Coronavirus

Shots – Health News : NPR

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What’s the COVID risk in your area? CDC maps leave some people confused : Shots – Health News : NPR

Up until late February, the CDC based its rankings of a county's level of risk on the amount of virus spreading there and what portion of lab tests were found to be positive. The new framework instead focuses on the situation in hospitals — how many people are being admitted for COVID-19 and how much capacity is left.

Critics of CDC's new approach say the agency seems to have moved the goalposts to justify the political imperative to let people get back to their normal lives.

Got a Covid Booster? You Probably Won’t Need Another for a Long Time – The New York Times

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Got a Covid Booster? You Probably Won’t Need Another for a Long Time – The New York Times

As people across the world grapple with the prospect of living with the coronavirus for the foreseeable future, one question looms large: How soon before they need yet another shot?

Not for many months, and perhaps not for years, according to a flurry of new studies.

Three doses of a Covid vaccine — or even just two — are enough to protect most people from serious illness and death for a long time, the studies suggest.

“We’re starting to see now diminishing returns on the number of additional doses,” said John Wherry, director of the Institute for immunology at the University of Pennsylvania. Although people over 65 or at high risk of illness may benefit from a fourth vaccine dose, it may be unnecessary for most people, he added.

Federal health officials have said they are not planning to recommend fourth doses anytime soon.

I got my free Bidencare COVID-19 Test Kit 👃🏻 

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I got my free Bidencare COVID-19 Test Kit 👃🏻 

Hopefully I’ll never have to use it but it will be setting in my bathroom. I thought it was a bit over packaged coming in the mail, being in an padded USPS mail sleeve but it apparently is a set of two commercial grade Abbot Binax COVID-19 Test Kits, like they sell at the pharmacy for $26 a piece.

I was somehow expecting the kits to be a shrunk down version of the test kits sold at the pharmacy – not exact replicas. You know something like US Gubermant Brand Generic Kit in an ugly brown paper envelope, no resale value printed on them. I can see the next scandal – people reselling their free test kits at neighborhood stores – $52 or more profit per household.

Also no letter included from the benevolent politicians, thanking you for buying a test kit with your hard earned taxpayer dollars and reminding you to get out and vote for the nice people that saved your $52 by sending you a test kit the next day your family gets the sniffles. 

Should you wear your muzzle? 😷

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Should you wear your muzzle? 😷

Now that muzzles aren’t required in a lot of places like stores, should you wear it regardless? I don’t know, that’s a personal preference based on your assessment of risk. You could argue it should have been that way throughout winter, especially for vaccinated individuals.

I know for the time being, I’ll probably wear my muzzle for grocery shopping but maybe it will depend when I run in to get milk at Stewart’s or run inside at a gas station. For now they are still requiring muzzles at work when one is away from their desk, but I expect at least for quite a bit longer I’ll wear my muzzle in the elevator even if it’s not required. Regardless I’ll need my muzzle to ride the bus, so it makes sense to wear in the elevator.

It seems like the muzzles helped a lot pre-vaccination but nowadays with Omnicron, I’m not sure how effective muzzles really are. Relatively few people outside of New York wore muzzles during the past winter. There has been a lot of promotion of those disposable N95 masks as being better but honestly I don’t think it matters that much. I know a handful of people who have gotten a break through case of COVID-19 post vaccination haven’t gotten real sick. Most of the people I’ve known who got real sick from COVID-19 skipped on the vaccination – sucks to be them, choosing to do it the hard way. 

The Power of Boosters – The New York Times

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The Power of Boosters – The New York Times

The average weekly chance that a boosted person died of Covid was about one in a million during October and November (the most recent available C.D.C. data). Since then, the chances have no doubt been higher, because of the Omicron surge. But they will probably be even lower in coming weeks, because the surge is receding and Omicron is milder than earlier versions of the virus. For now, one in a million per week seems like a reasonable estimate.

That risk is not zero, but it is not far from it. The chance that an average American will die in a car crash this week is significantly higher — about 2.4 per million. So is the average weekly death rate from influenza and pneumonia — about three per million.

With a booster shot, Covid resembles other respiratory illnesses that have been around for years. It can still be nasty. For the elderly and immunocompromised, it can be debilitating, even fatal — much as the flu can be. The Omicron surge has been so terrible because it effectively subjected tens of millions of Americans to a flu all at once.

Ahead of Midterms, Some Democrats Search for New Message on Virus – The New York Times

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Ahead of Midterms, Some Democrats Search for New Message on Virus – The New York Times

Around the country, Democratic elected officials who in the pandemic’s early phase shut down cities and states more aggressively than most Republicans did — and saw their popularity soar — are using a different playbook today. Despite the deadly wave fueled by the Omicron variant, Democratic officials are largely skipping mask mandates and are fighting to keep schools open, sometimes in opposition to health care workers and their traditional allies in teachers’ unions.

The shift reflects a potential change in the nature of the threat now that millions of Americans are vaccinated and Omicron appears to be causing less serious disease. But it is also a political pivot. Democrats are keenly aware that Americans — including even some of the party’s loyal liberal voters — have changed their attitudes about the virus and that it could be perilous to let Republicans brand the Democrats the party of lockdowns and mandates.