The 'Kraken' subvariant: What to know about omicron descendant XBB.1.5

[admin]

Here's what you need to know about the omicron subvariant XBB.1.5.

The 'Kraken' subvariant: What to know about omicron descendant XBB.1.5 : Read more

 

[Redfour5]

They should have saved the name for a variant of "true" importance. And it appears that those may be a part of history at this point. This is simply another variant evolving away from virulence and toward more efficient transmission. That is the nature of pandemic organisms irrespective of the organism or the populations impacted be they human, avian or anteaters. And it is a dynamic where you have the organism AND you have the hosts...

This particular one is of a type we are familiar with both physiologically and as a self aware species... This virus is moving inexorably toward that of a "common coronavirus" like the others we deal with as a species https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/general-information.html

Yes, it is possible that for a short period of time you could see a more virulent variant, but it will not survive, because selective pressures will always be toward survival and any organism that selects otherwise as in killing hosts, will eventually lose out. And with the speed this variant adapts, that speed can be characterized easily by how often a new variant emerges, is detected and then spreads within the human population as quantified by a longitudinal percentage of all variants as placed upon an epi curve. Wait, there will be another soon.

This simple generalizable rule, for this virus, has ramifications for vaccine development and use as a function of sub-populations impacted and clinical characteristics displayed that themselves are changing over time as the virus adapts and the hosts adapt synergistically. This is interesting though as this pandemic is the first where humanity has been completely aware of what it was dealing with, generally speaking, and had tools both non-pharmaceutical and vaccine based at a level to actively intervene in the spread. We will need to look at that a bit more closely in the future as it will have a direct impact upon future actions when humanity faces a less benign pandemic organism.