Pandemic Report
From CDC
The biggest news has to be the FDA directing the vaccine producers to work on a monovalent booster this fall based on the currently dominant Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5.
Over the past few journal posts, I discussed a blood donor study claiming that just over 96% of Americans had natural (COVID-19 infection) and/or acquired (vaccine) antibodies, (Note that the researcher in me is curious how they argue generalizable results from the self-selected blood donor sample.) The interesting thing in this writeup is how they distinguished natural vs. acquired protection. Basically, the mRNA vaccines (like I've had) target the spike protein of the virus, yielding anti-S antibodies. Anti-N antibodies target the virus’s nucleocapsid protein, indicative of natural infection. Thus, if the proportion of anti-S antibodies is near zero, we are likely dealing with a past naturally infected, unvaccinated person. What about the remaining 3.6%? These could reflect testing error and/or waning antibody protection.
We've seen some counterintuitive stats, like higher infection rates among the boosted. In past posts I've mentioned the moral hazard problem, e.g., if you feel you're covered, you may engage in riskier behavior. And though the vaccines are effective against serious disease, newer variants not targeted by the vaccine may evade some level of protection.
"During this Omicron wave, we're seeing an increased number of mild infections — at-home type of infections, the inconvenient, having a cold, being off work, not great but not the end of the world. And that's because these Omicron variants are able to break through antibody protection and cause these mild infections," John Moore, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medical College, told CBS News.
"So, one of the dynamics here is that people feel, after vaccination and boosting, that they're more protected than they actually are, so they increase their risks," he said. "That, I think, is the major driver of these statistics."
Other Notes
Readership of the blog is somewhat below the pace of last month, without the occasional 3-digit daily hits so far. On Thursday statistics reported just 7 pageviews. Not really sure what's going on. I'm frustrated my readership hasn't grown over time.
My latest annoyance is with my cellphone. My provider sent me a warning I needed to install some sort of visible facelift to voicemail. Now I've used basic voicemail for years; I've used the functionality, but not often, maybe once or twice a month. Functionality was unobtrusive. I basically knew when I had messages and played them. I was fine with functionality as it existed. Long story short, I installed the "upgrade app" Almost immediately I started getting these popups saying the app was having problems retrieving messages (maybe because there aren't any?) And it didn't stop with one clickthrough but repeatedly, especially every time I opened up my phone. It's bad enough to click through once but literally over a dozen times and counting? I don't want any busy work in using my phone. My only workaround? Uninstall the app, So I went onto my provider's tech support chat line; he didn't seem to doubt I was experiencing popups and having no voicemails might result in such. He didn't think clicking through popups was a big deal. SIGH!
