Be safe from Coronavirus infection,
Be smart and inform yourself about It,
Be kind and support one another.
This is Who’s advice on how to protect yourself and others if the variant takes off.
Hi readers!
Must be wondering if corona is coming back? Yes, it might be because on August 18th, 2023, CNN reported that “Scientists race to understand highly mutated coronavirus variant spotted in four countries, including the US which the World Health Organization has designated as BA.2.86 a: “variant under monitoring” : a designation that encourages countries to track and report the sequences they find.
The new variant is a highly mutated variant of the virus that causes Covid-19 which has put countries on alert as scientists scramble to understand how far it has spread and how well our immunity will defend against it.
The new variant is nicknamed as “PIROLA” (a COVID-19 strain that has been named by scientists after “an asteroid that hangs out near Jupiter”. It is a subvariant of the Omicron strain (that played havoc in India) that descends from the BA.2 variant and led to widespread cases at the start of 2022).
PIROLA has more than 30 amino acid changes to its spike protein compared to its nearest ancestor: the BA.2 subvariant of Omicron. “This makes it an evolutionary jump comparable in size to that which originally gave rise to Omicron,”. According to Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle,
The World Health Organization designated BA.2.86 a “variant under monitoring” that causes more severe disease or evades existing vaccines or treatments. It can be upgraded to WHO’s list of variants of interest or variants of concern. So far, XBB.1.5, XBB.1.16, and EG.5 are listed as variants of interest of which none has been designated as any variants of concern by WHO.
The World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are tracking a newly identified, highly mutated strain of COVID which experts warn could be the next big leap in viral evolution if the variant takes off, but updated vaccines are now coming earlier than anticipated as cases continue to climb.
The bottom-line is:
Get vaccinated to protect yourself with updated vaccine.
This is fear of disease.
Only six sequences of BA.2.86 have been reported in four countries, but epidemiologists are worried they could represent many more because worldwide monitoring of variants for corona viruses has been dropped off.
The variant “PIROLA” was spotted by scientists in Israel on (August 13th, 2023. Since then, Denmark has reported three sequences. Two more sequences were reported in United States and in the United Kingdom, respectively.
The three cases in Denmark are in people in different parts of the country who do not appear to have had contact with each other, according to the institute.
A senior researcher at the Statens Serum Institute (SSI) said in a news statement that,
“It is unusual for corona to change so significantly and develop 30 new mutations. The last time such a big change was observed was the time when Omicron appeared”.
Scientists at SSI emphasized that it is too early to say anything about the severity or contagiousness of the new variant. They are in the process of growing the virus variant to test it against human antibodies. However, the Director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, says that the new variant shouldn’t be a cause for alarm because the detection mechanisms is working right, and we are more prepared than ever before to detect and respond to changes in Covid-19 virus.
“We are already tracking this new lineage. It has mutations that do make it distinct from other lineages circulating. The question is what does that mean?” Is it going to increase? Are we going to see more cases? Or is it going to fizzle out and not be a variant of concern?”
In a new threat assessment on the variant, the UK’s Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said, that the fact that these sequences are in four different countries in people without recent travel histories “suggests that there is established international transmission.”
The sequences that have been found are very similar to each other, which may indicate that they emerged recently and are spreading quickly but, UKHSA says, she is not sure about this assessment until more sequences become available.
Researchers at the University of Michigan says, the laboratory that found the sequence from the US gave no information about the patient it came from because the case is still being investigated by the state’s health department.
In March this year, the White House quietly polled about a dozen Covid-19 experts who follow the evolution of the coronavirus to ask about the likelihood of a highly mutated variant emerging within the next two years. Most experts fixed the odds of that happening somewhere between 10% and 20% the report says.
The XBB descendant EG.5 is currently the dominant variant in the US, causing an estimated 20% of all new Covid-19 cases in this country. The next most common variant, FL.1.5.1 has grown quickly and is now causing about 13% of all new cases, according to the CDC’s variant tracker. What the PIROLA is up to? is not yet known but it will certainly create fear of disease.
Dear Readers!
If you could recall; I blogged in March 2022 on:
“Corona: a disease or fear of disease”? (Pl. see the crux blew)
Where I discussed corona’s ancillary activity: “the fear factor” the crux of which is placed below:
Fear of disease, fear of outsider, fear of racism, fear of prejudice and xenophobia, fear of unknown, fear of mis and dis-information, fear of melting of economy, fear of uncertainty and what not? Since January 2020, all types of media have been covering corona pandemic with hourly update on the persons affected and the death toll.
This continuous filing up of our heart and minds with frightening news: the main cause of fear made almost everyone so jittery, nervous and confuse to the extent that people came out on roads to protest for freedom of moving around without wearing mask and remaining at prescribed social distance.
Protests against corona virus restrictions started in Berlin, Germany in June 2020 while “anti-mask and anti-vaccine (Bill Gate specific)” protest started in August 2020 and were so severe that even Berlin Police was unable to control. Protesters held placards with slogans like: Corona a: false alarm., we are being forced to wear a muzzle., natural defense instead of vaccination., we will not vaccinate our self with Bill Gate vaccine., and we are the second wave. They chanted, “we’re here and we’re loud, because we are being robbed of our freedom.”
All this was indicative of what people were experiencing during the COVID-19 pandemic: various psychological and physiological difficulties such as fear, panic, phobia, and heightened anxiety, feeling of slavery that increased due to lockdown and immediate physiological effects on our mental health due to wearing masks which make breathing difficult especially in scorching heat of summer. The constant feeling of threat has not only induced in people fear and phobia but may have some other subtle effects on our psychology.
Fear of disease and contagion forced everyone to remain isolated, conventional, rebellious, and eccentric. To understand the psychology behind these responses we must listen to the saying/advice of our elderly people comprising pre-historic observations transferred from generation to generation. The analysis will reveal that even before the birth of modern medicine, infectious diseases were the biggest threat to the survival of mankind which was taken care off by our wonderful immune system. Since it consumes ~30% of the energy of the victim, they were thus left lethargic, fatigued, and sleepy meaning thereby that they were unable to go out (remained isolated) for hunting and thus, remained deprived of adequate food to fight the illness.
To counter this, humankind have developed over the time “unconscious psychological responses known as “behavioral immune system” (BIS).
Mark Schaller: A Professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia has introduced this term which refer to as:
“a suite of psychological mechanisms that allow individual organisms to detect the potential presence of disease-causing parasites in their immediate environment, and to engage in behaviors that prevent contact with pathogen. Similarly, BIS can reduce the contact of human beings with potential pathogens”.
The message is clear.
“protection is better than cure”
Get vaccinated with updated vaccine in case PIROLA becomes a
PROLA (a word in native language which is a piece of cloth used to clean the floor or clean…………?).
See you next week. Take care,
Bye
