Author has the thing post

Plus, thoughts and predictions for Covid Classic.

I seem to have The Thing That Is Going Around. I haven’t got tested. But the first night featured eight hours of pain in the front of my skull, and the sense of a battle taking place at the back of my throat and my nasal cavity.

Measured against my prior experience, I would call this more of a “slow flu” than a cold. Which is quite annoying, since I attempted to circumvent a longer course by babying myself for the entire day. Not that there was much choice in the matter. After the head pain went away, the primary symptom was what I would call “Depression Simulator.” I had the energy to get out of bed, and even to exercise a bit; but sitting in a chair was impossible. As soon as I did so, I went back to bed. Eventually the physical torment of endless hours in bed was the worst part.

And then, this morning, it was suddenly a strain to stand. I even collapsed twice due to insufficient blood pressure. Ah, this is “being sick.” At length I managed a walk on the beach.

Experiencing (presumed) Omicron for myself solidifies what has been observed and suggested about the variant: It behaves more like a “normal” coronavirus, having dropped the requirement for TMPRSS2 that gave the prior versions of SARS-CoV-2 an affinity for deeper respiratory tissue, and for adults (who express the enzyme more) over children.¹

Prior versions, up to Delta, could still be suppressed by innate immunity, even among adults. The same TMPRSS2 requirement that gave the virus a head-start on the lungs also slowed down early replication. From there, everything was decided by how quickly mucosal immunity set off the appropriate alarm bells. Hence the ubiquity of asymptomatic encounter leading to suppression, as affirmed by seroconversion (appearance of antibodies), or the kinetics of T Cells against other coronaviruses.

Omicron demonstrates that antibodies still have their place, for adult immunity. The anti-coronavirus antibodies developed in childhood ensure we continue to experience coronavirus challenges as “a cold.”

The smell/taste thing

I haven’t lost mine yet. But an obvious thought has occurred to me as a result of the journey so far: Children have terrible senses of smell and taste. Emerging from childhood, it often takes years to build out the full repertoire of adult tastes. Isn’t it possible that the deficiency of these senses during childhood is an after-effect of coronavirus infections? If so, once again we are ascribing to SARS-CoV-2 magic powers that are common features of the less well-studied coronavirus toolkit.

Predictions for “Covid Classic”

Will Omicron truly banish Delta from the Earth? I am skeptical. Certainly they seem to occupy a shared “bandwidth,” just as the original virus seemed to possibly be competing with other coronaviruses, but Omicron’s current dominance in this bandwidth is partially driven by its novelty. It is the nature of seasonality that the disappearance of respiratory viruses is an illusion.

Once the Omicron wave subsides in most regions, I see no reason for Delta not to reemerge, reviving the question of whether the Covid vaccines will drive excess spread and the hazard of more overblown media/political reactions.

1. See

Omicron's generally less harmful mechanisms emerge