COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[Lief 🗽]

All the sound and fury about individual "rights" and so forth aside, it seems obvious to me that the lesser evil is to have mask mandates with "teeth" in them as to enforcement and penalties, as opposed to locking down hospitals as to "elective" procedures, restaurants, bars, and so forth.

In that regard, Dan and I took the NYC subway the other day, where masks are mandated, and about 20% of the riders were not wearing masks (many of them looking like types who might well not be vaccinated), and to top it off, one muscled young man in a tank top fondling his girl friend, was smoking a joint. No enforcement personnel were anywhere to be seen. It scared the hell out of me. We will not be riding the MTA again anytime soon. While an inconvenience for us (for essential appointments we can use a car - far more expensive and less convenient but we are fortunate enough to be able to do that), for those who rely on the MTA to go to work, they are stuck between a rock and a hard place, while the spread of the delta virus is facilitated. I really feel for such people, and am concerned about them.

I simply see myself no other alternative or reasonable choices here, that are anything other than outright cruel and reckless.

Am I missing something?

Re: enforcement, my experience is the same 80% or so mask rate as you on the subway, but the NYPD mask rate is close to 0% (and has been since last summer), so even if enforcement personnel had been there they wouldn’t have done anything.

[Joe Republic]

https://twitter.com/seldo/status/1424746056890281984?s=20

[afleitch]

https://twitter.com/seldo/status/1424746056890281984?s=20

My inner nerd thinks that some regression analysis can predict the true numbers (twirls mustache)

[Person Man]

https://twitter.com/seldo/status/1424746056890281984?s=20

My inner nerd thinks that some regression analysis can predict the true numbers (twirls mustache)

They probably aren't doing horrible unless that was the motive of lying. A regression or nearest-K algorithm probably means its doing as well as Iowa or Colorado.

[pbrower2a]

I can’t agree with this either.
Once you are vaccinated, the threat of covid is much less than the threat of the flu or any number of other virus.

(checks notes)

Yup, completely ignoring long COVID.

Not to mention ignoring various other things such as potential future viral evolution, the unknown degree to which vaccine efficacy declines over time, and the fact that the efficacy of booster is still unknown (we can be hopeful, but hope is not a plan). But let's focus on long COVID, because that is IMO pretty clearly the most significant risk for young healthy vaccinated people, and it is a significant risk that you underestimate at your own peril.


Among other things, people who have been infected with COVID have been found by the most comprehensive study so far to have lost a couple of IQ points as a result (with small losses even:

https://www.news.com.au/technology/science/human-body/british-study-finds-intelligence-hindered-by-coronavirus/news-story/980383a23c88a98a97de8dc18e6f5a02

That includes mild cases where you naively wouldn't expect any serious long-lasting damage.



Is brain damage a significant thing?

Yup, loss of a few IQ points seems to be pretty serious and worth being careful to avoid. I value my brain. But maybe that is just me.

A loss of cognitive ability could affect one's ability to hold an existing job or get a new one whether after losing a job or as an entrant to the workforce. Performance on most jobs has a correlation with IQ, and this is especially so for the lowest-skilled work. Most jobs are designed for people of dull-normal intelligence, and the difference of six points is the difference between dull-normal intelligence and mental retardation. People with IQ's under 90 can do rigidly-supervised, highly-routine toil... but go below 80 and the needs for supervision and the quality of performance drops off. Even in very menial work, a domestic servant with an IQ of 100 (average) is far more desirable than a domestic servant with an IQ of 80 (marginal).

Add to this: dull-normal IQ's are highly-correlated with crime.

Can people who are vaccinated get long COVID? Does vaccination lower your chances of getting long COVID?

Yes, people who are vaccinated definitely get long COVID (including from very mild cases). The chances are not really well known yet, but a study a few days ago found that being vaccinated lowered the chance of getting long COVID by about 50%. Don't get me wrong, that is better than 0%, and I would gladly take 50% over 0%, but that is not the reduction from the base risk one would hope for. The base risk of long COVID is something like 10-30% (fairly wide variation because it has not been as well studied as one would hope and also long COVID is still not that clearly defined). A 50% reduction of that would put you at 5-15% chance of getting long COVID from a breakthrough infection. Another Israeli study a couple of days ago found that ~19% of vaccinated breakthrough infections resulted in long COVID (although small sample and this was a study of medical personnel/nurses, so it may not be representative of the general public).

