Originally published at: New Covid variant with 46 mutations infects 12 in France | Boing Boing
…
7 Likes
B, 1, six-forty, two!
It’s the next one that’s a-coming for you! 
B, 1, 1 five-two-nine
Omicron variant still doing just fine!
18 Likes
8 Likes
30 Likes
The index case had returned from traveling to Cameroon, suggesting to experts that it may have originated in the African country.
Every country needs to be putting more emphasis on getting vaccines to those in need. As of November, Cameroon’s population is only 5% fully vaccinated, and that’s after vaccine donations from the USA and China as well as COVID-focused financial aid.
34 Likes
R.E.M. - It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) - YouTube I mean yeah number of mutations don’t mean anything necessarily for this being worse or whatever but still…
9 Likes
I still think it’s funny the medical droids started hooking Anakin up to cybernetic prosthesis without so much as removing his charred clothing, let alone cleaning or bandaging his wounds.
23 Likes
His medical deductible wasn’t met yet for that year. So I kind’a understand…
27 Likes
Gonna learn the Greek alphabet, one letter at a time!
14 Likes
yup
2 Likes
I’m definitely not disagreeing about helping countries in need, but for what it’s worth according to worldometer Cameroon currently is ranked #173 in deaths per capita (69 per million) and also #173 in total cases per capita (3,972 per million). Even assuming significant undercounting has occurred, they’re still doing way better than the majority of countries. Among western countries only New Zealand and Greenland have fared better.
6 Likes
This infection happened in October 2021. It hasn’t been seen since in first-world countries. This is in the news only because a research paper about it was announced last week.
20 Likes
8 Likes
There’s only so many letters. Once we hit Omega the virus will stop mutating and go away. That’s how it works, right?
12 Likes
Based on the ominousness of the Omega designation, I’d say by that point we will have gone away
5 Likes
There are some really urgent questions about the relatively low death rate in most of Africa. Much of Africa has had a surprisingly-low death toll per capita despite low vaccination rates and desperately inadequate healthcare. It has been suggested that previous variants were either asymptomatic or produced minor symptoms in children, so they were less severe in nations with a disproportionate number of young people. Another possibility is that most countries in Africa do not have institutions for elderly care which drove a great deal of mortality in the West.
The African outlier ihas been South Africa, which has had a much higher death toll than neighbouring countries, but also has a higher median age and a relatively well-developed elderly care sector.
Whatever is going on in Africa, we need to get vaccines into those countries to stop the virus circulating and mutating. But all the urgency of Covax seems to have evaporated and people like former PM Gordon Brown appear to be shouting into the wilderness.
6 Likes
The way the world works these days, they might need to consider naming future variants after Egyptian hieroglyphs.
1 Like
Absolutely!
3 Likes
they should have started with “c”
3 Likes
