Boost THIS!

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention just authorized COVID booster shots for all adults in an effort to end the pandemic sooner rather than later.  But I fear it will end later.

Here's the deal, folks.  Yes, COVID boosters will provide extra protection for longer than the original two-dose vaccinations, as the two-dose regimen wanes after six to eight months, and boosters can only be a good thing.  But meanwhile, 41 percent of Americans remain unvaccinated and, while the initial-dose rate has picked up in recent days thanks to COVID vaccinations for children, the full-vaccination rate has gone from increasing 0.1 percent a day to 0.1 percent every three or four days. Meanwhile, after dropping to 60,000 new cases a day in late October, the seven-day average for new cases is rising again, as it is in Europe, and Florida has actually enacted legislation to prevent county and municipal governments and private businesses from requiring vaccines and face coverings.  And speaking of the latter, part of the reason we have to keep wearing "FCs" in the other 49 states is because of a lack of testing, combined with the government's failure to trace infection chains.  And, as always, we don't know how many people have recovered from COVID or how many people have it now.  

And what good are boosters if we can't give everyone their first two doses?

And yet, former FDA director Scott Gottlieb - who accurately predicted the current spike in vases - thinks we'll be out of pandemic mode after the first of the year.  I hope he's right.  I don't want to live in a world where face coverings are as much a permanent and essential part of our wardrobe as undershorts.   That, to me, would be utter dystopia.  To think . . . a child born today might have to ask his or her parents, "Mommy, Daddy . . . What's a smile?" 😮 

As if we'll have any reason to give one. 😢

Booster Club

I'm not talking about college alumni.

The federal government is now encouraging booster shots of the COVID vaccine - a third dose for Pfizer and Moderna recipients, a second for Johnson & Johnson recipients - to better protect Americans against this damn virus.  The delta corona has made it desirable - essential, even - to get extra protection, as more "breakthrough" infections - still rare - are reported among the vaccinated.

Well, the folks at the World Health Organization went all potty (pardon my French) over this decision, saying it was selfish of rich countries like the United States (and Israel) to start giving booster shots to their citizens when much of the Third World (notice how no one calls it that anymore? political correctness) goes unvaccinated.  U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy shot back at the complaints, saying that the U.S. needs to give Americans booster shots and give the Third World (he did not actually use that term) inhabitants first and second doses.  His attitude was, "Who says we can't do both?"  The World Health Organization, apparently, as do scientists who say it's premature to be giving them right now.  These scientists also agree with the World Health Organization that it's logistically impossible to give Americans booster while still trying to vaccinate everyone in developing countries.  It's "either/or"  - not both, they all say.  If the Biden administration can satisfy the needs of both Americans and the rest of the world, what it pulls off will more than make up for what's happening in Afghanistan right now.

Incidentally, Americans become eligible for booster shots eight months after receiving their last doses.  As I got my last dose on April 24 of this year, I become eligible on . . . Christmas Eve.

The good news?  I can wait a few weeks to get the booster, so the holidays won't be an impediment for me.