As of early March 2022 cases and hospitalization are increasing in several European countries.
Data from Great Britain indicate increases in cases in all age groups and in all parts of the country.See Eric Topol's wonderful twitter feed for detailed data on the European uptick in cases,etc
The hope of many is that in the US the "wall of immunity" is sufficiently robust to prevent further surges.The wall is built on immune protection from vaccines,boosters and infection which, it must be said are known to wane over time. The elderly were a group who received the vaccination and the boosters fairly early so now in England there is a plan for the 4th shot, not so for the US so far.
The US's waves of alpha,delta,omercron were preceded by waves in GB and Europe . Maybe now this is different but I struggle to find a reason why. The surges seem to be attributed to some combination of increase in the BA 2 variant,cessation of masking,etc and the waning of immunity all factors seemingly applicable to the US. Actually in one regard GB 's "wall" may be stronger since 90 % of their elderly has been triply vaxed versus 65 % in US.
The much talked about objective of "protect the vulnerable" has largely faded away but the numbers of the vulnerable have not.There are 100 million not vaccinated,seven million with various immunocompromised conditions and millions of kids currently too young for vaccination and the US lags behind Europe in the percent of the elderly who have received the booster shots. What could possibly go wrong?
1 comment:
Thank you for such valuable information. You nailed it.
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