A new mutant strain of COVID-19 that has been dubbed “501.V2” has gotten completely out of control in South Africa, and authorities are telling us that it is an even bigger threat than the “Super COVID” that has been causing so much panic in the United Kingdom.

Of course viruses mutate all the time, and so it isn’t a surprise that COVID-19 has been mutating.  But mutations can become a major issue when they fundamentally alter the way that a virus affects humans, and we are being told that “501.V2” is much more transmissible than previous versions of COVID and that even young people are catching it a lot more easily.  That is potentially a huge concern, because up until now young people have not been hit very hard by the COVID pandemic.

The British press is using the word “scary” to describe this new variant, and at this point it has become the overwhelmingly dominant strain in South Africa…

The new mutant, called 501.V2, was announced in Cape Town last Friday and is believed to be a more extreme variant than Britain’s new Covid strain which has plunged millions into miserable Christmas lockdowns.

Cases in South Africa have soared from fewer than 3,000 a day at the start of December to more than 9,500 per day, with the mutant accounting for up to 90 percent of those new infections.

If this same pattern happens elsewhere as this new mutant strain travels around the globe, then “501.V2” could eventually almost entirely replace all of the older versions of COVID.

Authorities are optimistically telling us that the recent vaccines that have been developed will “likely” work against this new variant, but the truth is that they will not know until testing is done.

And if the vaccines don’t work against “501.V2”, we could be back to square one very rapidly.

For now, countries all over the globe are banning flights from South Africa in a desperate attempt to isolate this new version.  The UK, Germany, Switzerland, Turkey and Israel are among the nations that have banned those flights, but so far the United States is not on that list.

So people that are potentially carrying this new version of COVID continue to enter the U.S. on a daily basis.

For the United Kingdom, this flight ban may have come too late because two cases of “501.V2” have already been identified on British soil…

Two cases of a new, “more transmissible” COVID-19 variant linked to South Africa have been identified in the UK, the health secretary has said.

Both cases are contacts of people who travelled from South Africa over the last few weeks, Matt Hancock said at a Downing Street news conference.

If the new vaccines are effective against “501.V2”, authorities believe that they already have the long-term answer to this new variant.

But if those vaccines don’t work, this pandemic could be entering a far more deadly new phase.

And of course we are hearing about more problems with these new vaccines on a daily basis.  Thousands of adverse reactions have already been reported to the CDC, and more reports continue to pour in as more people get the shots.  Here is one example from New York City…

A health care worker in New York City had a serious adverse reaction to a coronavirus vaccine, officials said on Wednesday.

New York City Health Commissioner David Chokshi said during a news conference that the unidentified worker experienced a “significant allergic reaction” to the vaccine. He added that the worker was treated for the reaction, and is in stable condition and recovering.

We should not be surprised that there are major issues with experimental mRNA vaccines that are based on entirely new technology that were rushed into production without proper testing.

And of course there are tens of millions of Americans that will never take any mRNA vaccine that literally “hijacks your cells” under any circumstances.

On the other hand, most of the U.S. population seems to think that these new vaccines will bring this pandemic to an end, but if they don’t work against new mutant versions of the virus that won’t be true at all.

It is so important to take a balanced view of these things.

Unfortunately, when it comes to COVID most people fall into two camps.

The first camp is totally freaked out because they think that COVID is about the worst thing that could ever happen to the United States and they tend to favor extremely draconian measures to prevent the spread of the virus.

But the truth is that the COVID pandemic pales in comparison to other great pandemics throughout human history.  The Black Plague and the Spanish Flu Pandemic each killed at least 50 million people.  As for the COVID pandemic, the global death toll has not reached the 2 million mark even if the official numbers are accurate.  If a pandemic of this nature is freaking people out so much, what is going to happen when a truly killer plague is unleashed in our society?

The second camp either thinks that the pandemic is greatly exaggerated or that the virus doesn’t even exist at all.  Even though hordes of people are catching the virus all around us, many out there continue to deny the reality of this crisis.

I simply do not understand that.  So many people that I know around the country have gotten the virus, and that includes quite a few big names.  For example, the following is an excerpt from an article in which Daisy Luther shares what her experience with COVID was like…

Days 3-5: Over the next three days, chills and fever were almost constant. My joints and muscles hurt. Getting up to go to the bathroom felt like an expedition up a mountain.  I was tired and winded. I had very little appetite and even less of an inclination to cook food so I existed mostly on peanut butter and crackers and leftover soup. I was absolutely exhausted and so cold that I shivered violently when I got out from under my bed piled high with blankets. I had super-weird dreams. My cough worsened, my head hurt, and my throat was still mildly sore.

I drank lots of water and electrolyte beverages. My thirst remained unquenchable regardless of how much I drank. I took vitamins (C, D3) and took Zinc supplements. These are my regular supplements but I doubled that.

Days 6-9: The line to get a test at the local clinic was long and filled with people who were coughing up a lung. There was no way I’d be able to stand in that line for an hour, as sick as I felt. Besides, I figured if I didn’t have Covid, I’d get it standing in the line so I opted not to be tested.

This part made me think of the worst case of the flu I ever had, except intensified by about four times. It was terrible.

I usually let a fever run its course but by Saturday I felt so awful that I gave in and began treating symptoms. My normal temp is in the 96s and my temperature throughout these days stayed between 101-103. I staggered ibuprofen and acetaminophen, and I also used a mild muscle relaxant and my Ventilyn inhaler. The meds didn’t get rid of my fever but reduced the chills to a tolerable level. I slept almost around the clock, waking up for a couple of hours here and there to check on website stuff. Fortunately, I have a wonderful team who kept things running for us. One day blurred into the next and I considered going to the doctor again, but couldn’t muster the energy. I felt like if I just got a little more sleep I’d be okay.

My cough was getting far worse and now my ribs and abdominal muscles hurt. It was a deep painful cough that caused me to clutch my chest every single time inhaled deeply.

So to summarize, yes the COVID pandemic is real, but it is not the end of the world.

More people are going to get sick, and some will suffer intensely, but the vast majority of those that get the virus will survive.

If you want to wear a mask, then wear a mask.

If you don’t want to wear a mask, then don’t wear a mask.

We should be free to make our own choices, and we should also be free to experience the consequences for those choices.

Unfortunately, there are way too many people out there that think that they have the right to censor and control what we say and what we do, and that trend is likely to only get worse as our society continues to spin out of control in the years ahead.