recent tests over last 6–8 weeks have established that the updated boosters from pfizer are 4x as effective at treating current strains as the deprecated original vaccines. give robust protection to the elderly.
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/11/04/heal … index.htmlwe are essentially into the same epidemiological picture as a (serious) seasonal epidemic like flu. annual, revised shots will have to be distributed effectively to the most at risk. the vulnerable will still be at high risk and will require quick testing, diagnosis, and antiviral/hospital treatment in order to maximise their chances. transmission will still occur, even if the latest and greatest shots do attenuate the transmission factor.
as with flu shots, it will be a yearly effort to actually corral healthy, working-age people into getting boostered up. i always got mine each year for free in the workplace, an NHS nurse would spend a week giving them out to everyone who popped into a spare conference room. this seems an eminently sensible way of getting the main adult population to comply. it hardly needs to be stated at this point that a lot of people, mongs especially, are continuing about their lives now as if covid doesn't exist at all.
i think there's a huge amount of progress to be made on post-covid recovery and 'long covid' studies. we don't fully understand the after-effects and potential sequelae of covid, though it should be said before an alarmist like dilbert claims that's a good reason to shutter society for the foreseeable, that it's the same with many viruses like flu. a generalised immune inflammatory response can have many knock-on effects, highly dependent on the individual. last week a famous cookbook writer or something died at 50, likely from undiagnosed/mistreated after effects of covid. she developed a serious fungal infection (black furry tongue) and her doctor dismissed it. a week later she had a heart attack. that is, naturally, alarming. there needs to be more caution and care taken by people on the recovery curve from a recent bout of covid. again, though: like flu. we already know after decades of exposure that you need to take it easy after a brush with a seasonal illness. running marathons with covid still in your body probably will increase your chance of stroke and heart attack. we need to keep this in proportion.
otherwise the progress of the disease is just as the virologists predicted, and the forecast that i reported here: omicron is the evolutionary top dog at the moment, and a year on all we are dealing with is essentially its many mutant children. some more threatening than others, but all much of the same. it remains a serious illness and people should mask up and take all reasonable precautions, particularly with a view to seasonal waves or waves of infection caused by a new variant. but it's not insurmountable and definitely far, far from a civilization-wide threat at this point requiring lockdowns and pausing of civil society.
Last edited by uziq (2022-11-04 21:08:33)
