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.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A new COVID-19 variant has emerged, serving as a reminder that the coronavirus continues to mutate and spread around the world, disproportionately affecting vulnerable populations.
The World Health Organization (WHO) added EG.5 to its list of currently circulating variants that are under monitoring on July 19.
The latest data from the UK Health Security Agency suggests that EG.5 makes up approximately 14.6 per cent — or one in seven — of all COVID-19 cases in the U.K.
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.
Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease specialist at University Health Network in Toronto, said he expects cases of EG.5 to pop up in Canada soon, if they aren’t already.
Some of the best defences against COVID-19 have been and continue to be masks, vaccination and good ventilation or air quality in indoor spaces, Bogoch stressed.
I’m a bot and I’m open source!
No indicator on severity of this strain in the article
This is my issue with the article.
Headline: Here’s what we know about EG.5 so far
Body: Apparently not much. We uhh, know the name of it? Severity, how contagious it may be, symptoms, breakthrough rate…like umm, anything??
sick right now in Ireland (can’t be sure but we’re exploding with this variant)
for me, fatigue, stuffed & runny nose which is making me cough. on day 1 I had a headache but only for that day. I had a fever for about 6 hours. sneezing, gastro fun.
Wife has a dry cough. she had a wicked fever with chills. also gastro fun, which is fun for me by proxy.
Sick right now in Florida, my symptoms pretty closely match yours. Killer headache, scratchy throat, congestion, and fatigue.
It started with being tired on Saturday, and the full brunt hit Monday. Feeling a bit better today. I didnt get much gastro stuff fortunately
Geez that sounds pretty rough- I hope you’re able to get out of Florida asap.Good luck w/ the covid, also. I kid, I kid.
How’s it going? I was essentially symptom free day 5, and today, day 6, if I popped into existence with no memory right now and sometone asked me if I was sick I’d say “nope”, although I’m taking it extra easy because I understand pushing yourself through the accute infection is highly correlated with long-haul symptoms (mailnly persistant fatigue)
Yeah pretty much same! Today I woke up a bit meh, but slept a few hours and woke up like it never happened. I’d say 2 days of lead up, two days of full blown illness, and then more or less fine. A bit of drainage.
I’m in a musical right now and we open tonight, so the timing couldn’t have been better. Unfortunately, I’m stuck in Florida for a bit. Trying to do my part to de-shitify it but it’s an uphill battle.
I hear you.
I know you didn’t ask, but I’m not sure it’s safe to go singing in an enclosed space. The 5 day self isolation is for economics, not health. If you knew you were getting other people sick who would get other people sick, would you still do it? No need to answer me, I was just kind of wide-eyed when you said you were going to go be in a musical 5-6 days after you first got sick.
No that’s valid and I’m with you 100%. I raised these concerns to the people actually putting up the show and they apparently aren’t in a position to be able to cancel or postpone.
I’m taking all the precautions I can to avoid spreading it. Double mask the entire time and isolating myself when not on stage. But I agree with your point. Best would be to not do it at all. But I can’t very well just refuse to do it, a lot of people worked really hard and spent money to put this up, and if they want to go ahead with it after I’ve tested and informed everyone, then so be it.
That’s because we literally don’t know much. EG.5 has only had 183 sequences submitted to GISAID, and EG.5.1 has had 3400 sequences submitted. This means we only have about 3600 cases confirmed as EG.5, but it’s growth rate since May is crazy fast. 10% of sequences submitted to GISAID by the end of July were for EG.5, compared to 0.02% in May.
Part of the problem is that people have stopped going to the doctor when they can just do a COVID test at home, so we are less able to track individual strains and calculate things like transmission rates. When’s the last time you heard the phrase “contact tracing”?
Source: https://GISAID.org/lineage-comparison and also I work in COVID monitoring.
Huh. I did notice a sudden wave of infections, including me. I wonder…
How come Canada still has no many anti-vax/lockdown nut jobs still?
Ours went away faster than the virus, what’s going on in Canadian society that they’re still falling for that shit? Kinda had more respect for youse than that.
