“It’s all Greek to me” is a famous saying for when you don’t understand something. But we do use Greek often.
For example, the Chinese bioweapon that has been conveniently renamed to the clinical “COVID-19”, has Greek variants.
Apparently the Greek don’t have as strong a lobby to keep their language from deadly Chinese viruses. Thus, they were mostly given Greek surnames.
So we want to chronicle these variants of the dreaded Wuflu based on their Greek names. Thus, we shall begin with “alpha”.
The deadly alpha variant – UK
New Scientist reported,
First sequenced in September 2020, the alpha variant of the coronavirus emerged in southeast England, and is commonly known as B.1.1.7. At the time the new alpha variant was said to be around 1.5 times more transmissible than earlier covid variants.
Frankly, I’d love to see the “science” around this data point. Then, I’d like even more “science” around the data point around the risk of alpha leading to death reportedly being around 1.6 times higher.
Interestingly, the first variant was originally called the Kent variant; in honor of the area of the UK where the variant was discovered. However, the WHO renamed it the alpha variant in May 2021.
The alpha variant has 17 mutations compared to the original SARS-CoV-2 virus first discovered in Wuhan, China. Eight of these change the shape of the virus’s outer spike protein. This may allow the virus to bind more effectively to receptors on human cells. If that is the case, the virus would get into cells more easily, allowing it to infect and replicate much faster. However, they weren’t sure why it shows such increased transmission.
Symptoms of the alpha variant may surprise you.
For example, a persistent cough and fever. However, fewer people reported symptoms of anosmia, a loss or change in sense of taste or smell, in January 2021 when B.1.1.7 accounted for about 86 per cent of infections, than in November to December 2020, when it accounted for just 16 per cent. In other words, these people could have just had the common cold or a flu.
And we got the similar warning of potential variants:
Studies suggest the alpha variant is slightly deadlier than older variants, but with better treatments available the risk of death may still be lower than when the pandemic started.
Quick question: How many people died from the alpha variant?
I don’t have that answer, as it couldn’t be found. But I was able to determine how many lives the “death pokes” saved:
COVID-19 vaccines saved around 279,000 lives and prevented 1.25 million hospitalizations in the United States, according to a new study led by Yale University and the Commonwealth Fund.1
Researchers found that without any vaccination program, the number of deaths would have nearly doubled by the end of June 2021. The spread of the highly transmissible Alpha variant in spring of 2021 could have ushered in a surge of 4,500 deaths per day.
That’s right. 4,500 people per DAY owe their lives to the vaccines. Because who knows what the alpha variant “could have ushered in”.
The beta variant
As with know all too well, the Wuflu mutates. And all the mutations come with a warning: they are more transmissible and more deadly than the previous versions; until they are not.
Unlike those other “variants of concern,” the beta variant emerged around the same time as alpha. But the beta version didn’t sell as well as alpha. “Scientists” claim beta wasn’t as virulent; because it was largely confined to South Africa and its surrounding countries where it was detected last fall.
No harm, no foul. Not to mention, the world quickly learned of a new variant that originated in a more sexy location.
The deadly delta variant – India
Turned out the Greek variant was far less deadly than predicted. Below is an article from Newsweek that explained what “experts” knew about delta at the time:
The “overwhelming majority” of current COVID deaths in the U.S. are due to the Delta variant, an expert has said—but exact figures are difficult to calculate.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) figures suggest that the Delta variant and its subtypes accounted for more than 90 percent of new U.S. COVID cases surveyed in the two weeks to July 31.
Daily trends in the number of COVID deaths show the death rate per 100,000 people in the U.S. is currently around 185 since the very start of the pandemic, the CDC said as of August 10, and about 0.92 per 100,000 over the previous seven days.
But this is not Delta-specific.
While studies have suggested the Delta variant might cause more severe disease than other variants of COVID, it’s hard to specify mortality figures, scientists have told Newsweek.
If you read that article carefully, essentially they reported that scientists knew nothing about delta. They don’t know how many people truly contracted the new version of Wuflu or how many people died from it.
They even fudged the statistics. Although India has 5 times the population of the United States, it has far less deaths from Wuflu. And this includes variants.
Let’s move on to the next variant. Lambda from Peru
This article from July of this year told us all we needed to know at the time:
More than 18 months into the Covid-19 pandemic and the world is used to news of new variants of the virus by now, particularly those that have, one by one, supplanted previous versions of the disease.
Some mutations of the virus, like the alpha variant and the delta variant — discovered first in the U.K. and India, respectively — have been more transmissible than previous iterations of the virus and have gone on to dominate globally. Whenever a new variant of the coronavirus emerges, scientists watch it closely.
While the world is still contending with the rapid spread of the delta variant, which has usurped the alpha strain in terms of transmissibility and the potential to cause hospitalizations in unvaccinated people, there is now a new variant that experts are monitoring: The lambda variant.
