The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 331 (831)

Children between the ages of six and 11 can now get vaccinated with the Moderna vaccine, though it's not clear if this will be a big thing or not. Fewer than one-third of children of those ages have gotten two doses of the Pfizer vaccine. Vaccinations for children even younger are not so easy to find. The pharmacies at Publix and Kroger grocery stores will only vaccinate children ages five and up. CVS stores with a MinuteClinic will vaccinate children as young as 18 months; all other CVS store require a child to be at least five. A representative of the American Pharmacists Association says that all pharmacists are trained to give shots to children ages three and up; extra training, which not all stores will provide, is needed to vaccinate very young children. A mother in Woodstock, IL was unable to find a vaccine for her 14-month-old child. Pharmacies said the child was too young, and her pediatrician was not offering vaccine to young children citing waning interest. A volunteer group, Vaccinate Under 5, has put up a national database of places to get children under the age of five vaccinated. The mother in Illinois was able to get her child vaccinated though it required a 30-minute drive. 

The Broadway play "American Buffalo" will require audience members to wear masks until the play closes its run on July 10. The play is performed as theater in the round; the producers reported the decision was made "due to the close proximity of the audience to the actors as a result of the intimate size of the theater and the staging in the round."

Austria is abandoning the vaccine mandate it announced but never really enforced. Elsewhere in the world, there were no new locally transmitted covid cases in Shanghai Saturday for the first time since March. There were only two cases in Beijing. Unfortunately, other cities in China are still in various stages of lockdown. 

There is also monkeypox news, but news related to the coronavirus pandemic. Public health experts are concerned that the federal response to monkeypox may be repeating some of the mistakes made with the coronavirus. The window to control the outbreak is closing and may indicate just how badly prepared we are for another pandemic. One issue is testing. Britain is reporting five times as many cases as the US with a population 20 percent smaller than the US. Britain is testing more possible cases than the US. In many places in the US, testing is only offered to men who are intimate with other men. In other words, the problem with testing is access not capacity. Early in the onset of an outbreak testing is vital. Every aspect of the response to the outbreak relies on rapid diagnosis. The CDC says that right now the time between onset of rash and diagnosis averages 11 days. This longer delay means the virus has more time to spread.

And my window to get some therapeutic quilting done is also closing, though not rapidly. The bread is out of the oven, so once I post this, I can get back to that quilting.