I still mask in public when inside the Grocery store and other public indoor facilities. I don't equate this as an intrusion on my liberty. Rather, I am exercising my right and obligation to protect others. That said, I am against Covid vaccine mandates because while Covid is a moderately serious disease, it is not serious enough to force vaccinations upon the general population, in my opinion.
Demographically, the US has a relatively larger older population who tend to have more Covid related vulnerabilities than other countries. Further, our population tends to have less homogenized opinions than others meaning there will often be a large group that opposes what others are doing, sometimes seemingly for opposition sake, lowering adoption of official Covid countermeasures. In addition, the United States has open borders and it one of the top international destinations, increasing our expose to additional transmission sources. Another component is US citizens tend to be much more mobile than people in other countries. Many of us think of nothing to hop in a car to get something to eat during lunchbreak, take another trip to Starbucks, take long commutes, and frequent vacations. Part of this is due to higher disposable incomes and better than average gasoline prices relative to, say European countries. The final component is we tend to be a bit spoiled and undisciplined in regards to taking precautions, such as properly wearing an appropriate mask, etc. In other words, "US Covid underperformance" can be explained. Fortunately, Covid is only a moderately serious pathogen, so if we were to learn from our mistakes, we might be better prepared for the next pandemic, whether from nature or man. We must stop politicizing events that are out of our leader's control. This requires ethics within the media and our politicians, so I'm not holding my breath. Related, the public distrusts the media and public officials causing potentially important messages to be discounted. Once public trust in our institutions is lost it is hard to get back. Reforms are needed, but since our system is in a dysfunctional state, how likely is that? Again, there are many lessons learned from the pandemic. Unfortunately, as much as the pandemic has cost us, it seems most of us are no better prepared for the next pandemic. In a wartime situation, pandemic preparedness can be the difference between winning and losing.
You wearing a mask because you decided to is not an intrusion on your liberty. It doesn't help any, but it is your choice to do so.
This isn't rocket science... If there's a sign in front of the store or on the door of the store that states "Face Mask Required" such as those we see in front of a pharmacy, medical facility, government office building... Wear the damn face mask or do not enter. In fact, most government buildings have security (sometimes armed) and I've seen security escort the Covidiots out of the building that refuses to put on a face mask. wrbtrader
Instead of your misinformation. Let's take a look at the detailed fact check about the Pfizer report that was released regarding adverse events. Posts Misinterpret Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine Safety Monitoring Document https://www.factcheck.org/2022/03/s...-covid-19-vaccine-safety-monitoring-document/ SciCheck Digest A Pfizer document recently released by the Food and Drug Administration describes adverse events reported following vaccination and attests to the continued safety of the company’s COVID-19 vaccine. A popular video and other online posts, however, incorrectly imply that the vaccine caused the events. Many posts also wrongly assume that a long list of health issues Pfizer is monitoring for occurred and were due to vaccination. Full Story After more than 1 billion doses administered worldwide — including more than 325 million in the U.S. — and more than a year of safety monitoring, the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is considered to be very safe. Many people experience temporary symptoms, such as fever, headache or pain at the site of injection. But those aren’t dangerous and are signs that the vaccine is working and the body is beginning to mount a protective immune response. More serious side effects can occur, but are rare. The vaccine was first granted an emergency use authorization by the FDA in December 2020, based on a large phase 3 randomized controlled trial and other studies. In August 2021, it received full approval, after review of the manufacturing process and ongoing trial results and safety monitoring. A flurry of articles and videos online are now misinterpreting a Pfizer document released by the FDA as part of a Freedom of Information Act request. The posts incorrectly claim that it shows the vaccine is unsafe and is evidence that this was hidden from the public. “One year ago, these were side effects that Pfizer knew