It Might As Well Be a Spring Booster

COVID, or as the French might call it, le Covíde ("Le co-VEED!!"), continues to wane as March draws to close, but some epidemiologists warn that a new strain could appear as soon as the day after tomorrow and disrupt our entire spring.  Oh, joy!

An obvious solution to a sudden COVID resurgence would be to have spring booster vaccines available for the most at-risk citizens in These States.  There's just one thing wrong - the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) hasn't signed off on it.  It hasn't even indicated whether or not it would sign off on it.  Trouble is, the CDC has to take a stand, because as long as the agency stays mum on the issue, no one can allow Americans to get a spring booster vaccine because the vaccines are still under emergency use authorizations and thus haven't been fully approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

However, British and Canadian citizens can get COVID booster shots for the spring, because their governments have given the all-clear on them.  Ah, but in America, the CDC takes this issue very seriously and so does not want to be rushed into making a decision.  Though, quite frankly, I can't remember the last time CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky actually made one.

For us silly Yanks, I suppose, all we can do is hope that the World Health Organization to finally declare the pandemic over.  Neither a decision on spring booster shots or a declaration to the end of the COVID ("Le co-VEED!!") pandemic is likely to happen any time soon, thouse I would expect a declaration of the end of the pandemic to happen first - say, on the eleventh of never.  

Losing the Game

Remember the "game changers" of the past?  Remember how the Renaissance Center was supposed to enliven downtown Detroit?  How grunge was going to rescue rock and roll?  How Christian Pulisic was going to make the U.S. men's soccer team a potent squad?  

Ah, game changers.  Well, here's something to consider as you drive through the Motor City's desolate streets listening to the latest Lil Nas X record on the radio while wondering whom to root for if the U.S. doesn't make the 2022 World Cup.  Johnson & Johnson's COVID vaccine was supposed to be a game changer in the fight against the disease the stopped the world because it required only one shot and could be stored at refrigerator temperature.  Then a few young women got blood clots after having received it.  The vaccine was paused, and so were people's enthusiasm about getting vaccinated.

Yesterday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which obviously has had a hard time in both of those endeavors, and the Food and Drug Administration allowed the Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine to go forward with a blood-clot waning label, saying that it is highly effective and that blood clots are extremely rare.  Too little, too late.  This pause in the distribution of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is expected to boost confidence in the vaccination efforts because the government took questions about the vaccine seriously enough to investigate the issue and put it through the rigors of great scrutiny before concluding it's safe.  No one buys that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is safe.  And the fact that Johnson & Johnson had Yugo-like quality problems in producing it in the first place only makes people wonder if getting it - or the much more effective and reliable Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, for that matter - is worth it.  Even President Biden has given up on the idea that the COVID vaccine from Johnson & Johnson could boost the number of Americans vaccinated because of its one-does regimen, saying it has enough of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines to vaccinate everyone in the U.S. Besides, so few people have actually gotten the Johnson & Johnson shot compared to the the two.

This snafu with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine isn't just going to cause vaccine hesitancy; it's going to cause vaccine refusal.  Hesitancy is one thing - "Oh, I'll wait see what happens, but I'll probably take it eventually" - but refusal slams the door on getting a shot. And with herd immunity now in doubt because of all that, hopes to end the COVID pandemic before Thanksgiving have been dashed. And all because a turkey of a vaccine.

By the way, I'm probably going to root for Germany next year.