Around the Corner

You would be upset if I didn’t mention something I see coming that you may want to prepare for. It’s one of those moments.

For weeks I’ve been checking on India. One of the companies I’ve worked with is there, at the epicenter of where the Delta variant blossomed. It was terrible for them. PM Narendra Modi recently said “COVID is far from over.” As a right-winger, he isn’t the sort we would expect to say so.

Don’t look at the reported number of deaths. Look at what India is doing. In late March the government announced a 5-fold strategy and ramping up their sequencing of variants. That’s what got me to start paying extra attention to them. The strategy includes Test, Track, Treat, Vaccinate and COVID-appropriate behavior (e.g. face masks). News there today is about being in a nationwide “mock drill” to assess COVID preparedness.

Wastewater surveillance is off the charts.

Rapid tests don’t seem to be able to detect the variant spreading there, which is most likely XBB.1.16. PCR tests appear to be more likely to miss it too.

Expect this to arrive near you. It makes Omicron look slow.

If you want more details, a few of the serious science and medical people are talking about it online. Governments other than India’s generally aren’t.

What to Do

Most people’s latest vaccination is waning and this variant is blowing right through immune system defenses. However, we know a lot more than we did in 2020.

I wouldn’t wait for someone official to tell you to step up your basics. I’d go ahead and do it now. By the time officials realize it’s in your neighborhood and say something, the horse will not only be out of the barn, it’ll be off to the races.

It’s simple, really.

• Make sure you have plenty of good FFP3 or N99 face masks. Use them whenever you go indoors to a place where other people are or have been anytime in the previous few hours. Shopping, going to a medical appointment, picking up a prescription, attending a church service, and so on.

• If you have relaxed your socializing rules and now get together with people who don’t feel sick, tighten up for a while. Anyone could be an asymptomatic case and spread this.

• Take advantage of oncoming spring and summer if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere. My wife and I visited with plenty of friends from all over the world at ALBW, but we masked indoors or in crowds. We chatted unmasked with people over tea or meals at outdoor tables, sitting as far apart as we could with plenty of breeze (and paying attention to wind direction).

• Stock up on whatever you would want to have on hand if you catch this variant despite your precautions. Being careful should reduce your viral load and help you have a lighter case. It still wouldn’t be fun. In addition to the usual cold-and-flu supplies, some longlife easy foods will keep you from needing groceries.

• If you can get medication, a course of Paxlovid started immediately upon getting sick is your best bet. A 14 day protocol with metformin appears to be the next best thing to Paxlovid. If you, like my wife and I, have no hope of getting medication, consider adding a bottle of nattokinase to your medicine cabinet. In the lab, it attacks SARS-CoV-2. A noticeable number of Long COVID patients say taking nattokinase, often alongside serrapeptase, helps them. There’s no proper study yet saying these help. I’d be wary about adding serrapeptase if you take blood thinners or anything that lengthens your clotting time. Nattokinase isn’t so worrisome (it’s derived from a fermented Japanese food product) and might do a little good for you.

Maybe I am being overly cautious. Some other variants have arisen, threatened doom and then sputtered. I have taken the risk of getting you ready for a storm that doesn’t come after all. I hope this heads-up turns out to be unneeded. But just in case it’s needed, here it is.