about,” conservative commentator Liz Wheeler says in an Instagram post, before highlighting a long list of so-called adverse events of special interest in the document’s appendix. “Look at how many side effects, adverse events, were recorded before the end of February of last year,” she said. “It’s shocking. It essentially admits that … this vaccine can cause you to miscarry your baby, this can cause you to die in any number of truly horrific ways.” A press release from Children’s Health Defense, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s anti-vaccination organization, similarly highlights the appendix and calls the document a “bombshell” that “should put an immediate end to the Pfizer COVID vaccines.” John Campbell, a nurse educator in the U.K., whom we’ve written about before, also discussed the document in a popular YouTube video posted on March 9. In the video, which garnered more than 1.5 million views in just three days, he incorrectly implies that the vaccine caused the reported health problems. He also suggests Dr. Janet Woodcock, the acting FDA commissioner when the agency gave full approval to the Pfizer vaccine, was wrong to say that “millions of people have already safely received COVID-19 vaccines.” “So how would you say it’s safe, when this document is indicating there’s been 1,223-associated deaths?” he asks. He, too, focuses on the appendix’s list of adverse events of special interest. “The list is long, quite incredible really,” he says. “Why weren’t we made aware of these at the time? Because if we were aware of them at the time, we could have had an index of suspicion for them and kept an eye out for them.” But, as we’ll explain, the appendix is just a list of conditions Pfizer was monitoring for, and the document supports the vaccine’s continued safety. Misunderstanding ‘Adverse Events’ All of these posts misunderstand what is being reported in the Pfizer document. The document is an analysis of adverse events, or health issues reported following vaccination, regardless of whether they were caused by the vaccine. Tracking of such events is useful for companies and regulators to identify possible safety signals, particularly of rare events that would not have been possible to detect in clinical trials. This particular document covers the first three months of the vaccine’s rollout, and incorporates adverse event reports from across the globe. Through February 2021, it says, there were 42,086 reports of individuals reporting adverse events, including 1,223 deaths. While on the surface those numbers could be alarming, it’s critical to understand that an adverse event is simply an event that has occurred after vaccination — it does not mean the vaccine necessarily caused the problem. And many of the events are likely to be purely coincidental. “By definition, an adverse event is a temporal association,” Dr. Paul Beninger, a pharmacovigilance expert at the Tufts University School of Medicine, told us, referring to the timing of the event. “Any health problem that happens after vaccination is considered an adverse event following immunization,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention explains. “An adverse event can be a true adverse reaction, also known as a side effect, that is related to the vaccine, or a coincidental event that happened following vaccination.” Beninger said it was inaccurate for Campbell to say the reported deaths were “associated” with Pfizer’s vaccine. “They’re temporally associated, that’s the reason why they were reported. But the assessment’s not there to show that they were causally related,” he said. “You cannot call them vaccine-associated.” Similarly, it’s not correct to call the adverse events “side effects,” as Wheeler did. This confusion about adverse events is common and has been a frequent issue before with people distorting data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System in the U.S. to argue that vaccines are unsafe, as we’ve written repeatedly before. Because a variety of health problems, including death, occur in the population every day, it’s expected that many of these will be reported after vaccination, even if they have nothing to do with the vaccine. The challenge is to see whether the frequency of a particular event is elevated above the background rate, which could indicate a possible problem. The released Pfizer document, it should be said, reviews the adverse events in groups according to organ type, noting each time that the evidence does not suggest a new safety signal. The analysis concludes that Pfizer’s post-marketing data “confirms a favorable benefit: risk balance” for its vaccine, and that the company will continue its monitoring “to assure patient safety.” The first pages of the document, too, explicitly address many of the limitations of adverse event reporting to help properly interpret the data — limitations those posting