All over the news, those over 65 AND any one immune compromised WILL need a booster. Is this booster just a 3rd dose of the vaccine? Or is this a new “tweaked” vaccine?
UGHHHHH just what we need.
And then what a 4th and a 5th so on down the line as we NEVER catch up with this virus?
AND what is the next variant? One that totally evades
the vaccines?
I just don’t see any end in sight.
It’s like we’re shoveling shit against the tide or pissing into the wind as they say….
All I’ve been hearing from the CDC is that boosters won’t be necessary, at least not anytime soon.
JPD, is this some updated breaking news?
It was the headline on channel 5 news at 11PM last night.
The CDC is lying to us or at the very least holding back.
BOOSTERS ARE NEEDED, at least for portions of the
population which includes my wife and I.
This just keeps getting worse.
And while on the topic of CDC irresponsibility….
For anyone who wondered why I have a problem with DESE, remember DESE holds our children’s, teachers’ and staff’s safety and well being in its hands…..solely
Read comments. God Bless the individual who said, Are you kidding me? Those are my students.
The problem is that the situation keeps (and will keep) evolving. As more data is gathered with the passage of time, revised conclusions are drawn. That is the scientific method.
Moderna is running clinical trials on a a revised booster shot with tweaked mRNA geared to the variants, another one combining that with additional mRNA against flu, and lastly giving a third jab of the original formulation. I particularly follow Moderna as that is the vaccine I had.
I would like to clarify something I see mentioned a lot. That is that these vaccines were developed “so fast”. The mRNA technology has been around for quite a few years, I’ve read ten plus years. The process for making the vaccine is not nearly as time consuming as for “traditional” vaccines. You may have heard that flu vaccines are grown in eggs. That process is much more time consuming, months instead of weeks.
The clinical trials were run on the basis of vaccinating people with either the vaccine or saline and then following everyone until a predetermined number of people had documented COVID at which the study was unblinded. That was the point at which we heard the 95/96% effective numbers. Because the virus was a pandemic and essentially everywhere, that end goal number of infections was swiftly reached. A more rare virus might take much longer to do the same.
I volunteered to participate in the trial, but wasn’t chosen. I believe they wanted people at higher risk of exposure because of their life circumstances, so front line workers, not WFH folks like me.
I read that trials were held in Brazil at the time that the virus was going nuts there. If they had set up the trial in Australia and New Zealand, or other places with low viral numbers, we’d still be waiting for the results.
Despite the fact that the full results are still being assessed by the FDA, millions and millions of people all over the world have received these vaccines, and what we have consistently heard both in the news and from the people around us is that there are some minor side effects right after the jabs, and that the full course protects us from severe disease and death. I would be surprised if the FDA learned anything unexpected from the full results analysis of the clinical data. I expect it will confirm what we already know.
Thanks, Amy. I was going to do some research today to see if we have administered vaccines on an emergency and not fully approved basis in the past. Do you know if we have?
I agree that I don’t think there is something fda or cdc or anyone knows about the vaccines. The problem is that the tendency is to omit or fully disclose. The problem also is that there are too often different and contradictory statements among agencies and even within agencies.
Another topic I had planned to look into today is past use of mRNA vaccines on younger folks. I did know they are not new. And I’ve said here that I am very happy that the FDA is taking all the time it needs to fully approve.
What new info will the FDA discover that the CDC doesn’t already know? It’s perfectly safe and very effective if the unvaccinated would give it a chance.
While it is safe for many, no vaccine is perfectly safe for everyone, including this one. I don’t know enough to second guess the approval procedures and think it makes much more sense to me for them to take their time. We already know the cdc skirts around full disclosure so we just don’t know what we don’t know 😉
There’s good and bad in the UK. The good news is that numbers of new daily cases are going down. An 8 week wave now in apparent decline. It’s also good that there is a degree of uncoupling between cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. Vaccines work to weaken the link. The bad news is the case numbers are still very high (~32k today), testing is lower than previous weeks (schools just let out, which may be one reason), test positivity is high (>10% in England), hospitalizations are increasing by around 750/day, and deaths are ~75/day.
Overall, worldwide the U.S. now is atop the case leader board every day, once again. The U.S. certainly wouldn’t want to relinquish its firm 1st place lead. Biden, DeSantis, Abbott, Baker et al. are doing everything they can to make sure the U.S. is number one, baby. Sorry for the sarcasm, but unfortunately there’s a kernel of truth to it.
The current map already has three more red states than the one in that tweet: https://covidactnow.org
Oklahoma, Georgia and S. Carolina are the latest members of The Club.
Is it worrisome that we are a red state and also have among the highest number of folks vaccinated ?
It is the MA infection rate that puts us in the Critical (red) category. The Critical level is 1.4 and we are at 1.54.
The last time that it was that high was March 31, 2020.
Thank you. A bit worrisome since we are so highly vaccinated.
