bitchy | There’s a new summer Covid variant which makes your throat feel like ‘razor blades’

In recent months, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. has radically changed pandemic policies, coronavirus policies and vaccine policies. It’s very likely that Covid vaccine boosters will be limited to seniors and medically vulnerable people from now on. It’s very likely that the CDC’s annual flu shot program has been quietly shut down. Kennedy also recently fired the 17-member Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. All in all, a lot of people are going to die of treatable viruses and diseases. Not only that, if there’s another pandemic – or even just a really contagious Covid surge – the current system will not be able to handle it whatsoever. Speaking of, there’s a new Covid variant going around, and I’d be willing to bet that there will be zero Covid booster shots targeted for it.

A new variant of the virus that causes Covid-19 has already caused a surge in cases in Asia — and its signature symptom is a severe sore throat that feels like “razor blades.”

Covid variant NB.1.8.1 — which has informally been dubbed “Nimbus” — is being monitored by the World Health Organization as this latest mutation of the wildly contagious virus already makes up more than 10% of cases in Asia, Salon reports, adding that it’s now been detected in the United States, Europe, and Canada.

The variant has a high “immune evasion, supporting its potential for future dominance,” according to a pre-print study that has not yet been peer-reviewed.

This strain, Salon reports, causes “razor blade throat,” or a severe sore throat; Other symptoms include traditional flu-like symptoms like congestion, fatigue, a mild cough, fever, and muscle aches, and more infrequently diarrhea and nausea, The Independent reports.

Per that outlet, WHO says global risk is “currently low, and existing Covid-19 vaccines are considered effective in preventing severe disease.” But as Dr. Rajendram Rajnarayanan, of the New York Institute of Technology, told Salon, “NB.1.8.1 is a strong candidate for the summer surge.”

“I know that everybody wants to forget about this disease, but it’s not going to allow us to,” Dr. Janko Nikolich, Professor and Chair of the Department of Immunobiology at the University of Arizona College of Medicine said, according to ABC Action News.

[From People]

CB told me that she’s already been masking up when she’s in any kind of indoor group. It feels like we should all be stocking up on masks and being more careful and aware when we’re around other people. There have been “summer variants” in previous years, and they turn into much bigger deals in the fall and winter. Anyway, as I said, it will probably be difficult for under-65 people to get Covid boosters this fall, not that anyone is working on boosters to deal with the new variants anyway. This variant sounds horrible too.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images and Kennedy’s IG.