Charlie asked last night if the pandemic is over.
Ask a politician, and the answer will almost all be yes. It’s in their best interest to say yes.
But scientists, doctors, and public health experts would say otherwise.
“The refrain of the pandemic has been that no one is safe until everyone is safe,” WHO director-general Tedros Ghebreyesu said last month. “The pandemic is not over, but the end is in sight.”
Though the advent of vaccines and effective treatments have transformed the fight against the virus, doses of these life-saving treatments remain scarce in some low and even middle-income nations. And the more the virus circulates, experts say, the more chances it has to mutate into something more dangerous.
But some good news: Pfizer and BioNTech announced last week that their new COVID booster is nearly four times as good as its predecessor at protecting against the currently dominant version of the virus for people over age 55 and is likely just as effective in all ages.
Now the bad news: Only about 8% of Americans ages 5 and up have got the booster.
I am one of that 8% of Americans. I humbly suggest you join the ranks.
It’s a good idea to get the new booster simply because fully vaccinated people die at a remarkably lower rate than the unvaccinated and under-vaccinated, and people are still dying.
More than 2,500 last week in the United States. A blessedly low number compared with the past, but still a significant number, particularly if you or a loved one happened to be one of them.
The chart below is pretty striking in terms of COVID deaths in the United States for the first half of this year.
I know some people are worried about all of those microchips included in the vaccine. Others are concerned about their DNA being mutated via the shot. Still others are incapable of receiving the vaccine because their fragile egos can’t handle the thought that doctors could be right, they might be wrong, and they might need help in order to survive an attack by the virus.
“Fragile ego” is surprisingly one of the most deadly of all the comorbidities.
But if you don’t suffer from any of these problems, get your booster.
That orange bar is a hell of a lot bigger than that tiny, purple bar.
