet--would touch off a nasty shit storm in today's political climate.
From a scientific perspective it's important to record the evolutionary relationships between the different variants and sub-variants, which impacts likely courses of disease progress and also vaccines and treatments.
The various variants are mutations of the original SARS-CoV2 virus - currently running, I think, to mu. The alpha, beta, gamma, delta and omicron variants being those which have been deemed to be of greatest concern and globally spread. The others have been largely confined to relatively small areas or burnt out very rapidly: epsilon to California, zeta to Rio, eta to the UK and Nigeria, theta to the Philippines and Malaysia, iota in New York, kappa in India where at one point is was half of all cases, lambda in Peru, mu to Columbia and parts of South America.
The sub-variants are then mutations of the variants (some of those mutations may be the same as mutations in other variants so it's possible, though unlikely, to have two sub-variants that reach the same genetic make-up by different routes).
With the original virus now no longer in wide circulation it's unlikely that there's going to be another variant arising. Likewise, as the other variants stop circulating the chances of new sub-variants of those developing also reduce. We're seeing lots of omicron sub-variants because this variant is still widely circulating. There's no guarantee that those new sub-variants will retain the characteristics of omicron that make it relatively mild (though, still bad enough). And, until the SARS-CoV2 virus and all it's variants has stopped circulating there's a small chance of yet more variants and sub-variants arising.
That's it, after 2 years of rapid dodging, Covid has finally caught up with me. Presenting as a bad cold and bit of a cough. Thank God for vaccinations as I do not have strong lungs.
I definitely haven't been as cautious as I should be recently, though between having a public-facing job and public transport I'm amazed it's taken this long. Now taking all precautions to keep it away from MuminElmet.
The most trying thing so far has been navigating the Sainsburys online website, and then the delivery (to the garden gate due to Ye Plague) coinciding with the entry into the kitchen of an angry wasp. A drinking glass, greetings card and waving arms were employed to evict the intruder so that MuminElmet could put the shopping away and now I'm knackered. There is no advice for dealing with errant wildlife whilst infected on the NHS Covid pages...
Meanwhile, I'm due for my autumn Covid booster on Thursday this week - Jag the Fourth, I think this'll be. Having had very mild reactions to the first three Jags, I'm hoping for similar!
Sorry to hear about Youngest Son, Caissa - give him my best wishes for a speedy recovery!
An e-mail came from On High at work today telling us we can stop regular asymptomatic testing. Hurrah - no more having to stick things up my nose twice a week!
I'd just opened a box of 20 tests yesterday, and I'll keep them in case I develop symptoms and need to start testing again (I hope not).
I had my 4th jab last week with no side effects apart from a sore arm.
As far as I know I’ve never had Covid, though we no longer need to do tests for work unless we have symptoms. But after over 20 years in social services I don’t even seem to get colds any more!
One of my colleagues (a midwife in her early 20s) had her 4th jag yesterday (along with her flu jag) and felt so rubbish at work today she had to leave early.
I did a lateral flow test for the first time in ages today. My mum's care home has cases of covid and though they aren't stopping visits I thought they'd want to see a negative test result before I visited. It was back to full PPE too.
Hope you and your family are feeling not too bad @Caissa. I found being very tired the worse symptom when I got it in the summer.
My 4th jab is due next Thursday. I had my flu jab on Saturday and that was OK, so I hope that is too as I've plans for the weekend.
I had my latest. Covid jab in the left arm and my flu shot in the right one. It is now been 5 days and flu arm never a twinge while my left arm is still so blooming sore that if I roll on it during the night I wake with a start and a curse on my lips. So far so good but it seems everyone I know has had Covid at one time or another.
I had my latest booster (Moderna) this afternoon. No ill-effects yet, but I did some shopping for essentials before the appointment, having been wiped out some 24 hours after the previous jabs. I anticipate being a complete Good-For-Nothing tomorrow...
I'm beginning to lose count, but I think I've now had the original two jabs, plus two boosters. Flu jab still to come, though.
I'm one of those fortunate people who seem to be able to cope with being stabbed with needles without any problem - I usually watch the thing going in...