alarming stories about the document appear to have ignored. Pfizer’s analysis notes that the company’s safety database contains cases of adverse events “regardless of causality assessment” and says that numerous factors can influence whether an adverse event is reported, and that the “spontaneous reporting system should be used for signal detection.” “An accumulation of adverse event reports (AERs) does not necessarily indicate that a particular AE was caused by the drug; rather, the event may be due to an underlying disease or some other factor(s) such as past medical history or concomitant medication,” it continues. Far from proving that the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine isn’t safe, the Pfizer document is evidence of the vaccine’s continued safety, Beninger said. He also said that Woodcock was completely right to say that millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses had been administered safely. “Absolutely yes, categorically, no question,” he said. Of Campbell, Beninger said, “His comments are very superficial and a lot of it is quite naive. The fact that all of those reports were there is proof of nothing, it all needs to be assessed.” In the video, Campbell himself acknowledges that he struggled to read the document. Misconstruing the Appendix Many posts also err in their interpretation of the Pfizer document’s appendix, which is an alphabetical list of 1,291 adverse events of special interest. In her post, Wheeler even calls the appendix “the relevant part,” and Campbell argues the public should have been aware of the conditions so people could have “kept an eye out for them.” But the appendix, Beninger said, was actually just a list of the things Pfizer was monitoring for — not a list of health problems that have been observed after vaccination or that had been shown to be due to vaccination. One clue comes from its formatting, he said. “When events have actually happened, there is a breakdown,” he said. “They’re not presented in a massive alphabetical listing from A to Z.” FDA FOIA Some of the misleading online claims also center around how the Pfizer document was obtained and suggest there was a government cover-up, so we’ll provide some background on the topic. As we’ve already established, there’s nothing to indicate that there was any identified safety issue, and therefore, there’s no evidence that regulators failed to share any important safety information with the public. The document was released by the FDA in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency. The group asked the FDA for all of its documents related to the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine — or around 329,000 pages, plus other files — four days after the agency gave full approval to the vaccine. The FDA did not oppose releasing the information, but denied the group’s request for expedited processing, leading PHMPT to sue the agency in federal court in September, as MedPage Today has explained. The FDA argued that the group’s request would require releasing 80,000 pages a month, which the agency said had never happened before with any FOIA request, and was difficult if not impossible with its current staffers, who would need to go through the documents line by line and redact exempted material. The FDA proposed releasing 500 pages a month instead, which it said was the standard rate. PHMPT, meanwhile, countered that that proposed rate would take nearly 55 years — and it was “difficult to imagine a greater need for transparency” than making the vaccine documents available. On Jan. 6, a judge in North Texas recognized the “‘unduly burdensome’ challenges” of the FOIA, but sided with the plaintiff, concluding the request was of “paramount public importance.” He set the deadline for the first tranche of documents for Jan. 31, with another 55,000 pages to be released every month. At that pace, all of the information will be released by the end of the summer. PHMPT then posted the documents on its website. Shortly thereafter, misleading or false claims began circulating online about the safety of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine using the documents, which our colleagues at Health Feedback have also addressed. As MedPage Today has explained, the FDA has already released summaries of the data it has reviewed, and the FOIA documents “may not be material to an overall analysis of the vaccine’s safety and efficacy.” Zach Zalewski, a regulatory strategy consultant at Avalere Health, told the outlet, “There’s a risk of cherry picking and taking things out of context.” Beninger, however, said the FDA had been “a bit tone deaf to what’s going on around them,” and said he thought that the agency should have been more attentive. “I just think you have to virtually bend over backwards to be transparent,” he said. It’s worth noting that while Campbell calls the people who have joined