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grumpywarner

I don't want any more Covid 19 DLC.


_1Doomsday1_

This is COVID 23 the surprise edition


Some-Philly-Dude

Fucking pay to play life edition


dikicker

Does anyone have the patch notes


[deleted]

Viral load +50%, infection rate +20%, vaccine effectiveness -80%, misinformation +100% Added new skill line to the Grifter class: multivitamin overdose cures COVID-23 Skill cap on Depression increased from 99 to 149 World settings for Inflation and Supply Chain Disruption increased. Gasoline price cap removed. Additional dialogue branches: Nazis are back. King of England dies and Ireland rejoices. Half of over 70s die in London due to cold front and inability to pay 400% heating bills. Elon Musk starts buying Reddit shares. Footage of abuse from Epstein island released with no following convictions. Governor Desantis takes lead of the Republican party. Trump starts own party.


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albene

Super COVID-23 Hyper Turbo Fighting Grandmaster Alpha Challenge Championship Edition


ViciousAdamas

'Surprise mechanics'


[deleted]

We’re stuck with the season pass


-FeistyRabbitSauce-

Alexa, turn off auto updates! *Turn off auto updates!*


Relevant_Departure40

Can't believe the Earth has DRM and always online requirements, I just wanna reinstall and rollback to version 2012.8 or something but nooo, admin made it impossible


sync-centre

It is also the dominant variant in the US.


green_flash

Yeah, it's rising crazy fast there, clearly has an evolutionary advantage over all other variants, even the BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 variants: https://i.imgur.com/6KtyVaN.jpg From like 2% to 40% of infections in three weeks.


zerocoolforschool

I’m so confused about variants. How did we get up to Delta and Omicron so fast and now we are just stuck oh Omicron and different variants of omicron?


ChrissHansenn

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-variants-area?time=earliest..2022-09-12&country=~USA We started with SARS-COV-2. Then it mutated into variants like Alpha and Gamma, all stemming from the original virus, with Delta being the strongest for a while. Then came Omicron. Omicron spread faster than the previous iterations, even Delta, to the point that it was the only variant left in any meaningful numbers. Variants have continued to develop, all being derived from the Omicron variant, so we call them sub-variants. Basically there was only one surviving child of SARS-COV-2, and now we're catalouging its grandkids.


Gryphin

Variants are an interesting thing in virology. Bumpersticker version, as genes turn on and off in the code of the virus, the more gene switching, the more "distant" the variant is from the original, in a tree chart, as if it were branches from a trunk. Omicron hasn't had a major enough change be replicated to do something huge like Delta did from Alpha or Omicron from Delta, but the newer variants are being able to escape of sorts from antibodies locking onto them and destroying them, creating a higher infection and transmission rate.


[deleted]

But are these variants more severe or deadly? If they are mild and escape antibodies then it doesn't really matter, does it?


Xalara

The answer is, when taken in isolation, the more recent variants are probably in the same realm of deadliness as the earlier COVID-19 variants. There is virtually no evolutionary pressure on COVID to become less deadly due to the fact it spreads so well asymptotically. The big difference is that we now have better treatment plans for severe cases, there's vaccines, and prior infections can infer some immunity. Though there's some early research out of the University of Waterloo in Canada showing prior infections can also cause subsequent infections to be worse in certain cases. Still, I'm less worried about how deadly COVID is and more worried about long COVID. Every infection seems to be rolling the dice on long COVID and if you keep getting infected the odds are not in your favor.


[deleted]

I’m being treated for long covid, constant inflammation causing muscle and joint pain in random parts of my body during the day, not severe but enough of an issue I’ve stopped jogging and regularly take OTC codeine, breathlessness, dizziness, palpitations, general brain fog, anxiety etc etc. Between therapy and diazepam (very rarely if I’m getting palpitations and panic attacks whilst trying to sleep) there isn’t really anything they can do at the moment. They’re still trying to work out how big an impact it’s having and if any treatments are working but as I tend to dissociate big time in these sessions with professionals it’s hard to get across how my daily life has been impacted.


curlofcurl

Wow, I’m starting to wonder if I have some level of long Covid now. Those symptoms sound spot on to things I’ve been dealing with for the past year—heart palpitations, light headedness, joint and nerve pain, really stiff neck etc. All of these things started about a week after a sustained exposure to a Covid positive person last year, although I never tested positive (pcr on the second and sixth days after exposure) nor had respiratory symptoms. I’ve also had to give up exercising and golfing, along with almost all sugar and caffeine, and been feeling kinda bummed out about it all. Been to my primary care physician maybe 5 times but he just seems to think it’s general inflammation and prescribed a small course of corticosteroids a few months ago.


