Free Republic

As respiratory illnesses are rapidly rising among children, President Joe Biden's top medical advisor is warning of a potential triple-threat heading into winter. "This is particularly problematic because as we get into the flu season, you might have a convergence of three significant respiratory illnesses at one time in children," said Dr. Anthony Fauci. "RSV, which you just mentioned, influenza and of course there's always the concern, as we get into the winter, about a surge of a new variant of COVID-19."

The current COVID surge has put Sacramento County in a precarious position. The highly transmissible and evasive BA.5 subvariant is getting little resistance from a population that has largely abandoned basic precautions like mask-wearing that limited its spread. While deaths and hospitalizations are lower thanks to the availability of vaccines and treatments, we invite new risks by ignoring what we have learned after two-plus years and 1 million deaths.

A majority of people in the U.S have had Covid-19 at least once — likely more than 70% of the country, White House Covid-19 Response Coordinator Ashish Jha said on Thursday, citing data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many have been infected multiple times. In a study that has not been peer viewed that looked at 257,000 U.S. veterans who'd contracted Covid at least once, 12% had a reinfection by April and about 1% had been infected three times or more. This raises an obvious question: What is keeping that shrinking minority of people from getting sick?...

If you haven't gotten your Covid booster shot yet, public health experts say BA.5 is a prime reason to get it — and soon. The Covid subvariant appears to be the virus's most transmissible strain thus far, powering a nationwide surge in new cases that hasn't slowed since March. That's a problem, even as hospitalizations and deaths remain relatively low: The longer Covid circulates, the more likely it is to mutate into a form that's both transmissible and severe.

Fauci appeared on MSNBC on Tuesday to recommend viewers continue to mask up indoors and get their second booster shot to combat the spread of the BA.5 variant, though he admitted it would be a "hard sell" for the American people.

Anthony Fauci said that Americans should still wear masks in an indoor setting. Fauci's comments came while discussing the BA.5 variant, calling it something that we "absolutely need to take seriously." "The CDC makes it very clear, depending upon the density of infection, the dynamics of infection, in the place where you live," Fauci said on CNN. "And you see, if you look at the map, where just a couple months of ago, it was a lot of green and some yellow, now we're seeing a fair amount of orange, which means you really should, in an indoor setting, a...

As the highly infectious BA.5 variant spreads across the US, experts say they're wearing masks outdoors, especially in crowded settings, to protect against contracting COVID-19. The BA.5 Omicron subvariant appears to better escape the disease-fighting antibodies produced after vaccination or prior infection than other subvariants, which means people are more likely to become infected, irrespective of prior immunity — though vaccines will still stop most from getting sick

The Omicron BA.5 subvariant has become the dominant coronavirus strain in the US, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While this variant is fast-spreading, it appears to be less severe than early versions of the virus, and its symptoms are similar to those of other Omicron subvariants, experts say. Symptoms of Omicron infections are typically coldlike, including a sore throat, sneezing, and a runny nose. Symptoms like fever, chills, and cough are still seen sometimes in Omicron cases but not as frequently as in earlier variants of the virus. Like past variants in the Omicron lineage, BA.5...

Is America prepared for a new COVID-19 variant and the wave of infections it’s causing? Will vaccines hold up against it? More to the point, it’s already upon us … and doesn’t appear to be creating any new issues.That’s not to say that everyone’s sanguine about it. The teachers-union leader that fought to keep schools closed for the better part of two years declared that “Covid isn’t over” (via Twitchy):The arrival of subvariant BA.5 should be a reminder that Covid isn’t over. https://t.co/2AZQjqLpDG— Randi Weingarten ☮️🇺🇦 (@rweingarten) July 8, 2022The Washington Post editorial board declared that the arrival of the...

While fears may be growing that another COVID-19 surge will be upon us in the coming months, there is some indication that the future is now.There’s a reason data show that, while the positivity rate of COVID tests has spiked to five-month highs, and hospitalizations have steadily climbed to four-month highs, new daily COVID cases have held steady for the past couple of months.The new cases are being undercounted because results of widely available at-home tests aren’t being reported for government tabulation. The Fourth of July holiday has also caused reporting delays. And many states have stopped providing daily updates,...

The latest subvariant of the novel coronavirus to become dominant in Europe, the United States, and other places is also, in many ways, the worst so far. The BA.5 subvariant of the basic Omicron variant appears to be more contagious than any previous form of the virus. It’s apparently better at dodging our antibodies, too - meaning it might be more likely to cause breakthrough and repeat infections. Vaccines and boosters are still the best defense. There are even Omicron-specific booster jabs in development that, in coming months, could make the best vaccines more effective against BA.5 and its genetic...

The number of coronavirus patients in serious condition in Israel reached 140 on Friday, marking a near 70% rise since last week, with health experts warning that the current situation was “unstable.”While Israel has seen rising infection numbers for a few weeks, a rise in seriously ill patients marks a real concern as the country deals with the spread of the new variant BA.5, with experts warning that hospitals may need to reopen COVID wards. The number was up from 85 seriously ill patients on Friday last week.Some 7,313 Israelis tested positive for the virus on Friday, the Health Ministry...