Early signs that the summer COVID wave likely peaked late last month appear to have been confirmed, and recent nationwide data have also shown hospitalization rates roll over, though that trend is still in its naateel apparently been confirmed. Hospitalizations, which had reached their highest levels since early this year, have also slowed since their most recent peak, although they continue to trail cases.
America’s summer wave may be diminishing, but fears about the delta variant linger, while America and the press has become obsessed with raising the alarm about any new potentially harmful variants coming down the pike.
Dr. Anthony Fauci has weighed in on the risk posed by variants, offering dramatically different assessments of the Lambda variant – which saw him turn the fearmongering up to ’11’ – and the Mu variant – which he dismissed, claiming it was “not an immediate threat”.
Unfortunately for Dr. Fauci – who endured perhaps the biggest blow yet to his credibility when the Intercept reported a cache of materials obtained via FOIA exposing him as a liar for his insistence that the NIH didn’t help finance dangerous gain-of-function research that may have led to the creation of SARS-CoV-2 – the good doctor might be headed for yet another COVID flip flop.
Because it looks like Mu is spreading far more quickly in the US than the ‘experts’ had anticipated. The variant, which possesses several mutations that has scientists worried it might be wholly resistant to the first generation of vaccines, has now been detected in every state except for Nebraska.
Additionally, since it was first identified in Colombia in January, the Mu variant has spread to 41 countries (including the US). Most prevalent in Hawaii and Alaska, the variant accounts for less than 1% of current US cases. But it’s potential to be more transmissible and resistant means it could rapidly supplant delta, especially as the next round of booster jabs are rolled out (while natural immunity in the population continues to build via natural exposure). The US’s ability to monitor the spread of variants is more limited than some of its western peers (like the UK), which means the picture of Mu’s spread that we have right now might already be outdated.
California has reported the largest number of Mu variant samples (unsurprising since it’s the most populous state) at 384 cases, but that only accounts for 0.2% of the total samples sequenced in the state. As of Friday, LA County had identified 167 Mu variant cases. The cases were found in samples sequenced between June 19 and Aug. 21, with the bulk of the cases being found in July.
“The identification of variants like Mu, and the spreading of variants across the globe, highlights the need for LA County residents to continue to take measures to protect themselves and others,” Dr. Barbara Ferrer, the SJW (she’s not a medical doctor) charged with directing LA’s COVID response, said in a statement. “This is what makes getting vaccinated and layering protections so important. These are actions that break the chain of transmission and limits COVID-19 proliferation that allows for the virus to mutate into something that could be more dangerous.”
Maine, Connecticut and Florida round out the list of states with the highest prevalence of Mu cases. Florida’s had the second-highest number of samples, at 384 of the 60,475 samples that were sequenced being of the Mu variant. Additionally, while Alaska has only had 146 cases of Mu, the variant is significantly more prevalent in the state than others, since the number of confirmed Mu cases represents 4% of total cases sequenced.
