Only 42 new cases today; 7-day rolling average down to 113.
2 additional reported deaths; 7-day rolling average 5.3.
Hopsitalizations are 136 (-9).
ICU is 31 (-6).
Only 42 new cases today; 7-day rolling average down to 113.
2 additional reported deaths; 7-day rolling average 5.3.
Hopsitalizations are 136 (-9).
ICU is 31 (-6).
While that may be, these vaccines still had to receive approval, albeit "emergency approval." The clinical trials were still conducted, if under an abbreviated timeline.
More importantly, the sample size for the vaccines blows away any in the history of any clinical trial at this point. Literally hundreds of millions of shots, dating back to last November.
I sympathize with people who are hesitant, and I'm not going to criticize people for being cautious, but at this point there is more than enough data out there to show that the vaccines, particularly Moderna and Pfizer, are safe. Those who decided to hold off for a bit are now endangering themselves by continuing to do so out of irrational fear. And, they are now putting themselves at greater risk of infection, with businesses basically opening up completely and most people ditching social distancing and masks.
One thing we noticed over the winter is that neither the kids or ourselves got any of the usual colds and sniffles. Now that more people are going without masks, we finally got our first “winter cold” for the whole family. I suspect we are going to see all this common colds and stuff playing catch-up over the summer.
All the vaccines approved for use in the US completed phase 1, 2, and 3 of clinical trials before approval. The speed at which these were completed was largely achieved by running phases concurrently. 20 years of mRNA vaccine technology development involving similar viruses, along with the advantage of not having to grow vector viruses for delivery, has allowed those types of vaccines to be quickly manufactured and widely distributed where they are available.
About 2 billion doses of all available vaccines have been administered world wide. 296 MM doses of the approved vaccines have been administered in the US. Of the people known to have died after receiving a covid vaccine, no casual link has been made to the vaccine. That is, there is no evidence anyone has died because of the vaccine at this point. There are some reports that say a few thousand people have died after getting it, but none of those deaths have been directly attributed to the vaccine. I'm not sure, but I would actually assume that number would naturally be higher.
Comparatively, 171 MM people have contracted Covid world wide and 3.57 million deaths have been attributed to the disease. In the US, those numbers are 33.3MM and 595K respectively.
Now, covid has (obviously) been around for a little bit longer than the vaccines. But, I'm not sure what the "wait and see" crowd is waiting for. Do they think if we wait a few more months the numbers will even out somehow? I'm just curious what data, exactly, they are waiting to see.
But, I guess until they figure that out, there are still a lot of people who do not even understand that it is free to everyone. There are also people who still think it is hard or inconvenient to get and don't want to or can't miss work to get a shot. Those are the people on which we should focus and offer help, imo. I think we all know by now that it is a vain exercise to try and reason with someone who trusts cable news personalities and internet memes for advice over the advice of highly trained and experienced individuals.
115 new cases today; 7-day average continues to go down at 110.
4 additional reported deaths; 7-day average 4.1.
Hospitalizations are 120 (-16).
ICU is 29 (-2).
Have we had a zero death day yet? Feels like we're getting close to that with only single digits being reported at this point.
152 new cases today (last 3 Fridays: 144, 185, 151); 7-day average 111.
8 additional reported deaths; 7-day average 4.0.
Hospitalizations are 109 (-11).
ICU is 30 (+1).
It must be said that with all the relaxed restrictions and dropping of mask mandates, the numbers continue to steadily decrease.
There is a bit of a worry about a week from now which will be 2 weeks from last Memorial Day weekend; if we don't see much of a blip there, I'd say we are home free until this fall/winter.
It's weird to me that Oklahoma is still averaging more deaths on several days than Great Britain. Still, happy to be where we are, happy that my family and good friends are vaccinated, and happy that I didn't lose any family members to Covid 19.
Hopefully the vaccine resistors will get off of Youtube and stop listening to medical experts like Alex Jones and get their shots. If they don't, they will be incredibly susceptible to getting the virus, which could kill or potentially permanently scar them.
At this point, I am going to enjoy eating out, visiting bars, going to concerts, and I will do so mostly maskless. There has been plenty of time for people to get vaccinated in this state. If they get sick now it's on them.
The newest variant is both more severe and more transmissible. You’re good if you’re vaccinated, but if not, you’re taking a real risk for you and anyone else close to you. It’s going to be sad seeing misinformed people die when they could be vaccinated. I have an extended family member whose family is anti-vax and their 40-something father just spent 5 days in the hospital. Such unnecessary suffering.
The percentage of adults in Oklahoma that have been fully vaccinated is very close to completely stalling out at 44.5%.
Even a month ago, we were adding about 70,000 a week. This past week was only 22,399 and that number has been decreasing for at least two months.
I'd but surprised if we get to 50% this year, far short of the 70% target for herd immunity.
Unsurprisingly, a lot of the anti-vaccine crap is in the dark holes of the Internet. If people would take Alex Jones and his website as jokes, rather than seriously, it would help matters. He goes over the scary top in going against the vaccines. He's just a scam trying to gather an audience, who he hopes will go on to also be gullible enough to buy his snake oil.
Can't escape the irony of people who have fumed for the last year and a half, "I just want to live my life," and "We need to open things up," and, "I'm not going to wear a mask!" refusing a free shot that would enable all of that safely.
+1. I'm just very grateful for the incredible medical advances that have allowed this vaccine to be so effective. If we were looking at your typical flu shot, I'm not sure we could feel so comfortable being around all these folks that aren't vaccinated.
One thing I've learned about this country over the past couple years is that we basically can't pull together to overcome collective challenges anymore. So, thank god for technology that allows us to insulate each other from our own selfishness. Unfortunately, the next existential crisis our country faces may not be as surmountable.
"If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide." - Abraham Lincoln
^^ Based on what I've read on the response to masks and such during the 1918 flu pandemic, really we're just reminded that people are the same as they've always been.
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