What Is Going On?
One day everyone will wake up to the reality that there is nothing that can be done to stop the spread.
Brace for the next evolution of the narrative: "Actually, it turns out that the vaccine made everyone more susceptible. So, to protect the vaccinated, we must return to masks, social distancing, and lockdowns."
Covid-19 Cases Rise in Parts of U.S. With High Vaccination Rates
Some of the places that have avoided the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic, including Puerto Rico and Northern New England states, are coping with elevated cases and hospitalizations as the latest highly contagious iterations of the virus circulate.
Most counties in Vermont, as well as a growing number in Maine and southern New England, now have community Covid-19 levels categorized as “high” by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention based on case and hospitalization trends. Puerto Rico recently has had the highest rate of newly reported Covid-19 cases in the U.S., along with climbing hospitalizations.
Some of these places, including Puerto Rico and Vermont, have below-average rates of prior infections, recent CDC data show. Epidemiologists and health officials believe immunity from vaccines and heavy exposure to the virus at the national level may be limiting severe illness from the latest subvariants. The New England region and Puerto Rico have among the highest vaccination rates in the U.S.
“This is starting to affect our ability to care for individuals outside of Covid,” said James Jarvis, senior physician executive of incident command at Northern Light Health, a system in Maine with 10 hospitals. When beds fill up at bigger facilities, it makes it harder to take in transfers from the large, rural region the system covers, he said.
Some Covid-19 Patients Relapse After Taking Paxlovid, Puzzling Doctors - The rebound cases haven’t resulted in severe disease so far, but authorities are trying to determine why they happen, how often, and how to handle.
Paxlovid is supposed to treat the newly infected, keeping them out of the hospital. Within two weeks of appearing to get better, however, some users experienced cold-like symptoms such as sore throat and cough, according to physicians and published case reports.
The rebound cases haven’t resulted in severe disease so far. Doctors and health authorities still encourage Paxlovid’s use among people at high risk of developing severe Covid-19.
Yet the cases are the latest puzzle confronting health authorities, researchers and physicians trying to stay ahead of the virus.
The health experts said they aren’t sure if the relapsed patients are contagious. Nor are they sure what causes the rebounds, theorizing that patients may be taking Paxlovid too early or not long enough. The experts also don’t know how common the rebounds are, though Pfizer said its real-world data indicates the relapses occur in fewer than 1 in 3,000 patients.
The bar for reimposing mask mandates is getting higher and higher:
New York City raised its coronavirus alert level last week in response to rising cases, triggering a recommendation — but not a requirement — that people wear masks in public indoor settings. In Philadelphia, officials reimposed a mask mandate last month after cases rose, only to scrap the rule four days after it took effect.
The decisions by the Democratic-run cities illustrate how mask mandates are falling out of favor with American public health authorities in the third year of the pandemic and the bar to bring them back is getting higher, even in places where the requirements were long embraced as a proven way to reduce the spread of coronavirus.
“They are responding to the public,” said Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. “People are really fed up with all of these restrictions.”
Meanwhile, in the progressive utopia (Shanghai);
Shanghai intensifies Covid lockdown despite falling cases
Shanghai is further tightening its stringent lockdown measures after China's top leader Xi Jinping pledged to "unswervingly" double down on the country's controversial zero-Covid policy, leaving millions confined to their homes with no end in sight.
"It's not that you can do whatever you want -- unless you're in America. This is China," another police officer says sternly, waving a bottle of disinfectant in his hand. "Stop asking me why. There is no why. We have to obey our country's regulations and epidemic control policies."
Clayton is the founder and publisher of the social and political commentary newsletter Think Things Through and the host of the Think Things Through Podcast.
Twitter: @claytoncraddock
Hey Clayton - great work as always! Have you seen this? It seems significant to me since it comes from the .nih.gov site. Maybe the narrative is starting to change..... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9062939/