Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

People are weird.

I conferred with the team and they all agree – still not tired of winning!

Fight them, without becoming them!

Washington Post’s Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

This really is a full service blog.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

People are complicated. Love is not.

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

No Justins, No Peace

Trump makes a mockery of the legal system and cowardly judges just sit back and let him.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Even though I know this is a bad idea, I’m off to do it anyway!

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Biden: Oh no. We’ve upset Big Pharma again.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

You are here: Home / Archives for Healthcare / H5N1 Bird Flu

H5N1 Bird Flu

COVID-19 Coronavirus (& H5N1) Updates: September 11, 2024

by | 15 Comments

This post is in: , ,

***********

Thread:

show full post on front page

COVID-19 Coronavirus (& H5N1) Updates: September 11, 2024Post + Comments (15)

COVID-19 Coronavirus (& H5N1) Updates: September 4, 2024

by | 38 Comments

This post is in: , ,

Excellent news — assuming it pans out…


More details:

***********

***********

show full post on front page

COVID-19 Coronavirus (& H5N1) Updates: September 4, 2024Post + Comments (38)

COVID-19 Coronavirus (& H5N1) Updates: August 27, 2024

by | 39 Comments

This post is in: , ,

***********

I’m not even gonna try to summarize this one… it’s short, read the whole thing:

show full post on front page

COVID-19 Coronavirus (& H5N1) Updates: August 27, 2024Post + Comments (39)

COVID-19 Coronavirus (& H5N1) Updates: August 20, 2024

by | 22 Comments

This post is in: , ,

With the country experiencing a relatively large summer wave of COVID-19, the Food and Drug Administration is considering signing off on this year’s strain-matched COVID-19 vaccines as soon as this week, according to a report by CNN that cited unnamed officials familiar with the matter.

Last year, the FDA gave the green light for the 2023–2024 COVID shots on September 11, close to the peak of SARS-CoV-2 transmission in that year’s summer wave. This year, the summer wave began earlier and, by some metrics, is peaking at much higher levels than in previous years.

Currently, wastewater detection of SARS-CoV-2 shows “very high” virus levels in 32 states and the District of Columbia. An additional 11 states are listed as having “high” levels. Looking at trends, the southern and western regions of the country are currently reporting SARS-CoV-2 levels in wastewater that rival the 2022–2023 and 2023–2024 winter waves, which both peaked at the very end of December…

Test positivity—a metric that has weakened given the dramatic decline in testing—shows a weekly test positivity rate of 18.1 percent for mid-August (amid a test volume of roughly 43,000). Such a rate, if truly reflective of cases, has not been seen since the initial towering omicron wave of January 2022, which peaked at 30.5 percent (with a test volume of roughly 991,000)…

The good news is that given the substantial accumulation of protection from past infections and vaccinations, the two most serious metrics—emergency department visits and deaths—have not shown similar rises. The weekly percentage of emergency department visits with a COVID-19 diagnosis is low and similar to last year’s summer wave. Deaths are likewise low, though they are still only provisional counts for the most recent weeks…

The FDA has firmly embraced a strategy to offer annual COVID-19 vaccines in the run-up to winter waves, not summer waves. The agency’s thinking has always been to encourage Americans to get their flu and COVID-19 vaccines together between September and November, just before a mob of cold-weather respiratory illnesses strike together. The fresh vaccination boost can dull the levels of severe respiratory disease at a time when health care systems are most at risk of becoming overwhelmed.

But, while seasonal flu and some other respiratory viruses reliably surge almost exclusively in the winter, the seasonality of COVID-19 was never a given. And, so far, summer waves have arisen as consistently as winter ones, creating some awkwardness for the vaccine releases.

The other thing to consider is timing for maximum protection for the likely winter wave. For healthy people 5 years old and above, the CDC recommended getting only one shot last year. The shots offer peak protection for around four months. If you get your annual shot at the beginning of September, your protection may be on the decline if COVID-19 peaks again at the turn of the year, as it has the past two years.

According to the 2023–2024 guidance, people who are 65 and older can get a second COVID-19 booster four months after getting their first. People who are moderately or severely immunocompromised may also get additional doses of the updated COVID-19 vaccine.

“Free to access” info from the Washington Post:

… The mRNA shots manufactured by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna designed to target the KP.2 variant can hit the market within days of approval by the Food and Drug Administration. A third protein-based vaccine made by Novavax, preferred by people who are cautious about mRNA vaccines or who have had bad reactions to them, will probably take longer to be approved and will be distributed in subsequent weeks, according to the federal health official.

Consumers should be able to start getting shots at pharmacies within a week after approval and at doctor’s offices soon after…

The timing of the release is too late for Americans who were looking to shore up their immunity before summer travel and the return of the school year, or for those who face heightened risk because of their age or underlying conditions. In recent weeks, some people weighed whether to get an outdated vaccine for partial protection more quickly or to hang on for the updated version. And those who didn’t want to wait discovered existing shots were no longer easy to find…

Manufacturers have stopped shipping existing coronavirus vaccines. A CDC vaccine finder website to help people locate pharmacies with coronavirus vaccines is down until newly formulated vaccines become widely available. Some CVS stores have run out while others have supplies, the company said. Walgreens is not offering coronavirus vaccines until the new versions arrive…

***********

show full post on front page

COVID-19 Coronavirus (& H5N1) Updates: August 20, 2024Post + Comments (22)

COVID-19 Coronavirus (& H5N1) Updates: August 13, 2024

by | 23 Comments

This post is in: , ,

***********


Gift link:

show full post on front page

COVID-19 Coronavirus (& H5N1) Updates: August 13, 2024Post + Comments (23)

COVID-19 Coronavirus (& H5N1) Updates: August 6, 2024

by | 28 Comments

This post is in: , ,


The CDC is taking social-media heat for not including the word mask anywhere in their ‘helpful hints’. I think we can all understand why they didn’t — objectively, just getting people to wash their hands after petting the cute baby animals, and hopefully not pick the baby’s pacifier out of the straw and shove it back in the kid’s mouth is worth *something.* Be nice if we all lived in a saner timeline, though…

***********

Neither H5N1 nor SARS related, but if you or someone in your circle is hesitating about getting the ‘new’ shingles vaccine:

***********

show full post on front page

COVID-19 Coronavirus (& H5N1) Updates: August 6, 2024Post + Comments (28)