‘JN. 1 in Victoria is expected to contribute to prolonged high levels of Covid-19 activity through December and January’

Victoria’s chief health officer has warned new Covid strain JN. 1 is now dominant in the state and advised people to protect themselves by masking-up, as hospitalisations and deaths rise.

Covid hospitalisations in Victoria have soared in the past week, as the number of people dying from the disease also rose.

It comes as it’s revealed the worrying Covid mutation JN. 1 — declared a World Health Organisation variant of interest — is now the most prevalent single subvariant in Victorian wastewater.

Covid data released by the Victorian health department on Friday reveals an average of 306 people were hospitalised each day in the last week — up from 266 the week before — and 183 people died from the virus between November 8 and December 5.

The department warned: “Current indicators show high levels of Covid-19 activity in Victoria. The emergence of JN. 1 in Victoria is expected to contribute to prolonged high levels of Covid-19 activity through December and January”.

A horror 306 Victorians were hospitalised with Covid each day in the last week, and some have died. Picture: David Caird

Testing showed high SARS-CoV-2 loads in both metropolitan and regional wastewater, it said.

“Higher levels of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater suggest higher prevalence of Covid-19 infections in the community,” the surveillance report notes.

“Following rapid growth in recent weeks, JN. 1 (a sublineage of BA. 2.86) is now the most prevalent single subvariant in Victorian wastewater samples and is being closely monitored. A mix of Omicron recombinant sublineages continue to make up the majority of variant share in Victoria.”

The World Health Organisation has classified JN. 1, which experts say can evade the immune system and transmit more easily than other strains, as a “variant of interest”.

Current vaccines would continue to protect against severe disease and death from JN. 1 and other circulating variants of the Covid-19 virus, the WHO said.

Victorian chief health officer Dr Clare Looker in a tweet said “Victoria is seeing increased levels of Covid-19 in the state, driven by the dominance of a new Omicron subvariant JN. 1”.

“Don’t let Covid spoil Christmas,” she said, adding people could take “key actions" to keep themselves and their loved ones safe, the first of which was wearing a mask.

They should also get a booster if able, test if feeling unwell, stay home while they have Covid symptoms and meet outdoors when and where possible, she said.

Vic’s brutal Covid wave by numbers

• Week to Dec 22: 306 hospitalised, 183 deaths

• Week to Dec 15: 266 hospitalised, 178 deaths

• Week to Dec 8: 274 hospitalised, 166 deaths

• Week to Dec 1: 326 hospitalised, 144 deaths

• Week to Nov 24: 325 hospitalised, 145 deaths

• Week to Nov 17: 317 a day hospitalised, 126 deaths

• Week to Nov 10: 321 a day hospitalised, 122 deaths

• Week to Nov 3: 270 hospitalised, 109 deaths.

• Week to 27 October: 233 hospitalised, 96 deaths

• Week to 20 October: 179 hospitalised, 86 deaths

*Hospitalisations recorded by average number a day, deaths recorded over the Department of Health’s most recent 28-day reporting period

How Covid “ripped apart” Alicia’s life

A mother has told of how long Covid destroyed her life, and that of her family.

In a video shared by the Victorian Department of Health late this week, Alicia said she contracted Covid in May 2022 “and never recovered”.

Alicia has shared her devastating long Covid story. Source: Twitter

Long Covid has affected every part of her body. Source: Twitter

“Long Covid is something you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy,” she said.

“For close to a year now I’ve felt extremely fatigued and in so much pain, like someone’s standing on my chest all the time. My thinking isn’t clear. I forget things.

“I’m on two different kinds of heart medication now — I don’t know if that’s permanent. I feel like sometimes there’s bugs crawling around under my skin. Every single part of me has been affected.

“Looking back we had a wonderful life, an extremely busy, social life. We never stopped.

“My relationship with my kids is completely different because I hardly spend time with them anymore.

“My relationship with my husband has become more of a carer and a patient rather than husband and wife. I haven’t been able to be there for them for close to a year. Now I’m lucky if I am awake in the mornings to see them off to school.

“It’s literally ripped our lives apart.

“Anyone can get long Covid and the best way to not get long Covid is to not get Covid in the first place.”

Alicia said when she failed to recover from her Covid case in a reasonable time frame, she started to list her symptoms to discuss with a doctor, because she was afraid she would not remember them all.

“When I got to 100 symptoms I thought, I’m going to stop counting now,” Alicia said.

The Department of Health said while most people recovered from Covid, some continued to experience symptoms for months afterwards.

Alicia says she can no longer care properly for her children. Source: Twitter

Many days she cannot get of bed to take the kids to school. Source: Twitter

La Trobe University disease expert Dr Sarah Annesley recently told the Herald Sun repeat Covid infections, or one very bad infection, increased the risk of developing debilitating long Covid, which she described as “a brain fog, like having a hangover, the flu and jet lag all at once”.

New data published by the Victorian Agency for Health Information had revealed a “high” 14 per cent of people in the state who had suffered a Covid infection had gone to develop the illness, she said

While the likelihood of developing the disease was greater for people who had been very sick with Covid initially, “there is still like a large amount of people that have had a mild infection and are developing long Covid”, Dr Annesley, who is studying the illness, said.

It was being diagnosed in many younger and middle-aged Victorians, about three months after their initial Covid infection — with symptoms for some similar to the quality of life destroying chronic fatigue syndrome, she said.

There was a high incidence of long Covid “in the middle-aged population, people who are working”, Dr Annesley said.

“So there are big impacts there, if they don’t recover, or take a long time to recover … some people will have this now forever. That’s like decades of having an illness. It’s really something you don’t want to get,” she said.