Covid Cases On The Rise Again, In August 2023
High Number Of Mutations, Multiple Scattered Affected Locations & Loss Of Covid Tracking Systems Spark Concern A new, highly mutated fo...
High Number Of Mutations, Multiple Scattered Affected Locations & Loss Of Covid Tracking Systems Spark Concern
Scattered new cases of Covid are showing up in a number of countries and states. There haven't been a lot of actual cases that have been clearly defined as the new strain, but the World Health Organization (WHO) said on August 25th there were four known cases in Denmark, two in South Africa, two in the U.S., one in Israel and one in the United Kingdom.
This is quite different -- and somewhat problematic -- when compared to the earlier cases of Covid, which were all clearly clustered in one place: nursing homes, hospitals, various close-knit communities. Somehow, this new Covid is jumping large distances.
It's hard to know real trends as almost nobody is checking for Covid, outside of city sewer monitoring and hospitalization lists.
(The Country Journal has asked the state of Alaska for information on whether sewer water will be monitored in Alaska, in Anchorage and Fairbanks. There has not been any response yet.)
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Meanwhile, there's been a slowly growing upward turn in Covid cases throughout America recently. It's not as bad as it once was, but it's worse than it was a few months ago.
As a result, Lionsgate, the movie studio, asked people working there to wear masks when a group of staff members recently got Covid. Kaiser Permanente, the large national medical service organization, saw a spike at their hospital and began requiring staff and patients to wear masks in their medical facility. A Massachusetts health care organization, seeing "a dramatic increase in the number of Covid-19-positive employees over the past two weeks" has instituted mandatory caregiver masking to protect its sick patients from contracting the disease while in their care.
Morris Brown College in Georgia is requiring masking for two weeks. There's an epidemic of Covid currently circulating through the college's student body.
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Covid is a virus, like polio, AIDS and smallpox. It has paradoxical effects on people who get it. Some people sail right through it, apparently unscathed. Others die.
High-risk people include those with various diseases such as diabetes, cancer, liver disease, lung disease, dementia, heart disease -- and those who are elderly.