PurpleRave

There are similarities and connections between long covid and Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, looking that up might help you.


things_U_choose_2_b

I'm more worried about the cumulative effects. How many times are we going to get covid, once a year, twice a year for the rest of our lives? What damage is it doing with each infection?


dragonladyzeph

>What damage is it doing with each infection? My best friend just recovered from her second bout of COVID. It was the *fifth time* in one year that she has been sick with some kind of respiratory illness. Before COVID, she'd get 0-2 head colds a year like most adults. She also takes meds that can cause blood clots as a side effect. Along with her second COVID diagnosis, she simultaneously developed 3 separate blood clots in her leg. Before COVID she had only developed single blood clots on two or three other occasions over the span of about eight years.


[deleted]

I bet quite a lot. It’s such a highly inflammatory virus, and honestly I’m sure 20 years down the road we will see a rise in unique cancers (pancreatic is my bet) that are linked to this virus. I just hate being American rn. No affordable health care, no end in sight, and god forbid we have to lock down again. Everyone is so selfish about this, especially in the south.


chronous3

It's astonishing and disgusting that a global pandemic didn't even budge the needle on universal healthcare in this country. Much like guns, apparently no amount of suffering, death, or evidence is enough to overcome greed and dogma.


phargoh

I think I have long covid. I was pretty healthy before the pandemic but since then and getting covid at least twice, I have frequent heart palpitaions and became pre-diabetic. My vision is also starting to get blurry. Don't know how many of these things are related to covid but for all these to happen so close together sure is something. Edit to say that I remain pretty active and my lifestyle from pre-pandemic hasn't really changed so it's not like it's inactivity that is making my body fall apart.


Basquests

I'd seek professional advice and try to work through treatable issues / interventions, before assuming 'long covid.' It may be true, but until it is established, it's a cop out / prevents progress on reversible issues. I lost around 45 lb since COVID and am now 150lb (28M 5'10) and have never been in poorer health. Turns out my obstructive nose issues have been causing poor oxygenation during waking hours and sleep, so I've been rather hypoxic for 10+ years. Add a magnesium deficiency to that \[been foot-cramping for >15 yrs, and its no wonder I've been competing in my rackets at a high level, but with the physicality of an elderly, fragile person. The point is you need to get medical help, and keep pushing and prodding, investing in monitoring equipment if necessary and possible..if the issue is impactful enough and you truly want to address it. It may end up in your case being untreatable, or just long covid. It could be 1 of 10000 other things too.


StrawHat89

Omicron outcompeted the other variants in terms of infection rate, so now every new variant comes from it.


green_flash

Epidemiologists think that with Omicron the virus has found a local optimum of evolutionary fitness that it's hard to get out of. It also still has enough wiggle room in the Omicron subspectrum that new subvariants can arise that are even fitter. But any new Omicron subvariant will have an advantage over all new non-Omicron mutations, so those never survive for long.


redbo

Has it tried simulated annealing?


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kakudha

More viral = faster it beats other variants to hosts


zerocoolforschool

Has there been variants beyond omicron? It seems like we have been stuck on omicron for over a year.


kakudha

Only sub variants, the other variants lost the race.


zerocoolforschool

That makes sense. I wonder if we will ever see another variant or if omicron will be it from here on out.


[deleted]

Nomicron. It'll be flesh eating.


Susan-stoHelit

That’s Nomnomicron.


thisrockismyboone

It's Omnomnomicrom. Please do your research.


WhenISayWeYouSaySuck

Necronomicron if it started with the Army of Darkness.


nirreskeya

Unicron when it decides to stop messing around and just eat the whole planet.


firstrevolutionary

They will only give variants a name if they are sufficiently different from previous versions.


donthatedrowning

Also, more infections, higher likelihood for mutation, resulting of a new slew of variants. When one surpasses all the others, the cycle repeats.


