(2022-06-09) ZviM Covid-19 06/09/2022 Nice

Zvi Mowshowitz: Covid19 6/9/22: Nice. Things seem to have peaked in the Northeast once again. Nice. Things are getting worse in the South as the summer hits. Not as nice, not that unexpected. At this point we can pattern match. You know what else is nice? Not having to care about the pandemic

You know what’s not so nice? A civilization that cares so little about an ongoing pandemic disease that its authorities refuse to authorize any spending, actively reallocate funds away from vaccine development, and otherwise do not take ordinary obvious steps to mitigate or solve the remaining problems

Executive Summary
Cases stabilize in Northeast, rising in South.
Moderna vaccine update is effective but FDA will stop it for a while.
Still no pandemic money.
BA.4 and BA.5 taking over but it shouldn’t change things much.

The Numbers

Deaths

Cases

How many cases are missing? We don’t know, but we do know it is a lot.

BA 1,2,3,4,5

We do not need to wonder, BA.4 and BA.5 will become the primary strains unless something else comes along to challenge them, with BA.5 probably winning out

Physical World Modeling

Still As Much Pandemic Funding As Sex in the Champagne Room

Safe and Effective Vaccine Remains Illegal

The vaccine in question is Novavax. The good news is the situation is about to change.

“Having a protein-based alternative may be more comfortable for some in terms of their acceptance of vaccines,”

Novavax’s vaccine is also easier to store, so it has two advantages and could still make at least some difference even here. The storage advantage is a much bigger advantage in less developed countries

More Effective Version of Moderna Vaccine Remains Illegal

The data are definitely better than I had even hoped,” Burton told ABC News that in an interview. “Given the magnitude of effect — that seven-fold increase in antibody levels — we could for the first time, be at a vaccine that is truly effective with once yearly dosing because we know those antibody levels will decay.”

This is weeks to get it into testing. That is not quite useless, but when it counts it won’t be good enough

If we are facing a truly bad new variant, a vaccine update will not save us, because our Public Health Authorities have zero interest in finding a way to make the timeline work.

The problem is that the FDA is about to meet to decide what should go into the new formulation.

And what happens if the FDA’s update proposal is slightly different from what Moderna tested, in the months in which the FDA did not decide what it was going to mandate?

Don’t Worry About the Monkeypox

most plans should absolutely not need to give non-zero amounts of thought to summer colds or food poisoning or monkeypox.

Not Covid

With potential grain shortage worldwide, Biden increases mandatory amount of ethanol to go into gasoline. This could end very badly.