Thanks for posting. This is what we need to be doing if we are to move forward with this virus - finding alternative ways to identify and track it, whilst also preventing new variants by adequately ventilating indoor spaces (I don't know if the US is doing this, the UK isn't).
Agreed. The ventilation thing can happen in more prosperous areas where it can be afforded to restructure buildings etc. but I do not see a lot of this happening en mass. Another interesting approach is what my company is doing ~~~ we were scheduled to move into a newly constructed modern office building (by architect Frank Gehry) which is still being completed. Floorplans have the whole open-concept office space, shared spaces and open common areas. We were told than when we do return to the office, the building will only be 67% occuppied at any one time. In other words, we are moving into a hybrid work schedule - part-time at home and partime in the office. We will not have assigned work stations/offices, but will need to book a desk online on the designated day we choose to come in (not unlike buying movie tickets online where you choose your seat) and then plug in our laptops at said station for the day. More details are forthcoming, but that's what it looks like as of now.
For what it's worth, from the comments section:
People around me are beginning to be more cavalier with mask-wearing. In an office where each knows the others have been vaccinated, two of the three of us weren't wearing a mask. Then, we all decided to put them on.
The county where I live has 51 cases per 100000, (2 week average). The state has a 2.9% positivity rate. So, I'll wear my mask for a while longer.
Today, the UK has dropped all Covid measures. No self-isolation, no masks, nothing at all - letting it rip. They're leaving any decisions (whether to self-isolate or not, mask or not etc...) to people's common sense (which means most people will just carry one with life as 'normal' with Covid. They probably won't even know they've got it as PCR tests are being massively scaled down and LFT's are largely unavailable). The vulnerable just have to hope they avoid it, and who knows how we're going to tell if a new variant appears on the horizon. Free testing is ending soon (easy access to tests has already ended), Covid funding has been stopped, and they are going to stop reporting the figures soon too. Long Covid has never been recognised over here in the last two years, apart from by the medics who are dealing with it. The government have always just said it's post-viral fatigue and nothing to worry about. I hate our government with a passion.
I hope we keep having access to the numbers here. But, similarly, especially among the vaccinated: how many people are going to take testing seriously? Without that, how reliable are the numbers anyway?
The numbers are still to be published on weekdays for now, but they've talked about stopping them in April. I can't see people bothering to test if a) they don't need to isolate and b) they have to pay for the tests.
Interesting, thanks for posting. It seems to go against what they're saying here, that booster immunity starts waning after 10 weeks. We're starting fourth doses for the elderly and vulnerable (age over 12) soon.Some hope....
Got a Covid Booster? You Probably Won’t Need Another for a Long Time
A flurry of new studies suggests that several parts of the immune system can mount a sustained, potent response to any coronavirus variant.
A colored transmission electron micrograph of a T cell. Antibodies are relatively easy to study, whereas analyzing immune cells requires blood, skill, special equipment and lots of time.Credit...Dr. Klaus Boller/Science Source
By Apoorva Mandavilli
Published Feb. 21, 2022Updated Feb. 24, 2022, 5:12 p.m. ET
As people across the world grapple with the prospect of living with the coronavirus for the foreseeable future, one question looms large: How soon before they need yet another shot?
Not for many months, and perhaps not for years, according to a flurry of new studies.
Three doses of a Covid vaccine — or even just two — are enough to protect most people from serious illness and death for a long time, the studies suggest.
“We’re starting to see now diminishing returns on the number of additional doses,” said John Wherry, director of the Institute for immunology at the University of Pennsylvania. Although people over 65 or at high risk of illness may benefit from a fourth vaccine dose, it may be unnecessary for most people, he added.
Federal health officials have said they are not planning to recommend fourth doses anytime soon.
The Omicron variant can dodge antibodies — immune molecules that prevent the virus from infecting cells — produced after two doses of a Covid vaccine. But a third shot of the mRNA vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech or by Moderna prompts the body to make a much wider variety of antibodies, which would be difficult for any variant of the virus to evade, according to the most recent study, posted online on Tuesday.