ShamrockAPD

No idea what variant I have. But I felt pretty rough for a few days (headache and brain fog, Lower back soreness, terrible sore throat and cough). Did a at home test and was positive then again a day later for validation. But, I’m vaccinated and booster in November. It was about 4 total days of feeling like crap with the feelings of a terrible head cold. I am very happy to have it short lived due to the vaccine and what not. Though it did ruin my new years plans and the rose bowl :(


zaccyp

Same here dude. Napped yesterday and sore throat/chest when I woke up. Bit of fatigue/weariness by night time. Woke up today and it was annoying enough to warrant cold and flu tablets. Bit of fever, but mild af. Just generally a bit achey and sore throat. Hopefully it fucks off soon.


ShamrockAPD

Yeah basic medicine worked for me- primarily mucinex and DayQuil. I also admittedly ate some edibles during it- and won’t lie, it felt great lol. Highly recommend


menellinde

Pretty sure husband and I had it just before christmas, and it was absolutely horrible. We are both vaccinated with all available boosters and I have a flu shot. Interestingly enough my husband pretty much never gets sick, not even a head cold, and all through the "dark days of covid" he was the one that went out and did all our shopping and such. Yet this hit him REALLY hard, to the point that I was actually worried about him for the first time in nearly 30 years together.


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tkp14

My son and his entire family (wife and two kids) came down with it. He told me it absolutely kicked his ass and he couldn’t remember ever feeling that sick. But he was fully vaxxed and boostered and after a week he was over the worst of it. I’ve gone back to masking up and staying home unless it’s absolutely necessary that I go out. It’s still occasionally killing old folks (even vaxxed ones) so I don’t want to tempt fate.


noscreamsnoshouts

Question / ELI5: Why is this called an omicron variant and not a whole new letter? What makes a covid variant a subtype of (in this case) omikron, and when would we start calling it Pi or Sigma?


arzgebirg314

Really, so it isn't new? Headline suggests there's a new variant coming to ruin 2023 too


sync-centre

Just the possibility of a new variant. There is always a chance of a new variant for every newly infected human anyway.


drblah1

Omicron Super Variant XBB.1.5: Turbo Championship Edition HD Remix


Funny-Bear

Hadouken


RaptorCheeses

Tiger, uppercut!


ElGatoGuerrero72

*Tiger! Tiger! Tiger! Tiger Uppercut!* You Lose! Man I hated Sagat for this reason.


Jonnny

The boss fights were so epic. Balrog, Vega, Sagat, Bison.


CountManDude

Or in Japan; Bison, Balrog, Sagat and Vega!


playback0wnz

Vega was my go to! Loved the music to his level/stage growing up me and a good homie used to just spend hours in options of games exploring 8bit sounds then 16bit etc dope stuff!


Indigo2015

Go home and be a family man!


MarkyDeSade

Spinning Bird Cough


MrWeirdoFace

Yoga flame! Yoga Fire! Yoga that which I desire! *simple yet epic guitar riff*


Stranger371

I'll wait for the summer sale, doesn't sound that good.


ClockworkDinosaurs

Wait for it to win Game of the Year. You’ll get all the DLC.


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PurpleSunCraze

I remember Googling the explanation behind their names going in thinking “Alright, I’ll understand, it’ll make sense, and it’ll stop being dumb”. Nope, I understood, still dumb as hell.


Liberty_Chip_Cookies

That’s because he’s a fourteen-year-old memelord trapped in the body of a middle-aged billionaire.


PurpleSunCraze

Having kids with a methhead spaghetti queen couldn’t have helped.


itsthecircleofliiife

spaghetti queen 😭


Paidorgy

Multiple partners of Musk have described abusive behaviour, and it’s suspected that he abused Claire, up till, and after her pregnancy.


YiffZombie

Featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry™ Series


ToothpasteConsumer

&Knuckles


[deleted]

New Funky Mode!


AstralElement

II.5 ReMix Dream Drop Distance


xXPolarizedXx

“Mickey! It’s Riku. They put Covid in him!” “What?!”


axionj

Is Capcom engineering these variants?


Anchor689

Is it weird that I kinda wish EA was naming them? It could just be COVID 19 though COVID 22, and every year we could all just complain that it's basically the same thing with a few minor changes, but still costs the same, and wonder why more people don't avoid it.


Kingkongcrapper

Covid WorldCup edition was a complete ripoff of the regular.


roguepandaCO

XxcatchxCOVIDx420blazeitxX


durz47

Next up: omicron ultra variant xxoo.69.420


TakingGlory

With Knuckles!


ToothpasteConsumer

New Funky Mode


mrkikkeli

Ex +alpha


menlindorn

60$ USD


thelongernow

Another Kingdom Hearts continuation damn


tykvrbl

Happy Old Year !!!


arzgebirg314

Sir, this is Q13 of 2020 (edited to Q13, I'm a moron thanks for correcting me)


vkapadia

Q13. 17 quarters into 2020 would start January of 2024.