I'm one of those fortunate people who seem to be able to cope with being stabbed with needles without any problem - I usually watch the thing going in...
As are Madame and I. Dlet is another story. He was going to the US on a 3 month exchange with a school in DC and of course needed some injections. I ended up sitting on him so that the GP could do the necessary.
I had my Moderna jab last Sunday. Previous jabs (two AstraZeneca and two Pfizer) left me with just a sore arm at the injection site. Pain started about 24 hours after injection and lasted a day. This time the pain lasted three days.
Hmm. I thought I might once more get a reaction 24-36 hours after the Jab, but no. By mid-evening I was aching all over, and retired to my berth, where I found myself unable to get to sleep until about 6am .
The aching has now gone (arm is still just a bit sore at the Jab Spot), and a late breakfast has been taken at 1pm...
In January our neighbour asked if her father could stay in our self contained guest area on his visit from Germany. He came for three weeks in September. Two days after he arrived he was feeling ill and tested positive for COVID. It was two weeks before he was clear and he also contracted tonsilitis.. On the flight he wore the best possible mask. He said that from Germany to Dubai everyone wore masks, but from Dubai to Australia, and within Australia hardly anyone wore masks.
We are hoping to go our son's wedding celebration in Japan at the end of April. We normally take the cheapest flight, but that is 20 hours via Sydney and then Singapore to Tokyo.
Normally we make our own arrangements, but this time we will use a travel agent as they can manage eventualities like COVID caused disruptions to schedules.
Not looking forward to 20+ hour flight to UK come December. Have been COVID-free to date but managed to pick up a nasty respiratory virus on flight from Hobart a couple of months back. Flight was jam packed with many unmasked small kids including an infant next to me. So much for N95 mask….
There's such a mixed bag of messages and behaviours at the moment. We're just back from a three day retreat and were asked to take a lateral flow test before we went. There was, however, someone on the retreat who was unwell and sat in the sessions coughing and admitting they felt rough, but were allowed to be there because they were testing daily and were negative for Covid. As I said to Mr Nen, it may not have been Covid but I didn't want what they had. The retreat leaders didn't even ask them to sit away from everyone else or to wear a mask.
Someone else on the retreat had within the past week flown home from South Africa and was feeling fine but wore a mask to protect the rest of us.
There's such a mixed bag of messages and behaviours at the moment. We're just back from a three day retreat and were asked to take a lateral flow test before we went. There was, however, someone on the retreat who was unwell and sat in the sessions coughing and admitting they felt rough, but were allowed to be there because they were testing daily and were negative for Covid. As I said to Mr Nen, it may not have been Covid but I didn't want what they had. The retreat leaders didn't even ask them to sit away from everyone else or to wear a mask.
That’s really poor, they shouldn’t be there if unwell with any virus. And covid can sometimes take a couple of days to show on an lft so they should be relying on symptoms to guide them as well.
To be honest, I'd be quite happy if the words "Covid", "Moderna" and "Omicron" (in that sense) had never entered my lexicon.
HIV for me, Piglet, but there you go; no choice
I worked in an ophthalmic HIV clinic in the mid 90s. My patients had a 9 month life expectancy and they were so very young. Our role was to stop them going blind before they died.
A friend of mine, who is bi-sexual, still agonises over his escape from HIV in those days (survivor's guilt, maybe?). He has managed to avoid Covid, and has had all his jabs, and I'm sure that to him Covid is by no means as serious (IYSWIM) as HIV.
Meanwhile, cases appear to be on the increase in England - which may explain the enormous concourse of people of all ages waiting for their jabs at our local Healthy Living Centre on Thursday. The crowd took a bit of organising, but the two volunteer marshals were doing a simply brilliant job at keeping up the flow.
Their good humour infected (!) quite a number of people, including the halt and the lame such as myself. My appointment was for 325pm, but, even with the numbers being dealt with by just 4 nurses, I was out by 345pm. Another feather in the cap of our much-beleaguered and threatened NHS!
Yesterday I heard from the nursing home my brother is in that he had been exposed to Covid. They tested him and he was negative, but they are continuing to monitor.
Yesterday I heard from the nursing home my brother is in that he had been exposed to Covid. They tested him and he was negative, but they are continuing to monitor.
