Bits and Pieces
Instances of the flu are way down
Are the public health safety measures against COVID affecting the flu season? According the Wall Street Journal, "wearing masks, washing your hands, socially distancing, and staying at home can disrupt pretty much all pathogens, not just the highly contagious coronavirus.” As it turns out, that's exactly what's happening when it comes to influenza, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). In the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control, “positive flu test results across nearly 26,000 samples were miniscule at less than one-half of 1% compared with as much as 26% in previous years.”
Making masks smarter and safer against Covid-19
The University of California, San Diego, is developing a new tool for monitoring Covid-19, a color-changing test strip that can be stuck on a mask and used to detect SARS-CoV-2 in a person’s breath or saliva. The researchers say they are “taking what many people are already wearing and re-purposing them so we can quickly and easily identify new infections and protect vulnerable communities.”
Coronavirus mutations might make it resistant to current vaccines
Fortune reported on February 3, 2021, that Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla thinks it is "likely" that the coronavirus will mutate in a way that makes it resistant to current vaccines. However, the mRNA technology that Pfizer/BioNtech (and others such as Moderna) are employing in their vaccines is helpful, "because now you can very quickly develop a new version of the vaccine that either adds to the current immunogenicity or creates a very different one that can cover the new mutations as well."
How can you test Covid positive after being vaccinated?
A report in the February 1, 2021, edition of The Economic Times’ Healthworld.com says that some people have reported testing positive for Covid after being vaccinated. Experts say cases like these are not surprising and do not indicate that there was something wrong with the vaccines. Here’s why.
- Vaccines don’t work instantly. It takes a few weeks for the body to build up immunity after receiving a dose.
- The vaccines now in use in the United States, from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, both require a second shot a few weeks after the first to reach full effectiveness.
- They don’t work retroactively. You can already be infected and not know it when you get the vaccine.
- The vaccines prevent illness, but maybe not infection. Covid vaccines are being authorized based on how well they keep you from getting sick, needing hospitalization and dying. Scientists don’t know yet how effective the vaccines are at preventing the coronavirus from infecting you to begin with, or at keeping you from passing it on to others. That is why vaccinated people should keep wearing masks and maintaining social distance.
- Even the best vaccines aren’t perfect. The efficacy rates for Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines are extremely high, but they are not 100%.
What can vaccinated people safely do?
Once you have been vaccinated, what can you safely do? Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert, warns that vaccinations are not a “pass.” This Washington Post, in a February 1, 2021, article does not provide conclusive recommendations, but includes varied opinions that might be helpful. “Many public health experts say while vaccinated people can enjoy a bit more freedom — flying while masked, for example, is far less of a risk after inoculation — behavior should not change much. Besides the concern that inoculated people might serve as carriers of the virus, they note a small number might still get covid-19 while the virus is circulating so widely, although the chances of hospitalization or death are low.”
