So, There's This New Strain Of COVID

The new strain is about a gazilllion times more contagious than the old one, according to Boris Johnson. Actually, he didn't say gazillion. He said maybe 70%, but I don't think anyone asked him how contagious the old strain was, and nobody knows that anyhow, so gazillion is probably a more accurate indicator than 70%. The UK health toff says it's been out of control since September, and Boris put the south on Tier 4 lockdown (which is UK speak for "double secret" in the US), and you can see from the graph above how useful that's been.

Except, also according to Boris, nobdy gets any sicker from the new strain than the old one. So the lockdowns are ineffective -- and if you think about it, if the new strain is even more contagious than the old one, the germs must be traveling in the breeze or over the internet or something, so if masks and social distancing weren't much help with release 1.0, how much help are they with 2.0? But the vaccine still works with 2.0, and nobody gets any sicker.

And now we have reprts that it's in Colorado and even in San Diego.

San Diego County officials said tests showed a 30-year-old resident contracted the strain in California’s first confirmed case of the variant, one day after the sequence was discovered on American soil for the first time in Colorado. The Southern California man had not traveled recently, officials said — a sign that despite efforts to contain the mutation in Europe, it may already be spreading locally.

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the news during a virtual meeting with Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

The bigger news here is that Newsom is meeting with Dr Fauci, which says he's getting nervous about the recall petition. Even if nobody asks him directly why the lockdowns haven't even flattened the curve, that's going to be at the back of everyone's mind -- and if your team isn't doing well, eventually you fire the coach.

Newsom needs Fauci to put his prestige behind the strategy that simply isn't working, and saying there's a new, even more contagious strain isn't going to help. What are we supposed to do? Maintain 12 feet social distance instead of six? Wear two layers of masks instead of one? Put up plexiglass barriers in the kitchen? Sanitize the TV remote after each use?

Has anyone thought this through?