This is like the argument that I once saw against using seat belts: one might avoid death but one might have a greater chance of surviving severely crippled instead of being killed on the spot. (The truth is that one is more likely to survive the crash and be in a condition in which to get out of the car. If one has a seat belt on one is more likely to be able to exit a car that might eventually catch fire.

So those both seem in the same general sort of range, but new information continues to come out and that is not at all determinate yet.

We have yet to know all the damage that COVID-19 can do. Cancer and birth defects are not yet established as consequences, but I would not be surprised about either.

But anything remotely like a 5-15% chance is not a small chance. It is in a totally different league from the chance of death for e.g. young vaccinated people from COVID, and given the symptoms one would be foolish to ignore that.

You take the best risks. Should there ever be a serious war in which large cities face incendiary attacks, then getting a dangerous job as a miner or lumberjack far outside of a large city so that one is not in some city that will become a fireball might be a rational choice in life.  

Is the risk and/or severity of long COVID higher with Delta than with previous variants?

This is not yet known because not enough time has passed with the Delta variant being dominant. But it would be sort of surprising if that were NOT the case, given that everything else about the Delta variant seems to be worse.

Until all communities are mass0inoculated, COVID-19 has plenty of opportunity of morphing into more contagious variants no less deadly... and perhaps that can circumvent existing vaccinations, which would put us back at the start. Yuck!  

Is there any precedent for this?

Yup, there was the same sort of thing with SARS-1. "Long SARS":

https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Outcomes+of+SARS+survivors+in+China%3a+not+only+physical+and...-a0369220546

There were studies ~10 years after SARS-1 that found that many SARS-1 survivors still had serious symptoms. I would be very interested to see follow-up on how they are doing today (and also how SARS-1 survivors have fared against COVID), but I haven't seen any such studies yet.

Just remember: COVID-19 is actually SARS-2. Much remains speculation, but peer-reviewed statistical studies already establish that getting inoculated is the best way of defending oneself. That is all that I need.

Is the cumulative probability of getting long COVID higher if you are re-infected with COVID, as GeorgiaModerate's relative was, higher than if you are only infected with COVID a single time?

I don't think we know yet, but it would stand to reason that to some extent or another, the answer to that is yes. We don't yet know if it is a great extent or a small extent.

We do not yet know all the sequelae, including resurgences, of COVID-19. Venereal diseases, mononucleosis, rheumatic fever, and even chickenpox (shingles) have long-term effects.

And frankly, covid is likely going to be with us forever.  If you are vaccinated and still afraid of covid, you are going to be living in fear your entire life.

What exactly do you mean by "living in fear"?

Analogy: if you ever get a stroke or a heart attack, you live in fear of another one for the rest of your life.

For example, when I drive a car, I am aware that there is a chance of getting into a car accident and dying or getting seriously injured (as well as killing or seriously injuring other people). This is something that I would like to avoid. Consequently, when I am driving I try to drive carefully and defensively, avoid excessive speeding especially in environments when it is unsafe, be sure to look over my shoulder when changing lanes, be careful about passing on single lane roads, etc. And yes, I do wear my seatbelt also. And when making travel plans for any long cross-country journeys, one small factor that I consider in deciding whether to fly or drive is the fact that flights are safer. So, am I "living in fear" of car accidents?

Not driving drunk or angry (driving while angry is hard to quantify as it does not have any BAC to measure it) or while drowsy is big trouble. I know about all three, the latter two from experience.  

I have been taking and intend to keep on taking similar sorts of efficacious but low cost precautions with regards to COVID. They are not going to be 100% effective, but if everyone did this it would make a difference.

Wearing a mask, frequent hand-washing, sanitizing surfaces, and avoiding high-risk activities is still easy. I dread ending up as a prisoner of a ventilator.

