But as always, our level of success depends on whether or not we can convince people to stop being self-centered ignorant gullible assholes long enough to get themselves the help we all need them to get in order for all of us to survive.
I remain hopeful (though not optimistic) that we could turn a corner here pretty soon, as this year's version of The Winter Surge threatens to fuck up another Christmas, and maybe that makes it clear that we're just going to have to beat some of these idiots into submission.
Ed Note 1: Beaten figuratively of course - we don't need any more of them sopping up any more hospital resources than is absolutely necessary.
Ed Note 2: Around every corner, there are more corners.
WaPo: (freebie)
Americans should get vaccine boosters ahead of possibly ‘dangerous’ winter spike, Fauci says
Americans who have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus should get booster shots ahead of a winter spike that could be “dangerous” due to the rampant spread of the virus among the unvaccinated, said Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert.
“Get vaccinated if you’re not vaccinated and boostered if you have been vaccinated,” Fauci said, speaking Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” He addressed the recent rise in cases in the United States, explaining that as the weather cools and people spend more time indoors, an increase in infections is “not unexpected.” But, he said, the large portion of Americans who have yet to be vaccinated creates a “dynamic of virus in the community” that is dangerous, makes the unvaccinated vulnerable and “spills over into the vaccinated people.”
On Friday, all American adults became eligible for boosters after guidance about the shots had caused confusion over who could get one. The move is an effort by federal health officials to get ahead of a holiday season that could lead to a further increase in cases. Fauci said that with children 5-to-11-years-old eligible to be vaccinated now, they can be “fully vaccinated by the time we get to the Christmas holidays.”
Here’s what to know
- Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet The Press” that he has not implemented a vaccine requirement for domestic air travel because other strategies, such as mandatory masking, are proving effective.
- In Europe, which the World Health Organization recently called the latest “epicenter” of the pandemic, large-scale, violent protests broke out over the weekend against renewed coronavirus restrictions, including a nationwide lockdown taking effect Monday in Austria.
- As the Food and Drug Administration considers the safety and efficacy of two antiviral pills that dramatically reduce the risk of hospitalization and death from covid-19, treatments will change the pandemic — but they cannot end it alone.
Treatments will change the pandemic, but they can’t end it alone
Antiviral pills will be a key part of a large toolkit needed to manage the coronavirus, not a silver bullet
The notion that a fearsome infection could soon be treatable with a handful of pills is an exhilarating idea nearly two years into a pandemic that has killed more than 5 million people, at least 770,000 in the United States. But experts — who are thrilled about the prospect of two powerful new medicines — worry that enthusiasm for the idea of treatments may distract from their limitations and the necessity of preventing illness in the first place.
If regulators deem the five-day treatment courses from Pfizer and Merck and its partner Ridgeback Biotherapeutics safe and effective in coming weeks, as most people expect, the drugs could make getting sick far less scary. The United States has already prepurchased millions of treatments. The good news arrives like an echo of last year, when two remarkably effective vaccines were authorized in the middle of the holiday season as a winter surge in new cases loomed.
But these treatments alone aren’t likely to close the book on the coronavirus. Instead, they will be a valuable addition to an armamentarium that the world is going to have to keep building and maintaining long term: vaccines, booster shots, more antiviral pills, virus-fighting antibodies engineered to stick around in people’s bodies and fast turnaround testing linked to treatment options.
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