JC

The covid fear game has entered an exciting new round. Earlier this week, the Daily Mail UK ran an alarming story headlined, “Is ‘Orthrus’ in YOUR Area? Time-Lapse Maps Show New Covid Variant’s Rapid Spread Through England With Strain Now Behind One in Five Cases – Amid Fears ‘Kraken’ Could Spark Virus Resurgence.”

It’s not a ‘real’ covid story unless you can work the word “worry” or “fear” into the headline somehow. Check.

Journalists, impatient with the boring, dry, and unimaginative scientific names for covid variants, have decided to take matters into their own sticky fingers and come up with their own terrifying variant nicknames. First it was The Kraken. Now they’ve named a new variant circulating in England, CH.1.1, after ANOTHER mythological monster from Greek legend, a two-headed dog called Orthrus. In Greek mythology, the virulent mutant canine was Cerberus’ brother.

They must be saving Cerberus for a better variant. Before I get to the next part — the Daily Mail’s most creative innovation, we must note the usual disclaimer, where late in the article, the Mail concedes that neither the Kraken nor Orthus are really anything new:

Neither Covid variant has been escalated to being declared a ‘variant of concern’ by the UKHSA. This suggests there are no signs they cause more severe disease than other, similarly mild Omicron strains, nor are sufficiently genetically divergent as to cause Covid vaccines to be less effective.
Haha, that last bit reassuring people about the jabs is a hilarious self-own. Think about it. In an article fear-mongering scary new covid variants named after mythological monsters, two years into the jab campaign, they STILL have to throw in a gag line about how well the vaccines work. Whereas the whole point of the article is that the vaccines DON’T work, because you’re supposed to be making some time in your busy day to worry about all the monstrous new variants they’re yammering about.

To this point the article appeared like a cookie-cutter kid’s game called name the next variant. But I guess they realized that, after a while, people are going to wander aimlessly in their growing pantheon of historical demons. Let’s imagine how this plays out:

SALLY: How are you Bertie? Staying safe?

BERTHA: You betcha. You can’t be too careful with the Cyclops going around.

SALLY: Cyclops? I think you’re behind, dear. The latest one is the Minotaur.

BERTHA: No, no, the Minotaur was just before the Bridge Troll. Then came Ogre, and now we’re on Cyclops.

SALLY: But wait, I thought Ogre came AFTER Hill Giant?

BERTHA: My dear, you are hopelessly confused. You need to order a CDC variant organizer. You can get it on Prime. I’ll text you a link.

PS: The C&C Shop is proud to announce our new Covid Playing Cards! Every card face features a full-color, original illustration of each variant’s namesake, for your amusement and education! Play solitaire a few times with these babies and you’ll have it all down pat. If you live that long.

See? All these confusing monster names are no bueno. The Daily Mail gets it, too, so they’ve creatively added a unique innovation: discussing the individual genetic characteristics of the new variants. For example:

Orthrus has a mutation called P681R — which was also on the Delta variant — and is thought to make it better attack cells and cause more severe illness. Scientists have also spotted it has R346T, which is thought to help the strain fight-off antibodies that were generated in response to vaccination or previous infection.
And Kraken has one called F486P, which helps it to bypass Covid-fighting antibodies. Another mutation — S486P — is thought to improve its ability to bind to human cells.
But in the very same article, they JUST said the strains don’t make the vaccines less effective. So which is it?

That CDC organizer is going to be critical for Daily Mail readers to keep up with all the new variants and their individual genes. It’ll be like fun, Pokemon! Orthrus has the P681R gene, which defeats Kraken’s F486P mutation, and so on, down the line. Play with your friends, win collectable cards, and try to keep up with all the new variants!

Seriously, though, can you imagine if they’d done this with influenza every year? This is a hypochondriac’s fantasy.

Anyway, notice that both Kraken and Orthrus are (1) more infectious and (2) vaccine evasive. Which is exactly what Geert Vanden Bossche predicted two years ago would happen, if you tried a mass vaccination campaign in the midst of an ongoing pandemic.