So BA.4.6 is gaining a bit of market share in the US, but from what I can tell, it’s taking it from BA.2.12.1 and BA.4, not BA.5. I’m not sure if it can compete head-to-head with BA.5 or not. And there is still chatter that BA.2.75 (Centaurus) is the one that will displace the current field of contenders. Not seeing it yet, though, unless they have it lumped with something else. But goodness, there are variants drawing attention all over the globe. BA.2.10+ I guess in India, for instance. We’ll see. But I guess the important bit is the mutations don’t seem to be stalling out.
I actually wouldn’t consider them completely in the clear for 14 days. Likelihood starts diminishing significantly starting after 5 days (using PCR), but if they’re going to be around someone highly vulnerable, the 14 day window is more precautionary.
You just can’t make this stuff up. If I have my variants straight , apparently this one has been designated BJ.1. The memes practically write themselves…
Thought you folks would be interested in my Covid tale: On Saturday, I went on a girls trip to Turks & Caicos (fabulous!) with my sister and two daughters. My sister & older daughter live near each other in another state so they traveled together. Younger daughter (DD24) and I traveled together. We all masked on the planes and indoors and only ate outside except in our hotel room. Most of our time was spent outside in any case. Meanwhile, my husband went to a lengthy, crowded outdoor event near our home. This will become important!
Our plane was delayed several times coming home on Tuesday and we had a 2 hour drive home, so DD24 & I stayed at an airport hotel that night. Wednesday am, we decided to test before driving home. She was clearly negative, We both thought we saw a faint line on mine so considered me positive. We stopped at a CVS and got PCR tests on the way home and wore masks in the car together with the windows cracked. I called off from work for Thursday and Friday.
Then, we got a call from DH who said he tested positive Tuesday evening and had been feeling bad all that day and a little sore throat on Monday. He moved from upstairs in our house to our finished basement after testing positive on Tuesday evening. When we got home, we continued wearing masks upstairs too and she stayed in her room. She and I have both tested negative every day since and our PCRs were both negative. So maybe we were imagining the faint line? We wished we had taken a picture of it to look at later. We are still wearing masks in the house, only eating outside on the deck, and DH is strictly downstairs with the doors closed and many windows open in our home.
If DD and I don’t have it, we don’t want it obviously. DD is supposed to start clinical rotations for vet school on the 22nd.
Older DD and sister continue to test negative although we all know that after our traveling, we still need to be aware that we could have been exposed. We will test at 48 hour intervals I guess? Our local libraries give out free tests (pick up outside) plus I had ordered the government ones and some ones from Walmart. It’s been a whirlwind for sure.
Wow. I hope things are mild for DH and he recovers soon. I think the 48 hours schedule is reasonable for the next few days. Did you see the faint line while waiting for the result or after the required wait time? A friend saw a line about 10 minutes into her 15 minute wait, but then it went away. She got a pcr a few days later and it was negative so she thinks it was just part of the processing that showed the faint line briefly.
Over the last week, US cases have increased from 7,510 to 11,177.
Global cases have increased from 28,220 to 31,799. (But the CDC is quoting WHO on the global cases, which only shows the US as having 9,491 cases, so the WHO number is lagging by a bit).
I didn’t follow her links, but that timing sounds consistent with what I’m hearing elsewhere. I’m catching up on Dr. Osterholm’s podcasts, and in one of them, he cited a study that said 50% of people are still positive on Day 5 and 25% are still positive on Day 9.
, apparently this one has been designated BJ.1. 
The memes practically write themselves…
