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More Supreme Court Madness!!!!

No, I'm talking about the BA.5 variant, which is right here, right now.

Experts say BA.5 is the one to worry about: “The worst version of the virus that we’ve seen,” as Dr. Eric Topol, the founder of Scripps Research Translational Institute, recently put it. Together, the closely related BA.4 and BA.5 now account for the majority of new U.S. COVID cases, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — but BA.5 (36.6%) is spreading a lot faster than BA.4 (15.7%). By early July, it will be the dominant strain in the U.S.

That’s troublesome for several reasons. To our immune system, the distance from BA.1 to heavily mutated BA.4 and BA.5 is “far greater,” Topol writes, than the distance from the original BA.1 virus to previous blockbuster variants such as Alpha and Delta — which makes them harder to recognize and respond to. According to the latest research, that could mean:


Sounds awful
 
Show me what I am missing? Is the vaccine still preventing BA.5 infections?

For anyone who hasn’t been paying attention, the Omicron strain that triggered last winter’s massive COVID wave (BA.1) is now extinct. In March, it was supplanted by the even more transmissible BA.2 … which was supplanted in May by the even more transmissible BA.2.12.1 … which is now being supplanted by the (you guessed it) even more transmissible BA.4 and BA.5.

In late April, BA.5 hit Portugal; by June, more Portuguese people were dying of COVID each day than during the country’s winter Omicron peak. To be sure, Portugal has a larger senior population (23%) than the U.S. (16%), but not by much. And the vaccination rate there is 87%, compared to just 67% in America. Portugal’s booster rate, meanwhile, is nearly twice as high as ours. Infection and hospitalization rates are now rising across much of the rest of Europe as well.

So given that BA.5 — which, again, is outcompeting its cousin BA.4 — will soon be everywhere, it seems logical that the next version of the vaccine should be tailored to fight it.

Yet that hasn’t necessarily been the plan. Both Pfizer and Moderna have already launched clinical trials for redesigned fall boosters … but those boosters are optimized to counter the now-nonexistent BA.1 rather than the soon-to-be-dominant BA.5. According to data presented Tuesday by Pfizer, their existing BA.1 booster generated a significantly lower level of neutralizing antibodies against BA.4 and BA.5 than against BA.1.



TL;DR version: the vaccines (and boosters) that are currently available were tailored for the Wuhan version. It's a completely different bug now.
 
You know that when you sign up. 99 percent of our clinical staff happily got the jab. Must be nice to support your 1 percent.

Happily?

Now I know you're full of shit.

Unless you have an extremely small number of clinical staff.

And my company is subject to the CMS mandate, so 100 percent are fully vaxxed or have approved religious or medical exemptions.

However, resistance to boosters every five months is growing.
 
For anyone who hasn’t been paying attention, the Omicron strain that triggered last winter’s massive COVID wave (BA.1) is now extinct. In March, it was supplanted by the even more transmissible BA.2 … which was supplanted in May by the even more transmissible BA.2.12.1 … which is now being supplanted by the (you guessed it) even more transmissible BA.4 and BA.5.

In late April, BA.5 hit Portugal; by June, more Portuguese people were dying of COVID each day than during the country’s winter Omicron peak. To be sure, Portugal has a larger senior population (23%) than the U.S. (16%), but not by much. And the vaccination rate there is 87%, compared to just 67% in America. Portugal’s booster rate, meanwhile, is nearly twice as high as ours. Infection and hospitalization rates are now rising across much of the rest of Europe as well.

So given that BA.5 — which, again, is outcompeting its cousin BA.4 — will soon be everywhere, it seems logical that the next version of the vaccine should be tailored to fight it.

Yet that hasn’t necessarily been the plan. Both Pfizer and Moderna have already launched clinical trials for redesigned fall boosters … but those boosters are optimized to counter the now-nonexistent BA.1 rather than the soon-to-be-dominant BA.5. According to data presented Tuesday by Pfizer, their existing BA.1 booster generated a significantly lower level of neutralizing antibodies against BA.4 and BA.5 than against BA.1.



TL;DR version: the vaccines (and boosters) that are currently available were tailored for the Wuhan version. It's a completely different bug now.
We have come to this. Did getting the vaccine help prevent people from becoming infected by the alpha, delta and omicron variant?
 
Happily?

Now I know you're full of shit.

Unless you have an extremely small number of clinical staff.

And my company is subject to the CMS mandate, so 100 percent are fully vaxxed or have approved religious or medical exemptions.

However, resistance to boosters every five months is growing.
Yes. It is a very large health system. Clinical staff didn't put up a fight. Non-clinical is different. We work with a different level of professional.
 
We have come to this. Did getting the vaccine help prevent people from becoming infected by the alpha, delta and omicron variant?

We're not talking about yesterday.

Infection prevention and control deals with today and tomorrow.
 
We're not talking about yesterday.

Infection prevention and control deals with today and tomorrow.
Just go back and read this thread. See how many times you have changed your stance. You know you weren't talking about BA.5 For example:
We're talking about whether or not a hospital worker creates extra risk of passing an infection to patients if the worker is unvaccinated. Try to keep up.
 
Just go back and read this thread. See how many times you have changed your stance. You know you weren't talking about BA.5 For example:
We're talking about whether or not a hospital worker creates extra risk of passing an infection to patients if the worker is unvaccinated. Try to keep up.

Yes, no hospital worker is going to pass the Delta variant to a patient today.

Delta is extinct.
 
I am done with you. You know the discussion was based on alpha - omicron.

No, the discussion is about whether an emergency employment vaccine mandate should be allowed and that must be based on the risks/benefits that will result today and in the future. Not what happened last year.
 
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No, the discussion is about whether an emergency employment vaccine mandate should be allowed and that must be based on the risks/benefits that will result today and in the future. Not what happened last year.
What? You should get out of health care.
 
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