Right, agreed. Now, if we could get enough uptake amongst adults and older kids to really stomp it out for younger kids, that could work too. But I have no idea of the R0, and no confidence in society to accomplish that. Google says it’s estimated at 3.0, so what’s that? 75% uptake for herd immunity?
50% would be amazing, 75% is not happening anytime soon.
I’m sorry I’m still confused over the part about the Sputnik vaccine being a fraud. Sounds like they only got one shot of it?
sorry, i wasn’t being clear. sputnik is probably a fine vaccine, but there was not enough of it to give to both russia, and whatever countries who bought it from putin. so russian health ministry likely pulled some shenanigans and instead started administering different vaccines widely, likely EpiVac or CoviVac, while also probably confusing the patients who thought they would be getting sputnik. the gamble did not pay off.
C- gimmick
The colorant isn’t present in the test line at the start of the test though, it’s carried there by the sample. Even if some contaminant also bound to the colorant, or just mobilized it generally, why would it stop specifically at the test line and the control line and not elsewhere?
I’m too tired to figure out what you’re misinterpreting in that cdc document. Your understanding is incorrect though
Maybe it’s just a typo and they meant to type ““The specificity of antigen tests is a lot lower than most NAATs.” Oops!
Deleted my ponied post
I’m not sure “dubious” is the right word for that headline.
An Omicron-specific booster was rendered impossible before Omicron was identified. The FDA can’t deliver a rapid authorization for a new vaccine in time for it to matter. I remember before Omicron came around, people were pooh-poohing concerns about immune escape variants because we could just make new vaccines for it. I pointed out at the time that it couldn’t happen, because the trials required for approval take months. That’s still the case, and no one has any appetite for reforming the FDA/CDC. So the best we seem likely to do is seasonal formulations like we do for flu.
Even with a reformed FDA I don’t see how we could have vaxxed fast enough to stop the Omincron wave.
I think this is spurious. OG Wuhan first hit the country in February and we didn’t have widespread vaccines until the following February/March/April and they were quite effective. An Omicron booster available this fall will still be quite useful even if by then we have some sub-lineage variant of Omicron spreading around. Don’t forget that the OG vaccines were quite effective on the Alpha variant and even the delta variant.
That’s it in anutshell.
Sure, stopping the Omicron wave entirely seems impossible, but there were 6 weeks between Omicron first being announced and the US hitting its peak of cases. Is it unthinkable that, say, 50 million doses of a reformulated vaccine could have been administered over the period? And what if the variant wasn’t as contagious and/or it didn’t hit during winter? What could you do with 12 weeks of lead time?
Also, think about OG COVID. If a novel virus with identical properties emerges today, how long would it take before vaccines are widely available? I’d take the over on 6 months. I might take the over on 9 if I’m in a bad mood.
Yeah I don’t think you can formulate a vaccine, approve it, and get 50 million out in six weeks. FDA has plenty of issues, but the timeline still is gonna be longer. Capacity is still what like 5-10 million doses a day between Pfizer and Moderna?
I agree that if we hit a true immune evasion strain and need to start from square one that we need faster approval, but since we aren’t gonna lock down anyways probably gonna he mass death either way.
A decent roundup of the UKHSA findings here within the UK where BA.2 is beginning to outcompete BA.1 via increased rates of household secondary attack.
BA.2 dominance now at ~80% in Denmark.
More here
Very odd that the in hospital number has been identical three days in a row. Problems with reporting over the weekend I guess.
There have been 62,399 new cases of Covid-19 in the UK, according to the latest government figures. But the cases for Scotland will not be added until Monday.
That’s cases I guess but if you see the small print below the above 3 graphics, all hospital numbers are from 27th (NK hacking our reporting systems again)
I heard a non-unionized worker at a place where a vote to have a union failed lament that a union would be helpful in fighting any vaccine requirements or other COVID policies they find onerous. Go unions or lol anti-vaxxer?
Something something, “But we must look at the R0 numbers because cases are actually increasing to infinity” something something.
Spectacularly good news though.