PHMPT “prestigious” and “highly qualified,” the list is primarily notable for its inclusion of multiple individuals who have made dubious claims about COVID-19 or the vaccines. Among several others, the list of signatories includes Idaho pathologist Dr. Ryan Cole, who has baselessly said that the vaccines cause cancer, and Dr. Stella Immanuel, who has falsely promoted hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 “cure” and has previously claimed that some medicines are made of space alien DNA. Editor’s note: SciCheck’s COVID-19/Vaccination Project is made possible by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The foundation has no control over FactCheck.org’s editorial decisions, and the views expressed in our articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the foundation. The goal of the project is to increase exposure to accurate information about COVID-19 and vaccines, while decreasing the impact of misinformation. Sources “COVID-19 vaccine doses administered by manufacturer.” Our World in Data. Accessed 18 Mar 2022. “COVID-19 Vaccinations in the United States.” COVID Data Tracker. CDC. Accessed 18 Mar 2022. “Selected Adverse Events Reported after COVID-19 Vaccination.” CDC. Accessed 18 Mar 2022. “FDA Takes Key Action in Fight Against COVID-19 By Issuing Emergency Use Authorization for First COVID-19 Vaccine.” Press release. FDA. 11 Dec 2020. “FDA Approves First COVID-19 Vaccine.” Press release. FDA. 23 Aug 2021. “CUMULATIVE ANALYSIS OF POST-AUTHORIZATION ADVERSE EVENT REPORTS OF PF-07302048 (BNT162B2) RECEIVED THROUGH 28-FEB-2021.” Pfizer. Accessed from Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency website. Jaramillo, Catalina. “Evidence Still Lacking to Support Ivermectin as Treatment for COVID-19.” FactCheck.org. 14 Mar 2022. Beninger, Paul. Associate Professor of Public Health and Community Medicine, Tufts University School of Medicine. Phone interview with FactCheck.org. 16 Mar 2022. “Understanding Adverse Events and Side Effects.” CDC. Accessed 18 Mar 2022. Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency website. Accessed 18 Mar 2022. D’Ambrosio, Amanda. “FDA Begins Releasing Pfizer COVID Vax Documents.” MedPage Today. 7 Mar 2022. “Pfizer’s confidential document shows adverse events reported following vaccination; it doesn’t demonstrate that the vaccine caused the events or is unsafe.” HealthFeedback. 11 Mar 2022. “Comirnaty and Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine.” FDA. Accessed 18 Mar 2022. FDA spokesperson. Email sent to FactCheck.org. 16 Mar 2022. Spencer, Saranac Hale. “Idaho Doctor Makes Baseless Claims About Safety of COVID-19 Vaccines.” FactCheck.org. 19 Apr 2021. Spencer, Saranac Hale and Angelo Fichera. “In Viral Video, Doctor Falsely Touts Hydroxychloroquine as COVID-19 ‘Cure.’” FactCheck.org. 28 Jul 2020.
The fact that you call articles published in the public domain "misinformation" while ignoring so much actual misinformation may one day put you in a subordinate position. lol. Cheers! Documents released by the FDA? gwb are you calling these misinformation? The FDA according to gwb is releasing misinformation? Splain that to me big guy without a gigante load of fluff. Plain english please. Be specific. Enumerate a list of items of misinformation in this post. Thank you.
New studies bring BA.2 variant into sharper focus By Brenda Goodman, CNN Updated 8:51 AM ET, Thu February 24, 2022 (CNN) On the heels of concerning new lab and animal experiments suggesting that BA.2 may be capable of causing more severe disease than the original Omicron strain, two new studies are helping to show how well human immunity is defending againstthis strain in the real world. BA.2 is about 30% more transmissible than the original Omicron variant, BA.1, according to early studies from the UK and Denmark, and it is now causing about 1 in 5 Covid-19 cases worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. Even as Covid-19 cases have been dropping around the world, the relative proportion of cases caused by BA.2 has been increasing. It is outcompeting the original Omicron strain in at least 43 countries, prompting fears of another devastating pandemic wave. "As of now, I don't think that we need to sound a global alarm. But I do think that we need to pay attention to BA.2 because it does appear to have a growth advantage over BA.1," says Dr. Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Like the BA.1 strain, BA.2 also has features that help it escape some immunity from vaccines and from most monoclonal antibody treatments, though recent boosters improve personal protection and antiviral pills are still expected to work against this subvariant. Now new studies are providing some reassurance that while BA.2 may overtake its genetically distant cousin, it won't likely lead to greater numbers of hospitalizations and deaths. "The situation that we're seeing on the ground, and I get this from talking to a number of my colleagues who actually do the genomic surveillance, is BA.2 is kind of creeping up in terms of numbers, but it's not the meteoric rise that we saw with BA.1," said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada. That's because in many countries like the US, UK, and Denmark, BA.2 has hit speed bumps left in its wake by BA.1, which was already very contagious. "It's so soon after that initial BA.1 peak that you have a lot of people who were either vaccinated or boosted ... [or] got Omicron, and so right now all of those people will have relatively high titers of antibodies, neutralizing antibodies that will protect against infection," Rasmussen says. The new studies are preprints, which means they were posted to an online library of medical research before being reviewed by outside experts and published in medical journals. No increase in hospitalizations The first new study comes from South Africa, where BA.2 grew rapidly, rising from 27% to 86% of new Covid-19 infections over the course of a single week in February. Researchers looked at cases tied to more than 95,000 positive Covid-19 tests. Among these, roughly equal proportions of people were hospitalized for their infections -- roughly 3.6% of people who had presumed BA.2 infections compared to 3.4% of those with signs infections caused by BA.1. After researchers accounted for things that might influence a person's risk of severe disease, such as older age, they found no difference in the risk for hospitalization between people infected by BA.1 and those infected by BA.2. Roughly one-quarter of people hospitalized with both BA.1 and BA.2 infections were fully vaccinated. As BA.2 subvariant of Omicron rises, lab studies point to signs of severity Those findings echo hospitalization studies from Denmark, where BA.2 is also the predominant cause of Covid-19 infections. The lead researcher on the South African study, Dr. Nicole Wolter, says that while it's difficult to say how the South African experience with this variant may translate to other countries, what they're seeing from BA.2 after their fourth wave isn't a second peak, but a longer tail. "We have seen an extended wave which has currently plateaued at a higher level than we have seen in previous inter-wave periods," Wolter wrote in an email to CNN. "This may however also be influenced by schools opening following the December holiday period and a general relaxing of restrictions," wrote Wolter, who is a principal medical scientist at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases in Johannesburg. Though cases have stayed at a high level, and most are now caused by BA.2, hospitalizations have continued to decline. What about reinfection risk? The second new study, from Denmark's Statens Serum Institut -- the country's equivalent to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -- looked at the risk of reinfection with BA.2 after recovery from a Covid-19 infection caused by other recent variants, including Delta and BA.1. A fourth Covid-19 shot might be recommended this fall, as officials 'continually' look at emerging data The study found that people who've recently had a Covid-19 infection caused by Omicron or Delta can be reinfected by the emerging BA.2 subvariant, but such cases appear to be uncommon, afflict mostly those who are unvaccinated and result in mostly mild infections. BA.2 is currently the dominant cause of Covid-19 in Denmark. It overtook BA.1 during the second week of January there. To look at reinfection risk, researchers combed through more than 140,000 viral genomes that were sequenced from infections during the period when Omicron became dominant (late November to mid-February 2022) to find people who had a new positive test 20 to 60 days after a previous one. They found a total of 263 reinfections, with 190 of those caused by the BA.2 variant. In 140 cases, the person was reinfected by BA.2 after an infection caused by the Delta variant. There were 47 cases where people were first infected by BA.1 (the original Omicron variant) followed by the BA.2 subvariant. Researchers then did a more in-depth analysis of those 47 reinfections where BA.2 followed BA.1. Most of the individuals who were reinfected were young -- 30 were under age 20. None of the reinfected individuals was over age 40 and nearly all -- 42 of the 47 individuals -- were unvaccinated. For the most part, reinfections were mild; 28 people had no symptoms or mild symptoms. Five people experienced symptoms that were characterized as moderate, akin to flu-like symptoms. There were no hospitalizations or deaths reported among reinfected individuals. The study shows that "reinfection can happen with people who recently recovered from BA;1, but it's pretty rare. And in all those cases, it wasn't severe," says Rasmussen, who reviewed the study but was not involved in the research. What that means she says is that while BA.2 reinfection is a risk, it is a small risk relative to the entire population, and "that recent immune boost caused by either boosters, or recent Omicron infection is largely going to protect most of the population against it," she said. https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/23/health/covid-ba2-omicron-studies-explainer/index.html ---------- wrbtrader