🙏 for your brother - I hope he, along with the rest of the staff and residents, stays Plague-free.
Alas, I fear we shall hear of further outbreaks and cases as winter draws on...
Nicole - prayers for your brother's continued good health.
I'm continuing to wear a mask here, although they are no longer compulsory except in medical settings. I'm planning to visit my oldest brother next month and I would hate to be the Typhoid Mary of his care home. I think that the whole business of masking/not masking and time allowed off work etc has become more politically than medically driven here, but I am possibly being overly cautious, however I'm comfortable with that. Case numbers have gone down, but although we are meant to be in early spring the weather doesn't reflect that.
Better to be overly cautious. That idiot Premier of ours is pushing for scrapping of restrictions & I hope he doesn’t get his way right now. I continue to mask on public transport & shops. At work we are now permitted to go barefaced in non patient contact areas ( out of clinic setting) but still mask in clinic ( as an aside monkeypox is the new anxiety and any possible new cases are seen with clinician in full PPE). It ain’t over yet.
Better to be overly cautious. That idiot Premier of ours is pushing for scrapping of restrictions & I hope he doesn’t get his way right now. I continue to mask on public transport & shops. At work we are now permitted to go barefaced in non patient contact areas ( out of clinic setting) but still mask in clinic ( as an aside monkeypox is the new anxiety and any possible new cases are seen with clinician in full PPE). It ain’t over yet.
I think calling him an idiot is nowhere near accurate - fuckwit is getting closer but still does not set out how is attitude is both unrealistic and dangerous.
That aside, we're far from the only people around here wearing masks in public. I'd say over 3 in 4 people in shopping centres are still wearing them, and about the same when you're out walking. Usual practice is to have the mask under your chin and lift it over your mouth and nose as you approach others, or enter the shopping street. I think mask wearing is still compulsory on trains as everyone is still doing that - probably buses as well but we don't catch them to be able to say.
Latest update: public transport restrictions lifted a few days back. Am ignoring this as on non work days will ve travelling by bus to check on friend with advanced cancer so don’t feel like picking up lurgies to pass on to him much less ( potentially immunosupressed punters at work).
No argument re apellation of premier; just trying to be charitable (for once).
I am so relieved these last two years not to have my yearly bronchitis that I think I will mask it up and avoid crowds for life. I have since childhood had bronchitis each year which then triggers asthma and a few times pneumonia comes along. The one good thing about covid is that it has shown me how to avoid bronchitis.
Comments
The various variants are mutations of the original SARS-CoV2 virus - currently running, I think, to mu. The alpha, beta, gamma, delta and omicron variants being those which have been deemed to be of greatest concern and globally spread. The others have been largely confined to relatively small areas or burnt out very rapidly: epsilon to California, zeta to Rio, eta to the UK and Nigeria, theta to the Philippines and Malaysia, iota in New York, kappa in India where at one point is was half of all cases, lambda in Peru, mu to Columbia and parts of South America.
The sub-variants are then mutations of the variants (some of those mutations may be the same as mutations in other variants so it's possible, though unlikely, to have two sub-variants that reach the same genetic make-up by different routes).
With the original virus now no longer in wide circulation it's unlikely that there's going to be another variant arising. Likewise, as the other variants stop circulating the chances of new sub-variants of those developing also reduce. We're seeing lots of omicron sub-variants because this variant is still widely circulating. There's no guarantee that those new sub-variants will retain the characteristics of omicron that make it relatively mild (though, still bad enough). And, until the SARS-CoV2 virus and all it's variants has stopped circulating there's a small chance of yet more variants and sub-variants arising.
I definitely haven't been as cautious as I should be recently, though between having a public-facing job and public transport I'm amazed it's taken this long. Now taking all precautions to keep it away from MuminElmet.
Get well soon!
The most trying thing so far has been navigating the Sainsburys online website, and then the delivery (to the garden gate due to Ye Plague) coinciding with the entry into the kitchen of an angry wasp. A drinking glass, greetings card and waving arms were employed to evict the intruder so that MuminElmet could put the shopping away and now I'm knackered. There is no advice for dealing with errant wildlife whilst infected on the NHS Covid pages...
