BQ.1.1 (38.4%) and BQ.1 (30.7%) are now the biggest variants in the US: CDC COVID Data Tracker
They are descendants of the BA.5 variant that half of the bivalent booster vaccines are targeted against. However, immune response against BA.5 is weaker against BQ.1.1 and BQ.1 than it is against BA.5.
I assume I had Omicron 4 or 5 in July. Hopefully that will be good enough resistance for whatever is circulating in Japan right now. We leave in two days! At least the Japanese arenāt as anti-mask as Americans!
For our trip in October there was pretty much 100% masking indoors and outdoors in Japan!
Bivalent (ancestral + BA.5) boosters available for some under 5 kids:
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2214293
Recent bivalent (ancestral/BA.5) booster results in better neutralization against BA.1, BA.5, BA.2.75.2, BQ.1.1, and XBB than recent monovalent (ancestral) first or second booster. However, neutralization was still quite low against BQ.1.1 and XBB. I.e. the bivalent booster is better, but not an invincible shield, against newer variants.
I think I have mentioned this before but the flu has been much worse than covid for the youngish families I know who have had it, including my own teens and young adult children.
With covid, there is the inflammatory stage that people are familiar with, but has that ever been studied for flu? People are getting secondary infections, like sinus and ear infections, but there also seems to be this inflammatory piece where symptoms linger with no secondary infection, like weeks with cough or sinus issues. A middle aged friend was prescribed steroids after having continued coughing since having the flu a month ago.
My younger family members have had to try multiple pharmacies to get their young children medication for secondary infections.
Another interesting thing about the flu is the question about asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic infection. H and I thought we might be getting sick when my D23 had influenza A, but it passed very quickly, in less than 24 hours. We had much closer, extended contact with her than when our other kids and friends were sick, so I donāt know how we would have not got it unless we had some kind of ore-existing immunity. My H felt a only mildly scratchy throat and I had some mild irritation in my naso-pharyngeal area. I donāt know what I would have called it before covid but now I would call it a mildly symptomatic influenza infection. It was the type of thing we might not notice if we didnāt have such a close exposure and Dās diagnosis from a test at urgent care.
The XBB.1.5 variant appears to be growing rapidly within the US, particularly in the Northeast. It is a descendant of XBB and XBB.1, both of which are highly immune evasive, but did not stick as well to human ACE2 compared to some other recent variants. But a mutation that produced XBB.1.5 improved its binding to human ACE2, and it appears to have a substantial growth advantage over other variants like BQ.1.1.
Delta isnāt gone yetā¦ there are sightings of combinations of Delta and Omicron, called Deltacron. The concern is the possibility that one of the combinations could have the contagiousness of Omicron and the greater seriousness of disease of Delta.
Currently, one such Deltacron, XAY.2, is among the new variants with a high growth advantage (versus BA.5).
Three of us in our household (finally) ended up with Covid a couple of weeks ago and no one was anywhere as sick as my two 20 somethings who had flu this past fall. It was horrible for them.
Thatās the same experience at our house. The flu really put my oldest son down a year ago. Covid didnāt phase him or any of the rest of us as much.
I have been really sick with flu in the past. Thankfully, though, there is no ālong flu.ā
ps two of my kids had COVID this past month
I have to disagree as someone who has experienced post-viral syndrome prior to the existence of SARScov2.
Sadly, the benefit the acknowledgment of long covid is the greater awareness of post-viral syndromes in general, which are life-altering and need better treatments.
Hereās an article dated 2019. It sounds a lot like long covid:
There are post-viral syndromes with most (all?) viral illnesses, including flu. We just donāt hear about or recognize them as much as we have with Covid. But there is nothing new about long Covid.
I agree. A dear friend struggled with post-viral illness (maybe flu, I donāt remember) for close to five years. She eventually got better after being treated by an immunologist/allergist that had a flair for experimentation. Iām happy to report she feels really well now, many years later.
Iāve noticed that the NYTimes has reported lower nationwide covid cases over the last week.
Could cases really be declining or are they not being reported?
I have not heard of post-flu conditions, specifically so stand corrected. As for ālongā term viral effects, yes I am well aware. One of my kids has type 1 diabetes most likely triggered by the coxsackie virus and another family member has persistent symptoms possibly from Epstein Barr. One family member lost vision and ability to walk from E-B as I wrote before. I myself have chronic Lyme ( triggered by bacteria, not virus) that triggered a lupus diagnosis.
However, I am still more afraid of long term sequelae with COVID than flu. Apologies to anyone who has suffered from long term symptoms from influenza.
It looks like at least one state - Florida - is only reporting new cases monthly. Iām guessing this will skew the results.
Myocarditis and itās complications would be another ālong symptomā that can result from a virus. I know three people - two high school classmates and my mother - who all experienced heart disease resulting from an unknown virus years before the pandemic made this more common news. All went into heart failure but made a complete recovery although one of my classmates ended up needing a heart transplant.
Itās interesting how many things people think are ONLY Covid related. Like asymptomatic infections. When I told some people that about 80+ percent of polio is asymptomatic they did not believe me. Flu can also be asymptomatic. I was not trying to downplay the real horrors of these diseases but was just speaking factually.
Iām seeing that COVID and the flu come when they come and they go when they go. Thereās a new strain every yearā¦and I may or may not get one of them.
