Muh Muh Muh My Corona (virus)

A lot of people are gonna be mad soon when they get sick with something and can't blame anyone for it.

 

Got my first Moderna shot today. Guy at CVS said they open up available appointments between 5 and 6 a.m. every day and if you can't get one at any time, that means they have no more in inventory and to try back the next day.

 

Every variant is different. There are thousands of them, but 99.99% of them are not functionally different from each other.

A couple of them have concerning properties.

The South African and Brazilian variants appear to have a mutation that makes it harder for some antibodies to recognize the virus, which lowers the effectiveness of immune response. The vaccines generally seem to be strong enough to overcome this, so that "lower effectiveness" is still "really good effectiveness." With the exception that the SA variant *might* do a really good job of dodging the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, but imo it's still too early to tell and the study that suggested it was too small. Fortunately, that vaccine does not appear to be a major part of the US's plans and that variant is not particularly prevalent in the US.

The B117 variant appears to be more transmissible. Basically, the velcro that lets the virus stick to cells is a stickier than before, so it takes less exposure to transmit. However, that particular variation appears to have little effect on vaccine or immunity effectiveness.

How big of an impact that makes is going to be dependent on the specifics of your country. If I were a country that had very little immunity because I'd been doing a good job of keeping a lid on things, and I was not going to be doing much vaccinating for the near future, the B117 variant would make me very nervous. It would make it much harder to keep a lid on the virus without getting even stricter than you're already being.

But for the United States specifically, I think we are in a good position to avoid any major issues with that variant.

 

No matter what, we can always blame soccer.

 

Dammit. When are you gonna get it right? It was a Hulu lab.

 

Bad weather really impacted the vaccination plan today. Only 820,000, the lowest day since Jan. 18.

 

I blame The Coastal Elites.

 

This was a cataclysmic storm for a big hunk of the country, but you have to figure that when Biden announced the 100 million shots in 100 days line, somebody had said "you know, we ought to figure in how February has so much sucky weather for so many people."

 

Probably holding out for the cooler European vaccines.

 

The 7-day average change in United States hospitalizations is -18.3%, which I believe is the biggest its been in the pandemic. It is steadily growing.

If we continued dropping at that rate, the US would see the lowest hospitalization total (~29k) of the pandemic in 27-29 days.

Unless something comes along to wreck our shit (looking at you, B117), this is over way faster than people think. I feel weird saying it, but that's where the math keeps taking me.

 

@RickStain - I’m glad you dropped back in. Your posts really help me understand what’s going on and make me feel better. Thank you.

 

Opening day?