"Rapid antigen test positivity remained high 5 days after symptom onset, supporting guidelines requiring a negative test to inform the length of the isolation period."
"No significant correlation between prior infection and peak viral load"
If symptoms continue then very likely still contagious.
7 day Isolation, then no symptoms and 2 negative tests 48 hours apart to return to work or school." medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
Variant Alert: XBB.1.5
XBB.1.5 has a 194% growth advantage, based on the latest data. Compare that to BQ.1.1 which has a 48% growth advantage. How is COVID Impacting the Immune System?
➡️ Immune Suppression Paves way for Organ Infection ⬅️
"With the immune system no longer functioning effectively, this leads to the onset of chronic infections, cancerous disease, and death. Telomere attrition has been described as one of the “hallmarks of aging."
"Continuous immune reactions cause progressive telomerase inactivation leading to telomere shortening, when cells stop dividing, and replicative senescence occurs."
XBB.1.5 has a huge growth advantage! After reviewing all the other data, this looks very concerning. It is spreading very fast in the NorthEast U.S. and gaining ground quickly.
Prevalence of XBB.1 in green tones. Note that XBB.1.5 is in most of the same places which shows XBB.1.5 is likely driving the surge in growth.
Vaccinated vs Unvaccinated Hospitalizations reported by NY.
The vaccines are holding up pretty well while unvaccinated hospitalizations continue to increase at a faster pace.
The trend is that hospitalizations for unvaccinated will continue to be significantly higher than vaccinated but hospitalizations are increasing in vaccinated as well. Likely people not boosted.
Reinfections are on the rise. With XBB.1 taking over these numbers are likely to increase significantly. XBB.1 has defeated all the available monoclonal antibody treatments so people really need to be careful.
"Major implications for public health policies have not been drawn from the conclusion that new variants lead to dramatically increased airborne contamination."
" New variants lead to dramatically increased airborne contamination."
COVID, Flu and RSV can remain infectious in the air for hours, so we must remain aware of this. The highest risk is when people face each other, but also when people follow each other single file or after an infected person left a poorly ventilated room.
Remove Mitigation & Deaths Climb. We can see on the timeline when countries relaxed or lifted protection from infection measures. The more reinfections with immune system weakening variants, combined with co-infections of Flu, RSV and other pathogens, leads to ⬆️ deaths.
Vaxed or Not, the less mitigation measures in place, the higher the death toll. That's why the U.S. and the U.K. are among the least vaccinated countries with the most deaths.
We must do better than this.
Reinfections of variants so immune evasive that it is at the level of SARS-CoV-1. COVID is infecting immune system cells. SARS-COV-1 had a mortality rate of 10%. COVID doesn't yet but it's may be just a few mutations away. It is Reinfections increasing deaths.⬅️
When people go to the hospitals we need clean air. Not diseases. Japan's data: Hospitals #1, 3rd for most outbreaks are schools. Upgraded HVAC systems that can filter out 99% of pathogens & maintain CO2 at 500ppm, are urgently needed in schools & hospitals.
Until then, we can ⬇️
We need new or upgraded HVAC that filters 99% of pathogens and can maintain a CO2 level of 500ppm. Until we then we can take additional steps to mitigate transmission of COVID, Flu, RSV and other airborne viruses.
COVID & AIDS are the leading cause of lymphocytopenia. This increases recurrent viral, bacterial or fungal infections and also increases the odds of cancers and autoimmune disorders.