New York City is becoming pandemic ground zero as it was at the pandemic's 2020 start. They recorded 21,027 cases Friday. If you ignore the fact that many cases were probably missed in the early days, this is a record for the entire pandemic. Cases have gone up 56 percent in 14 days, while hospitalizations are up 25 percent. The current percent positivity is almost eight percent. Probably in response to Omicron's ability to bypass two doses of vaccine, New York State is changing their definition or "fully vaccinated" to include the booster dose. At Cornell University in Ithaca, 99 percent of the student body was vaccinated (under the two-dose standard). The university still saw 1,567 cases arise in the seven days ending Thursday out of a student body of over 26,000 students. In New York City, Broadway shows have closed temporarily as has Radio City Music Hall, home of the Rockettes.
A federal appeals court has reinstated POTUS's executive order requiring companies with at least 100 employees to require employees be vaccinated, have a valid exemption, or agree to be tested weekly. The school system in Prince George's County, Maryland, home to some 131,000 students, will go to remote learning for the four days they are open next week as well as for the first two weeks in January. Not what anyone wanted, probably, but out of an abundance of caution likely the right thing to do. The CDC just endorsed a strategy already in use by some systems, Test to Stay. Unvaccinated students who are explosed to covid can remain in school as long as they're tested twice in the following week and both tests are negative. A caveat is that the tests underlying this strategy were carried out before the arrival of Omicron.
Pfizer has been testing its vaccine on children between the ages of six months and five years. With two doses of a low-dose vaccine, about one-third of the adult dose, children between the ages of six months and two years showed a immune response equal to that shown by adults between the ages of 16 and 25, to adult doses. Children between the ages of two and five did not show this increase. Pfizer will also test using one-third the adult dose as a booster for children between the ages of five and 11.
WHO gave emergency authorization to Novavax, a vaccine developed by US company Novavax and the Serum Institute of India. Novavax has promised to deliver 1.1 billion doses to Covax. Novavax is not an mRNA vaccine and does not need the cold storage required by the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. It does, however, require two doses, meaning there may be extra coordination needed in rural areas.
Are South African and the UK sending warning messages to the US? Both have been dealing with the surge in Omicron cases that the US presumably will suffer all too soon. The research released regarding their experiences with Omicron say that it is more transmissible but is less likely to cause severe disease. There is, of course, a cautionary "BUT." The US lags both the UK and South Africa in terms of the average immunity people have from being vaccinated or having had covid. They are not dealing with the vaccine-hesitance or -resistance we have here. It doesn't help that some of the vaccine-deniers claim that the fact someone who is fully vaccinated and boosted can catch Omicron suggests the vaccine doesn't do anything, so why should they take it. They don't look at the next card on the table, the one that mentions protection against severe disease, hospitalization, or even death. They need to stay at the table until Mother Nature plays the rest of her hand.
Christmas is but one week away. If you are traveling to visit family and/or friends, be careful. Find some rapid tests to have on hand just in case. Stay masked in public settings or on public transit. If you have a feeling you should not do something, don't do it. You'll never know if you made the right decision, but that's better in this case than learning you didn't.
1 comment:
I learned two things about the UK numbers this week. You can only have one positive covid test, the "new cases" does not include reinfections. I suppose the clue was in the name "new infections" but I've gone this long and not known that. If you fall off a ladder while fixing the roof, have a complex break and during the hospital admission procedures your covid test comes back as positive you are a covid patient admitted to hospital. It doesn't matter what the reason for admission was, covid trumps all else in the statistics. Again, we're not measuring what I thought we were measuring.
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