TheModerateTankie

It's appearing in European sites already, and showing a pretty big growth advntage. Previous reports I've seen suggest the next covid wave in the US will peak around February, but the way this new variant is growing it might peak in late december or january.

JN.1 is a variant of BA.2.86 (aka Pirola), which was detected several months ago. It takes BA.2.86, which already demonstrated traits to evade immunity, and adds a couple key mutations: "L455S and P681R - ⬆️⬆️Immune evasive AND ⬆️⬆️fusogenic." - @RaffyFlynnArt (med science, phd researcher) - nitter - twitter

They think it might be an omicron-like event. What happens in sites in Europe where it's showing up will probably be an accurate preview of how it effects everywhere else.

Here's a chart of the growth advantage: nitter - twitter

The new variant is the one on the left.

Here's a prediction from JWeiland, whose predictions have been pretty accurate in the past nitter - twitter They do not think it will be an omicron-like event, but will be significant.

Dr. Eric Topal - twitter, who still takes covid seriously but isn't a covid doomer, warns that it's showing the most growth advantage we've seen in a long time.

The new vaccine shots are supposed to protect against BA.2.86, ~~but we don't know how well it will work against the newest variant JN.1~~, and we don't know how protective a recent infection with a different variant will be. Probably better to be exposed while your blood is flooded with covid antibodies, with as little virus as possible, rather than not.

Edit, the new vaccine works against JN.1

We now report that administration of an updated monovalent mRNA vaccine (XBB.1.5 MV) to uninfected individuals boosted serum virus-neutralization antibodies significantly against not only XBB.1.5 (27.0-fold) and the currently dominant EG.5.1 (27.6-fold) but also key emergent viruses like HV.1, HK.3, JD.1.1, and JN.1 (13.3-to-27.4-fold). In individuals previously infected by an Omicron subvariant, serum neutralizing titers were boosted to highest levels (1,764-to-22,978) against all viral variants tested.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.11.26.568730v1

And, since the "free market" dictated that the new covid vaccines should be an expensive hassle to get, with side effects often making people feel sick for a day or two, not many people have gotten them. 👍

Taking measures to reduce the amount of virus you are exposed to will certainly help if you end up getting infected. On top of the vaccine, using a HQ Mask in crowds, use anti-viral nasal sprays (including while you get sick, if you do get sick), and air filtration in places you have control over should all help.

All these measures will protect from other less severe illnesses as well, because covid didn't replace any of them, it's just adding to the burden and making them all worse. Abnormally high rates of all manner of severe respiratory infections in various places around the world for two or three years running is probably evidence of this.

As of now, asking people to try to avoid covid is like asking people to avoid cigarette smoke if people started smoking indoors in every public and private building, but that's where we are.

And no, avoiding a cold won't make your immune system weak.. When it comes to covid and other viruses the only way to "excercise" your immune system safely is to get vaccinated.

A covid infection, on the other hand, might actually disregulate your immune response - (twitter).

Here's a twitter thread explaining what it would look like if covid is causing immune disregulation. - (twitter)

Once again I am putting it on the record that I, a nobody with an internet connection and a small amount of free time, thinks that essentially turning the world into a gain-of-function experiment for a highly contagious endothelial disease that harms the immune system was a really bad idea.

On the other hand, the honorable and wise psychopaths who run our governments took a look at all the data and asked hard quesions like: "wtf does all this mean? so it kills old people, who cares? why are we shutting things down for that?" They have well-paid experts advising them and they seem to think it's fine, so who knows?

French+Morrocan electronic music

https://taxikebab.bandcamp.com/

Arabic funk from Libya.

The problem is immunity debt to tuberculosis from the lockdowns. Remember to get infected with TB yearly so that your immune system is "topped up" and knows how to fight it! You don't want a weakened immune system from needlessly protecting yourself, or babies, from incredibly dangerous pathogens.

Health officials in Omaha, Nebraska, are wasting no time in testing over 500 infants, toddlers, and children who may have been exposed to an active tuberculosis case at a local daycare. The Douglas County Health Department (DCHD) declared a public health emergency Friday.

In a press release, DCHD said the exposures occurred at a daycare at the Westview YMCA, which provides "drop-in" care, allowing members to drop off their kids as they use the facility. The exposures occurred between May 21, 2023, and October 30, 2023.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Douglas County Health Director Lindsay Huse said officials should start getting testing results from the younger children midweek and should have a better picture of transmission and the full scope of testing needed by sometime next week. Huse estimated that there are about 250 children in the 4-and-under group and 300 in the 5-and-up group. Any children infected will further expand the number of people potentially exposed

Can you guess which incredibly common virus harms the immune cells responsible for fighting off a TB infection?

Hint: only about 5% of children in that age group got the vaccine for it.

The study also found that the virus can survive and grow inside the cells that form plaque—the buildup of fat-filled cells that narrow and stiffen the arteries leading to atherosclerosis. If the plaque breaks, it can block blood flow and cause a heart attack or a stroke. The SARS-CoV-2 infection makes the situation worse by inflaming the plaque and increasing the chance that it breaks free.