The U.S. and world better hope a new Covid variant does not arise which is more transmissible and more deadly than Omicron while also being vaccine & previous infection evasive. It appears that the world's luck will run out at some point shortly. The hope was that current vaccinations and/or previous infections would stop new variants. Especially since over 70% of people have Covid anti-bodies since the Omicron wave. However if a new variant is more severe & transmissible and previous infections and/or vaccination provide little protection -- then the global situation will revert to the equivalent of the painful early days of the pandemic. Meet the new XE Omicron variant. Not likely to be a contender for global dismay but a sign of potential issues down the road. New Mutant “XE” Omicron Variant May Be The Most Transmissible Version Of Covid Yet, According To WHO https://deadline.com/2022/03/new-xe-covid-variant-omicron-most-transmissible-1234992060/ The CDC announced this week that the BA.2 Omicron variant, which is reportedly 30% more transmissible than the original BA.1 Omicron strain — has become dominant among new cases sequenced in the United States. That’s a startling rise for a variant that was less than 1% of all sequences as recently as January. But, just as Americans are hearing about BA.2, there’s already a newer, even more transmissible variant on the rise. There are actually three new variants that have been given designations. According to a recently-released report from the UK Health Services Agency, the two being called XD and XF are combinations of Delta and BA.1, or so-called “Deltacron” strains, which have been talked about for months but made no significant inroads in any country. XD is present in several European countries, but has not been detected in the UK, according to the report. XF caused a small cluster in the UK but has not been detected there since February 15. The variant of greater concern, it seems, is the one dubbed XE. Like the other two new arrivals, XE is a recombinant strain, meaning it is made up of two previously-distinct variants. But it is not a Deltacron mix. XE is actually made up of the original Omicron (BA.1) and the newer Omicron (BA.2) which has taken over in the U.S. The World Health Organization issued a report yesterday with some preliminary findings about XE. “The XE recombinant was first detected in the United Kingdom on 19 January and >600 sequences have been reported and confirmed since,” reads the WHO document. “Early-day estimates indicate a community growth rate advantage of ~10% as compared to BA.2, however this finding requires further confirmation.” Further confirmation is getting more difficult by the day, according to WHO, which registered concern this week at what it calls “the recent significant reduction in SARS-CoV-2 testing by several Member States. Data are becoming progressively less representative, less timely, and less robust. This inhibits our collective ability to track where the virus is, how it is spreading and how it is evolving: information and analyses that remain critical to effectively end the acute phase of the pandemic.” Last week’s briefing from the UK Health Services Agency reinforces some of the WHO report’s assertions and urges caution about jumping to conclusions. One difference between the two documents is that the WHO data and analysis seems to be more recent. From the UK HSA briefing: XE shows evidence of community transmission within England, although it is currently less >1% of total sequenced cases. Early growth rates for XE were not significantly different from BA.2, but using the most recent data up to 16 March 2022, XE has a growth rate 9.8% above that of BA.2. As this estimate has not remained consistent as new data have been added, it cannot yet be interpreted as an estimate of growth advantage for the recombinant. Numbers were too small for the XE recombinant to be analysed by region. To be clear, XE only accounts for a tiny fraction of cases worldwide. That may change, given that XE is thought to be about 10% more transmissible than the already more-transmissible BA.2. That means it may be roughly 43% more transmissible than the original Omicron that savaged the globe last winter. But a new wave of infections from the now-dominant BA.2 has not materialized, even as restrictions have been eased. So hopefully the trend with XE, should it out-compete BA.2, will be similar. Only time — and good surveillance — will tell.
