As predicted by covid variant tracker nerds on twitter in recent weeks, JN.1 is exploding. A 40% increase in covid cases since last week. Most sequences coming in to variant trackers are JN.1.
The biobot chart shows the last six months, if you zoom out we are at or approaching covid levels not seen since last winter, so not totally unexpected... but the CDC expects cases to peak in February. However JPWieland predicts it will peak after christmas due to the rapid growth of JN.1.
There are also outlier cities in Europe showing more covid in wastewater than ever measured during the pandemic. Canada isn't doing much better. The UK isn't doing well either.
Along with covid, flu and RSV are also hitting pretty hard at the same time, especially in the South, with a touch of mystery pneumonia in various places around the world as a treat.
Thankfully the latest vaccine helps against this variant. Unfortunatly vaccine uptake rates are abysmal now because capitalism.
I'm mainly still posting about covid out of anxiety and watching the health of friends and family who have been infected and "were fine" slowly deteriorate.
Good luck, everyone.
EDIT:
The CDC director is recommending wearing masks. So things will probably get pretty bad...
Who names this stuff? They could at least give it a nickname?
It's unofficial nickname is Pirola, which can be shortened to "Pi"
There are so many variants that they can't nickname them all, so they stick to naming the the ones with mutations that look most concerning.