Covid Is Back But Here's Why We Need Not Scare Ourselves Of The New Variant That's Ravaging China
Photo by Kate Trifo on Unsplash Cases in China are skyrocketing and although they have been doing so for months now, scaremongering in India has only begun recently. Let me not go into why that might be and instead stick to the virus and its shenanigans. Reports from China indicate BF.7 has the strongest infection ability out of the Omicron subvariants in the country, being quicker to transmit than other variants, having a shorter incubation period, and with greater capacity to infect people who have had a previous COVID infection, or been vaccinated, or both. To put this into context, BF.7 is believed to have an R0, or basic reproduction number, of 10 to 18.6. This means an infected person will transmit the virus to an average of 10 to 18.6 other people. Research has shown Omicron has an average R0 of 5.08. The high transmission rate of BF.7, taken with the risk of hidden spread due to the many asymptomatic carriers, is understood to be causing significant