Category: COVID-19

bookmark_borderThe COVID-19 Diary: Tuesday 15 March

Posted on by greg

The New York Times is reporting an increase in COVID cases in Asia and Europe. They attribute the increase in Europe to an even more contagious version of Omicron, known as BA.2.

Let’s get this straight. SARS-CoV-2 is the virus, Omicron (B.1.1.529) is a variant of the virus, and BA.2 is a version of the variant of the virus. Or to cite Wikipedia:

Researchers have established the existence of three sublineages of Omicron. The ‘standard’ sublineage is now referred to as BA.1 (or B.1.1.529.1), and the two other sublineages are known as BA.2 (or B.1.1.529.2) and BA.3 (or B.1.1.529.3). They share many mutations, but also significantly differ. In general, BA.1 and BA.2 share 32 mutations, but differ by 28. This makes them as different as some other major variants, and it has been suggested that BA.2 should receive its own name based on the Greek alphabet. BA.1 has itself been divided in two, the original BA.1 and BA.1.1, where the main difference is that the latter has a R346K mutation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SARS-CoV-2_Omicron_variant#Sublineages_and_BA.2_subvariant

Just tell me when I need to get another shot.

Stay healthy and safe.

Song of the Day

The entire Song of the Day playlist is available on YouTube.

bookmark_borderThe COVID-19 Diary: Friday 11 March

Posted on by greg

I had my first conversation at work today about my employer’s decision to no longer do business in Russia. It’s going to be complex, time consuming, and costly to implement. It means other work is going to have to be postponed. It probably means that some of the people that work for us in Russia will lose their jobs because many of them work with foreign based clients that are also leaving. It’s fair to say that this is happening at every company that’s made the same decision.

It’s a lousy situation, but it’s not as bad as what’s happening to people in Ukraine, and it’s the right thing to do.

Stay healthy and safe.

Song of the Day

The entire Song of the Day playlist is available on YouTube.