Curious, how many potential viruses coming from the original Covid could we really be facing???

[a kennedy]

I’M REALLY GETTING ANNOYED WITH WAVE AFTER WAVE OF THE GAWD DAMN VIRUS….. or is it just me??

[dweller]

1. We're going to need

a longer alphabet
😕


✌🏻

[Tickle]

2. It's here to stay

Like other viruses it will have different variants and we’ll probably get vaccinated each year. Some people will die and others will just plow through it.

Just my thought 💭

[targetpractice]

3. Almost 4,000 variants so far...

... Only a few are named a "variants of concern" with Greek alphabet names because of their high rate of transmission.

[Goonch]

4. Beyond Omicron: what's next for COVID's viral evolution

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03619-8

[KatK]

7. That is a GREAT article on Omicron, Goonch!

Thanks for the link.

It is rather unsettling, though...

[royable]

5. After we use up the Greek letters, how about letters from Dr. Seuss' "On Beyond Zebra"?

YUZZ, WUM, UM, HUMPF, FUDDLE, GLIKK, NUH, SNEE, QUAN, THNAD, SPAZZ, FLOOB, ZATZ, JOGG, FLUNN, ITCH, YEKK, VROO, and HI!.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Beyond_Zebra!#/media/File:Seuss_Letters.GIF

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Beyond_Zebra!

[Scrivener7]

10. LOL! We should have done that from the start! I would much prefer getting Glikk than Delta!

[Bad Thoughts]

6. Pandemic -- Endemic

I suspect that they will run out of Greek letters.

[BannonsLiver]

8. If you're looking for hope DU is the wrong place to be.

[Scrivener7]

9. That is pretty much all you ever post. Why stay, then?

[ForgedCrank]

11. These things don't go away,

they adapt.
We all need to settle on the fact that it's here to stay.

[NullTuples]

12. More new infections means more mutations. More mutations means new variants

It's ongoing. That's why it's so important for wealthy, industrialized nations to supply vaccines to the rest of the world.

Or better still, just mandate that the ability to make the vaccines cheaply be released to the world for free at this point.

Every time the virus is exposed to a new pocket of people without antibodies, there's a new wave of infections. Every infection has some chance of mutation. Waves of infections = better chance of mutations. When enough mutations accumulate that enable a significant change in the virus' ability to optimally infect people, that set of genetics if given a designation &/or name and a new variant is born.

If we don't choose to vaccinate the entire world, even those people who live in countries that cannot afford to help make Moderna & Pfizer investors billions of US dollars, there is a very good chance that eventually a new set of mutations will arise that will circumvent the vaccines and make them nearly useless and we will be back to square one.

[brooklynite]

13. How many viruses from the original Influenza have there been?

[iemanja]

14. They are going to keep coming

Count on it.