Well, things continue to worsen in the United States. Cases are exponentially increasing and we are now averaging more than 100,000 new cases per day. Unfortunately, on a global scale, countries that seemed to peaked with Delta are increasing again. What this means for the United States is unclear.
Any new data around delta variant concerns for the 1-2 year old age range? She is currently in a daycare where masking is not (and has never) been made mandatory. Luckily she is kept isolated from older and school age kids which I believe reduces her risk. Is delta still proving to be low risk for healthy kids in this age range? Thank you for all of your hard work!
Thank you! If you have any extra time (lol), I am having a difficult time weighing the risk-benefit of the current school situation for my vaccinated 13 yr old. We are in Williamson Co Tennessee. our numbers are high and rising. I feel ok with sending her to school when proper mitigation strategies are in place. She is vaccinated and always wears a mask. What concerns me is that we have no universal masking requirement. Because of that, she is in the maybe 10% of students who are masking at school. Only 1 of her 8 teachers was masked on Friday. There is no social distancing, and everything has gone back to "normal." They are shoulder to shoulder in the hallways between classes. They eat in a crowded lunchroom. They are even beginning school-wide assemblies!
We have a school board meeting tomorrow night to address COVID protocols and call a vote on a mask mandate. It is really hard to say which direction it will fall. I'd be horrified if my kid were too young to be vaccinated!
So here is my question...I feel like my child's risk is as low as it can get in comparison to many in the school. Being vaccinated and masked, is that risk so even low that keeping her in school is the best choice if they do not decide to do universal masking etc.? I know you can't tell me what we should do :-). I'm just having a hard time getting past feelings to the actual truth of the situation. I feel like our entire family is doomed to get it at this point, but I also know that we are all vaxxed and breakthroughs are higher but still "rare."
Any wisdom/comfort/confirmation/dire warnings of impending doom ;-) you can give me would be greatly appreciated!
So I have a question about re-using KN95 masks. I purchased some for my kids for school but they are not inexpensive. I have a UV sterilizer (Phonesoap). Does using the sterilizer degrade the integrity of the mask? Is there a number of times it’s acceptable to sterilize? TIA!
Just dropped my kids off at school here in San Antonio. Is there ANY data that shows how proper masking is doing at protecting our elementary students from delta? Do the scientists expect masks to be as effective as they were against the original virus last school year? This is my burning question and I can't find the answer.
I represent EndCoronavirus.org and World Health Network, projects of New England Complex Systems Institute (necsi.edu), based in Cambridge, MA. I was really impressed with your last two blogs! We'd like to feature your work in our weekly ECV newsletter and our ECV social media, Twitter endcovid19, IG end_covid19, and FB, with credit of course. Please contact me at katie@necsi.edu if you have a moment! -Katie
There is much talk about how most ICUs are full of unvaccinated, but how do numbers look for those previously infected who chose to rely on that and not get the vaccine? Do we know?
Question: When vaccines were being developed, we were told that a benefit of mRNA vaccines was that they could be quickly updated to include new variants. But current conversations on booster shots are about giving a third shot of the same vaccine formula. Shouldn't they be updating the vaccine for the Delta variant, not just giving more of the “old” vaccine, designed for Alpha?
Do epidemiologists and virologist have a way (through lab manipulations) of predicting when a virus will reach “peak fitness”? Or can they only tell after the fact based on real world infection? This thing can’t possibly mutate forever, can it?
I have a question that no one seems able to answer. My daughter(age 40) was in the Novavax trial. She is very concerned about whether or not she should just get vaccinated with Pfizer as she has no idea about the efficacy of Novavax and can get no information from the company at all.
Any new data around delta variant concerns for the 1-2 year old age range? She is currently in a daycare where masking is not (and has never) been made mandatory. Luckily she is kept isolated from older and school age kids which I believe reduces her risk. Is delta still proving to be low risk for healthy kids in this age range? Thank you for all of your hard work!
Thank you! If you have any extra time (lol), I am having a difficult time weighing the risk-benefit of the current school situation for my vaccinated 13 yr old. We are in Williamson Co Tennessee. our numbers are high and rising. I feel ok with sending her to school when proper mitigation strategies are in place. She is vaccinated and always wears a mask. What concerns me is that we have no universal masking requirement. Because of that, she is in the maybe 10% of students who are masking at school. Only 1 of her 8 teachers was masked on Friday. There is no social distancing, and everything has gone back to "normal." They are shoulder to shoulder in the hallways between classes. They eat in a crowded lunchroom. They are even beginning school-wide assemblies!
We have a school board meeting tomorrow night to address COVID protocols and call a vote on a mask mandate. It is really hard to say which direction it will fall. I'd be horrified if my kid were too young to be vaccinated!
So here is my question...I feel like my child's risk is as low as it can get in comparison to many in the school. Being vaccinated and masked, is that risk so even low that keeping her in school is the best choice if they do not decide to do universal masking etc.? I know you can't tell me what we should do :-). I'm just having a hard time getting past feelings to the actual truth of the situation. I feel like our entire family is doomed to get it at this point, but I also know that we are all vaxxed and breakthroughs are higher but still "rare."
Any wisdom/comfort/confirmation/dire warnings of impending doom ;-) you can give me would be greatly appreciated!
So I have a question about re-using KN95 masks. I purchased some for my kids for school but they are not inexpensive. I have a UV sterilizer (Phonesoap). Does using the sterilizer degrade the integrity of the mask? Is there a number of times it’s acceptable to sterilize? TIA!
Just dropped my kids off at school here in San Antonio. Is there ANY data that shows how proper masking is doing at protecting our elementary students from delta? Do the scientists expect masks to be as effective as they were against the original virus last school year? This is my burning question and I can't find the answer.
I represent EndCoronavirus.org and World Health Network, projects of New England Complex Systems Institute (necsi.edu), based in Cambridge, MA. I was really impressed with your last two blogs! We'd like to feature your work in our weekly ECV newsletter and our ECV social media, Twitter endcovid19, IG end_covid19, and FB, with credit of course. Please contact me at katie@necsi.edu if you have a moment! -Katie
There is much talk about how most ICUs are full of unvaccinated, but how do numbers look for those previously infected who chose to rely on that and not get the vaccine? Do we know?
Question: When vaccines were being developed, we were told that a benefit of mRNA vaccines was that they could be quickly updated to include new variants. But current conversations on booster shots are about giving a third shot of the same vaccine formula. Shouldn't they be updating the vaccine for the Delta variant, not just giving more of the “old” vaccine, designed for Alpha?
Looking at the deaths graph and the key, it isn't clear how to read it:
Wouldn't "All County" be the sum of both vaccinated and un-vacc?
Then wouldn't that one be the yellow line?
or is the blue dotted line maybe unknown status?
Thank you very much for sharing your wisdom.
Do epidemiologists and virologist have a way (through lab manipulations) of predicting when a virus will reach “peak fitness”? Or can they only tell after the fact based on real world infection? This thing can’t possibly mutate forever, can it?
I have a question that no one seems able to answer. My daughter(age 40) was in the Novavax trial. She is very concerned about whether or not she should just get vaccinated with Pfizer as she has no idea about the efficacy of Novavax and can get no information from the company at all.
Thank you!
thank you