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.  

COVID Over? Wha?

President Biden announced last week that the COVID public emergency, declared in March 2020, will end on May 11 of this year - for the record, a Thursday.  How can he be so sure we won't need a public emergency after that?  He can't.  He's even admitted as much, indicating that he reserves the right to extend it, in case, for example, another variant (I don't mean a German station wagon) arrives in America and deserves an as-yet unused Greek letter.

And even if that doesn't happen, the end of the emergency on the Thursday before Mother's Day weekend doesn't mean that people visiting their mothers no longer have to wear face coverings or practice social distancing, especially if their mothers are 65 and over, nor does it mean you can take Mom out to brunch without fear.  It means that vaccines (below) will be exorbitantly expensive for anyone who doesn't have medical insurance, and even in Obamacare-era America, many people remain uninsured.

It also means that treatments will suddenly be costly, as well.  For the country to move on from the COVID emergency without regret, one must assume that there is enough evidence to believe that the pandemic is approaching its end.

There isn't.  That's why the World Health Organization wouldn't declare the pandemic over last week.  It's also why so many people are still practicing COVID mitigation measures long after Washington and Democratic and Republican governors said we didn't have to.  Now, it may be so that there's enough COVID immunity in the world from vaccines and prior infections that COVID, like the flu and the common cold, will become benign and become a seasonal illness rather than an illness for all seasons.  But we won't know if that's so until spring, and it's worth noting that Delta hit in the summer.  A Pi strain from China could do the same this summer and get the protein-spiked ball rolling all over again.

Meanwhile, because of my own domestic circumstances, I have to continue wearing face coverings in indoor public spaces until the World Health Organization gives the "all clear" signal on COVID.  A friend of mine, who has taken up painting as a hobby since she retired, is having some of her paintings displayed in my local library, along with other local artists.  The reception was this past Saturday, and I planned to go.  I didn't.  Because even though everyone else likely would not have worn a face covering, I still would have had to, and even though refreshments are served at receptions, it's hard to eat and drink with a surgical mask on.  Take the food and drink outside?  Not in 20-degree weather, which we had last Saturday.  As fate would have it, my friend's paintings were already hung up in the library before the reception, so I got to seem them a couple of days beforehand.  No reason to go to a reception for an art exhibit on an extremely cold day when you've already seen it.   

While I remain cautiously optimistic that the pandemic wil lbe declared over soon, I'm not waiting patiently for that to happen.  The act of waiting for moments that never seem to come is over.  I'm not waiting for anything anymore, which is why I've postponed making plans indefinitely. And even when the pandemic is over, I know we're not going back to the way things were in 2015 - the last "normal" COVID-free year before Trump was elected President. 

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.     

About Face (Coverings)

The Governor of New Jersey, Phil Murphy, has announced that, effective tomorrow, vaccinated New Jerseyans don't have to wear face coverings, or "FCs" as I call them here, in indoor public spaces.  Murphy says we've made enough progress against COVID that folks in this state who have gotten the vaccine can breathe easily, since the vaccine protects them quite well from this airborne virus.  Obviously, there are exceptions, such as public transit venues (railway stations, airports), because the federal mandate requiring FCs for mass transit stays in effect through September 13, and medical facilities - hospitals, clinics, office buildings with doctors' practices.  But you'll be able to literally show your face in public in other indoor public spaces.

 

Except where you can't. It's quite possible and even likely that many local FC mandates will remain in place.  Needless to say, several counties - like Essex County, where Newark, a COVID hot spot, is located - could keep its FC mandate, and some towns might do the same.  And of course, some businesses - especially supermarkets, where cleanliness is important - might keep them as well.  It will be like when New Jersey passed a law allowing a right turn on a red light, which began in 1977, to cut down on idling.  Pretty soon you saw more intersections where no right turn on red was allowed than intersections where it was, or so it seemed.  My point here is that the exceptions to the repeal of the dreaded Executive Order 122 will, for awhile, be more the rule.

Other states in the Northeast have already dropped their FC mandates - including New York.  But people who still feel uncomfortable doffing their FCs may continue wearing them.  It's inevitable that in overcrowded New York City, many people, like in New Jersey, will probably wear their FCs even when they don't have to.

Especially when their job requires it. 😆   

Mother Nature Hates Your Guts

Mother Nature hates you.