This behavior does have a cost. I probably get to my destination a few seconds slower. So, am I "living in fear"? After all, I am changing my behavior based upon risk and cost-benefit analysis. If there were 0 risk of car accidents and the like, then I would instead always drive as fast as I could, swerve to change lanes recklessly, and as a result could save some small amounts of time on my car trips (also giving me less time to listen to NPR tho ).

I find that the "p@$$hole" who couldn't wait to get ahead of me because I am driving at a speed that he dislikes (the speed limit) often ends up just before me at the same stoplight. Hardy har-har!

And frankly, covid is likely going to be with us forever.

If you get long COVID, yes, it could be with you forever. It would kind of suck to have chronic fatigue for potentially as long as the rest of your life, to name one symptom of long COVID. You know what that means, "chronic fatigue"? It doesn't just mean you are tired. The name makes it sound far less bad than it is. To anyone who doesn't know, look it up. Or honestly, maybe don't look it up. I would sort of rather not know that it exists and is a significant possibility, in a way.

I don't want anything at all approaching a 5-15% chance of that from infection. That is way too high of a chance to just sit back and passively accept.
[/quote]

It probably won't.

[Joe Republic]

The story with Nebraska is that they stopped collecting Covid test data on counties (possibly limited to those with with fewer than 20,000 people, but I'm awaiting confirmation) and then the New York Times posted a map without a color scale that would allow readers to distinguish zero cases from not reporting. Statewide numbers are posted weekly.

Funny how a "professional data analyst" struggled to find this number, but as with many administrative professionals perhaps his competencies run more toward making smarmy tweets.

Well you'd certainly be an expert on smarm, wouldn't you? 

Yes, you're more or less correct.  Pete Ricketts decided that there's no point trying to track trends across specific parts of his 77,000 sq mi state.  Who cares, right?

[emailking]

I believe the point of the tweet is that Nebraska isn't just completely blank, it's only showing cases in Democratic strongholds. So he's criticizing that.

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

The NYTimes and Google graphs of Florida's cases and deaths are turning linear...

[ProudModerate2]

Video: When asked if he's vaccinated, Republican Congressman says he won't 'take sides.'

https://us.cnn.com/videos/politics/2021/08/09/rep-glenn-grothman-covid-vaccinations-orig-jm.cnn

I don't get it.
What "sides" is there to take? There is only one side against the virus.
Just an example of the delusion that Republican legislators have to play, because their base is cult-ified with a desire to associate with "being unvaccinated is cool and non-liberal."
Idiots.

[Inmate Trump]

Mask mandates with financial and legal consequences if violated are necessary.

Vaccine mandates for every single person in the country.

Whiners can whine but they’re getting jabbed.  It’s time we force this on people because the situation won’t improve until we do.

Stop trying to force masks on the vaccinated. We need a vaccine mandate, and we need it now. Mask mandates are utterly pointless virtue signaling. It is the unvaccinated who are causing problems, no one else.

My reason for wanting a mask mandate: The vaccines don't last forever and people don't get them all at the same time.  I got mine back in January and February and my protection will be lower than someone who got theirs in June/July.  Depending on the vaccine, you're going to get varying degrees of protection.  With certain variants, that protection decreases.  No vaccine is 100%, and some vaccines see vast decreases in protection against certain variants.

Therefore, until the situation eases considerably, I think we should all be wearing masks in public places.

[Horus]

Mask mandates with financial and legal consequences if violated are necessary.

Vaccine mandates for every single person in the country.

Whiners can whine but they’re getting jabbed.  It’s time we force this on people because the situation won’t improve until we do.

Stop trying to force masks on the vaccinated. We need a vaccine mandate, and we need it now. Mask mandates are utterly pointless virtue signaling. It is the unvaccinated who are causing problems, no one else.

My reason for wanting a mask mandate: The vaccines don't last forever and people don't get them all at the same time.  I got mine back in January and February and my protection will be lower than someone who got theirs in June/July.  Depending on the vaccine, you're going to get varying degrees of protection.  With certain variants, that protection decreases.  No vaccine is 100%, and some vaccines see vast decreases in protection against certain variants.

Therefore, until the situation eases considerably, I think we should all be wearing masks in public places.