From Arstechnica: After maskless schmoozing, DC elite hit with COVID outbreak Several events have been linked to the outbreak as people let their guard down. A growing number of high-ranking officials, lawmakers, aides, and journalists have tested positive for COVID-19 this week amid an outbreak of the ultratransmissible omicron variant among the elite of Washington, DC. In the past three days, Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Debbie Wasserman Schultz(D-Fla.) Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), Katherine Clark (D-Mass.), Greg Meeks (D-NY), Scott Peters (D-Calif.), and Derek Kilmer (D-Wash.) reported positive COVID-19 tests. Two Cabinet members—Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and Attorney General Merrick Garland—also reported positive tests, along with Vice President Kamala Harris’ communications director, Jamal Simmons, and, President Joe Biden's sister, Valerie Biden Owens. Several staff members for the White House and National Security Council have also tested positive, The Washington Post reports. boosters to fight future variants Ivermectin worthless against COVID in largest clinical trial to date Pfizer, Moderna vaccines aren’t the same; study finds antibody differences View more storiesOn Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's spokesperson announced that Pelosi, too, was infected. "After testing negative this week, Speaker Pelosi received a positive test result for COVID-19 and is currently asymptomatic. The Speaker is fully vaccinated and boosted and is thankful for the robust protection the vaccine has provided spokesperson Drew Hammill tweeted. In addition, Politico reports that scores of DC-based political reporters have also tested positive this week or reported illnesses. Among them is PBS NewsHour's Lisa Desjardins. Like many who have tested positive this week, Desjardins attended the annual Gridiron Club dinner last Saturday. The white-tie-and-gowns event had about 630 guests, the Post noted, and involved a mostly maskless group of A-list lawmakers, government officials, journalists, and other inside-beltway elite. While guests were required to be vaccinated, they were not required to test negative prior to the event. Guest list After gathering for a predinner cocktail reception, guests of the event sat at narrow tables, ate, and watched satirical skits. To conclude the evening, guests joined hands and sang "Auld Lang Syne" together. Now-positive Reps. Schiff and Castro, Attorney General Garland, and Harris' aid, Simmons, were in attendance. Commerce Secretary Raimondo was a featured speaker at the event. The Post noted that the guest list also included: Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), and Roy Blunt (R-Mo.); Reps. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Md.) and Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.); Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and special presidential envoy John F. Kerry; Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell; Govs. Larry Hogan (R-Md.) and Chris Sununu (R-N.H.); and New York Mayor Eric Adams (D)... former NFL great Emmitt Smith; NBA Commissioner Adam Silver; CBS host Jane Pauley and her spouse, Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau; Ukraine's ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova; Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan, PBS NewsHour anchor Judy Woodruff; ABC chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl, and Washington Post publisher Fred Ryan and editor Sally Buzbee. The event also included top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci and Director Rochelle Walensky of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Fauci told the Post that he wore a mask during the reception but took it off to eat. President Biden did not attend the event in person. Instead, he appeared virtually. Tom DeFrank, president of the Gridiron Club, told the Post that as of Wednesday afternoon, the group knew of 14 guests who had tested positive, about seven of which were clustered at three tables. He added that the group is notifying guests who were seated nearby. Evolving situation Still, as Politico notes, other political events have been linked to infections in recent days, such as a going-away party for National Security Council spokesperson Emily Horne. The cases come as many in DC and the rest of the country are trying to return to some level of normalcy while cases are relatively low. In a comment to the Post, Fauci said that "We are in a situation where, as a population, we need to make a decision that is based on data as well as our own individual willingness to take whatever level of risk happens to be present that you’re making the decision about." But, he added, that people need to also be prepared to resume precautions if or when the situation changes. Though national tallies of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are still declining, more than two dozen states and the District of Columbia are seeing case numbers rising. Northeastern states are seeing some of the biggest upticks. The increases and outbreaks coincide with the rise of omicron subvariant BA.2, which is now accounting for an estimated 72 percent of US cases. The subvariant is yet more transmissible than the initial version of omicron, BA.1, though it does not appear to cause more severe disease. BA.2 has caused severe spikes in cases in Europe and elsewhere recently. Experts have suggested that the US may also see a nationwide increase in cases from the subvariant, but it's unclear how large any such bump may be. BETH MOLEBeth is Ars Technica’s health reporter. She’s interested in biomedical research, infectious disease, health policy and law, and has a Ph.D. in microbiology. https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/04/after-maskless-schmoozing-dc-elite-hit-with-covid-outbreak/
Vaccination Breakthrough Infection + Recovery = Super Immunity It means it's better than the vaccination alone and better than natural immunity alone. Super Immunity gives stronger and more efficient antibody protection against Covid...were up to 1,000 per cent more effective in protecting against severe disease. Just as important, someone that has never been vaccinated and then recovers from a Covid infection...to then gets vaccinated = Super Immunity wrbtrader