And like the delta variant, we were warned that this variant might be more communicable. Oh, more deadly:
The lambda variant, or “C.37” as the lineage has been designated, has been spreading rapidly in South America, particularly in Peru where the earliest documented samples of the virus date from August 2020.
However, it was only flagged up as a “variant of interest” by the World Health Organization on June 14 of this year as cases attributed to the variant had spread noticeably.
Interestingly, lambda seemed to target only Peru:
It was first detected in Peru in August 2020 and is responsible for over 81 percent of the cases detected in the country since April 2021. This week has been a time of reckoning for major scientific communities and. The country has already suffered the worlds worst mortality.
It gives the country the highest Covid death rate per head of population in the world. 13082021 The proportion the Lambda variant has of COVID-19 cases in the US is low with just one-tenth of 1 of the share about 911 cases.
Strange at how regionalized lambda remained, given its supposed mortality. My guess is most Americans aren’t even aware of the lambda strain of Wuflu.
Then came mu – Colombia
They called the next variant of Wuflu, mu. And like the previous variants, this version was said to be even more “resistant”:
Researchers found the mu variant to be the most resistant variant to antibodies from either previous infection or from vaccines, a spot that had been previously occupied by the beta, or the South African, variant.
Best to start with the caveats and limitations. It’s a small study, utilizing the antibodies of 18 people who’ve either gotten COVID-19 and recovered, or who’ve been vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2. It’s preprint so it hasn’t yet been subjected to the rigorous examination that studies in peer-reviewed journals undergo.
The preprint study does, however, underscore that medical experts want to keep a close eye on the mu variant of COVID-19, which has raised concerns about its capability to escape antibodies created either through previous infection or vaccinations. Those concerns should be taken seriously, according to investigators with the Institute of Medical Science at the University of Tokyo.
“Since breakthrough infection by newly emerging variants is a major concern during the current COVID-19 pandemic … we believe that our findings are of significant public health interest,” they state in their study, which was posted on bioRxiv, an open access repository for preprint studies. “Our results will help to better assess the risk posed by the mu variant for vaccinated, previously infected and naïve populations.”
Despite the small size of the study, investigators did reach some troubling conclusions. They found the mu variant to be the most resistant variant to antibodies from either previous infection or from vaccines, a spot that had been previously occupied by the beta, or South African, variant. However, they stress that their findings do not imply that COVID-19 vaccines would be ineffective against the mu variant.
Mu was so scary, so how did things end up?
The variant hasn’t taken extensive hold in the United States at this point, but the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is taking it “very seriously,” according to its director, Dr. Anthony Fauci, CBS News reported.
“We’re keeping a very close eye on it… but it is not at all even close to being dominant,” Fauci said. “As you know, the Delta is more than 99% dominant.”
He noted that while Mu, technically known as B.1.621, has mutations suggesting “it would evade certain antibodies,” there isn’t a lot of clinical data to suggest that.
“It is mostly laboratory in vitro data,” Fauci explained.
He added that officials “don’t consider it an immediate threat right now,” CBS News reported.
This week, the World Health Organization (WHO) designated Mu a “variant of interest,” and said more research is needed to determine if it can evade existing antibodies.
Mu was first detected in Colombia in January.
Mu has been responsible for the country’s third wave of coronavirus infections from April to June, Colombian health official Marcela Mercado told a local radio station on Thursday. She said there were nearly 700 deaths per day during that wave, and nearly two-thirds of tests from people who died came back positive for the Mu variant, CBS News reported.
So mu supposedly killed 700 people per day, but it got almost no play in the U.S.? Another false alarm.
Which brings me to the latest Greek letter: xi – South Africa
Like all the other variants, fake scientists and other experts warn of how deadly the latest variant can be:
A new and potentially more transmissible coronavirus variant first identified in South Africa has prompted a fresh round of travel restrictions across the world and raised concern about what may be next in the pandemic.
The World Health Organization Friday designated the strain, now named Omicron, as a variant of concern and said multiple studies are underway as advisers continue to monitor the variant.
While scientists say there is reason to be concerned over the variant, they stress there is still a lot we don’t know — including whether the variant is indeed more contagious, whether it causes more severe disease or what its effects on vaccine efficacy may be.
“While this is concerning, as the WHO has indicated, I do think that we have to step back and wait for the science on this,” epidemiologist Dr. Abdul El-Sayed told CNN.
Too bad for the xi variant. Because that Greek letter happens to be the same spelling of the Chinese president’s name. And we can’t allow anything to refer back to China. So Leftists call the new version of the virus omicron.
I can hardly wait for the Marvel comic on this latest virus. I suggest the world still refer to the virus as xi, just to piss off the Left.
