highly contagious. probably a few more cases than what we know about in massachusetts and the one being investigated in new york, this is a pox likes virus. gives flu-like symptoms and swollen lymph nodes and turns into a rash where you see like a chicken pox, measles or small pox like family of viruses. charles: why is it spreading now? if it s been around so long and most people have never heard of it, why out in? it lives in animal reservoirs. the previous cases that have been seen, the first case in 1958 was among monkeys confined together for research purposes. a outbreak in the midwest in the united states years ago only among an ma ams. that was among imported an ma ams that were together. we re probably seeing an animal reservoir transfer this over to a human.
you think will take to do that? unfortunately, as the virus continues to evolve, and now it s on an accelerated evolution, with it s more and more of a challenge. our vaccines and boosters aren t holding up as well. or for as long. and we may see something that s beyond these omicron variants. that is a whole other curveball greek letter the way omicron came in and surprised us. in the months ahead, there s many paths to a whole new variant, such as through millions of people who are immuno compromised, who can cultivate the virus inside him unwittingly and have that transmit to another person. which is why we think omicron had its origin. also, we have so much potential spillover from the animal, multiple animal reservoirs.
limited long-term immunity, following infection or with vaccination or when you have animal reservoirs of infection. but where we are today is not it. we have 125,000 people in u.s. hospitals and over 1200 dying each day. those with severe complications and that are dying are mostly unvaccinated. that is far worse than what we see in the worst flu season. and those worse flu seasons, they strain, but don t break u.s. hospitals. if we have the will to invest in public health and if we work together, we can get to the point that covid is something that we live with, we re just not there yet. one of the authors of that article you talk about, michael osterholm, quoted winston churchill, poignant in terms of where we are. this isn t the end. it isn t the beginning of the end. it may be the end of the beginning. one of those experts, dr. rick bright, he told cnn this morning that the country needs updated versions of vaccines to match new variants.
so can you see new wave coming in with ba.2 and a need to bring back these restrictions and how difficult will it be to put those restrictions back in place? you are making an essential point, zwjohn. the ba.2 itself, the data are pretty positive for not having anything that is vaccine resistant that is really escaping immune system any different than the omicron sister ba.1. and not very virulent. not more disease causing. although, there was a study from a very reputable lab in japan that suggested in in the animal model that it could be concerning but we don t have any good evidence, yet, to be afraid of ba.2. it really is behaving much more like the aoriginal omicron ba.1. however, there will be likely because we have so many billions of people out there who have not been vaccinated, immunocompromised people who can have the virus evolve within them. massive animal reservoirs of the
Lions and pumas at a zoo in Pretoria got severe Covid-19 from asymptomatic zoo handlers, raising concerns that new variants could emerge from animal reservoirs of the disease