Here is this week’s COVID update from Dr. Klotman at BCM. The high levels of COVID activity in China continue to pose a threat not only to the Chinese population but also to the world because high levels of viral replication allow for high levels of mutation and recombination. Mutation events are incremental changes in the genome of the virus. Recombination refers to the combining of two distinct lineages of the virus to produce a variant that is more likely to escape the immune defenses of potential hosts. I hate it when that shit happens.
For perspective, the big Flu Pandemics have been the result of recombination events. SARS-CoV-2 is not Influenza, but similar evolutionary processes govern all living things – even us – to a degree.
Most of Dr. Klotman’s update is devoted to Long COVID and its pleomorphic manifestations. There is much that we still do not know about Long COVID.
A separate update is that COVID vaccine has been found to be safe and effective in children 6-months old and older. I suspect that vaccine-hesitant parents will skip vaccinating their youngest offspring because COVID is infrequently a serious illness in children. That said, some children who contract COVID do die. You may want to try to educate your progeny regarding the benefits of childhood vaccinations.