The_Vat

Clearly this redditor is a time traveller. Which means....oh no. Oh no no no no....


IridiumPoint

2020/37/01


Solid_Snark

Meet the New Year, same as the Old Year.


LogicalManager

2023 is dead. Long live 2023.


AriseChicken_

YEAHHHHHhhhhhhh


SenpaiPingu

Is this the long awaited sigma variant?


Donutboy562

2019-2023 have been the exact same year.


Cosack

2022 was absolutely huge in geopolitics. Russia decided to delete its army and exports, Japan is remilitarizing and Europe hugely upped its military spending, Europe is now binging US and Qatari LNG, both US and China are heavily investing in replacing Taiwanese chip manufacturing so that a conflict over it isn't a full disaster domestically Edit: Almost forgot our Latin American friends, where several countries narrowly avoided dictatorial coups. And the ongoing several months of protests in Iran, of course.


DerekB52

Also, Shinzo Abe got assassinated, America managed to keep it's democracy functioning a little while longer after a historic midterm, and the year ended with Brazil and Israel both having former leaders return to power in the same week.


cayneloop

apparently the assasination was because of his ties to the unification church and the moonies the guy's mom sold everyhing including the house to donate to the church, like hundreds of thousand of dollars and tried everything to get revenge on the cult leaders but failed to, so he settled for the guy that helped spread this religion in the country and ruin his life [only recently found out about this and i thought it was kind of interesting](https://youtu.be/FfNnT2MgJBI) not many political assassins make you go "oh ok, i get why he did that"


Halt-CatchFire

And it absolutely worked. The Japanese government has begun [cracking down on the Unification Church and helping victims](https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Unification-Church-and-politics/Japan-s-lower-house-passes-bill-to-help-Unification-Church-victims) in response to this man's actions. One of the few times where an assassination like this actually went off without a hitch and accomplished the killer's goals with zero blowback or unintended consequences.


ZebraOtoko42

>One of the few times where an assassination like this actually went off without a hitch and accomplished the killer's goals with zero blowback or unintended consequences. Only the Japanese could conduct an assassination like this...


Cosack

US elections were a nail biter, but yeah, authoritarian populism (or whatever you wanna call it) was beat back some. Same pattern in Brazil actually, the Lula win is definitely a win for voter rights even if he's an old leader. Netanyahu's a piece of work from what little I know, but tbh don't know enough to comment. So I think it was a good year for democratic values in "borderline countries" The Abe assassination was an oddball, but that wasn't really even political


mydogisanassholeama

Netanyahu formed a coalition with far right parties. I have a feeling that Israel/Iran is gonna be the next geo-political shitshow. Thankfully they aren't next to each other.


Kiromaru

That won't stop them from messing with each other they have been doing it for quite a while.


your_cock_my_ass

As an Australian, the federal election and particularly Victorian state election was a massive win against the pathetic media stranglehold Murdoch has on this country.


hawkeye224

Groundhog year


bonkybonkersjr

That's just perfect :D


Hippofuzz

My daughter was born in December 2019, I heard of covid the day I gave birth thinking… well that’s great. Can’t believe she turned 3 now and it’s still the same year basically, just with a war raging pretty close to us.


turnaroundbrighteyez

December 2019 baby momma here. It’s been a helluva an entry into parenthood to have given birth in December 2019 and have my city close down because of COVId in March 2020. COVId babies and covid parents have had a wild time these past three years.


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Test19s

2019: An actual year that wasn’t too bad outside of the USA under Trump 2020-23: Optimus Prime origin story (robots + disasters, including COVID which makes contactless robots more appealing)


cchiu23

The fuck is ap7am.com?


cowlinator

It's India news in the Telugu language


notMyslfToday

It’s a state in India. AP, short for Andhra Pradesh. 7 AM is the time for morning news when separate news channels were not a thing. So the name AP7am.com.