Best wishes for a speedy recovery.
Cough on it?
🙏
Meanwhile, I'm due for my autumn Covid booster on Thursday this week - Jag the Fourth, I think this'll be. Having had very mild reactions to the first three Jags, I'm hoping for similar!
An e-mail came from On High at work today telling us we can stop regular asymptomatic testing. Hurrah - no more having to stick things up my nose twice a week!
I'd just opened a box of 20 tests yesterday, and I'll keep them in case I develop symptoms and need to start testing again (I hope not).
As far as I know I’ve never had Covid, though we no longer need to do tests for work unless we have symptoms. But after over 20 years in social services I don’t even seem to get colds any more!
Hope you and your family are feeling not too bad @Caissa. I found being very tired the worse symptom when I got it in the summer.
My 4th jab is due next Thursday. I had my flu jab on Saturday and that was OK, so I hope that is too as I've plans for the weekend.
I'm beginning to lose count, but I think I've now had the original two jabs, plus two boosters. Flu jab still to come, though.
I'm one of those fortunate people who seem to be able to cope with being stabbed with needles without any problem - I usually watch the thing going in...
As are Madame and I. Dlet is another story. He was going to the US on a 3 month exchange with a school in DC and of course needed some injections. I ended up sitting on him so that the GP could do the necessary.
The aching has now gone (arm is still just a bit sore at the Jab Spot), and a late breakfast
We are hoping to go our son's wedding celebration in Japan at the end of April. We normally take the cheapest flight, but that is 20 hours via Sydney and then Singapore to Tokyo.
Normally we make our own arrangements, but this time we will use a travel agent as they can manage eventualities like COVID caused disruptions to schedules.
Someone else on the retreat had within the past week flown home from South Africa and was feeling fine but wore a mask to protect the rest of us.
They said it was Moderna with extra new Omicron protection.
If I’d read those three sentences four years ago they would have been pure gobbledegook. 🤔
That’s really poor, they shouldn’t be there if unwell with any virus. And covid can sometimes take a couple of days to show on an lft so they should be relying on symptoms to guide them as well.
HIV for me, Piglet, but there you go; no choice
No doubt a Host will be along shortly to berate us for derailing the thread….
A friend of mine, who is bi-sexual, still agonises over his escape from HIV in those days (survivor's guilt, maybe?). He has managed to avoid Covid, and has had all his jabs, and I'm sure that to him Covid is by no means as serious (IYSWIM) as HIV.
Meanwhile, cases appear to be on the increase in England - which may explain the enormous concourse of people of all ages waiting for their jabs at our local Healthy Living Centre on Thursday. The crowd took a bit of organising, but the two volunteer marshals were doing a simply brilliant job at keeping up the flow.
Their good humour infected (!) quite a number of people, including the halt and the lame such as myself. My appointment was for 325pm, but, even with the numbers being dealt with by just 4 nurses, I was out by 345pm. Another feather in the cap of our much-beleaguered and threatened NHS!
🙏 for your brother - I hope he, along with the rest of the staff and residents, stays Plague-free.
Alas, I fear we shall hear of further outbreaks and cases as winter draws on...
I'm continuing to wear a mask here, although they are no longer compulsory except in medical settings. I'm planning to visit my oldest brother next month and I would hate to be the Typhoid Mary of his care home. I think that the whole business of masking/not masking and time allowed off work etc has become more politically than medically driven here, but I am possibly being overly cautious, however I'm comfortable with that. Case numbers have gone down, but although we are meant to be in early spring the weather doesn't reflect that.
I think calling him an idiot is nowhere near accurate - fuckwit is getting closer but still does not set out how is attitude is both unrealistic and dangerous.
That aside, we're far from the only people around here wearing masks in public. I'd say over 3 in 4 people in shopping centres are still wearing them, and about the same when you're out walking. Usual practice is to have the mask under your chin and lift it over your mouth and nose as you approach others, or enter the shopping street. I think mask wearing is still compulsory on trains as everyone is still doing that - probably buses as well but we don't catch them to be able to say.
No argument re apellation of premier; just trying to be charitable (for once).