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On Nov. 26, 2021, the World Health Organization announced that a concerning new variant of the coronavirus, known as Omicron, had been discovered in southern Africa. It soon swept to dominance across the world, causing a record-breaking surge in cases. Now, a year later, Omicron still has biologists scrambling to keep up with its surprising evolutionary turns. The variant is rapidly gaining mutations. But rather than a single lineage, it has exploded into hundreds, each with resistance to our immune defenses and its own alphanumeric name, like XBB, BQ.1.1 and CH.1. (Zimmer, 11/26)

A year after omicron began its assault on humanity, the ever-morphing coronavirus mutant drove COVID-19 case counts higher in many places just as Americans gathered for Thanksgiving. It was a prelude to a wave that experts expect to soon wash over the U.S. Phoenix-area emergency physician Dr. Nicholas Vasquez said his hospital admitted a growing number of chronically ill people and nursing home residents with severe COVID-19 this month. “It’s been quite a while since we needed to have COVID wards,” he said. “It’s making a clear comeback.” (Ungar, 11/25)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed Friday it is now tracking a new COVID-19 variant of concern around the U.S. known as XBB, which has grown to make up an estimated 3.1% of new infections nationwide. (Tin, 11/25)

An estimated 94% of people in the U.S. have been infected with the COVID-19 virus at least once, according to according to a new paper from researchers at Harvard’s School of Public Health. The big reason for the surprising surge? The omicron variant’s record-shattering case rates early this year and middling booster rates that fell short of what experts had hoped to see. (Blair Rowan, 11/26)

A mild runny nose, headache or sore throat could now precede a positive test result with one of the many offshoots of omicron. Other indicators commonly reported during earlier phases of the pandemic, such as loss of taste and smell, have dropped down the list. (Vaziri, 11/26)

Covid-19 put life on hold for Dub Crochet. The Bellaire, Tex., man had contracted a bad case of the coronavirus in August 2021 before being confined to a hospital for months — keeping him from enjoying milestones and holidays. He missed the birth of his new grandson. He wasn’t home to host Thanksgiving dinner last year. Nor was he out of the hospital in time to celebrate his 70th birthday. (Salcedo, 11/26)

For the burgeoning population of covid long-haulers, there is an abundance of new treatment options: Specially formulated nutraceuticals imported from India that promise to “get you life back from covid.” Pure oxygen delivered in a pressurized chamber. And, if time and money are no obstacle, a process known as “blood washing” that’s available in Cyprus, or $25,000 stem cell treatments in the Cayman Islands. (Sellers, 11/25)

A South African laboratory study using Covid-19 samples from an immunosupressed individual over six months showed that the virus evolved to become more pathogenic, indicating that a new variant could cause worse illness than the current predominant omicron strain. (Sguazzin, 11/26)