No mask is 100% either. You seem to trust masks more than vaccines, an increasingly common position on the left that I find extremely troubling. Maybe it's because you can see a mask and not a vaccine? Really don't get it.

Also, everyone has a different definition of what the situation "easing considerably" means. To me, the situation already has eased considerably and for the vaccinated has never been safer. But the hypochondriacs and germophobes among us, many of whom are employed in public health, are screeching and panicking like there's no tomorrow.

[Progressive Pessimist]

The NYTimes and Google graphs of Florida's cases and deaths are turning linear...

But remember, it's all fine because New Jersey and New York.

[emailking]

No mask is 100% either. You seem to trust masks more than vaccines, an increasingly common position on the left that I find extremely troubling. Maybe it's because you can see a mask and not a vaccine? Really don't get it.

You really don't? Masks + vaccines is more effective than vaccines even if neither is 100%. Just like you should wear a seat belt even if you have an airbag that you can't see. I don't know about a mandate, but that's clearly the advantage in doing both, reducing risk.

[Horus]

No mask is 100% either. You seem to trust masks more than vaccines, an increasingly common position on the left that I find extremely troubling. Maybe it's because you can see a mask and not a vaccine? Really don't get it.

You really don't? Masks + vaccines is more effective than vaccines even if neither is 100%. Just like you should wear a seat belt even if you have an airbag that you can't see. I don't know about a mandate, but that's clearly the advantage in doing both, reducing risk.

When would you feel comfortable removing your mask in a public space?

And no, I absolutely don't understand why someone would trust masks more than vaccines when the latter does far, far more to protect you.

[emailking]

No mask is 100% either. You seem to trust masks more than vaccines, an increasingly common position on the left that I find extremely troubling. Maybe it's because you can see a mask and not a vaccine? Really don't get it.

You really don't? Masks + vaccines is more effective than vaccines even if neither is 100%. Just like you should wear a seat belt even if you have an airbag that you can't see. I don't know about a mandate, but that's clearly the advantage in doing both, reducing risk.

When would you feel comfortable removing your mask in a public space?

And no, I absolutely don't understand why someone would trust masks more than vaccines when the latter does far, far more to protect you.

I already do remove it.

It's not trusting masks more than vaccines, it's trusting masks + vaccines more than vaccines.

[Calthrina950]

Are we now to say that mask mandates ought to be imposed permanently? This is what this kind of logic leads to. What is meant when we say that the situation should "ease considerably"? Where there are no longer any cases? Or is there some other kind of benchmark?

[Horus]

No mask is 100% either. You seem to trust masks more than vaccines, an increasingly common position on the left that I find extremely troubling. Maybe it's because you can see a mask and not a vaccine? Really don't get it.

You really don't? Masks + vaccines is more effective than vaccines even if neither is 100%. Just like you should wear a seat belt even if you have an airbag that you can't see. I don't know about a mandate, but that's clearly the advantage in doing both, reducing risk.

When would you feel comfortable removing your mask in a public space?

And no, I absolutely don't understand why someone would trust masks more than vaccines when the latter does far, far more to protect you.

I already do remove it.

It's not trusting masks more than vaccines, it's trusting masks + vaccines more than vaccines.

No, it's treating mask wearing as the epitome of good citizenship while constantly going on about how the shot isn't that great and might stop working or something. I can't begin to tell you how many fully vaccinated people I know who now, thanks to the msm think they're no longer protected and have reverted to wearing a mask indoors at all times. What is the endgame?

Anyone who supports a mask mandate but not a vaccine mandate does not really want COVID to end. And that's currently the position of pretty much all Dem politicians.

[Inmate Trump]

Mask mandates with financial and legal consequences if violated are necessary.

Vaccine mandates for every single person in the country.

Whiners can whine but they’re getting jabbed.  It’s time we force this on people because the situation won’t improve until we do.

Stop trying to force masks on the vaccinated. We need a vaccine mandate, and we need it now. Mask mandates are utterly pointless virtue signaling. It is the unvaccinated who are causing problems, no one else.