A recent study of more than 800,000 people led by Fabio Angeli, a cardiologist at University of Insubria in Varese, Italy, has shown that COVID-19 patients develop high blood pressure twice as often as others. More worrying is that the risk of cardiac diseases can also rise for patients who suffered only mild COVID symptoms.

A virus that can cause autoimmune issues and heart disease, and is mutating several times faster than other respiratory viruses, and our plan is to infect everyone as much as possible to "build immunity".

From what I can find, most data about the amount of heart disease and strokes hasn't been updated since before the pandemic. It would be nice if that were available to see how much of an impact covid is having.

This article is paywalled, so the full article is in the spoiler tags

A new investigation led by researchers from the University College London and Dartmouth College suggests 14% of Americans had long COVID by the end of 2022. The details of the investigation are published in PLOS One.

Moreover, Americans who report having experienced long COVID said they also experienced more anxiety, low mood, and difficulty with memory.

All data was based on 461,550 respondents to the US Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey, conducted from June 2022 to December 2022. Researchers compared survey answers among those who said they have had long COVID, those who said they have had COVID-19 but no lingering symptoms, and those who had never had COVID-19.

Things are going great!

Rates of disability are not decreasing or levelling off, so I doubt the new variants are less dangerous in this regard, but I guess we'll see.

Another sign that things are going great!

The national rate rose to 5.6 infant deaths per 1,000 live births in 2022, up from from 5.44 per 1,000 the year before, the new report said.

The increase may seem small, but it's the first statistically significant jump in the rate since the increase between 2001 and 2002, said Danielle Ely, the CDC report's lead author. She also said researchers couldn't establish whether the 2022 rise was a one-year statistical blip - or the beginning of a more lasting trend.

The CDC said preliminary data suggests the increase is continuing, with quarterly rates in the first quarter of 2023 higher than they were at the same time in 2022.

Overall in the U.S., the death rate fell 5% in 2022 — a general decrease that's been attributed to the waning impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially on people 65 and older. U.S. maternal deaths also fell last year.

More than 30 states saw at least slight rises in infant mortality rates in 2022, but four had statistically significant increases - Georgia, Iowa, Missouri and Texas.

In numbers, U.S. infant deaths surpassed 20,500 in 2022 — 610 more than the year before nationwide. Georgia had 116 more infant deaths than the year before, and Texas had 251 more.

Abortion laws forcing women to give birth to unhealthy babies and/or covid adding to the disease burden?

If you are wondering what is motivating a large part of the anti-mask sentiment and "back to normal" policies, here it is.

Genocide Joe: our "third black president".

Compounding issues like increased comorbidities and lower access to proper medical care can be destructive for those who get Covid multiple times.

After contracting Covid for the third time, in May 2022, S. Monet Wahls noticed that her usual fall and winter cough became a perpetual, year-round hacking. Respiratory issues made sleeping at night challenging.

Lingering, chronic symptoms like Wahls’ illustrate the potential effect of multiple cases of Covid on one person, doctors told NBC News. While there seems to be a range of experiences each time a person gets Covid, Dr. Geoffrey Mount Varner, an emergency room physician in Maryland and Virginia, said Black people should be vigilant about avoiding multiple Covid infections. Left unchecked, the effects of the virus could devastate Black communities.

“Some of the data clearly showed that Covid impacted Blacks disproportionately, so it only makes sense that it’s going to be the same with multiple infections because there are so many people who had it,” Varner said. “And because we have more comorbidities such as diabetes, heart disease and obesity — the main drivers in terms of having a negative impact as it relates to Covid — with multiple infections the data is showing that each infection is like a health insult that will manifest itself more in the hardest-hit community, which is Black people. So, you have a sick person getting this virus more than once and the outcome is going to be different, more harmful, than white counterparts.”

He's got a pretty good takedown of the propaganda blitz starting at around 16:00.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Wednesday condemned the weekend attack by Hamas militants on Israel as the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust as the number of U.S. citizens killed in the fighting ticked up to at least 22.

“This attack was a campaign of pure cruelty — not just hate, but pure cruelty — against the Jewish people,” Biden told Jewish leaders gathered at the White House.

Beyond the 22 known to have been killed, the State Department said at least 17 more Americans remain unaccounted for in a war that has already claimed more than 2,200 lives on both sides. A “handful” of U.S. citizens are among the estimated 150 hostages captured by Hamas militants during their shocking weekend assault on Israel, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Wednesday.

Between this and the "40 beheaded babies" lie, President harm reduction is clearly prepping us to accept Palestinian genocide.

I'm seeing "progressives" demanding that hamas must be eradicated, but since they can't seperate themselves from the civilian population "there's nothing else we can do" but turn Gaza completely to rubble.

This is all so vile.

https://nazar.bandcamp.com/album/guerrilla