RT @DrEricDing@twitter.com
📝Recap why #XBB15 (storming 🇺🇸&🇬🇧) is a super variant:
📍among most immunity-evasive ‘escape variants’ to date
📍one of the best variants for invading human cells via ACE2.
📍Spreads much faster than old XBB or BQ
📍Causes ⬆️hospitalizations wherever dominant (NY CT MA NJ)🧵
🐦🔗: https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1609320112582021120
@fitterhappierAJ It's premature to claim that XBB.1.5 is driving the increase of cases. I agree that it's the worst we've seen yet, but we've been seeing a gradual increase of immune escape over the past 6 months, and we've expected an increase of cases during the winter regardless of the details of the variants. Ding is an alarmist.
@jaydo @fitterhappierAJ I (and many experts) already expected this winter's wave to be the worst since the first Omicron wave. The states with a lot of XBB.1.5 aren't suddenly doing drastically worse than the rest of the country -- MA and NY had a lot of disease even before XBB.1.5 showed up
@fitterhappierAJ @DecaturNature XBB is suddenly at 40% of COVID cases in the US. Maybe a wave of some sort would have happened but XBB seems bad, like it will be a big wave, not omicron but 2nd biggest ever possibly