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Will Kraken Make People Finally Take COVID Seriously?
Maybe the public health folks finally realized that you need to give things a name people will have an appropriate visceral response to. They’re calling the COVID XBB.1.5 variant “Kraken.”
The Kraken is a terrifying mythical monster that would drag sailors to their watery graves.
That’s a pretty good metaphor for how COVID ravages the body: You hit some rough waters, perhaps from a passing storm, and it’s awful, but then the sky clears and it’s smooth sailing. You think you’re safe. Then, out of nowhere, the tentacles start to rise above the ship.
A tentacle or two might grab some unfortunate (or lucky?) sailor and kill them straight away (sudden deaths, also called excess deaths, from cardiac arrest, stroke, etc. months or years after acute COVID infection) so at least they don’t suffer so very long.
The rest of the crew, however, is in a state of mortal terror, awaiting their inevitable death by drowning or being eaten alive by a deep sea horror they never believed was real until it’s actually happening (the organ damage and other severe medical trauma of Long COVID that will kill people far younger than they would have otherwise died).
Maybe some of the crew manages to escape by lifeboat while the Kraken is distracted by chowing down on their…
