—That, of course, if the new variant isn’t true.
Choquey.
Casually chatting with a Ms Post-Covid Better Times, aka Pot of Gold at the End of the Rainbow or something. We make plans. We count close cases, vaccine doses, the last time we traveled. We exchange confidences about future plans, When Everything Passes.
-What.
***
The IHU – an unglamorous and provisional name that refers to the hospital where it was discovered, the Instituto Hospitalar Universitario de Marseille – is a candidate-for-new-variant under study.
Identified in late November, it was apparently “imported” by a tourist returning from Cameroon, and is related to a variant first detected in the Democratic Republic of Congo last September.
It has 46 mutations and 37 deletions in relation to the “original” virus, which, they say, makes this bichiño a new ace of potential contagion.
From November until now, however, only 12 cases of IHU have been identified between Marseille and the French Alps region – in contrast to the omicron, detected in the country at the same time, and which already accounts for more than half of the new cases in the country. .
The epidemiologists responsible for the pre-study on the virus, published at the end of December, declared that it was “too early to speculate on the virological, epidemiological or clinical characteristics of this variant”, considering the low incidence of cases.
The Marseille institute, which specializes in infectious diseases, is headed by the controversial Didier Raoult, a doctor who advocates hydroxychloroquine as a treatment against Covid-19.
Little news has been released for the time being about the perhaps new variant. The World Health Organization (WHO) has not yet given the go-ahead to call the IHU the successor to the omicron in the never-ending Netflix saga that is our Covidian life.
Perhaps there are political interests here and there, probably caution, and possibly a hint of already-tired — other topics make the headlines of the day.
Maybe, maybe. The real truth is that new strains appear all the time, but very few gain the status WHO red alert.
This week, at a press conference, a representative of the entity stated that they are monitoring the IHU closely and that so far there is no reason for further concern.
***
“Next year”, says the aforementioned señora, dreamy eyes contemplating the foam of coffee in that bar on some corner in Barcelona, ”I want to go to Murcia to see my family. I lost my father and my brother-in-law to Covid, and since then I haven’t I saw my sister again.”
Next year..! no ma’am, I think, 2022 is the year of the turning point, of everything changes, of the calm after the storm.But I don’t say anything. I also contemplate the coffee foam, solidary…
.
