Fogbow

Lani wrote: ↑Fri Apr 23, 2021 5:15 am Well, I guess the vaccines are working! A couple and their 2 little children visited a neighbor island. Upon return, the kids had covid, hopefully mild. But the parents, who were vaccinated, are well.

In another family, 2 people visited friends on a neighbor island and became ill just after return. In a couple of days, all 9 members of the family had covid. (They are being tested to see what variant it is.) The good news if that none of their contacts who were vaccinated have become ill.

More than 5 million people have skipped their second shot of the COVID-19 vaccine, the New York Times reports.

“The reasons vary for why people are missing their second shots. In interviews, some said they feared the side effects, which can include flulike symptoms. Others said they felt that they were sufficiently protected with a single shot.”

Young people who get the COVID-19 vaccine in West Virginia won't just gain protection against a deadly virus — they'll also make money.

The state will offer a $100 savings bond to everyone between the ages of 16 and 35 who gets vaccinated, Gov. Jim Justice, a Republican, announced at a Monday briefing. It's part of an ongoing push to get shots into the arms of younger residents, who have been largely slow to roll up their sleeves so far.

"Our kids today probably don't really realize just how important they are in shutting this thing down," Justice said. "I'm trying to come up with a way that's truly going to motivate them — and us — to get over the hump."

The initiative will apply retroactively to people in this age group who have already gotten their shots. It is funded with money from the CARES Act, with Justice adding that officials have "vetted this in every way that we possibly can."

West Virginia's vaccine rollout got off to a famously strong start earlier this year. Despite challenges such as a widespread lack of Internet access, the largely rural state had managed to fully vaccinate such a large percentage of its eligible population by late February that, had it been a country, it would have ranked third in the world.

But as eligibility expanded, the pace of vaccinations slowed. The state now ranks 29th in the country, according to NPR's vaccine tracker, which says 29% of the population has been fully vaccinated and 35.3% has had at least one dose.

An oral antiviral drug to stop the virus that causes COVID-19 from replicating could be ready next year "if all goes right," Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla told CNBC on Tuesday, adding that the drug should work against all variants of the virus.

Why it matters: Antiviral drugs can be a key pandemic-fighting tool, since not everyone will get a vaccine and it may take years to fully vaccinate people in certain countries around the world, Axios' Alison Snyder reports.

Of note: So far, remdesivir — a drug investigated earlier to treat Ebola and other diseases — is the only antiviral approved in the U.S. for COVID-19.

What they're saying: Bourla said Pfizer is working on two antiviral drugs, one injectable and the other oral.

"Particularly, the attention is on the oral," Bourla said,"because it provides several advantages. One of them is you don't have to go to the hospital to get the treatment, which is the case with all of the injectables so far. You can get it at home. That would be a game-changer."

He said the antiviral drug should be "way more effective against multiple variants."

What's next: Bourla said the company would have more news about the drug around summer.

Lani wrote: ↑Sat Apr 10, 2021 9:09 am Crap.

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LM K wrote: ↑Tue May 04, 2021 2:48 pm

Lani wrote: ↑Sat Apr 10, 2021 9:09 am Crap.

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Lani wrote: ↑Tue May 04, 2021 5:37 pm

LM K wrote: ↑Tue May 04, 2021 2:48 pm

Lani wrote: ↑Sat Apr 10, 2021 9:09 am Crap.

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Could today’s version of America have been able to win World War II? It hardly seems possible.

That victory required national cohesion, voluntary sacrifice for the common good and trust in institutions and each other. America’s response to Covid-19 suggests that we no longer have sufficient quantities of any of those things.

In 2020 Americans failed to socially distance and test for the coronavirus and suffered among the highest infection and death rates in the developed world. Millions decided that wearing a mask infringed their individual liberty.

This week my Times colleague Apoorva Mandavilli reported that experts now believe that America will not achieve herd immunity anytime soon. Instead of largely beating this disease it could linger, as a more manageable threat, for generations. A major reason is that about 30 percent of the U.S. population is reluctant to get vaccinated.

We’re not asking you to storm the beaches of Iwo Jima; we’re asking you to walk into a damn CVS.

Americans have always been an individualistic people who don’t like being told what to do. But in times of crisis, they have historically still had the capacity to form what Alexis de Tocqueville called a “social body,” a coherent community capable of collective action. During World War I, for example, millions served at home and abroad to win a faraway war, responding to recruiting posters that read “I Want You” and “Americans All.”

That basic sense of peoplehood, of belonging to a common enterprise with a shared destiny, is exactly what’s lacking today. Researchers and reporters who talk to the vaccine-hesitant find that the levels of distrust, suspicion and alienation that have marred politics are now thwarting the vaccination process. They find people who doubt the competence of the medical establishment or any establishment, who assume as a matter of course that their fellow countrymen are out to con, deceive and harm them.


A lot of Americans have seceded from the cultural, political and social institutions of national life. As a result, the nation finds it hard to perform collective action. Our pathetic Covid response may not be the last or worst consequence of this condition.

LM K wrote: ↑Fri May 07, 2021 5:03 am Brilliant opinion piece by David Brooks.

Our Pathetic Herd Immunity Failure