My reason for wanting a mask mandate: The vaccines don't last forever and people don't get them all at the same time.  I got mine back in January and February and my protection will be lower than someone who got theirs in June/July.  Depending on the vaccine, you're going to get varying degrees of protection.  With certain variants, that protection decreases.  No vaccine is 100%, and some vaccines see vast decreases in protection against certain variants.

Therefore, until the situation eases considerably, I think we should all be wearing masks in public places.

No mask is 100% either. You seem to trust masks more than vaccines, an increasingly common position on the left that I find extremely troubling. Maybe it's because you can see a mask and not a vaccine? Really don't get it.

Also, everyone has a different definition of what the situation "easing considerably" means. To me, the situation already has eased considerably and for the vaccinated has never been safer. But the hypochondriacs and germophobes among us, many of whom are employed in public health, are screeching and panicking like there's no tomorrow.

I don’t at all think masks are more effective than vaccines nor has anyone on the left claimed them to be, at least not that I’ve seen.  Masks are not as effective as vaccines, period.  In fact, a vaccine offers many, many more times protection than a mask.

What I’m suggesting is both.  And the reason I’m suggesting it is because there IS a rise in cases and certainly a rise in cases among the vaccinated that will continue to rise as vaccine protection begins to wane.  I’m not saying masks forever.  All I’m saying is that more protection is better than partial protection, when Delta is concerned.  And certainly until we can begin dispersing booster shots for the elderly and others who received their vaccines six or so months ago.

And a mask is literally so effortless.  Is it fun?  No.  Does it “boost” the protection the vaccines offer?  In the face of the Delta variant, YES.

Are we now to say that mask mandates ought to be imposed permanently? This is what this kind of logic leads to. What is meant when we say that the situation should "ease considerably"? Where there are no longer any cases? Or is there some other kind of benchmark?

No. A temporary measure, and one that will fluctuate the same way that variants and cases count fluctuates.

Protocols are going to have to be able to be amended periodically until we get a better handle on things.  Sometimes that will mean no masks, and sometimes that means mask up.  Until the world is fully vaccinated, variants are going to continue popping up and many of those will be worse than the ones before, and many will decrease the effectiveness of the vaccines.  Adding a mask will increase your protection.

It’s not forever though.

[ProudModerate2]

... Anyone who supports a mask mandate but not a vaccine mandate does not really want COVID to end. And that's currently the position of pretty much all Dem politicians.

What? No.
Please stop.

[Horus]

... Anyone who supports a mask mandate but not a vaccine mandate does not really want COVID to end. And that's currently the position of pretty much all Dem politicians.

What? No.
Please stop.

Vaccines are our best tool to fight COVID, a far better tool than masks, as even GWBfan just pointed out. If you don't want to mandate our best tool to fight the virus, why should I think you want the virus to go away?

No one on either side of the aisle supports vaccine mandates, but at least the GOP doesn't pretend to care.

[Inmate Trump]

... Anyone who supports a mask mandate but not a vaccine mandate does not really want COVID to end. And that's currently the position of pretty much all Dem politicians.

What? No.
Please stop.

Vaccines are our best tool to fight COVID, a far better tool than masks, as even GWBfan just pointed out. If you don't want to mandate our best tool to fight the virus, why should I think you want the virus to go away?

I want a vaccine mandate.

But you can’t argue that masks increase protection.  At certain times, when variants decrease vaccine effectiveness, I want mask mandates as well.  But that wouldn’t be all the time…just when the situation is dire like it has once again become.

[Horus]

... Anyone who supports a mask mandate but not a vaccine mandate does not really want COVID to end. And that's currently the position of pretty much all Dem politicians.

What? No.
Please stop.

Vaccines are our best tool to fight COVID, a far better tool than masks, as even GWBfan just pointed out. If you don't want to mandate our best tool to fight the virus, why should I think you want the virus to go away?

I want a vaccine mandate.

But you can’t argue that masks increase protection.  At certain times, when variants decrease vaccine effectiveness, I want mask mandates as well.  But that wouldn’t be all the time…just when the situation is dire like it has once again become.

But no one with any power does. DeBlasio of all people is the only exception I can think of.

And if you are fully vaccinated the situation is not even close to "dire." Alarmist rhetoric like this helps no one.

