(CNN)US health officials are urgently working on a plan to allow second Covid-19 boosters for all adults, a senior White House official confirmed to CNN on Monday. The US Food and Drug Administration is making it a high priority the official said. Second boosters have been authorized for adults 50 and older, as well as some people with weakened immune systems, since late March. But younger adults are eligible for only one booster shot, which was authorized in November. Federal agencies are looking to move quickly on authorizing a second booster for all adults, the source said.
Some experts are concerned that younger adults' immunity may be waning as Covid-19 cases rise with the dominance of the BA.5 Omicron subvariant. Reinfections are more likely with BA.5 than with any previous variants because of immune escape features, Dr. Eric Topol, a cardiologist and professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research, said on CNNI Monday.
Turns out when you have a vaccine only approach to a disease, keeping people vaccinated is important! Who could have predicted this?
Any other COVID-cautious people feel worse now than at any point in the pandemic? I know it was scary when this shit first exploded and there weren't any vaccines ready. But at least there was something to pin hope on anyways, i.e. vaccines, although that was probably naive on my part. But then the capitalists naturally left the Global South suffering and without access to vaccines because of "muh intellectual property!", I underestimated how many people are dumb as rocks/antivax, and all the liberals decided "fuck you, I got mine" once they got fully vaxxed, the paltry stimulus checks ended long ago, and the unemployment benefits were cut off.
And more recently, COVID funding is basically on life support at this point in part because harm reduction Joe decided to give it to cops instead, all the manufactured consent to live with COVID by the media, the CDC changed their transmission map to lull people into a false sense of security, the variants are getting increasingly more contagious and we have know idea the extent of what repeated infection/long COVID will do to one's body, the time between dominant variants keeps decreasing because we abandoned what shitty mitigation efforts we had to begin with, public transit and other places no longer have mask mandates, etc. This has been a fucking nightmare for me, I know capitalism is woefully unequipped to handle any kind of crisis (unless it means extracting as much wealth from working people as possible), but I didn't expect the handling to be this atrocious, my god. Meanwhile, I always feel like I'm in the twilight zone when I walk around and hardly anyone is masking in places where they should. I know most of the blame should lie with institutions for normalizing all this "we have to move on" rhetoric, but it can also be hard to resist the urge to hate anybody not wearing a mask.
Goddamn I hate this shit, this is never gonna end, is it? :doomjak:
To answer your initial question: Yes absolutely and I very much sympathize with the entire content of your post.
To your second question: :doubt: but I hope so.
I feel that remark about the Twilight zone. The worst part is that no one around me seems to take it seriously any more, absolutely no one wears a mask.
I had a baffling conversation recently with a younger dude who just got over his first covid infection and he seemed to be unaware that you can keep catching this shit over and over after the temporary immunity wears off. Also seemed unfamiliar with the idea of manufactured consent and why the media and other seemingly innocent institutions might have a stake in downplaying the danger of this ongoing disaster.
I feel like I'm the fuckin crazy one wherever I go because I haven't met anyone in a long time who sees how dystopian this all is. It's not helping my doomerism.
I'm fully vaxxed, waiting on the next booster, and wearing a mask at home for everything except meals. And I'm starting to think I should take my meals outside, if that answers your question. I realize the mask offers very minimal protection but it's pretty much all the people in my life have left me with as they go off to restaurants, concerts, theme parks, and cruises.
The thing a lot of Leftists need to get is we are watching the Adaptation strategy to Climate Change playing out; They've acknowledged the problem, they offered shittier and shittier solutions because they refused to do anything that might affect the ownership class, and now we're all gonna suffer because in the process they've neutered the minds of us all from considering there are any other options.
:lenin-sleeping: please wake up.
I feel you
Yeah, I feel like the first summer, at least around me, cases got super low and it seemed like we might actually get over it, then after the hell that was delta the vaccines came out and last summer cases got super low again, I even got comfortable without my mask in certain outdoor spaces. Then omicron hit and this shit keeps evolving, getting more contagious, yet people are at an absolute low with taking precautions, they won’t roll out new boosters, testing has decreased. I clung to what little hope there was for the past two summers, but this is the first summer where there’s really nothing to give me hope and yeah I feel worse than ever
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