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Just when you thought it was safe to venture outside again…
Newsweek magazine has unleashed a hysteria-inducing cover story for the May 21-28 issue, calculated to inject a little pandemic anxiety back into your summer plans, while garnering reads by fear-porn aficionados.
The not-so-original cover tag, “Winter Is Coming,” appeared over a bleak blue winter scene featuring spiked COVID virus instead of snowballs and fearsome predictions underlined for effect: “No herd immunity.” “Deadly new variants.” “Why scientists predict another COVID surge.” Eek!
Even as the Centers for Disease Control miffs liberals with surprising new guidance that fully vaccinated people can shed their masks,
How Did It Get Out? 1. The Tongguan Mine Shaft in Mojiang, Yunnan, where, in 2013, fragments of RaTG13, the closest known relative of SARSCoV-2, were recovered and transported to the Wuhan Institute of Virology;
2. The Wuhan Institute of Virology, where Shi Zhengli’s team brought the RaTG13 sample, sequenced its genome, then took it out of the freezer several times in recent years;
3. The Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which first reported signs of the novel coronavirus in hospital patients;
4. The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, an early suspected origin of the pandemic, where the first major outbreak occurred. Illustration: Map by Jason Lee
‘A wakeup call’: How resilient new coronavirus variants could prolong the pandemic Andrew Romano
It’s no secret that ending the coronavirus pandemic requires two things: mitigation and vaccination.
But the urgency of doing both and doing them as completely and quickly as possible dramatically increased this week as news broke that the so-called South African variant had finally arrived in the United States, with South Carolina officials reporting on Thursday America’s first two known cases involving the B.1.351 strain.
Neither South Carolina patient had traveled or been in contact with the other, which is a strong indication that the South African variant is already spreading undetected in America.