Mesabah

It's very early in the stats, but it appears the vaccine is also responsible for the R0 increase, and not just the increased ace2 binding ability of the Delta variant. That's probably almost exclusively the result of people's behavior after vaccination. The outbreak going on at Cornell is a good example of this, despite them being almost 100% vaccinated. Herd immunity is out the window, at any vaccination rate.

dualinput

But are they being hospitalized or dying? If no, then there’s nothing to see here. Who the hell cares about outbreaks or cases anymore. If people are just getting a cold and then better the vax is working and we all need to move on with life.

BoilerUP

^^^exactly

Nobody cares about "just a cold", because colds don't cause a wave of people with breathing problems.

Excargodog

Depends on who you mean by “nobody”. Nearly 40% of COVID mortality is in 80+ year old people. Even before COVID the AVERAGE 85 year old male had a 7% chance of dying in the next year:


https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html

For people in a nursing home/long term care facility it’s much higher. They have a 35% ANNUAL mortality with a life expectancy of only 2.2 years. At that point in their lives all it takes is a cold to cause a viral pneumonia that may progress to a bacterial pneumonia. Even before COVID, nursing home acquired pneumonia’s often ran a 50% mortality, and they are the second most common infections in nursing homes:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4363502/

One must ask what is fair. How much can we honorably put kids at risk - or blight their futures with lockdowns - to extend the lives of elderly by a few months. Look at the figures for California. The entire youngest half of the population sustained only about 1200 deaths out of 65,000 deaths. Ten times as many toddlers die every year from drowning in backyard swimming pools than the number killed by COVID.

We need to stop pretending this isn’t a disease of the elderly. Yes, anyone CAN die of COVID, but the ones who statistically DO die of COVID are the elderly and those with comorbidities. Blighting the lives of the young through lockdowns and shutting down schools isn’t going to stop that from happening. Not even with Australia-like house arrest.

Excargodog

There has been much written about the students who were, through no fault of their own, unable to participate in online learning when schools across the country went fully remote in March of 2020.

Issues of broadband access and connectivity, as well as access to digital devices, were tangible problems that districts and school leaders could work to solve. As a result of creative solutions like making school buses mobile hotspots, or purchasing and distributing Chromebooks en masse, many students were able to continue their schooling.

What is less discussed is that as many as 3 million students have disappeared since the beginning of the pandemic. These students have never shown up for an online class and never took advantage of any solutions provided by districts. Now, with school districts across the country gearing up to resume in-person learning, some educators are optimistic that these students will return.


https://thehill.com/opinion/educatio...-to-classrooms

GucciBoy

This is absolutely false. He is recommending a booster to supplement the initial dose. That’s three shots in the first year, not every year. He also said there’s a possibility of an annual booster but did not say it was a certainty.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/15/pfiz...12-months.html


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Red Forman

There are many “experts” saying we will need a “booster” every 6 months with no end date.

flightmedic01

So will I be fired if I don’t get the booster now?!? SMH, it will never end people.

Mesabah

In his latest interview, he says they stand ready to deploy an update for the variants in as little as 90 days. Does anyone think they aren't going to provide a yearly prime/booster update? That's an annual shot dose, variant primer dose, and then the booster dose 6-8 months later.

GeeWizDriver

You seem surprised that the goalposts might be moved. Again....