As predicted by covid variant tracker nerds on twitter in recent weeks, JN.1 is exploding. A 40% increase in covid cases since last week. Most sequences coming in to variant trackers are JN.1.
The biobot chart shows the last six months, if you zoom out we are at or approaching covid levels not seen since last winter, so not totally unexpected... but the CDC expects cases to peak in February. However JPWieland predicts it will peak after christmas due to the rapid growth of JN.1.
There are also outlier cities in Europe showing more covid in wastewater than ever measured during the pandemic. Canada isn't doing much better. The UK isn't doing well either.
Along with covid, flu and RSV are also hitting pretty hard at the same time, especially in the South, with a touch of mystery pneumonia in various places around the world as a treat.
Thankfully the latest vaccine helps against this variant. Unfortunatly vaccine uptake rates are abysmal now because capitalism.
I'm mainly still posting about covid out of anxiety and watching the health of friends and family who have been infected and "were fine" slowly deteriorate.
Good luck, everyone.
EDIT:
The CDC director is recommending wearing masks. So things will probably get pretty bad...
https://twitter.com/CDCDirector/status/1732547659292967203
I keep wondering if I'm being unreasonable, and covid isn't a big problem anymore, but the reality is pretty clear even if it's a huge bummer.
And 1000 people have been dying of covid each week in the US since August, and it's about to get a lot worse. It's hard to wrap my head around that and seeing hardly anyone else give a shit. All this death primarily to save the political fortunes of an octogenarian genocidal racist and his psychotic political party, who couldn't be bothered to change anything for the better post-pandemic.
As an immunocompromised person, I appreciate you seeing how awful it really is. It's now been years where I've continued to see excited headlines about how "only" people like me are dying now (also untrue, but that's the narrative). It feels dehumanizing in ways that I have a hard time describing, but comrades like you make me feel a little bit less alone.
Just chiming in to say that you're right about COVID continuing to be a major crisis and your posting is appreciated
thank you