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Bright Lights, Big Covid [1]
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Date: 2022-12-31
XBB 1.5 covid mutant stormed New York / New Jersey with anti-antibody stealth.
on the night before christmas all through new york streets
nasty critters were stirring making humans their eats
with few masks few vaxes so few people cared
that almost all Americans slept unprepared
for coughing sneezing and stupid brain fog
too tired to stop starting a long covid slog
2020 All Over Again?
New York and New Jersey have fallen to infection by the XBB covid family, the most-contagious and antibody-conquering virus yet.
The XBB family was less than two percent of covid cases two weeks before Thanksgiving, and now they’re over 50 percent on Christmas Eve.
XBB’s most evil spawn, XBB 1.5, pole-vaulted the variant from 20% share-of-cases in those two states to over 50% in just two weeks.
Quick Takeover Mimics 2020 Invasion
XBB 1.5 turned the former covid champions into also-rans. At 22.1% and 19.9%, BQ1 and BQ1.1 lost a combined 20.5% in the two weeks December 10-24. XBB 1.5 also squeezed all nine other variants in CDC Region 2 into smaller shares, relegating pre-BQ champ BA5 down to a paltry 3.7%.
That is some strong stuff. And I predict 1.5 will mushroom in the United States the same way D614G did in 2020, and will go worldwide after gaining huge strength from the antibody resistance of its F486P mutation.
But it won’t be Santa Claus asking 1.5 to guide his sleigh, it’ll be the grinch.
Shades of D614G
The speed and magnitude of the XBB invasion resembles the 2020 covid attack by the D614G variant, which ravaged the East Coast before marching south and west with a relentless infection that killed over 350,000 Americans .
On May 8, 2020, I quoted a Los Alamos National Laboratory report: “The mutation Spike D614G is of urgent concern; after beginning to spread in Europe in early February, when introduced to new regions it repeatedly and rapidly becomes the dominant form. Also, we present evidence of recombination between locally circulating strains, indicative of multiple strain infections.”
XBB 1.5 has all that, on steroids.
On May 23, 2020, this map showed U.S. counties with high covid rates:
Colored red for “voted Trump” in 2016 and blue for “voted Clinton,” it shows the path of D614G from New York / New Jersey south to Florida and west to Louisiana. The West Coast got the original Wuhan version, plus some skip-over D614G via airplane from the East (as did Chicago).
Thirty-one months and two weeks later, the “pie” charts on the CDC region map below show XBB infection (purple slices) highest in the northeast, spreading down the East Coast and branching west.
XBB’s taking much the same path D614G did in 2020. Again, with some skip-over via airplane.
Nationally, XBB is now 18.3% of all cases in the United States. That’s up 630% in just the past four weeks.
In the Northeast, XBB is is over 50%, but on the West Coast it’s as low as 5.6%, and 4.1% in Texas. But 4.2% is where XBB was nationally for the week ended December 3. It jumped to 7.1% by Dec. 10, 11.2% at Dec. 17, and now 18.3% on Christmas Eve.
With its firm foothold everywhere in the U.S., I predict
a near-total XBB 1.5 grip on the nation by February 3, 2023.
[END]
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