Usk, YES it should raise the alert level ! 

But I am surprised this -once a- forum is still around ! 

[url]https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/12/21/xsub-d21.html[/url] or https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/12/21/xsub-d21.html ;

On Tuesday, the World Health Organization (WHO) classified the Omicron JN.1 strain of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, a “variant of interest” due to its rapid global spread. Although the WHO acknowledged that JN.1 (a descendent of the BA.2.86 variant nicknamed “Pirola”) is more immune-evasive and infectious than any other variants, they added the unsubstantiated claim that it does not appear to pose a greater risk to the population than the recent slew of variants that have spread globally.

Such statements should be taken with a large grain of salt and placed in their appropriate socio-political context. The decision of the WHO to end its public health emergency (PHE) declaration for COVID-19 last May precipitated the virtual scrapping of all pandemic surveillance systems in most countries, making it far more difficult for scientists and public health experts to determine the true severity of a given variant.

Based on the limited data available, it is clear that JN.1 is fueling substantial waves of infection throughout the world, with thousands of ongoing global excess deaths each day and untold masses newly suffering from Long COVID.

DJ, In this post "1984" world "politics" want to make you believe "pandemic is over"...(to fight crime/terror they may even "fight medical masks")..

So...in Dutch there is a saying "the shore has to stop the ship" (de wal moet het schip keren) -translation; things (pandemics, climate, economy) first need to get much worse...But even than that "political elite" -that did bring us into this mess wants to stay in power claiming they offer a way out...(in the interest of their sponsors; big pharma, war industry, banksters etc...). 

Besides that...KiwiMum is the moderator...maybe she can raise the pandemic alert level (to 6 !!! highest -I think CoViD is out of control resulting in increasing risks of lots of diseases getting out of control...a multi-disease pandemic !)

Still good question Usk !

Okay-thank you for that info...I do not know if raising the alert level -without underlying info- would make that much difference...

I get the impression the number of visitors taking a look at this site may be increasing ? (no doubt related to increase in disease...). 

No that's not a good sign. Can you post a link please Usk? Thanks

[url]https://edition.cnn.com/2022/12/22/china/china-covid-deaths-crematorium-intl-hnk-mic/index.html[/url] or https://edition.cnn.com/2022/12/22/china/china-covid-deaths-crematorium-intl-hnk-mic/index.html 

DJ-By putiing [url] in front of and [/url] at the end of a (copy0) link you can make a direct link. 

I looked at some Chinese sites to see if they had China-news on CoViD...not much ...

Global Times linked "corona" to a new solar observer...[url]https://news.cgtn.com/news/2024-01-05/China-s-aviation-takes-off-with-good-start-during-New-Year-s-period-1q7eyhxJoYg/p.html[/url] or https://news.cgtn.com/news/2024-01-05/China-s-aviation-takes-off-with-good-start-during-New-Year-s-period-1q7eyhxJoYg/p.html 

China will also intensify its efforts to bring international flights to pre-COVID-19-pandemic levels in 2024, with 6,000 flights per week by the end of this year, the civil aviation regulator said.

DJ both outlets are "propaganda tools" (just like VOA, cnn, bbc etc...

[url]https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/breaking-medical-news-newly-discovered-sand-fly-viruses-in-china-are-able-to-infect-animals-and-humans,-posing-health-risk[/url] or https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/breaking-medical-news-newly-discovered-sand-fly-viruses-in-china-are-able-to-infect-animals-and-humans,-posing-health-risk  other sources may inform more on China CoViD. 

-There is a propaganda/blame game war...US accusing China of "lab leak cover up" , political prisoners etc. China "better" in covering CoViD news from outside China...

Open and honest info with global public health should be top of the list (for ALL countries). 

[url]https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3247479/mask-shops-report-rise-sales-hong-kong-heads-winter-flu-season-and-covid-cases-climb?module=top_story&pgtype=homepage[/url] or https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3247479/mask-shops-report-rise-sales-hong-kong-heads-winter-flu-season-and-covid-cases-climb?module=top_story&pgtype=homepage ;...paywall...