The diverse repertoire of antibodies produced should be able to protect people from new variants, even those that differ significantly from the original version of the virus, the study suggests.
“If people are exposed to another variant like Omicron, they now got some extra ammunition to fight it,” said Dr. Julie McElrath, an infectious disease physician and immunologist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.
What’s more, other parts of the immune system can remember and destroy the virus over many months if not years, according to at least four studies published in top-tier journals over the past month.
Specialized immune cells called T cells produced after immunization by four brands of Covid vaccine — Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and Novavax — are about 80 percent as powerful against Omicron as other variants, the research found. Given how different Omicron’s mutations are from previous variants, it’s very likely that T cells would mount a similarly robust attack on any future variant as well, researchers said.
This matches what scientists have found for the SARS coronavirus, which killed nearly 800 people in a 2003 epidemic in Asia. In people exposed to that virus, T cells have lasted more than 17 years. Evidence so far indicates that the immune cells for the new coronavirus — sometimes called memory cells — may also decline very slowly, experts said.
The article said that for over age 65 and those who are immune compromised should probably still get a 4th shot - but for everyone else, the 3rd booster could last a while. Also today, Los Angeles County is lifting the indoor mask mandate, except for medical offices et al. I will probably carry one at all times and wear it in very crowded stores or indoor places.
I've always felt masks haven't been as politicised over here as they have been in the US. When our mask mandates were dropped, many carried on wearing them regardless. However, since Thurs when all restrictions were dropped, there seems to be very, very few people wearing them now. I've suddenly become very conscious of wearing mine, though I am still wearing it.
oh, no
Take care, Maple! 
Yes, and most of them did. One didn't and I couldn't tell if there were 2, one of them was hidden behind DeSantis in the video. Now he's fundraising off of it to all the (maskless) mouthbreathers.oh, no
Did anyone see Ron DeSantan (FL Gov) telling teens at a school he was visiting to take off their masks and stop spreading covid fear <-- what a total asshat!
DeSatan is such a creep.
The new hot spot |
Even as Covid-19 cases and deaths have continued to decline in the United States, there are some worrisome developments around the world. Today, I’ll walk through them — and explain their implications for the U.S. |
The Pacific region … |
After more than two years of mostly fighting off Covid, Hong Kong has become the world’s worst hot spot. The main problem, as in so many other places, is vaccine skepticism. |
Heading into the current outbreak, nearly 40 percent of Hong Kong’s population was not vaccinated, and more than half of people over 70 — the age group most vulnerable to severe Covid — were unvaccinated. |
Why? Many Hong Kong residents do not trust the government, given the increasing repression by China. Others are dubious of Western medicine or have been influenced by misinformation, as my colleagues Alexandra Stevenson and Austin Ramzy have reported. “I worry that the side effects of vaccination will kill me,” Lam Suk-haa, who’s 80 years old, told The Times last month. “I won’t get vaccinated as long as I have a choice.” |
Until recently, Hong Kong — like mainland China — had been largely successful in keeping out the virus, which meant that vaccine skepticism did not bring large costs. But the Omicron variant is so contagious that it overwhelmed Hong Kong’s “zero-Covid” strategy. |
Adding to the problem, many residents have received Sinovac, a Chinese-made vaccine that is less effective than the vaccines designed in the U.S. and Europe — by Moderna, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca. Although the Pfizer vaccine is available in Hong Kong, many residents wrongly fear that it has dangerous side effects. Sinovac still provides meaningful protection against severe illness, but not as much as the Western vaccines. |
The death rate in Hong Kong has soared this month, surpassing 25 per 100,000 residents in the past week. That’s not as high as New York’s peak death rate in the spring of 2020, but it is higher than in any country today. And Hong Kong’s rate will probably continue rising, because new case numbers did not start falling until about a week ago; death trends typically lag case trends by about three weeks. |