(Snippets from the frontline)
COVID-19/BLM: Hit by a variant?
I saw it coming but was too slow getting out of the way. Boink, got me in the head! I didn’t lose consciousness, and as it laid on the ground nearby, I quickly took a photo.
Yep, it seemed like a variant, and didn’t know if I would have side-effects. My wife told me not to touch it, and as you see by the picture, it has tentacles looking like thorns. She said “how can that get into your lungs and infect you, especially when it fell from a tree?”
COVID-19 is a virus and like most organisms, duplicates genetically. Mistakes happen resulting in mutations sometimes fatal to the virus, or allows it to proliferate. The fear is whether some variants will enhance transmission or infectivity.
One has to wonder whether the 1918 pandemic also had variants. Probably so. Plus we know with WWI it was worldwide, and despite jet-age travel not yet evolving, millions had it and died.
My wife is right though, this tree variant would be hard to inhale, and masking with social tree-distancing won’t make a difference.
Next time, I have to move faster.
Gene Uzawa Dorio, M.D.
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