A map released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows a major uptick in positive Covid-19 cases in four American states. Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas all had a 17.2 percent positivity rate in the week of December 9. These figures represent an increase from the previous two weeks' confirmed positive test percentage of 16.7.

https://www.irishstar.com/news/us-news/map-shows-covid-cases-exploding-31710205

JN.01 making an impact. Some places around the world where JN.01 has achieved viral dominance are showing the highest levels of covid in wastewater they've ever detected.

Looks like it won't kick off in most places in the US until around the new year, with maybe a boost from Christmas. I don't know if it will be as bad as when Omicron first appeared, but it's likely to be worse than last year.

Variant trackers like JPWeiland are saying to expect hospitalizations to shoot up once JN.1 reaches 50% of covid infections an area. Hospitalizations are currently going up in NY. His predictions have been very accurate for the past year or two, and he warned the CDC and WHO about JN.01 months ago who took a wait and see approach and are now sounding the alarm, and it's lining up to be a little worse than even he predicted. New York is about a week ahead of other coastal and major cities and will be a preview of what's to come.

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The WHO just recommended all healthcare workers to start masking up, and made JN.01 a variant of interest, distinct from it's direct predecessor.

Hopefully you've gotten the new vaccine, but also use air filtration if you are around other people indoors (a CR Box is kinda bulky but easy to build and very effective, just 4xMerv-13 filters, tape, and a box fan will do it), N95 Masks, avoid crowds, stay the fuck home if you are sick, jump through whatever hoops you need to wrangle up some paxlovid, and rest as much as you can for as long as you can if you get it.

Nasal Sprays like covixyl, betadine, xclear and the like should all help your odds in preventing an infection, and double as treatment if you do get infected.

If you are tired of precautions, or can't do them anymore for whatever reason, because CDC guidelines are to not give a fuck, please at least use one of these sprays to lower the viral load you are exposed to. There are no guarantees, but pretty much everything I've read about covid suggests the less virus you are exposed to the better your odds are going to be of avoiding all the numerous negative consequences of an infection.

There are also all the other respiratory diseases popping off at alarming rates, and taking precautions against covid protects you from all of them as well. We are also seeing more severe symptoms from people who get the diseases we are used to, because covid harms the immune system and makes us more vulnerable to everything else.

Despite people trying to wishcast every new variant as "mild" or "just a cold" because hospitals aren't overwhelmed with the dead anymore (1700 dead from covid last week), the risk of long covid, every time you are infected, is essentially the same as rolling dice and hitting snake eyes, which is way too fucking high for us to be repeatedly infecting ourselves with this virus.

There is a wide range of long covid symptoms because it can harm essentially every part of our body, so you might get lucky and have something relatively minor for six months or the rest of your life, but there is also no current cure and the risk of bad outcomes increases with every infection. Symptoms improve with time for some people, other people get worse, and another covid infection can bring it all back or add on new problems.

Let's hope sterilizing vaccines arrive before we have to endure several more years of this shit.