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.

Lax Vax

The United States was vaccinating citizens against COVID at a pretty good clip up to now but the Biden administration's efforts to shut down the virus has hit a wall.  After production snafus at the Baltimore factory making Johnson & Johnson vaccines were reported, the government has had to delay shipments of the single-dose vaccines, meaning that there will be 84 percent fewer Johnson & Johnson vaccines this week.  That also means most Americans who get a shot this week will get only one of two Pfizer or Moderna shots, slowing the speed at which Americans can be fully vaccinated.

And guess what - those who have gotten Johnson & Johnson vaccines are now reporting bad side effects!

And on top of that, the AstraZeneca vaccine - the easiest one to produce and the easiest one to ship and store for vaccinations in the Third World, were most people haven't received any vaccines - may be responsible for blood clots, with several countries putting distribution of the AstraZeneca vaccine on pause.

Just like your favorite restaurant or movie theater was "temporarily" closed, never to reopen.

But experts say there's hope in the near future to end the pandemic, with new plans to vaccinate children and with booster shots in development for COVID variants. Sure, sure. There always is hope, isn't there?  Just like there was hope for now, the early spring of 2021, only there's a fourth COVID surge brewing.  But before anyone explains why these latest developments should make me hopeful even as infections spike again, I've come to a decision - I don't want to hear it! 😠  

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.