[emailking]

No, it's treating mask wearing as the epitome of good citizenship while constantly going on about how the shot isn't that great and might stop working or something. I can't begin to tell you how many fully vaccinated people I know who now, thanks to the msm think they're no longer protected and have reverted to wearing a mask indoors at all times. What is the endgame?

Anyone who supports a mask mandate but not a vaccine mandate does not really want COVID to end. And that's currently the position of pretty much all Dem politicians.

But the Trump Virus wants a vaccine mandate. So you're complaining about other people apparently. I'm just saying asking for both makes sense if the goal is to minimize risk, and it doesn't equate to trusting masks over vaccines.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

I agree with Horus that it is kind of irrational to support a mask mandate but not a vaccine mandate. However, one thing to consider is that no vaccine is officially fully FDA approved and given that procedural rubber stamp. It is unfortunate that hasn't been able to happen yet, but hopefully it should be coming very soon at least for the Pfizer vaccine.

But even though at this point it seems pretty clear that the three vaccines in use in the USA are all safe (certainly far safer than the alternative of getting COVID!), the fact that they are not yet fully FDA approved through the normal (non-emergency use) procedures it makes it a lot harder to politically justify vaccine mandates for politicians. It would be very bad if, hypothetically, some politician supported a vaccine mandate and then the FDA didn't approve the vaccine. Once vaccines are actually fully FDA approved, I would expect more political support to move towards support for mandating them (either directly or indirectly).

The second important point is that when discussing masks, if you want to have an intelligent conversation about how effective they are, it is vitally important that you distinguish between different masks. Just like how (a page or two back) I was saying that all "outdoor concerts" are not equal transmission risks (because crowd density and airflow are important factors affecting transmissible), similarly not all masks are created equal in terms of efficacy.

Studies have found that cloth masks are only about 20-30% effective at filtering out aerosol particles. 20-30% is not nothing, and can make a difference especially on a mass level if EVERYONE is wearing them - because since viruses spread exponentially, even a small reduction in the transmission rate can lead to a substantially lower number of aggregate cases. On the other hand, on the individual level, that is only 20-30%, and you are going to get plenty of leaks with that and end up with a lot of infections. By contrast, N-95 masks (and their Chinese cousin KN-95) are about 95% effective at aerosol particle filtration, hence the 95 in the names. Surgical masks are somewhere in between.

The only reason that doesn't get said more commonly is that public health messaging has to be simple in order for everyone in the public to be able to understand it, and differentiating between types of masks is too hard for people who are barely paying attention to follow and remember/understand. Also, in addition, in the early period of the pandemic there was a shortage of N-95s.

If for some reason you really wanted to, you could maybe try to argue that N-95s are in some limited sense more effective than vaccines. This would be a silly thing to do, because it is not an either-or, and the senses in which masks and vaccines provide protection are totally different, but if you really wanted to say it, you could probably reasonably say that if you wear N-95s which are PROPERLY fit and worn CORRECTLY (which is not always the case) and if you wear them ALL THE TIME, then you would be less likely to get infected than if you were vaccinated with the J&J vaccine, which has relatively low efficacy against infection in comparison to the mRNA vaccines. After all, prior to the development of the vaccine, there are doctors and nurses who managed to avoid infection, while being frequently exposed to infectious patients, because they always wore N-95s and wore them properly (along with other PPE like eye protection/face shields).

But you would still be an idiot to not get vaccinated, with or without N-95s. Because if you do get infected, which eventually is basically certain to happen no matter how perfectly careful you wear N-95s, after that point masks provide 0% protection against hospitalization and death. That's a zero. Nothing. Whereas vaccines provide substantial protection against hospitalization and death, even if you do get infected. And even with the evidence of declining vaccine efficacy after ~6 months, at least so far that decline is predominantly just a decline in protection against infection, whereas, there is either just a small decline in efficacy against hospitalization/death, or else none (hard to tell so far due to statistical sampling uncertainty and small random variation).

Which is why 99% of doctors are vaccinated, no matter how carefully they continue to keep wearing their N-95s and other PPE while continuing to treat COVID patients.