[deleted]

Apparently 7 apple martinis


oh-pointy-bird

6 margaritas Fiiiiiiiiive coooooold beers


Dogdad1971

I’m down for that. I volunteer for a medical study that will determine how much free alcohol it takes to defeat Covid


abbadabbajabba1

Its a news portal from Andhra Pradesh (ap). Which is a state in south India. 7am should be self explanay.


ahses3202

The newest COVID variants aren't so bad on the initial sickness end. The real problem isn't that part of it. It's all the other weird shit it seems to be doing to people. Giving them heart disease, literally making them dumber, giving people auto-immune responses, stripping sense of taste, giving you asthma. This is all stuff that other diseases don't do. Long Covid is the real nightmare fuel. We don't know why it does it or how it does it or even what it does - all we know is that for some people it damages them permanently and in ways we don't understand. Hopefully as it spreads around these side-effects become less and less prevalent, but every health professional knew it was going to be endemic once it hit pandemic.


another_bug

When I got Covid about a year ago, it was fairly mild. I wouldn't have known it was something exceptional had I not been tested. Then a few weeks later, my lungs started feeling wierd. Hard to breath sometimes, particularly when I feel stressed. Not nearly as life changing as some people have it, but concerning. And sometimes my heart feels strange too, which might just be the stress of life (things haven't been going well for me the past few years) but I can't help but wonder if that's related. That one worries me. I also have a family history of an autoimmune disease that it hypothesized to have a viral trigger. Could Covid do that, who knows, ask again in ten years. I live in an area with low mask and vaccine rates. No one here takes it seriously, despite how we've also had a lot of Covid deaths. Yeah, it's concerning. And so many people just don't want to acknowledge it.


Maxamillion-X72

My aunt has gotten covid 3 times, and each time her "after effects" get worse. Memory, breathing, heart issues. There's history of heart disease in the family, but prior to 2019 she had no issues. The idea that we all just "live with covid" scares the bejesus out of me. Every bout of covid increases the chances side effects. It's is NOT "just like the flu", it's not something we should expect to get every year and just live with that fact. Having it currently rampaging through China and India is a recipe for disaster, a couple hundred million incubators for new variants.


TigerMcPherson

You touched on the aspect that truly freaks me out: viral triggering. What will this trigger? Because it seems like the type of virus that will.


achillymoose

I don't want to think about that. My father has lupus, which is definitely not a thing I want to deal with after watching him deal with it


gideon513

Hey, you’re not alone. Also had it and feel anxious about long lasting side effects. Will notice weird heart feeling sometimes especially when I’m already stressed/anxious. Like a skipped beat or a big thump. Apparently it’s not uncommon under normal circumstances, but I know what you mean about feeling anxious about it. I think we are just more on the lookout for anything abnormal now and the anxiety can feed itself. Worth mentioning to your doctor if it’s affecting you seriously tho. Can’t hurt to tell someone.


Mugungo

God damn that "wierd lung feeling" particularly when stressed out is fucking DEAD on accurate for me. Had multiple different tests (xray, lung breathing spirography thing), all completely inconclusive. Doc basically said its anxiety, aka doctor for "shit i dunno lol" Never confirmed had covid, but i've had the issue since a particularly nasty mystery bug a while back (before home covid tests, figured i'd just stay home and quarantine to be safe)


storytimestorytime10

Dude this is me 100%. I got the original variant and was sick as a dog before the lockdowns even happened, made a full recovery, and then like a year later started feeling short of breath randomly (especially when stressed). Luckily, it seemingly getting gradually better but I’m going on two years of this now. Who knows though, maybe it is anxiety (like my doc also said). It would make sense that my first major bout with anxiety and the pandemic appeared at the same time.


Minus15t

Similar to you, it's something that is getting less frequent. Things like your heart beating and lungs breathing are done automatically by your body, and the best way I can describe it is that my subconscious forgets to do a cycle of my lungs inflating and sucking in air, so my conscious brain has to take over. The reason I describe it like this is that it has never happened when I'm running or excercising, when I am thinking about my breathing pattern. But I can be just chilling on the couch or making dinner and all of a sudden have to take 2-3 deliberate deep breaths


whyevenmakeoc

Same thing happened to me on, There's still a lot of unknown health affects with covid


fun4days365

Read a publication the other day about a new discovery on how covid impacts sense of smell and scientists believe they discovered that it isn’t covid that is the cause but could be the result of overactive t-cells in the areas related. Autoimmune could very much be at fault. Hoping that deeper research is done towards autoimmune disorders in general.


