(2021-09-23) ZviM Covid 9/23 There Is A War

Zvi Mowshowitz: Covid-19 9/23: There Is a War. The FDA, having observed and accepted conclusive evidence that booster shots are highly effective, has rejected allowing people to get those booster shots unless they are over the age of 65, are immunocompromised or high risk, or are willing to lie on a form. The CDC will probably concur.

What changed this week was that the FDA gave us an unusually clear proof that there is a war, which side of that war they are on, and how far they are willing to go.

The CDC explicitly claims that it does not think it is an important goal of a medical intervention to prevent Covid-19 infections that don’t result in hospitalization. Or, by implication, to prevent you from spreading the disease to others.

Executive Summary
There is a war to preserve or destroy our way of life.
The FDA and CDC are on one side.
They have made it even more clear than before which side that is.
Despite their best efforts those who care will get booster shots.
Despite their best efforts 5-11 year-olds will get shots in a month or so.

The Numbers

I heard on the radio that the CDC is speculating there may not be a winter surge this time due to background immunity levels, and I agree that it could go either way, and I’m not sure which is more likely so I must have this close to 50%

Vaccinations

What’s clear is that on top of FDA approval not doing much directly, the new mandates and pressures also aren’t getting the job done, all they’re doing (at most) is preventing a faster decline.

Vaccine Effectiveness

Vaccines work for 5-11 year-olds, with a reduced dose of 10 micrograms

This was the most convincing piece of evidence I’ve seen so far, by a wide margin, that vaccine immunity is indeed substantially lower against Delta

FDA Recommends Technically Banning Most Booster Shots

When there is a war, it is the good and honorable thing to declare war. Then all involved can respond accordingly. Before I get to the details of what happened, I want to thank the FDA for properly following the formalities

last week a commentator took on the time and mental health burdens of observing the FDA meeting so the rest of us didn’t have to, and created this excellent summary of what happened

tackling the question of the booster shots given here taking shots away from people in other countries. I have two responses to that, which are essentially:
They aren’t doing that.
That’s none of the FDA’s damn business.

The FDA’s damn business is whether the booster shots are safe and effective or not.

it’s comparing to one month after dose two. So it’s clearly much better immunity than two shots alone. It works.

If your answer is ‘96% is good enough’ then please, I beg you, take a look around. Look at what the people who are vaccinated are still doing in the name of prevention. Look at the things they’re being told they have to do, and the worry and stress they go through each day. We can cut all that in half here, with one shot, far less than half as obnoxious as all that other stuff, and also stop the general spread that much more

The biggest problem with public health professionals continues to be (1) elevation of their own normative value judgements — namely that NPIs are no big deal no matter how long they last — which have nothing to do with scientific expertise, (2) leading them to “shade” their interpretation of data to promote their preferred behavioral outcome rather than answering positive (non-normative) questions with positive scientific statements, (3) thus undermining the credibility of public health institutions (FDA, CDC) and leading to things like vaccine hesitancy.

You’ll need to find an Official Excuse to get your booster shot, or convince someone to give you one without one.

In seven days, it will be six months since my second shot, and I will get my third.

The CDC Tries To Respond

Vaccine Mandates

NPIs Including Mask and Testing Mandates

“The initial recommendation that the CDC brought to the White House … was 10 feet. A political appointee in the White House said we can’t recommend 10 feet. Nobody can measure 10 feet. It’s inoperable. Society will shut down. So the compromise was around six feet,” Gottlieb said.

Here’s what things are like in San Francisco.

Unless you are, you know, the mayor.

*I agree, actually, there are more important things in life, but then why the hell is there a mask mandate?

Is it because you are famous and powerful*

The alternative explanation is that the rules were never intended to be obeyed, and there was always the expectation that no one follows rules so rules are fake.

Think of the Children

in addition to the whole kids-don’t-get-severe-Covid thing. Covid is seasonal

Here’s Covid cases, nationwide, last year by week in that period:

Sure looks to me like it was something that happened in October. What about this year? We peaked the week of September 1?

Colleges are going completely crazy with their restrictions 2021-09-21-CollegeCampusesHaveTheCraziestCovid19RestrictionsOfAll

In Other News

Looks like the data on PhDs not getting vaccinated wasn’t real.