Dr Ruth's COVID & More Newsletter for 12-30-23

Here is Dr Ruth Ann Crystal's always-helpful newsletter, COVID News & More, for 12/30/23.  As usual, there's a lot of good information in it, so make sure to read it all.

"We are presently in what appears to be the second largest COVID wave of the entire pandemic. There are several reasons for this.

"1. JN.1 is a descendant of BA.2.86 (Pirola) which has more than 40 new mutations making it very different from the variants to which we have immunity.

"2. No one seems to care any more about COVID. People feel that they already have had COVID infections and that they are protected by previous vaccinations against COVID, so most people are not worrying about COVID this year. 

"3. You need the updated XBB.1.5 vaccine to be better protected against JN.1. A new study this week from Kaiser Permanente of Southern California and Pfizer shows that prior vaccinations do nothing to protect you against hospitalization with JN.1; only the updated XBB.1.5 vaccine does. The new vaccine protects about 60% against outpatient visits, Emergency department visits, and hospitalizations for the COVID infections from the latest variants. 

"4. It is the winter and it is holiday time so many people will be getting together indoors together without masks and without extra ventilation. Indoor contact without masks increases the risk of getting COVID, especially with a transmissible variant like JN.1.

"So, there are many reasons for us to see a large wave of COVID infections now. As of December 25th, Michael Hoerger’s modeling using wastewater SARS-CoV-2 virus levels shows that there are now 1,655,000 new COVID cases each day and that between 81,000 and 330,000 people every day will end up getting Long COVID from these infections. Some of those people will become completely disabled and will not be able to work again. Their family members may have to reduce their work hours to take care of them. These factors can take a toll on a country’s economy, in addition to causing personal misery. By January 10th, there may be close to 2 million new cases of COVID each day in the United States."

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How Americans can finally become convinced of the severity of COVID seems impossible, since they are still in a state of maskless, vax-less denial.  Only when they themselves get sick will they wake up, I think -- or maybe not even then. But as time goes on, I resent even more the fact that these people are spreading the virus with no concern for others.

Happy New Year, and good luck to us all in 2024.