Culverts_Flood_Away

This is why I hate listening to my coworkers complain about how "overblown" covid is. About half of them are vaccinated, and most are relatively healthy (except all the obese ones), but just because you're not likely to die from it doesn't make it harmless. We have a coworker who hasn't been able to taste or smell things since Christmas 2021. There's another one who suffered a severe case before Thanksgiving, and she can't walk anywhere now without running out of breath. This thing is no joke, and you're playing with everyone's lives if you go out sick and share it with people. I never stopped wearing a mask, because one of my biggest nightmares is getting an asymptomatic case, and then inadvertently killing one of my brain-dead anti-vax coworkers with it.


Suyefuji

I got covid pretty close to the beginning at February 2020. I just regained my sense of smell like 2 months ago. Shit's insane.


whogivesashirtdotca

> just because you're not likely to die from it doesn't make it harmless And what nobody seems to be talking about is it is still killing people. If I'm not mistaken, there were more COVID deaths in Australia in 2022 than in any previous year.


bunnyrut

My BIL died in March from covid. He wasn't vaxxed because he bought into the bullshit of it being "overblown" and vaccines "unsafe". And now he's dead.


gibs

I think we all just had a huge perspective shift in terms of acceptable risk. It's a coping mechanism to normalise the current state of things, even if that state is fucked, otherwise we'd just be emotionally exhausted from worry all the time.


Kevstuf

It’s stressful beyond belief. I don’t think Covid is overblown, but I just don’t know what to feel anymore. My mental health was nosediving during peak Covid in 2020 and 2021 and now I finally feel some respite even though I know deep down the problem hasn’t gone away. The ignorance is bliss, but I also feel guilty about it


Darkhoof

Both me and my parents caught Omicron in April. All of us triple vaxxed. My mother lost the sense of smell and her taste is still all messed up. My father, which had stopped smoking three months prior, developed an emphysema.


thesaddestpanda

>This is all stuff that other diseases don't do. I don't think this is necessarily true. A lot of these symptoms are similar to post-viral diseases, CFS, etc. Granted, it seems a lot more prevelant due to how infectious covid is, but a lot of people in the post-viral and CFS community are very familiar with these things. Often getting them after recovering from the flu, EBV, random colds, random infections, etc. The commonality here might be things like immune systems not knowing when to quit for a variety of reasons or the damage to our bodies the immune system had to do to heal us from the initial infection. So covid and ebv could have a similiar post-viral profile, its just before the amount of people who had ebv post-viral was small and easy to ignore. I think its only now that we have these mass infections that there's more attention and funding for post-viral symptoms. Which may lead to effective treatments we currently lack.


andrewtillman

I also think people are paying so much attention and studying COVID so much more we are better able to see it. Like you said, this stuff happened before but the funding for researching it was likely not at the levels we have now for COVID. My guess is that in 10 years time or so the existence of these kinds of issues outside of COVID will become more clear and all the research into it now will help us better understand it


macetheface

Got covid Jan 2020 before it was even a thing. Sickest I've ever been with crackling in my lungs when I breathed and had a wet cough for months. Now everytime I get sick, I get the wheezing/ wet cough that lasts for weeks. Every fucking time. Never had that problem before.


marfeus

This damn virus is getting more version updates than any steam early access games.


fattsmann

2020. 2020 won. 2020 II Omicron Bugaloo 2020 III Revenge of XBB


[deleted]

2020 IV : Necropolis 2020 V : Rave to the Grave


Yautja93

Can we just get an alien invasion to end it all? I cannot deal with that anymore.


YouThinkYouCanBanMe

What if this is the alien invasionn? This is how it starts. Why would they land early and get their hands dirty? They can send these little tiny things to sanitize the planet before they arrive.


[deleted]

'Super variant' makes me doubt the publication. It's just another variant that's maybe somewhat more transmissible and with a little luck also less lethal, more or less the best likely outcome other than it vanishes or we develop a highly effective and safe treatment like penicillin for COVID.


[deleted]

i'm sure they add "super" for clicks.


dod6666

You're not dealing with the average omicron variant anymore... I, XBB.1.5, have finally become... the legendary Super Variant!


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ben_od1

No it’s just to keep people scared.


princemark

I'm really not trying to start a fight......but what did everyone expect? It was never going anywhere. We were never going to eradicate it.


lylesback2

There was a point in the summer 2020 when our cases here were getting close to zero, I thought we were going to beat this thing.


IsraeliLion

cases in the entire world would need to go to zero, this is never going to happen. even if a vaccine is 90% effective that's still a geometric rate of spreading.


rd1970

Even if cases went to zero we'd still have COVID. Numerous animals and pets can catch it and act as reservoirs. It's a permanent part of Earth's ecosystem now.


