There is no end in sight.
My mom has kept a pre packed hospital bag ready since Omicron Ba.1 hit her hard in January 2022. We only used it once after the next wave, BQ.1, in January 2023. That one sent her to the ER with heart issues, partial coronary artery blockage, asthma, and what seems like dysautonomia.
My mom has been off ever since.
Some days she pushes through. Others she is hit with dizziness, chest pain, arrhythmias, dangerously low blood pressure, crushing fatigue, and that heavy sense of anxious impending doom.
Tonight, she looked so unwell I wondered if I would need to take her to the ER again.
She reminded me again where she kept that pre packed hospital bag incase I was to bring it to her at the hospital if she were to call 911.
This new RE.2.5 variant crept through our area the first and second week of May.
I am absolutely sure of it.
It hides from the wastewater like something underground and surfaces without warning in random localized hotspots, just like cicadas, before vanishing again.
It found the kids first in suburbias and then tore through the families.
I see the same stories everywhere on social media and in my local groups. Locals in the suburbs describing the sudden wave of symptoms. Especially GI and “strep.” Lots of pneumonia and sepsis. An immune system that tanks like AIDS and getting sick on repeat with an endless cough. Full body rashes. Pink eye. Heavy brain fog. Anxiety/impending doom like feelings. Dizziness. Burning dry eyes. Blood pressure issues, chest pain and dysautonomia like symptoms.
Oh and the denial factor, the ABC Anything But Covid factor, is absolutely wicked with this variant.
So much so, that you might even be tricked yourselves when you hear their tales of how this was anything but Covid.
It is the same dark cycle again and again. Another wave. Another fight. Another round of watching the people you love suffer while the world pretends it is over.
We are so tired.
I see you Cicada, RE.2.5 even if the world does not. 🦗 👀
In 2026 sickness had learned to hide in plain sight. Covid and the mystery strains that followed had quietly thinned out our immune systems until the old rules no longer applied. No more crashing fevers,no dramatic collapses, just these faint odd sudden physical sensations that slipped through the day while everyone insisted nothing was wrong.
The house felt perfectly normal that morning. Sunlight pours through the windows while I sipped coffee. My husband hums in the kitchen scrolling on his phone. Our 5 y/o son giggles at something on his tablet. Everything is fine. Ordinary.
Then out of nowhere my son sniffles once. A quick, casual sniff.
“You okay, sweetie?” I ask. He blinks at me confused. “Yeah why?”
No runny nose, no cough…nothing. He goes back to his show.
By afternoon, my ears feel underwater with a faint pressure that throws my balance off with every step. Watery gunk forms at the corners of my eyes. I wipe it away and lie down for what I tell myself is just a quick rest. The exhaustion hits like a wave I did not see coming.
When I wake my husband is in the hallway. He coughs once sharp and wet and clears his throat several times.
“You feeling ok?” He shrugs already walking away. “I’m good. Probably pollen.”
We visit my mother across town. She greets us with her usual smile, but midway through conversation her face changes. “I think I have developed type 2 diabetes. I keep dropping low,” she says quietly. “Blood sugar crashing for no reason. Yesterday I spaced out so badly I lost track of where I was for hours. Like the whole day had spun into another dimension. I had two separate realities going on at once.”
She laughs it off a second later. “But I feel fine. Really...”
Chills brush down her arms. She shivers then fans herself. Dizzy she says, but only in passing. When I press for more information she waves me away.
“I’m not sick. None of us are. Stop worrying.”
I look around the room at all their calm faces and then at my own reflection in the window.
Everyone is moving through the day like nothing is wrong yet something inside of us is changing us.
The world keeps spinning exactly as it should and that is what makes it so eerie. We are all carrying it. Nobody admits a thing or even realizes they have it.
And in this perfect unbroken silence we have already lost the war against Covid and other emerging diseases without ever firing a single shot.