COVID Continues

I don't know where we really are with the COVID pandemic . . .

Johnson & Johnson has released data for its new COVID vaccine, which doesn't have to be kept at temperatures well below freezing.  While the results from Johnson & Johnson are not as great as the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, it works well enough against common strain and is very effective in preventing severe infections.  Novavax should have a vaccine ready soon, and that should increase the supply of vaccines even as the vaccinations themselves are increasing.  But minority populations remain underserved, and while vaccinations are increasing at a decent clip, the British and South African strains have taken hold in America and could lead to an increases of infections with frightening rapidity.

Also, people in Third World countries need to be vaccinated - or the pandemic will go on for another four years, which means say goodbye to the Paris Olympics, never mind Tokyo.  (More on the Games some other time.) Fortunately, the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine should take care of that, and now that the United States has joined the Covax global-vaccination consortium that aims to vaccinate as many people as possible in the poorer countries, the Biden administration should be able to get those inoculations done, as Dr. Anthony Fauci has recently suggested.  (Yeah, yeah, I know, why not let China vaccinate the Third World, since they gave the Third World infrastructure and COVID!)   So that has to count for something.

All things considered, though, the pandemic should still continue for many more months.  I just hope that the exact number of months isn't in the double digits.