A scary new “Covid” variant? What year is this?

There’s a new Covid variant “surging through” Asia, according to this headline. It has already spread to the US and Europe as well, according to this article.

I’m guessing the word “surging” was in the circulated memo, because it appears in almost every article about this.

All of which makes me ask…

This might seem like a non sequitur, but I’m going somewhere.

Did you know that Disney’s cynical monetization of nostalgia has seen them so aggressively work through their back catalogue of animated classics they are now releasing a live action remake of Moana, a film that’s less than ten years old, and which had an animated sequel released only last year?

Have you tried following the MCU lately? What was once a massive project of coordinated story telling, a broad church working on a shared agenda to a singular end point, has now collapsed into a shapeless, pointless exercise in repetitive re-invention, insincere self-mockery and hopelessly clumsy political messaging.

Are you seeing what I’m saying here?

For a moment, let’s consider “the news” as just another media content mill, just one more catalogue of potentially diverting slop to get eyes on advertising space, and you can see the same process happening.

It’s a narrative factory grown bloated on its monopoly, churning out mass produced content at an increasingly frantic pace to keep hold of public attention, and abandoning any idea of coherence or even basic common sense in the process.

We’re back to Covid, because they just need to talk about something that people will engage with, because the media landscape shifts at such a pace they run out of stories to tell, and have to keep remaking the classics.

That’s probably a more interesting phenomenon than the actual details of the “story”, which are old enough to be passé without yet aging into vintage chic or even ironically retro.

Nevertheless, we should at least briefly go over them.

The “new variant” is officially labelled NB.1.8.1 and its symptoms are apparently “generally similar to most viral infections.” What a shock.

They’re trying to single it out by rebranding “sore throat” as “razor blade throat” on social media, I guess we’ll see how that works.

There are experts a calling to increase testing too.

…blah blah blah.

We know how this goes. Sing along with the chorus.

The new wrinkle here is we have the “anti-establishment” guys are in the White House now, and they’ve timed the new variant up with RFK jr’s HHS removing the vaccine recommendation for children and pregnant women.

At the same time, the FDA is announcing plans to limit the Covid “vaccine” recommendation to over-65s and start up new clinical trials.

This way any “case spike” – sorry, “surge” – they want to manufacture can be blamed on “anti-vaxxers” and the “premature slackening of measures”, or something along those lines.

You can see that prep work in this article, for example [emphasis added]:

Despite the latest variant displaying high transmissibility, the Trump administration is planning to limit booster vaccine access to some groups.

Last week, the Food and Drug Administration said it will continue approving COVID-19 vaccine updates for seniors and those with an underlying medical condition, including pregnancy or diabetes, but will require vaccine makers to conduct major new clinical trials before approving them for wider use. The decision means many Americans without underlying conditions may not have access to updated shots this fall.

Verma said these restrictions could have several significant public health impacts.

“Although over 100 million Americans are still expected to qualify under these criteria, the administration’s decision introduces new barriers for the broader population,” he said. “One immediate concern is that the FDA’s requirement for updated clinical trials could delay access to boosters for lower-risk groups, discouraging some individuals from seeking vaccination. The new policy may also create confusion and reduce vaccination rates if people are uncertain about their eligibility or worried about insurance coverage, particularly with high-cost manufacturers planning to charge.”

At the same time, the “careless and dangerous” removal of the vaccine recommendation will work better than a vaccine mandate could possibly have done, and send millions of over-boosted “liberals” off to get their latest shot, to spite Bobby Kennedy if nothing else.

See, as with everything it’s about balancing the scales. There’s no single narrative anymore, instead the machinery focuses on equally distributing hopium and rage-bait to each side on every issue.

Team A gets their too-little-too-late retraction of ridiculous “vaccine” recommendations as a token gesture, just as Team B gets an update telling them how scary Covid is. Again.

The terminally online will share masked selfies to virtual signal to their armies of AI-bot applause machines. Again.

The vaccine manufacturers get a little adrenaline shot to spike their flatlining share prices. Again.

…it feels so odd to be writing about “Covid”. Again.