Joshua, can you think of a reason that DESE would not participate in the prep meetings for vaccines for children under 12.
No, there is no reason. DESE should participate.
Thanks. I thought I had to be missing something.
We were trying to figure out why there is such a difference between baker now and baker March 2020. The only thing we could come up with is that he is trying mot to hurt tourism and, as such, business. It’s a fine line I guess
This may sound jaded (and arguably insulting to baby-boomers – goes w/o saying my comments to follow are gross generalizations and not applicable to everyone) – but to me it seems like Baker felt – as he said repeatedly – rightly so – that spring 2020 was the hardest job of his life and he never wants to go through that again. Thus – Like so many others in the post-Eisenhower generation – ie boomers and beyond – he simply rejects what he doesn’t want to deal with – he doesn’t want to ever have to work that hard again or have that hard a job – so like we do in the new “spoiled” paradigm (myself included but I think more so boomers and less so – thank god – the rising generations after my own gen x) he simply is not yet accepting and addressing this current surge bc he doesn’t want to. Our ability to deal with unpleasant realities and to take our proverbial medicine took a hit after the last generation of depression era babies went away (Eisenhower Gen).
Obviously Baker will be required to pivot soon and get back on the horse-from-hell again to some degree – but the horrible part is this time delay before he pulls it back together to do his job – it will cost unnecessary loss of life.
And as a “morning after” follow up – in retrospect this scathing analysis of mine above of Baker (and pretty much all living generations…) is pretty out of line & unfair – re: Baker I really hope I am wrong and underestimating him. In full disclosure I was never a big fan of his prior to 2020 (even if just out of party loyalty) until Covid hit but I was floored and frankly in awe of his amazing performance under pressure last spring. I thought I perhaps grossly misjudged him – and I still do hope he’ll step back up to the plate.
I think he had a brief change of heart last year. He may have been worried about his dad. Now he has taken pn the worst characteristics of the curren t republican party. He now sounds/acts like one of those Southern Republican governors.
He acts like Desantis North
C-19 for 7-25 is ready.
And again a thank you to all participating in this discussion we wish we didn’t have to have, but I have decided to keep open here until we see the pandemic declared over. This is not an easy topic for anybody to discuss day after day. Thanks to all for remaining civil even when you don’t agree on something. 🙂
Comments are closed.
Your no-hype southeastern New England weather blog!
Yesterday’s MA positivity rate = 1.5%
All over the news, those over 65 AND any one immune compromised WILL need a booster. Is this booster just a 3rd dose of the vaccine? Or is this a new “tweaked” vaccine?
UGHHHHH just what we need.
And then what a 4th and a 5th so on down the line as we NEVER catch up with this virus?
AND what is the next variant? One that totally evades
the vaccines?
I just don’t see any end in sight.
It’s like we’re shoveling shit against the tide or pissing into the wind as they say….
All I’ve been hearing from the CDC is that boosters won’t be necessary, at least not anytime soon.
JPD, is this some updated breaking news?
It was the headline on channel 5 news at 11PM last night.
The CDC is lying to us or at the very least holding back.
BOOSTERS ARE NEEDED, at least for portions of the
population which includes my wife and I.
This just keeps getting worse.
And while on the topic of CDC irresponsibility….
For anyone who wondered why I have a problem with DESE, remember DESE holds our children’s, teachers’ and staff’s safety and well being in its hands…..solely
https://twitter.com/statehousenews/status/1418640417680203781?s=21
Read comments. God Bless the individual who said, Are you kidding me? Those are my students.
The problem is that the situation keeps (and will keep) evolving. As more data is gathered with the passage of time, revised conclusions are drawn. That is the scientific method.
Moderna is running clinical trials on a a revised booster shot with tweaked mRNA geared to the variants, another one combining that with additional mRNA against flu, and lastly giving a third jab of the original formulation. I particularly follow Moderna as that is the vaccine I had.
I would like to clarify something I see mentioned a lot. That is that these vaccines were developed “so fast”. The mRNA technology has been around for quite a few years, I’ve read ten plus years. The process for making the vaccine is not nearly as time consuming as for “traditional” vaccines. You may have heard that flu vaccines are grown in eggs. That process is much more time consuming, months instead of weeks.
The clinical trials were run on the basis of vaccinating people with either the vaccine or saline and then following everyone until a predetermined number of people had documented COVID at which the study was unblinded. That was the point at which we heard the 95/96% effective numbers. Because the virus was a pandemic and essentially everywhere, that end goal number of infections was swiftly reached. A more rare virus might take much longer to do the same.
I volunteered to participate in the trial, but wasn’t chosen. I believe they wanted people at higher risk of exposure because of their life circumstances, so front line workers, not WFH folks like me.
I read that trials were held in Brazil at the time that the virus was going nuts there. If they had set up the trial in Australia and New Zealand, or other places with low viral numbers, we’d still be waiting for the results.