Actually, in one important sense Utah of all states (with their Republican governor and Republican legislature) has the most rational and informed policy towards masks in schools, because they are providing students with KN-95s. Regardless of anything else, that means they are recognizing the fact that all masks are not equally effective, which no other state that I am aware of actually acknowledges in their policies. However, Utah is not mandating that they actually worn, so I would guess in practice they are probably not going to get that much use. So make of that what you will.

And if schools really want to stop transition and protect kids (and teachers and kids' parents), it is also just as important that they pay attention to other things besides masks (mostly relating to ventilation), like how school lunches are handled. If you have a school mask mandate but then have 200 kids all spending 30 minutes a day in a crowded cafeteria together having taken their masks off and eating together, then given how infectious Delta is, I would be surprised if by the end of the school year pretty much every kid didn't end up getting infected. In that case, much of the point of having the kids wear masks while in class would be defeated. On the other hand, if kids went and ate outside (rather than in an indoor cafeteria) with each class of ~20-30 kids or so separated, that would be a totally different matter, and could help a lot.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

As I was just saying...:

What Biden should do now is simple - invoke the Defense Production Act to ramp up vaccine production capacity as quickly as physically possible by 10x (or however much needed) so that we have the ability to produce something like 8 billion new vaccine booster doses every 6-12 months for the indefinite future, along with the ingredients/inputs needed to make those doses (and more in the immediate term for the billions of people across the world who are still unvaccinated and need 2 doses).

175 "experts" are saying essentially the same thing:

‘Act now’ on global vaccines to stop more-dangerous variants, experts warn Biden

Health officials and activists ramp up pressure on the administration to deliver on promises of global vaccine equity

More than 175 public health experts, scientists and activists on Tuesday demanded that President Biden take urgent steps to confront the global spread of the coronavirus, warning that without immediate action to inoculate the rest of the world, newer variants are likely to emerge — including ones that may evade vaccines’ protection.

“We urge you to act now,” the experts wrote in a joint letter to senior White House officials Tuesday and shared with The Washington Post. “Announcing within the next 30 days an ambitious global vaccine manufacturing program is the only way to control this pandemic, protect the precious gains made to date, and build vaccine infrastructure for the future.”

The health experts also address Biden directly in a separate letter, underscoring that the delta variant is causing a surge of infections across the globe, including in Africa, Latin America and Asia, where many residents have yet to receive a single dose. Meanwhile, they note, the United States has stockpiled more than 55 million doses of mRNA vaccines but is administering fewer than 900,000 per day, with millions of Americans still balking at getting the shots.

“At this rate, it would take over two months to administer just the vaccine doses currently stored,” wrote the authors, urging Biden to begin distributing millions of stockpiled doses per week.

...

The White House has been criticized for months by public health experts who say Biden has announced piecemeal steps to confront the global crisis but done too little to ramp up immediate vaccine production.

...

Staley and other letter-signers vowed increasingly intense protests, including targeting officials and companies that are perceived to be delaying the response. “Pharma took years before letting the rest of the world access their AIDS drugs,” he said. “We won’t let that happen with covid vaccines.”

...

In their letter to Biden, the experts demand that the administration commit to establishing 8 billion doses per year of mRNA vaccine capacity by the end of the year, exporting at least 40 million vaccine doses from the United States per month and helping set up vaccine manufacturing hubs around the globe.

The time has come for Biden to stop dawdling around and do anything and everything to increase global vaccine production and distribution through the roof. If Biden doesn't do that, he will be responsible for prolonging the pandemic. He is the only one with the power to bring this under actual control.

Biden does have the right rhetoric:

“From the beginning of my presidency, I’ve been very clear-eyed that we need to attack this virus globally, not just at home, because it’s in America’s self-interest to do so,” Biden said last week, pledging that the United States would serve as “the arsenal of vaccines, just as we were the arsenal of democracy during World War II.”

But so far he hasn't actually made that happen with actual action. It has only been empty rhetoric:

“This administration has been playing footsies with Moderna instead of leading on this issue,” Staley added, invoking Biden’s comparison of the fight against the pandemic to World War II. “Do you think Roosevelt asked Henry Ford if he could start building tanks, but only on the company’s timetable?”