Canadians are, more than ever before, influenced by American media and social media and that includes the dogmatic and polarizing rightwing anti-science narratives rooted in conspiracy theories and anti-intellectualism. We’re being absorbed into the American weltanschauung since the advent of the Internet and our culture diluted. You can see it in our politics.
Lead poisoning with the boomers and christofacists funding the Conservatives up here. Keep them dumb so they can further attack healthcare and other Canadian values so they can turn us into Americans.
Yeah I dunno. It’s gross. I found one at work unfortunately. He started going off on 15-minute cities and I’m just like, “Dude, you’re telling me an insane misinterpretation of the concept. I’ve heard it. I like you, but stop with this shit. I’m just trying to work.”
So this is the first time I’ve heard of the 15 minute city concept, especially as a bad thing. I live on a farm but if I wanted to move to the city… 15 minutes to everything sounds great. Isn’t that sort of convenience kind of the whole point of a city?
My ex lives in Moose Jaw and that’s a pretty good description of it, it’s 15 minutes drive from edge to edge and it’s honestly a really nice little city. No traffic jams and you can also walk or bike most places you want to go, as long as the weather permits.
The idea is that you’d be able to walk or bike to all your necessities - Doctor, Grocery Store, etc etc - within 15, reducing the need for cars.
A 15-minute city would describe a neighbourhood in a larger city, really.
They’ve somehow turned that in to “you will not be allowed to leave your 15-minute city”
The counter argument is simply “who profits from you believing that?” I got a couple people to drop it by turning the conspiracy theory around on them.
- EhForumUser ( @EhForumUser@lemmy.ca ) 2•11 months ago
Isn’t that sort of convenience kind of the whole point of a city?
That’s the point of a small town.
The point of big cities is to concentrate capital so that a few people can become exceedingly wealthy.
“We don’t have the funding that the US government does… How exactly do you propose Canada will fund the creation of 15 minute cities?”
Are you quoting someone else or asking me?
Canadian cities only have to zone stuff appropriately and provide infrastructure. It’s not that wild of a concept.
Well that’s concerning
It isn’t, really. Barely newsworthy, but it’s something.
I dunno if we need to worry in Canada. There’s been almost no deaths al associated with COVID in a while now. Worst case, people get hospitalised but that’s it. We’ve built a pretty good social immunity thanks to vaccination.
It’s the other countries who don’t have our resources that are more at risk. We need to send them vaccines so the can immunize themselves properly.
I mean there’s plenty to worry about besides death. I don’t understand why people discount all the other potentially life altering effects of COVID.
Ah yes, you’re right. There are potential lifetime effects to COVID. I forgot about those. A couple of friends of mine have been permanently affected with various problems like asthma since catching it.
The death count is low because immunity is up. If we relax on things like vaccinations or quarantine orders it will come back.
I think if we get a yearly immunization shot for influenza and covid we should be fine. And people should just quarantine if they’re sick, COVID or not. I hate it when people go to work sick when they have the option to work from home. Especially in an office setting. Like haven’t they learned anything? Why spread the disease to all your colleagues?
Don’t we have herd immunity now? Having caught it recently is just as good as a vaccination.
herd immunity relies on people maintaining immunity. if you can get the vaccine, you should, regardless of if you’ve caught the virus.
Agreed. Both don’t last forever. I got it 4 times, for reference, since I seem to have come a across as an antivaxxer. Either way though I think the pandemic proper is over.
Unfortunately as well, there is likely a much higher percentage of nutjobs who think vaccinations are a conspiracy, who are also probably the type of people who don’t use RAT tests and who prioritise themselves over others (so even if they suspect they are sick, they’ll go attend major events, etc).
Whilst 2 people I know genuinely are good people who don’t believe in vaccination (which again, was at least likely partially facilitated by our dumb PM at the time and Trump), another two I know (who legally SHOULD have gotten vaccinated for work actually, since they work for the government), are two of the worst self-centered people I know
EG.5 -> G.5 -> 5G
YOU KNOW WHAT CAUSED THIS!!!Primes
1,2,3,5
E + 3 = H
G+ 5 = L
5 -2 = 3
Half Life 3 confirmed.
Hahaha!
Good one!
Can we go back to naming them after countries? I was looking forward to the Micronesia variant