DJ, free flow of information may be more at risk from paywalls than censorship....

and

DJ, So far the idea was;

-One variant of CoViD would become dominant

-One could calculate -more or less- time between dominant variant 50%+  and the "peak" of cases

However if JN.1 may be peaking mid january while JN.1.1. ALREADY is on the rise to become the dominant new form TOTAL cases (JN.1, JN.1.1 as example) could see a peak later on...with even more cases...

So shorter dominance, more variants getting dominant in the short term, could further increase risks...

On top of that a total lack of serious policy to deal with the ongoing pandemic only is making matters much worse...

I would love to see more constructive discussion/info on this site...(Your input on WHO disease "X" was very welcome. I had not heard of it...)

If Albert is the one who is basically "the boss" it would be welcome to see his ideas...also on raising the alertlevel...I think CoViD is moving in the wrong direction...

Usk, thank you for your thank you ;-) !

Again-my goal on this -once- a forum is only to make my mind up, try to get maybe a bit of realistic view...ask questions...

Corona-virusses are NOT new ! 

SARS-1 was in 2003, MERS showed up in 2012, SARS-2/CoViD-19 in 2019...So around every ten years we had a corona-virus bringing severe disease...

It did NOT start in 2003...we may have missed earlier CoViD/SARS-like outbreaks...? Or was it self-limiting enough not to get that big ? 

Is ME-CVS a form of Long CoViD where we missed the acute phase of infection ? Did see the acute phase as a "common cold" ? 

---------

Another point is crisis management; how do governments deal with (global) crises ? Well they by now deny them...Climate conferences in the UAE, this year in oil-rich Azerbaijan...

The WHO stated CoViD was no longer a Public Health EMERGENCY of international concern...PHE-IC...because CoViD was no longer "new" (emerging)...the WHO NEVER !!! claimed CoViD to be no longer a pandemic...

[url]https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/covid-19-news-in-switzerland-where-the-who-headquarters-is-located,-hospitalizations-have-surpassed-the-omicron-wave[/url] or https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/covid-19-news-in-switzerland-where-the-who-headquarters-is-located,-hospitalizations-have-surpassed-the-omicron-wave 

DJ-By now "denialism" is the biggest threat in this ongoing pandemic ! We could and should have stopped CoViD in january 2020...[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_lockdown_in_China[/url] or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_lockdown_in_China was a clear enough warning ! 

Marianne Koopmans-NL virologist/advisor to the WHO-claimed NL had no direct flights with Wuhan so "no risk"for NL...She is supposed to be one of the best virologists in the world !

(She works in Rotterdam where there are also gain-of-function studies...so she may not have been the right person for lab-leak investigations...DJ-I think lab-leak is part of anti-China propaganda-however it should be investigated...Wuhan has two bio-labs...among other working in 2019 for US institutions...A high risk (safety level 4 -highest protection) lab and a low risk (level 1) lab...Studies in a high risk lab are much more expensive than in a low risk lab...Capacity was also very limited...So could some high risk study -in some phase- have ended up in the low risk lab ???? Not that likely...However corruption is a global problem...certainly in these kinds of studies supervision may be problematic and a lot of money is involved...) 

[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Military_World_Games[/url] or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Military_World_Games ;

The 2019 Military World Games (Chinese: 2019年世界军人运动会; pinyin: nián shìjiè jūnrén yùndònghuì), officially known as the 7th CISM Military World Games, (Chinese: 第七届世界军人运动会; pinyin: dì qī jiè shìjiè jūnrén yùndònghuì) and commonly known as Wuhan 2019, was held from October 18–27, 2019 in Wuhan, Hubei, China.^[2][3]

DJ, for a more global spread the vet market story "is not very strong"....The october 2019 Wuhan military games may fit better in the picture...It may even have allowed for CoViD spread/introduction from outside China ! [url]https://www.coronaheadsup.com/science/origins/sars-cov-2-in-angola-from-23rd-september-2019/[/url] or https://www.coronaheadsup.com/science/origins/sars-cov-2-in-angola-from-23rd-september-2019/  Angola had 2 participants (and a team linked to it)  in october 2019 Wuhan games...

If CoViD-19 did NOT start in China but was already a problem september 2019 -only missed- a lot of authorities have things to hide...