COVID-19 Update: Friday, March 19th

Variants....and possible relief for long-COVID

I want to close the week out with a quick discussion of variants. The CDC and WHO developed a new classification for emerging variants (chart of current variants below). The new level is a variant of high consequence (VHC). As a quick refresher, there are VOI - variants of interest, VOC - variants of concern, and now VHC - variants of high consequence. The new VHC is a variant that, "causes more severe disease and greater numbers of hospitalizations. It has also been shown to defeat medical countermeasures, such as vaccines, antiviral drugs, and monoclonal antibodies. So far, none of the variants meets this definition." (CDC, WHO Establish New Threat Levels for COVID-19 Variants - Medscape - Mar 17, 2021) Important not to confuse "defeat" with "hinder or reduce." While so far we haven't found a variant that "defeats" our countermeasures - some of them do reduce the effectiveness of treatment/prevention.

Variants are also the reason that people who have natural or vaccine-related immunity, should continue to mask and distance when around non-vaccinated people. While it is highly unlikely that you will get the "wild" virus (i.e. original) you are still vulnerable to the variants you didn't previously have. This is not forever, just for a short while longer while we expand the number of people who are vaccinated. Continuing to mask (around unvaccinated or non-immune individuals) also reduces the risk of vaccine resistance in the virus. Again, it won't be forever, just for a short while.

Finally, I want to share a little good news. It has nothing to do with variants but....for those who are experiencing long-term effects of COVID, there is some evidence that those symptoms subside when they get vaccinated. This is really wonderful news for those who are a year removed and still having symptoms.

FINAL THOUGHTS: My children are on spring break this week but due to snow and COVID we have spent the vast majority of it at home. Me working and them doing what teens do. But yesterday they asked if they could please do something fun...and I was inclined to grant that request. The fun thing they wanted to do? Chuck-e Cheese. Gulp. We weren't really restaurant people before COVID (there are just too many of us for that) and I have not even considered a restaurant since COVID. But I decided to grant their request. I carved out some time when I thought Chuck-e Cheese would be lightly populated, we masked up, slathered up in hand sanitizer, and headed out. When we got there there were very few people and everyone was spaced out and masked. We skipped food or drinks so we didn't have to take our masks off and the kids went about being kids. I had agreed to one hour but I didn't make it the whole hour, I drug them out after 50 minutes. You see two things happened. 1) people started coming in and more and more of them were not masked or not masked properly (you know, mask around the chin sort of thing). They weren't as conscientious of distancing as the early crowd. And I just could not justify getting COVID for Chuck-e Cheese.

But the second thing is the one I think is more interesting....I felt antsy being around "so many" people. I didn't count how many people there were, but certainly pre-covid there have been many more. It was by no means a big crowd. But it felt like a lot of people. Living a life of quarantine can do that to you. I share this with you to say, you may find you need a little time to reacclimate to being around people, particularly being in crowds or around strangers. Let's resolve to be patient with each other as we walk through this process. Have a wonderful weekend, plan to do something fun and relaxing.