The Road goes ever on and on .. Day 212 (712)

Word has it that the CDC will today issue reformulated guidelines on masking in public indoor settings. The guidelines have been that masking should take place in any community of substantial or high transmission, that is, in 95 percent of US counties. The new guidelines propose a metric that also considers hospitalizations and hospital capacity in addition to caseloads. Under this metric, the vast majority of Americans will no longer be living in mask-advised areas. 

Meanwhile, first vaccinations are at a new low along with the total number of vaccinations. There are fewer incentives right now to convince vaccine-hesitant or vaccine-resistant people to get vaccinated. One doctor noted that even telling someone that without vaccination they would have a 20 times greater chance of dying no longer works. Misinformation is gaining ground in its race against science. That's a big reason that 80 million Americans remain unvaccinated;,75 percent of Americans have gotten at least one dose of vaccine, and only 65 percent are fully vaccinated. Omicron may have milder symptoms, but more Americans are dying now than during most points of the pandemic.

A government-appointed commission in Sweden says that the no-lockdown strategy employed there at the start of the pandemic was "broadly correct" but early measure should have been "more rigorous and intrusive." The report noted that "the Government should have assumed leadership of all aspects of crisis management from the outset." As Ukranians start a mass migration to the west and away from Russian invasion, covid cases will grow among the migrants and also within the countries to which they are fleeing. 

A new study posits that at least 5.2 million children worldwide have lost a parent, grandparent, or family member who helped care for them. The estimate is based on data from 20 countries including India, Peru, and the US and extends through October 2021, meaning that it did not include Omicron cases. A child losing a parent of caregiver is at increased risk for poverty, sexual abuse, mental health challenges, and severe stress.

A new article says that the BA.2 variant is not really new, seems to be easier to catch, and is no more severe than Omicron. The article further said that existing vaccines do work against it, and that the "stealth" descriptor is outdated. One article says "this," and another article says "that." No wonder misinformation may be winning against science. We may need more basic instruction in the scientific method itself.