KIDS AND PARENTS:
1 - This 1/13/22 essay by Katelyn Jetelina at Your Local Epidemiologist provides the clearest picture that I’ve seen yet of what is currently going on with children’s infections and illness from the omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 and from the coronavirus in general. The insight that makes this post so clarifying is that Jetelina, a University of Texas Health Science Center epidemiologist, looks at the cases, illness, hospitalization, deaths, and vaccinations from both a “numerator” perspective – what are the absolute numbers for each measure and are they increasing (e.g. how many children are hospitalized) – and from a “denominator” perspective – comparing absolute numbers for one population or measure with absolute numbers for another population or measure (e.g. # of myocarditis cases per 1 million doses). Her upshot: “Children are not spared by this virus. Omicron has certainly put this in overdrive. We cannot discount the numerator. But we also cannot ignore the denominator – overall healthy children fare much better than adults…This landscape is complicated and hard. We need to approach everyone’s decisions with empathy and recognize how (and why) people may put more emphasis on numerators or denominators:
2 - And here’s a favorite essay, by Jaime Green for Slate (1/11/22), so far on the plight of parents with children under 5 (for whom no COVID-19 vaccines are authorized in the U.S.) during the omicron era. The first-person essay notes that the “Pfizer trial for the under-5 vaccine was extended because the two-shot dose wasn’t triggering a strong-enough immune response,” and that Moderna has extended its under-5 vaccine trial too. She writes about the limited media coverage of these delays, among other factors, which made her want to scream, for a second, “The pandemic is not fucking over, because children under 5 cannot get fucking vaccinated.” Green writes that a “10-day quarantine is enough to break a person” due to claustrophobia and monotony without library visits, play dates, and errands: https://slate.com/technology/2022/01/kids-under-5-vaccine-parents.html.
3 - In this reported first-person piece by science journalist Katharine Gammon, she portrays the experience of Los Angeles parents and schoolchildren in the current era of surging infections with SARS-CoV-2. The Los Angeles Unified School District has “strengthened safety measures that were already among the strictest in the country, upgrading masking and testing requirements,” the story states. However, in the same district, “administrative staff members [recently] were brought in to substitute for 2,000 or so teachers (out of 25,000) who were out with Covid or caring for someone infected with the virus,” Gammon reports. The story quotes a parent whose 6-year-old daughter, a student at a charter school in Los Angeles, has only had one day of in-person instruction in the past month due to the combination of holidays and quarantines. A sociologist with the University of Southern California’s Equity Research Institute is quoted as saying, “There’s no talk of a shutdown. There’s just talk about managing the illness so we don’t overwhelm hospitals and health care. There are going to be a lot of scary moments for parents” (Kaiser Health News, 1/14/22): https://khn.org/news/article/los-angeles-schools-reopen-mixed-covid-policies-disruption-new-normal/.
4 - COVID-19 vaccines for children ages 6 months to 4 years old are expected “in the first half of 2022,” reports Lindsey Bever at The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/01/11/covid-vaccine-kids-under-5/
5 - This 1/5/22 Instagram post by the UnbiasedSciPod summarizes the most common symptoms of COVID-19 in children, which include fever, as well as how to initially care for your child at home and when to escalate to taking your child to the Emergency Room or calling 911. The long list of possible signs that it’s time to call 911 include a child who is having “difficulty breathing or catching their breath. Look for muscles pulling in between the ribs or the nostrils puffing out with each breath.” Other signs include “inability to keep down any liquids, new confusion or inability to awaken, seizures”, and/or “bluish lips, skin, or nail beds”
OMICRON:
6 - There are several reasons for individuals as well as societies not to give up on safety and prevention measures against the omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, according to this 1/1/22 thread by data scientist Rachel Thomas, at Queensland University of Technology, in Australia. Recovery from a SARS-Cov-2 infection does not provide “lasting immunity” to the coronavirus. “Each Covid infection raises the risk of creating a new ‘pre-existing condition’ that will make subsequent infections more dangerous,” she writes (she notes a December 2021 tweet from someone who was “perfectly healthy” before having COVID-19 and now has a “permanent heart condition because of it. Which means if I catch Covid again and it kills me, people will say, ‘Oh yeah but he had an underlying condition!’”) Benefits to delaying your case or a community case of COVID-19 include not spreading it to children or to people at high risk for severe COVID-19, a “greater chance of new treatments being developed, more effective vaccines, better anti-virals [drugs], scaling production of Paxlovid” (the Pfizer anti-viral treatment authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration but not yet widely available), Thomas writes: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1477154648838447104.html.
7 - Here’s another quick take on the same issue—why it doesn’t make sense to give up on preventing infections from the omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2—published 1/12/22 on Instagram by UnbiasedSciPod. Omicron infections cause milder illness than Delta did, on average, but it still can cause serious symptoms such as high fevers, severe body aches and breathing problems, especially if you are not boosted or not immunized at all, the post states. Mild cases of omicron can lead to Long Covid, with lasting “brain fog, fatigue, organ damage, shortness of breath, muscle pan, and others,” the post states. And the “healthcare system is on the brink of collapse. Healthcare workers are burnt out & there are staffing shortages due to rampant spread of omicron. Hospital ICUs are near capacity everywhere”:
PUBLIC HEALTH:
8 - A primary reason that variant-specific COVID-19 vaccines are moving slowly is that vaccine makers are wary of “investing too heavily in protection against variants that could soon fall off the radar,” reports Charles Schmidt for Scientific American (1/14/22). It takes “four to six months to generate” new variant-specific vaccines for distribution, the story describes Dan Barouch, a physician with infectious diseases and vaccines expertise at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, as saying. Meanwhile, the beta variant of SARS-CoV-2, for instance, “came and went in two months,” Barouch says. Dr. Paul Offit, pediatrician at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, advocates for variant-specific vaccines only if they cause the hospitalization of large numbers of vaccinated people who get the variant, the story states – say 15 to 20 percent, he is quoted as saying. Experts say that a better approach is to “move toward universal vaccines that boost antibody responses against a wider array of variants,” Schmidt reports. And when might that sort of vaccine be available? “On the 2024 or 2025 timescale,” the story quotes a staffer at the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations as saying. Until then, a couple more variants of concern are likely before the pandemic ends, and “companies are going to have to develop at least some intermediate variant-specific vaccine” for omicron or whatever comes next, the story quotes a virologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as saying: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/whats-holding-up-new-omicron-vaccines1/.
ENTERTAINMENT:
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10 - long thread will keep you laughing a while
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13 - https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/heres-why-youre-wrong-for-supporting-either-in-person-or-virtual-school - “Here’s why you’re wrong for supporting either in-person or virtual schooling,” by Chandler Dean, at McSweeney’s (1/7/22).
14 - Watch from start to get the set-up, SOUND ON
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Love/In friendship, Robin
Hi Robin https://substack.com/profile/112065-robin-lloyd ... your last 2 emails were blocked by my employers email system due to the use of profanity. Just wondering if you could switch to F@#k etc please so I don't miss your excellent content!