"Imagine a few facts in some weird article, Mhm. Imagine it being very unfunny!"--Poppy zaiger, 6th grade
In the last few months or so we have had a surge of Omicron that is tearing up people's will to live like paper. But things will probably get worse or it will get better, who knows? Actually according to Rob Stein over at NPR, it looks like there is a new and scarier variant of COVID-19 is coming. “As the omicron surge continues to decline in the U.S., infectious disease experts are keeping a close eye on an even more contagious version of the variant that could once again foil the nation's hopes of getting back to normal.”
Well, it is not getting better anytime soon but at least we get to have better vaccines to stop them! Actually it seems like there will be more new variants then vaccines. If we look back on the NPR article, it tells us some more Information, like the name of the virus which is BA.2. “The virus, known as BA.2, is a strain of the highly contagious omicron variant that appears to spread even more easily — about 30% more easily.”
If we read one more paragraph, we can see a bit more stuff about BA.2, such as, “BA.2 has now been found from coast to coast and accounts for an estimated 3.9% of all new infections nationally, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It appears to be doubling fast.” Oh… Well maybe we should change the name of this article we are reading into We are so screwed! Anyway jokes aside we should be moving on..
Turns out on top of a new variant coming our way, it looks like we are also reducing testing just when we might be needing it most. Over at The Washington post they reported that, “A World Health Organization official on Tuesday expressed concern about reduced testing and surveillance of the coronavirus in countries around the world, saying monitoring remains critical.”
This tells us a few more key points and if we keep reading we could find out more. “Omicron has become the dominant variant, surpassing delta. WHO officials expect more variants to arise as the virus continues circulating, though they do not know whether future variants will be more or less severe or transmissible. For that reason, testing remains important.”
It seems omicron has passed delta and with reduced testing that could become a bigger issue. Finally, the Post reports that“Although global infections have fallen about 20 percent this week compared with last week, she said the decline “may not be real,” because of the reduction in testing. Van Kerkhove had the same caveat about deaths — about 68,000 deaths were reported last week, representing a slight decline, but WHO officials have questions about some of the reporting.”
It is quite sad that the decline may not even be real. And with BA.2 this whole situation may get worse. We should probably move on to the final article shall we? SIKE this is the end. I wanted this to be bigger and better but sadly I suck at remembering to do stuff!
If you can read this I am going to give you a summary of how 2022 is going for Poppy lilian zaiger!
“If life gives me lemons it is not telling me to make lemonade, It is telling you to squeeze lemons right into my eyes!” - Poppy lilian zaiger