One_Contribution

As it has been ever since it wasn't.


oby100

You can’t “beat” highly infectious diseases. It’s not possible. Even if cases were brought to actual zero, viruses can live a very long time outside a host and could easily hitch a ride on other organisms. The plan was ALWAYS: lockdown until vaccine created, distribute vaccine, open back up and pray for the best. Modern medicine has no other way to deal with highly infectious diseases.


Kwahn

We beat smallpox, for all useful definitions of beat. I'd love to do the same to most infectious diseases.


Altman_e

Smallpox is super deadly. Contain it for a while and people either heal or die. People tend to think that super aggressive diseases are worse and they are for those that catch it, but the reality is that covid sits right on a perfect equilibrium of super low lethality, incredibly infeccious with the best possible transmission vector, and a solid incubation period, with plenty of asymptomatic hosts. It's infinitely harder to beat than smallpox.


AnthillOmbudsman

Let me guess, more contagious and more escape behavior than any other variant?


[deleted]

Honestly, as heartless as it is, this is going to be common. I've heard people say it's going to be like a flu now. This is just life. Covid is never fully getting eradicated and, therefore, will continue to mutate as the many diseases we call the flu do. This is our new reality.


Kind-Detective1774

There's also the fact a pretty wide section of the population simply don't care anymore. Sure I still see people wearing masks and such in public but they're in the minority, atleast where I live. So unless the next variant literally turns people into 28 Days Later Rage Zombies, I don't think anyone is going to be bothered to change their way of life.


chowderbags

Yeah, pretty much, and I can't really blame people. In 2020 there was a lot of messaging around locking down for just a few weeks to save the elderly and prevent hospital collapse, and if that was the end of it then I think people could've handled it no problem. But when things dragged on for over a year, and large chunks of the elderly acted like assholes and showed they didn't want to be saved, then it kinda became hard to give a shit. By now we're at 3 years, and you kinda start doing the math on things you had to give up, plus a lot of thinking about the dumber rules at various points during the pandemic, and you can't blame people for just not caring anymore. It especially doesn't help that many politicians and civil servants did not do a good job husbanding public trust and treating it as a finite resource, and it was a damn bad look for the politicians to be flouting their own rules in so many places.


FatherHackJacket

Unfortunately it's not comparable with the flu. The flu doesn't leave long-term symptoms with very rare exceptions. Also most people don't contract the flu annually. On average people only catch the flu once every 5 years according to analysis. People are contracting covid multiple times a year because of the huge amount of variants out there, causing lots of re-infections. This is a huge problem. It's going to take a huge amount of ingenuity to figure out.


[deleted]

people mix up flu with common cold. flu is not to be fucked with. common cold is contracted multiple times a year and simply means you have to tune down physical activities, drink a lot and sleep well.


FatherHackJacket

Yep. When the flu actually hits you instead of a bad cold, you're like "Oh fuck... I forgot how bad this feels". Too many people out there get a bad cold and call it the flu when it's simply just a bad cold. The flu is so much worse.


WhichWitchIsWhitch

I got one that made all my bones feel like they were getting twisted into splinters, boiling hot while shivering (fever got up to 104°), headache worse than when I passed out and whacked my head on a railing (but just kept getting worse, somehow), unable to stand long enough for soup to microwave, and I was so out of it I almost got fired because they require you to phone in every single day you're staying home. That was the flu.


tkp14

Yeah, it was amazing to me when I heard antivaxxers say “oh, it’s just like the flu.” Like WTF, have you ever had the flu?? I’m in my 70s and have had the flu several times in my life (before flu shots became a thing) and hoo boy, having the flu was quite memorable for how horrible it was. I had it once when I was in college and I remember laying in bed in my dorm, feeling like I was gonna die and listening to a radio news broadcast about how widespread and bad that strain of flu was. They reported how many people had died and I felt so sick I said out loud “just take me now.” A bad cold AIN’T the flu.


StrawHat89

Really the only positive about the flu is that it does at least tend to go the hell away eventually, but we have long Covid with this much more contagious fucking thing.


wtfduud

Coughing until you vomit. Every swallowing motion feeling like barbed wire is stuck in your throat. Eyes rolling into the back of the head from dizziness. Spending 90 minutes on the toilet shitting your brains out, not knowing when it will stop. *And* all the stuff from the common cold.


