The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 248 (748)

It's been another slow day on the coronavirus front. I'd count that as a positive except for the fact that the first stories I found were about mask mandates not being relaxed as announced or being reinstated if just for a few days. With cases rising in New York City, the mayor announced that the mask mandate for children under five--too young to be vaccinated--would stay in place. In early March, there were around 500 daily cases; now, there are around 1,250. Public health officials note that the number may be much higher due to the use of home tests and not reporting positive results. On the side of good news, January saw an average of 1,000 daily hospitalizations; that 1,000 is now down to 13. 

Two New Jersey high schools are reinstating mask requirements for at least a few days. Cases in New Jersey have risen 45 percent in two weeks, and the governor this week tested positive. There were 74 cases in one school. The same school had a classroom with five cases go virtual yesterday and Monday. I was pleased to see this response to increasing cases. When it comes right down to it, masking and distancing are probably the easiest mitigation measures to implement. Other measures such as capacity controls or event cancellations may not be needed if masking and/or distancing work.

Two new studies published in the Lancet suggest that covid vaccines provide significant protection for previously infected people. One, conducted with 22,000 patients in Brazil, showed the vaccines as providing protection against symptomatic reinfection and severe outcomes such as hospitalization or death. The second, done in Sweden with almost 3 million patients, shows vaccines offer additional protection for at least nine months. Both studies do have some limitations, the principle one being the risk of bias due to the observational nature. Further, neither study included reinfection with Omicron.

I've been thinking back and forth about the whole second booster question. Get one now, almost six months out from my first booster, or wait. It's not as if The Professor and I have any plans for a summer trip that might suggest getting the booster right before. Checking several references that suggest the effectiveness of the first booster is pretty gone after six months, and reading several sources I've come to trust doing this whole blog thing saying that they were going to get the second booster six months after the first, I decided what the hey. The earliest appointment available was not until the coming Friday, but I took it. I decided to spread the immunity wealth and am going with Moderna this time. Also playing into getting the booster now is that some sources say that by the time an Omicron-directed vaccine comes out, we may be well past Omicron and working on entirely new variants.