COVID Vaccines For Kids (And More)

Pfizer just announced that its COVID vaccine shows a robust immune response in children aged 5 to 11, using only a third of the usual dose for individuals aged 12 and over.

This is good news, and it means that emergency authorization for a children's COVID vaccine by late October.  And hopefully enough parents - those who have already been vaccinated themselves - get their children vaccinated so that the rate of full vaccination in These States gets to at least 70 percent by early 2022.  Boosters, except for the elderly, will have to wait, though.

In the meantime, we have to get as many eligible people vaccinated, and so far the best we can manage is still a quite embarrassing 0.1 percent daily increase in full vaccination.  This is all happening as the government has reported that more people have died from COVID than died in the 1918 flu pandemic.  And while 1 out of 500 people have died in this pandemic compared to 1 our of 150 in the 1918 crisis, when the U.S. population was a third of what is it is today - meaning , that it 1 out of 150 people were dying of COVID today, the numbers would be even worse - the death toll in this pandemic is till pretty bad.

Numbers showing that the situation it relatively better now than it was over a hundred years ago can't change the fact that people who shouldn't have died from COVID - because we have vaccines and no flu vaccine existed in 1918 - died just the same.  Then again, maybe they can.  I don't personally know anyone who has had or died of COVID, but I look at it this way.  If a friend or loved one of mine did die of COVID, I would be devastated and upset, but the fact that we don't have a death rate of 1 out of 150 cases would make me appreciate the friends and loved ones of mine who got COVID and recovered.

Get vaccinated, people.     

COVID Vaccine? PAH!

Just a few days after Britain, then Canada,  approved the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for use for their citizens - or subjects, since both Brits and Canadians bow to the Queen of England - the United States recommended it for approval for its citizens, half of whom bow to Donald Trump.  The Food and Drug Administration gave American doctors and clinics emergency authorization to se the vaccine.

The beginning of the end of the pandemic?  Curb your enthusiasm, Sparky.   The number of vaccines we're getting is far to small to make a dent in the COVID outbreaks we're currently experiencing in this country, and it will take several months for everyone to get vaccinated.  That is, assuming everyone will get vaccinated; a large minority, say 40 to 45 percent, of Americans don't trust COVID vaccines.  Which works out fine, since not too many of them will be available anyway.  Some epidemiologists expect that the vaccine won't let us get back to normal until the middle of summer at best, but others are warning us that we'll have to keep staying six feet apart and go into banks looking like we're about to rob them until next December.

And 2022 may not be all that promising, either.

Meanwhile, Congress can't pass a COVID relief bill, which would help millions of people in the verge of being kicked out onto the street, because Senate Majority Leader A. Mitchell McConnell won't let anything pass unless he gets protection against COVID lawsuits for major corporations.  Given the closeness in the polls in the U.S. Senate runoff elections in Georgia, I doubt that the Democrats will take over the Senate and get anything done.  Bottom line: Just because we're heading into a new year doesn't mean we have to deal with the same old crap.    

On the other hand, the Supreme Court rejected that lawsuit from Texas demanding that the ballots of voters in four swing states that went for Biden be invalidated.  That should be good news.  But Trump and his minions keep fighting the result of the election. 

Vaccine Fix

The COVID vaccines are coming to provide a fix.  I need a fix 'cause I'm going down, down to the girl that I left uptown, I need a fix 'cause I'm going down . . .  

Because I want to see her full face and be able to stand within six feet of her.

But Trump has complicated all of that, apparently, because back in the summer he had the chance to buy more than the 100 million vaccine doses Pfizer offered to the United States. How about 400 million more?  But - he turned it down.  I still have no idea why.  But Trump's actions mean that other countries will get more vaccines and we have to wait six months for another order.  We only have enough for 50 million people, because each person who gets vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine needs two shots.  Now we have to hope that Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, and AstraZeneca can provide more vaccines sooner when they go online.

Meanwhile, even as Trump is trying to take credit for COVD vaccines, Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) held a Senate hearing at which a vaccine skeptic was invited to testify.  It's as if the Republicans want the pandemic to continue in the U.S. even as it ends elsewhere, so as to keep us scared, pessimistic, and distrusting in government.

Gee, ya think?

Trump is addicted to stupidity.  He needs a fix, 'cause he's going down . . .

Mother Superior jump the gun . . .

Mother Superior jump the gun.

(Viciously naughty of me, yes . . .) 

Keep Feeling Vaccination

It's not the end, or even the beginning of the end, but more likely the end of the beginning.

Pfizer announced a new COVID-19 vaccine that has achieved 90 percent efficacy in clinical trials, far more than the minimum efficacy requirement for a vaccine in he U.S., which I believe is about 70 percent.  It could get federal approval within a month.  But that doesn't mean the pandemic will end in America any time soon.  It still needs to be manufactured in large enough quantities to vaccinate as many people as possible, and the incoming Biden administration has to convince as many people as possible to get it, which could take months - say, eight or nine months at best.  So we're going to have to spend a good deal of 2021 keeping our distance from each other and going into banks dressed like we're about to rob them.

And, there's the question of storage.  Pfizer says the vaccine has to be stored at -68° Celsius, or -90° Fahrenheit.  Although it could be ready by the beginning of summer, you can imagine that it would take a lot of storage space and energy to store at ninety below a vaccine for people to get when it's ninety above outside.

Still, this is a positive step and an encouraging sign.  And it should be noted that, with other drug companies working on COVID vaccines, there could be many more opportunities for inoculation to finish off this pandemic.  But thanks to Trump making a hash out of the U.S. response to COVID-19,  as many as 800,000 to maybe 1,000,000 Americans may be finished off before it's over.  COVID cases are coming it at record-breaking daily numbers as I type this, and deaths are likely to be on the rise.  The only good news is that the COVID mortality rate continues to decline among those who have the disease - 2.3 percent at last check, compared to 5.6 percent in April.

So staffers at the White House can rest easy. 😜 (The latest victims of Trump's moronism?  Ben Carson and Corey Lewandowski.)  My advice to President-elect Biden is to have the place deep-cleaned before he moves in.  In the meantime, Mr. Biden, there's always Blair House across the street. 

The Biden White House will certainly push vaccines, as more vaccines proven to work come on line.  I hope to get vaccinated as soon as possible.  Dr. Anthony Fauci, who according to polls, is the most trusted man in America right now - a position Walter Cronkite once occupied - said he plans to get the vaccine as soon as one is ready and available, and if he gets it, certainly most other people will.  (I'm sure Walter Cronkite would have gotten one, too.)   And, to respond to the inevitable assertion from anti-vaxxers - including my friend Margrit in upstate New York - that I shouldn't put so much chemical junk in my body . . . no worries, I'm used to that.  I eat Pop-Tarts, you know. 😛

And since Pop-Tarts, like revenge, are sweet and best served cold, I feel like having one to celebrate Biden avenging Barack Obama by taking out Trump.