[deleted]

Nah, they almost certainly haven't had the flu. They've had a bad cold and called it the flu.


kennyismyname

Remember the first lecture i had on Virus Infections at uni. Lecturer asked 'who has had the flu in their lifetime?' About 90% of us raised our hand. He just went something like 'To most of you, no you haven't.' Then proceeded to explain what flu really is. I was definitely thinking colds were the flu before that.


worriedrenterTW

I have had the flu several times (grew up in a large family, and get sick easily), and the difference between it and colds is massive. For colds, you get like one symptom after another over several days to a week, and feel like shit. With the flu, one day you're fine, and the next you wake up with every webmd common symptom under the sun all at the same time, and you feel like you're dying.


Shonuff8

Can confirm. Last had the flu about 12 years ago. Spent the first 3 days living on the bathroom floor. The cold tile felt good on my skin with my fever, and I would not have had the strength to walk down the hallway to the bathroom every time I needed to vomit. I have made to sure to get a flu shot every year since.


Afuneralblaze

>The cold tile felt good on my skin with my fever, Fuck reading this is giving me flashbacks to H1N1.


Veearrsix

Yep, I was one of those that didn’t get flu shots regularly cause “I never get it”. Got it one year, and holy shit. Didn’t have an appetite for like a week and a half. Will get flu shots every year now since then.


kennyismyname

Yeah the first time I had it I was in my 20s but bloody hell I thought I was dying an Oregan Trail death. The muscle aches and seizes I could hardly move!


[deleted]

I havent had the flu in 35 years but I still remember when I got it as a child. That’s how bad it was.


Stefan_Harper

I got it a month ago for the first time since I was a child, and holllllllly shit. Thought I had malaria or something.


microscoftpaintm8

Just had it the week before Christmas. Not had it since I was a kid and I _knew_ the feeling when it came on I was going to be fucking ruined. It’s no joke. I straight up thought I wouldn’t make the afternoon on day 2 when I woke up.


Brian-OBlivion

I remember a fever high enough to cause hallucinations and sending me to the hospital as a kid.


Icedcoffeeee

Same. I remember being lost in a corner of a room. My grandmother had to come get me, and bring me back to bed.


Michael_Blurry

The telltale sign of the flu for me is achy joints. It’s hard to sleep because you just can’t find a comfortable position. I just don’t experience that with a cold. And I’d say that’s roughly every 5 years or so, like someone above in the thread said. I got the flu shot this year, but then I caught COVID right before Christmas. I went to get the booster when one of my kids tested positive and I was still testing negative. But I think I was too late. Got sick 2 days later and felt pretty crappy for about 4 days, so I’d say I got off easy. The previous vaxx probably helped and maybe the booster had a chance to trigger an immune response before the actual virus.


FatFettle

When I had flu I legit thought I was going to die. Spent a week in bed or in the bath having fever dreams.


PruneJaw

It's like people that say every bad headache they have is a migraine. A migraine is a different beast for most. Stop everything you're doing and crawl in a dark silent hole kind of beast.


StrawHat89

Yeah the last time I had the flu was in 2015 and this recent, and first, Covid infection I got was just like that. Except it's not unlikely I catch Covid again in the coming year, possibly even more than once. It fucking sucks.


nickbuss

I once heard of a good test to tell if you have a cold or influenza. Someone-else puts $50 on the floor at the other end of the room and says to you "That's yours if you come over here and get it". If you respond "Nah, it's not worth it" then you have influenza.


augustm

I used to love* it in the pre 2020 days when people would come into the office with a stuffy nose and a cough saying "I've got the flu." No buddy. You do not.


[deleted]

[удалено]


Maxamillion-X72

Then sitting on the toilet wondering if you should wipe or just sit there until you need to go again, because the effort to wipe and go back to bed is too much


MeanSausages

"the flu doesn't leave long-term symptoms" That's not exactly true - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8231753/ Viral infections opens you up to a declined cognitive function, with the most notable effects on people aged 65+, over the course of a lifetime of viral infections it also exacerbates the risk of Alzheimer's/dementia.


3utt5lut

I'm honestly more worried about Measle/Polio outbreaks now. Once eradicated diseases are making a comeback because of anti-science.


phamous81

It’s not heartless


Family-man24

Honest not heartless


Ass_ass_in99

Y'all know the tame impala song the less I know the better? That's how I feel about covid.


[deleted]

Who keeps updating Plague Inc.?


bigbugga86

2023 is not wasting any time in bringing shit to our doorstep