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New Covid variant has been identified and is already spreading in 25 states
(www.the-independent.com)
this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2026
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Isn’t it just a bad cold at this point?
Generally the variants have been getting less severe but easier to transmit. This is fairly common as variants with those characteristics survive better. Forcing your host to remain at home in bed makes transmission harder, so those variants are more likely to die out.
This doesn't have to be the case, but it is the trend.
This is why I was wondering if it was as like the cold now. Apparently not.
Oh, are we doing this again?
One could say the same for the original for some people. While others died from it. It has reduced its effect overall as variants and spread have built immunity. The danger of 2020 was not having any immunity at all while it spread like wildfire. But the fact that it's still around and mutating makes it at influenza level at a minimum, the next variant could be nasty, and look at us, joking about how it's not a big deal now. Until it suddenly is again, and we have politics running our science.
Don't let the guard down; disease is a bad thing, even if it's just a cold.
I hear ya. Honestly, if it were just as bad as the original, we’d be fucked. Society learned all the wrong lessons from the first pandemic.
What I learned from Covis is that we definitely won't be solving or surviving the environmental collapse.
The scary thing is that we'll have no way of knowing if a variant as bad or worse than the original appears. Or something else presenting a similar danger. Who's gonna tell us, or even know? RFK and the HHS he leads? I wouldn't hold my breath on that one.
We’ll know from the hospitals filling up or from the WHO warning everybody. It’ll be too late.
europe, japan, canada, australia, korea, etc. maybe.
We're fucked regardless. The only mystery is how it happens, as all vectors come closer. It's almost like the threats to society are sperm, and society is a fertile egg. They're all fighting to be the first, and it's a pretty close race at the moment.
What are we supposed to do though. We can't stay bottled up forever. And they don't give us vaccines anymore (only 70+ and risk groups here). I'd take it if I could.
Tell them you smoke and are therefore in the high-risk category.
No. The risk of long-term disability remains substantial.
Damn. You don’t hear about that stuff as much. I wonder how many people are affected by it and just don’t realize it.
You know how it seems like people got dumber?
Nah, that’s just TikTok. Jk
Around 10% of people get Long Covid after the first infection, chances go up with follow-up infections. Long Covid has a long list of possible symptoms (a friend of a friend had a really bad cough for three months and was always exhausted) with the more severe symptoms being rarer but still fucking scary (like ME/CFS).
If you never got tested for Covid, can you know if you have long covid?
Not sure. Afaik the symptoms can happen after any viral infection, it's just more frequent with Covid.
You don't hear that COVID was the #5 killer in 2025.
Literally no. But I also don’t check those stats. That’s crazy.
My uncle was one of those "it's just a cold" people, and now he's mostly disabled from long covid. Severe breathing problems and barely survived heart surgery last year. Before covid he was an active middle aged guy, working on a ranch and regularly going out hunting and fishing.
I knew it was bad originally, I just haven’t heard anybody I talk with having experiences with it in a long time. That’s why I assumed it wasn’t harmful anymore.
What kind of long term disabilities?
Diana Cowern of the Physics Girl YouTube channel is a great example of the impacts of long COVID - she was bedridden for 3 years, and still cannot function normally today. There are a handful of videos on the channel from throughout her struggle if you want to understand better.
Pulmonary complications. you’d have to walk around with those oxygen tanks if you want to do a brisk walk.
It's similar to chronic fatigue syndrome, caused by other viruses.
A couple of friends of mine got it recently as in a couple months ago and are still fucked up from it so its quite a bit worse than that depending on the person. I on the other hand can get away with a few weeks of recovery time from it.
The experience varies every case between the person, the vaccines, the variant, underlying issues, etc. Two holidays in a row, my family got it. In Jan 2021, our first experience and before any of us had vaccines, whatever we got knocked me out for 7 days but gave my dad a cold for 3 days. Jan 2022, round 2 but after a mix of vaccines, I got a tickle in my throat for a few days but it knocked my dad on his ass for a week.
What was last holiday season's variant, razor throat? There's multiple variables. We may be improving our immune responses over time as a whole, but logically, the reason we're hearing about variants spreading fast is because they've varied into something more successful. That includes, typically, something that improves its rate of spread. Don't rule out spread caused by trying to care for the immensely sick.
Fair question, but I have seen a chest CT of a bad covid case and the lungs looked like a snowstorm.
More like pneumonia.
I love that you're already tagged with "idiot" lmao
Lol. We got tags here? Calling someone an idiot who just doesn’t know things is a great way to heal society.
Probably depends on the client. I have tags using the Thunder app.
They were tagged from before this, obviously.
either way. Number one rule here is “be civil”.