Northern winter wave certainly looking like it is starting to take hold. Last two weeks data is not looking good for the coming Northern winter, at least it shouldn’t be too hard to obtain samples for the trials over in Europe.
This year will be a bit different then previous two as many countries are starting off a much higher base trend line. The R0 numbers also appear to be going higher quicker then previous waves.
If you look over the last two years cases begin to climb in September/October and peaks around December/January this year it is starting off a much higher trend line and many new evasive variants running in the mix.
Some interesting things happening in hospitals within the UK with a lot of infections happening whilst patients are admitted to hospital, seems the hospital testing market might be the place to be for some fast, data enabled and highly accurate screening testing. The UK is a good indicator on previous vaccination and infection providing protection as majority of people I know there have caught it now at least once, so one to keep an eye on this winter to see how they fare with hospitalisations, death rates and Long covid statistics.
Sounds like many here have given up on Covid testing ever being utilised and producing any income but the way it’s panning out in reality with multiple new variants arising to bypass any effectiveness from vaccines or previous infections to limit spread at present, testing will be very much needed to diagnose the next stage of antiviral treatments.
The current anti virals need administering as early as possible in the infection cycle to suppress the virus the only way to prescribe them is with a positive test result.
Look forward to our good resident Professor Mattoe/Dr Gripper to provide an update on how Covid is over and the current charts and data showing exponential growth yet again are wrong.
Also a few new studies coming out on Long Covid effects and the accumulation of multiple infections to risk for Long Covid. It doesn’t sound overly promising the effect on immune systems, T cells, organs, respiratory, neurological and circulatory systems all look pretty rough. If each year is going to provide several large waves and several new variants that escape vaccines then treatment will be needed not only for initial viral load but ongoing care to many. Sure many will cry COVID is no more then the flu but the data is saying otherwise and personal observation of many that have caught it once let alone several times shows this to be untrue, with quiet a few having strange lingering effects many months after initial exposure.
Hopefully we get an update on EU commons approach to approvals at AGM as they will need to be submitting soon if they are going to join the fight this year.
