Yes, half dose Moderna is the normal booster. I don't know about Moderna but Israel seems to find that a fourth Pfizer dose substantially increases immunity. At least the Prime Minister is asserting so: https://www.newsweek.com/israels-fourth-covid-shot-shows-five-fold-boost-virus-antibodies-prime-minister-says-1665877
I would guess they will find the same for Moderna.
@jeanne-mayell @iridium
My first hope was that the vaccine created by the NPR-referenced-researchers could cheaply vaccinate the world and then variants would no longer have human petri dishes in which to develop. However, that is naive; obviously, more but not all humans will get vaccinated so, while the Omicron variant may dominate and out compete other variants, a new variant could develop in an immunocompromised person and spread.
If the Omicron's transmissibility ensures widespread infection rates, we have a shot at a certain level of acceptable endemic presence of the virus with the help of annual vaccinations. But you are right Jeanne, without an updated vaccine that is distributed to the world annually, won't variants remain a risk? Although, since there hasn't been a repeat of the terrible 1918 flu pandemic, perhaps Dr. Campbell's optimism about Omicron is warranted.
Still, to Jeanne's point, unless we shut down the experimental laboratories that did/can create this pandemic, this won't be the last viral scourge. I wonder what federal agency is responsible for such labs and how one should advocate for their closure?
Whew, my brain is tired. I will retreat from this topic on which I am loquacious but not especially knowledgeable and employ quantum mechanics to picture it gone (along with climate change.)
@jeanne-mayell so the end game to creating these virus is to thin the herd? Could there be any other motivation?
No, the end game of experimenting with the bat virus was never to harm people but to better understand the virus and see if it could jump from bats to humans. The end game was to save lives by isolating the source of the SARS virus, which the Wuhan virologist Shi Zhengli and her team discovered could come from bats. They then experimented with the virus found in bats to see if it could jump to humans.
Also I should be clear that I do not have proof that Covid-19 initially leaked from the Wuhan lab. I just feel intuitively that it did. And because the Chinese have not allowed a credible open investigation, the origin remains suspicious.
Shi Zhengli, at the Wuhan lab does not deny that she and her team have spent decades trapping and taking blood, urine, and fecal samples from bats and comparing them in the lab to antibodies from humans for possible transmission from bat to human. In fact, she admitted that when the outbreak happened she was worried it came from her Wuhan lab. But she has claimed that it did not. Should we believe her? Certainly the Chinese do not want the world to think their lab caused the outbreak.
From the New York Times: "In 2017, she and her colleagues at the Wuhan lab published a paper about an experiment in which they created new hybrid bat coronaviruses by mixing and matching parts of several existing ones — including at least one that was nearly transmissible to humans — in order to study their ability to infect and replicate in human cells."
This work is not just happening in China. There are labs conducting this virology research in North Carolina and I believe in Costa Rica. This is not a China issue. It's an issue about what kind of lab work is safe, and what kind is not safe for human health. Lymes disease has been credibly traced to a Department of Defense-funded lab on Plum Island off the coast of Lyme CT. The US Government denies it.
Even if covid was produced in the Wuhan Institute of Virology, I hope we don’t find out soon because such a disclosure now would probably lead to a new wave of anti-Asian violence.
I'm agnostic about the origins of the SARS-COV-02 virus. Whether it originated in a lab or in nature, the lesson is the same—respect nature. If it had a natural origin it still probably has its genesis in the bushmeat or wildlife trade.
Even if covid was produced in the Wuhan Institute of Virology, I hope we don’t find out soon because such a disclosure now would probably lead to a new wave of anti-Asian violence.
I hear you, Coyote, but my point is that there are similar labs in the US and elsewhere doing this kind of research. It's not just in China.
Interesting news out from Pfizer today. CEO Albert Bourla said an Omicron-specific vaccine from the company will be ready by March.
“We are working on a new version of our vaccine, a version that will be effective against Omicron as well, it’s not that it will not be effective against the other variants, but against Omicron as well,” Bourla said. “The hope is that we will achieve something that will have way, way better protection, particularly against infections, because the protection against the hospitalizations and severe disease, it is reasonable right now with the current vaccine, as long as you are having, let’s say, the third dose.”
I wonder if this new addition to the vaccine will help any other new mutations which may develop from this Omicron specific strain. Omicron has evolved very differently than the others such as Delta. I also wonder if in fact it will be available and actually used in March.
https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/omicron-variant-coronavirus-news-01-10-22/index.html
Promising news:
“The thing that might happen in the future is you may see the emergence of a new variant that is less severe, and ultimately, in the long-term, what happens is COVID becomes endemic and you have a less severe version. It’s very similar to the common cold that we’ve lived with for many years,” Dr. Mike Tildesley, a member of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (Spi-M) and a University of Warwick professor, told Times Radio on Saturday.
Spain suggest to tread Covid as an endemic:
I think that is the next step, but we need to be careful. I hope that masks will stay forever, also during normal flu seasons..
@tbs
Interesting that Spain has now expressed this thought.
This Quote from the article stood out to me:
The U.S. National Institutes of Health says a virus, such as the one that causes COVID-19, transitions from a pandemic to an endemic phase when a virus does not go extinct but merely drops in prevalence and severity over a long period of time.
The U.S. is not near ready to call this a an epidemic if this is how they judge how the transition works. Way too many states are currently dealing with numbers at or higher than their highest peak recorded. Our hospitals in AZ are beginning to near capacity again.
Today my daughter who is an elementary school teacher in Texas said that she was told by a staff member at a high school in her district that there are 35 staff members there were out with covid currently. At her school there are now 5 staff members out with confirmed Covid.
None of these numbers are showing up on the district covid graph page. Her school and the High school don't show any staff out with covid this week and she knows the 5 at her school were all tested and out with covid.
She feels her district needs to go to virtual for the next 2 weeks if for no other reason than for staffing issues. Nobody is willing to sub and schools can not remain open with a staffing crisis. Non of the teachers at her school who are choosing to wear masks have gotten covid yet. She is one of a handful who wear one. Additionally, it is too cool (per state law) to have students do P.E. or have recess outside so they can't even be outside for part of the day.
As per usual, her principle is in denial about the severity of the problem and does not have any viable contingency plan.
*Adding that her superintendent told the media today that under no circumstances who mask be required and there would be NO virtual learn options. Other nearby districts went virtual this first week back from break.