Despite the fact that the full results are still being assessed by the FDA, millions and millions of people all over the world have received these vaccines, and what we have consistently heard both in the news and from the people around us is that there are some minor side effects right after the jabs, and that the full course protects us from severe disease and death. I would be surprised if the FDA learned anything unexpected from the full results analysis of the clinical data. I expect it will confirm what we already know.
Thanks, Amy. I was going to do some research today to see if we have administered vaccines on an emergency and not fully approved basis in the past. Do you know if we have?
I agree that I don’t think there is something fda or cdc or anyone knows about the vaccines. The problem is that the tendency is to omit or fully disclose. The problem also is that there are too often different and contradictory statements among agencies and even within agencies.
Another topic I had planned to look into today is past use of mRNA vaccines on younger folks. I did know they are not new. And I’ve said here that I am very happy that the FDA is taking all the time it needs to fully approve.
What new info will the FDA discover that the CDC doesn’t already know? It’s perfectly safe and very effective if the unvaccinated would give it a chance.
While it is safe for many, no vaccine is perfectly safe for everyone, including this one. I don’t know enough to second guess the approval procedures and think it makes much more sense to me for them to take their time. We already know the cdc skirts around full disclosure so we just don’t know what we don’t know 😉
There’s good and bad in the UK. The good news is that numbers of new daily cases are going down. An 8 week wave now in apparent decline. It’s also good that there is a degree of uncoupling between cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. Vaccines work to weaken the link. The bad news is the case numbers are still very high (~32k today), testing is lower than previous weeks (schools just let out, which may be one reason), test positivity is high (>10% in England), hospitalizations are increasing by around 750/day, and deaths are ~75/day.
The U.S. just began its Delta surge 10-14 days ago. Massachusetts is a red state once again, along with RI and some Southern states and a few others. Baker says there’s nothing to worry about. https://twitter.com/ashishkjha/status/1419030681624137729/photo/2
Overall, worldwide the U.S. now is atop the case leader board every day, once again. The U.S. certainly wouldn’t want to relinquish its firm 1st place lead. Biden, DeSantis, Abbott, Baker et al. are doing everything they can to make sure the U.S. is number one, baby. Sorry for the sarcasm, but unfortunately there’s a kernel of truth to it.
The current map already has three more red states than the one in that tweet:
https://covidactnow.org
Oklahoma, Georgia and S. Carolina are the latest members of The Club.
Is it worrisome that we are a red state and also have among the highest number of folks vaccinated ?
It is the MA infection rate that puts us in the Critical (red) category. The Critical level is 1.4 and we are at 1.54.
The last time that it was that high was March 31, 2020.
Thank you. A bit worrisome since we are so highly vaccinated.
Joshua, can you think of a reason that DESE would not participate in the prep meetings for vaccines for children under 12.
No, there is no reason. DESE should participate.
Thanks. I thought I had to be missing something.
We were trying to figure out why there is such a difference between baker now and baker March 2020. The only thing we could come up with is that he is trying mot to hurt tourism and, as such, business. It’s a fine line I guess
This may sound jaded (and arguably insulting to baby-boomers – goes w/o saying my comments to follow are gross generalizations and not applicable to everyone) – but to me it seems like Baker felt – as he said repeatedly – rightly so – that spring 2020 was the hardest job of his life and he never wants to go through that again. Thus – Like so many others in the post-Eisenhower generation – ie boomers and beyond – he simply rejects what he doesn’t want to deal with – he doesn’t want to ever have to work that hard again or have that hard a job – so like we do in the new “spoiled” paradigm (myself included but I think more so boomers and less so – thank god – the rising generations after my own gen x) he simply is not yet accepting and addressing this current surge bc he doesn’t want to. Our ability to deal with unpleasant realities and to take our proverbial medicine took a hit after the last generation of depression era babies went away (Eisenhower Gen).
Obviously Baker will be required to pivot soon and get back on the horse-from-hell again to some degree – but the horrible part is this time delay before he pulls it back together to do his job – it will cost unnecessary loss of life.
And as a “morning after” follow up – in retrospect this scathing analysis of mine above of Baker (and pretty much all living generations…) is pretty out of line & unfair – re: Baker I really hope I am wrong and underestimating him. In full disclosure I was never a big fan of his prior to 2020 (even if just out of party loyalty) until Covid hit but I was floored and frankly in awe of his amazing performance under pressure last spring. I thought I perhaps grossly misjudged him – and I still do hope he’ll step back up to the plate.
I think he had a brief change of heart last year. He may have been worried about his dad. Now he has taken pn the worst characteristics of the curren t republican party. He now sounds/acts like one of those Southern Republican governors.
He acts like Desantis North
C-19 for 7-25 is ready.
And again a thank you to all participating in this discussion we wish we didn’t have to have, but I have decided to keep open here until we see the pandemic declared over. This is not an easy topic for anybody to discuss day after day. Thanks to all for remaining civil even when you don’t agree on something. 🙂