The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 132 (632)

It is not surprising that people in counties that voted for the former president are nearly three times as likely to die from covid than those in counties that voted for POTUS according to a study conducted by National Public Radio. The study started with May 2021 or roughly when vaccines became universally available to adults. Counties that went for the former president by over 60 percent had lower vaccination rates and higher covid death rates. The tenth of the counties that were the most Republican had death rates six times higher than the tenth that were the most Democrat. Hawaii, Nebraska, and Alaska were excluded because they don't report election results and/or vaccine results by county. Underlying much of this is that while 91 percent of Democrats are vaccinated, only 59 percent of Republicans are. Finally, 94 percent of Republicans think at least one false statement about covid and vaccines might be true, and 46 percent believe that four or more might be true. Only 14 percent of Democrats believe four or more might be true. The most widely believed false statement? That the government is exaggerating the number of covid deaths. 

The European Union health commissioner is urging countries to increase vaccinations and use non-pharmaceutical mitigation measures such as masking or distancing when appropriate. Meanwhile, the head of WHO Europe division sees mandatory vaccinations as an "absolute last resort" and says that vaccine mandates should not contribute to inequalities in accessing health care. He also offered a reminder that much about the Omicron variant remains unknown.

While much does remain unknown, the evidence so far for how fast Omicron spreads continues to grow. The first of two plausible reasons for the speed of the spread is that Omicron spreads faster in people with no immunity than earlier variants did. It may also evade immunity from a previous case or from vaccination. So far, Omicron appears to be causing only mild symptoms; however, it can take over a week to develop severe covid illness, and Omicron has only been recognized as being out there for less than two weeks. The initial patients in South Africa were, for the most part, young with some having immunity due to the Delta variant. It's not clear how Omicron is going to affect older and more vulnerable people. Here, Dr. Fauci says that the signals are a bit encouraging. What risk does Omicron pose to vaccinated people? There is so far no sign that the illness of vaccinated people will be more severe, but as before, it is important to see what happens with or to unvaccinated people and those with waning immunity. 

A Harvard scientist says that the world is seeing "what appears to be a signal of exponential increase of Omicron over Delta" and that Omicron could take over from Delta as the dominant variant in a matter of weeks. The current surges in the US are due to Delta; scientists say that it will take a couple of weeks to know if Omicron will replace Delta. Experts in the UK say that in 10 days the UK could have more cases of Omicron that some of the countries on the UK's travel red list. Omicron could overtake Delta there in several weeks.

The CDC has added Portugal and France to its highest-risk travel level reflecting the surge underway in each. The Netherlands is bringing in soldiers with medical backgrounds to help support hospitals. The aim is to ensure that no hospital has to say no to a patient. This is the second time the military has been called in. The first was October 2020 to June 2021. There are currently 2,143 covid patients in Dutch hospitals, 611 of whom are in ICU. Covid patients currently occupy 59 percent of all ICU beds in the country.

As a secondary result of the pandemic, the blood pressure measurements of nearly 500,000 people show a significant rise. During the pandemic, people have been exercising less, getting less regular medical care, drinking more, and sleeping less all of which affect blood pressure. Larger increases were seen in women than men. One drawback to the study is that the researchers did not include data on the race or ethnicity of the subjects. 

Dictionary.com has unveiled its word of the year for 2021, "allyship." The word of the year for the Oxford English Dictionary is "vax." I think I mentioned some days ago that Merriam-Webster's word of the year is "vaccine." Finally, Collins, a dictionary coming out of Scotland, chose "NFT" (non-fungible token). I'll leave it to readers to look up the words they don't know. I expect that "vax" and "vaccine" will not be among the unknown. We probably know more about vaccines now than we ever expected to know.