How could she not?  I mean, she just shut down the entire state of Texas.  She brought record cold as far south as Brownsville and just enough snow and ice to cause blackouts and water problems all across the state, from El Paso to Texarkana.

And even though it's imperative that Americans get vaccinated against COVID before the virus spins off more deadly mutations (more meaning in increased quantity and in the degree of deadliness), Mother Nature has been sending snowstorms all across the country, shutting down COVID vaccine distribution hubs and causing postponements of vaccination appointments even in places where there are enough doses.  I mean, first she gives us the virus, then she does everything in her limitless power to ensure that we can't get immunized against it.

And before the pandemic, we had wildfires, tropical storms and severe thunderstorms wrecking havoc everywhere. Then, during the pandemic, she ramped up all of that!

You don't supposed she's pissed off at us for wrecking her beautiful planet, and with Americans, that goes double?

I won't insult your intelligence with the answer.

No Max Vax

Maximum COVID-19 vaccination - "max vax" - is the key to ending this pandemic.  When the first two vaccines to go through trials were made available last month, their arrival was greeted with fanfare and hope, hope that it was the beginning of the end.  

Nothing could have prepared us for what may be the the greatest disappointment in medical history.  After all but promising twenty million vaccinations by the end of the December, the federal government fell seventeen million vaccinations short of its goal.  And given the current rate of vaccination, it could take a decade - ten years! - for enough vaccinations to achieve herd immunity.

Trump is too busy trying to stage a coup, and so he can't be bothered with ironing out the bugs in the vaccine system.  Things look really depressing now.  But there are encouraging signs.  First of all, Joe Biden will become President two weeks from tomorrow. Second of all, in the first few days of 2021, an additional 1,500,000 have been vaccinated - meaning, half as many people have been vaccinated in three or four days as had been in the previous two weeks.  So the pace is beginning to quicken.  And as soon as Biden takes over, we should have a focus on implementing a national vaccine distribution system, which the Biden transition team is probably looking at right now.

Hold on . . .

Oh yeah, I am not posting anything tomorrow, because I think I'd rather step back as Congress devolves into total disarray.  Meanwhile, I'll be following today's Senate runoffs in Georgia. I'll see you on the other side of tomorrow.

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 . . .) 

The Bad Side of Good COVID News

Two more COVID vaccines - one from Moderna (below), the other from AstraZeneca - are on the way, joining the Pfizer vaccine in the fight against the deadliest respiratory diseases known to humankind.  Swell.  Wonderful.  But why get excited over that when the news about the pandemic is so spectacularly bad that there's no bright side to it?

Here's the deal.  None of these vaccines will be widely available to the general public for several months, and even as more people get vaccinated, restrictions and regulations designed to stop or slow the spread of COVID will remain in place for a good deal of time after.  This is a roundabout way of saying that we'll have to continue for a long time to come walking into banks looking like we're about to rob them, regardless of vaccination progress.  Furthermore, the AstraZeneca vaccine test results have come under question, and skeptics are calling for more data on that matter.

But, with 267,000 deaths out of 13.4 million cases, the COVID mortality rate is 2 percent - much less than the 5.6 percent rate this past April, so that has to count for something, right?  No, it doesn't have to - and it doesn't.  A 2 percent COVID mortality rate should not be taken to mean a 98 percent COVID recovery rate.  While many COVID patients have completely recovered, to be sure, there are many more who either haven't recovered or are still suffering aftereffects or continued severe symptoms.  It's not accurate to say that 98 percent of COVID patients have recovered; it's more accurate, and appropriate, to say that 98 percent of COVID patients haven't died.  Many locales don't even report a recovery rate; it's that irrelevant.  (One site estimates the recovery rate at a mere 59 percent.)  

But at least the pandemic could be worse than what is now, right?  It probably is.  While 13.4 million people in the U.S. are confirmed to have caught the COVID bug, some statisticians fear that the real infection rate is likely eight times that, meaning that over a third of the nation's population of 335 million have been infected.  If we get to herd immunity soon, it'll only be because of all of the cases out there that haven't been confirmed yet.

President-elect Biden says we're almost to the end of the pandemic, but it may turn out that we're only at the beginning of the end, or even the beginning of the beginning of the end.  There may be a light at the end of the tunnel.  But for many, that light could be an oncoming train.