Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

Coronavirus

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
California getting serious about trying to avoid the same COVID surge that happened last winter - will it be enough?

On Wednesday, the California Department of Public Health summed up its booster guidance as follows: “In general terms that everyone can understand, we urge Californians to get a booster if someone in their home has a medical condition or if they work around other people.”

I hope that people start scheduling their booster shots. I know quite a few people who are doing so already.

By next year, we will end up treating COVID like the flu - annual booster vaccines for people who want them and COVID vaccines will be introduced as part of the regular course of childhood vaccinations.
 
California getting serious about trying to avoid the same COVID surge that happened last winter - will it be enough?



I hope that people start scheduling their booster shots. I know quite a few people who are doing so already.

By next year, we will end up treating COVID like the flu - annual booster vaccines for people who want them and COVID vaccines will be introduced as part of the regular course of childhood vaccinations.
The question is whether they will be annual or every six months.
 
The question is whether they will be annual or every six months.
I suspect an annual shot in the fall (same as the flu shot) will be enough - spacing the vaccines out appears to boost the immune response significantly and for longer compared to the 3-4 week spacing more designed to get rapid immunity.

It could be after a few annual boosters you could be good enough for longer periods of time where with the flu you need annual boosters since it mutates so quickly in comparison.
 

Yeah, it seems like over 80% of the population (not adults only) recently vaccinated is kind of the sweet spot to avoid significant resurgence. We'll see how it goes this winter with infection-acquired immunity. It's really unclear how many people have had it. Some estimate 50% of the US population. I tend to think that is still too high. There's this persistent estimate of 3x the number of cases which would be 150 million, 45%. I think that even that may be a little high. It would be really nice if they actually did some good studies of this to nail down a solid number.

Also I am not convinced that infection-acquired immunity is much better than vaccination in term of waning, so that would open up the vulnerable pool when infection-acquired protection does wane. I'd also like to see a comparison of people with this natural immunity vs. people who have had boosters.

It just goes on and on, and as long as there are a lot of unvaccinated people out there (and vulnerable people who haven't been boosted), the CFR and hospitalization rates aren't going to drop much.

Glad to see states opening up booster vaccinations to all. The messaging has been terrible and remains terrible. There is very little time before Thanksgiving. People need to get boosted.

By next year, we will end up treating COVID like the flu

I hope so. The end game is still pretty unclear to me. There seems to be a lot of certainty that it's going to be endemic, and I understand the reasoning, but I'm not completely convinced of that.

I think the Pfizer Paxlovid drug being 90%+ successful (it's not clear to me exactly how restrictive they were with the population they tested, haven't looked) with minimal side effect profile, if that happens, is likely going to be the key that gets us out of this, at this point. It's impossible to get hospital loading down sufficiently with current vaccination levels, so there has to be a tool to provide to those who were too stubborn or lacked access to get vaccinated. $700 isn't bad. It's the hospital loading that seems to determine most of the restrictions, so if that goes away, things can get back to mostly normal.

The worst case is that the continued waning of protection, with endemicity, results in a constant disease burden, without a means of addressing it properly except through continuous periodic boosting (which will be imperfect) and by increasing hospital staffing. So I do hope that multiple rounds of infection and boosting end up providing very long-lasting robust protection which doesn't need boosting to maintain the protection against severe disease.

where with the flu you need annual boosters since it mutates so quickly in comparison.

The spike has actually been mutating faster than the H3N2 flu, which is disturbing. Virologists think it is may slow down a bit, but still continue, and they're probably right, but I'm hoping that now that it has adapted well to humans that it will mostly stop changing.

 
The spike has actually been mutating faster than the H3N2 flu, which is disturbing. Virologists think it is may slow down a bit, but still continue, and they're probably right, but I'm hoping that now that it has adapted well to humans that it will mostly stop changing.
One study indicated that the Beta variant largely escapes the immune response to the Delta spike. So, so it seems plausible that a Beta-like variant may become prevalent next year that can re-infect people who got Delta but never got vaccinated.

Conversely, Delta might also largely escape a Beta-like variant. Re-infection with the same variant seems to be commonly possible with a couple of years. So, maybe, we will see some ping pong effect where two or more variants are fairly prevalent and alternate infecting people over time.

So far, vaccines based on the Wuhan variant are effective against all the other variants since they all diverged recently from it.

Whatever the case, it’s hard to believe that the virus will just suddenly go away and not come back. We know it’s commonly spreading among the North American deer population and probably other wild animals that will keep it going regardless of human vaccination levels.
 
It’s ironic that those in public health who feared that pushing boosters would undermine confidence in the primary vaccination series have now undermined confidence in the booster.

Very few people seem to realize that the booster is required, if you wish to have a high probability of avoiding infection, if exposed, for this winter season. Terrible messaging continues.
 
The CDC's vaccine tracker continues to show an implausibly large number of partially vaccinated people. 226M with at least 1 dose but only 195M fully vaccinated. The odds that there's actually 31M partially vaxxed people walking around are very low. I bet the real number is around half that. Here in California, the CDC claims an absurd 5.6M partially vaxxed people while the state's tracker only has 2.9M partially vaxxed.

The CDC needs to clean up its data.

If the data is cleaned up, it will very likely show far fewer than 226M have received at least 1 dose, but also that many more than 195M are fully vaxxed.
 
The CDC's vaccine tracker continues to show an implausibly large number of partially vaccinated people. 226M with at least 1 dose but only 195M fully vaccinated. The odds that there's actually 31M partially vaxxed people walking around are very low. I bet the real number is around half that. Here in California, the CDC claims an absurd 5.6M partially vaxxed people while the state's tracker only has 2.9M partially vaxxed.

The CDC needs to clean up its data.

If the data is cleaned up, it will very likely show far fewer than 226M have received at least 1 dose, but also that many more than 195M are fully vaxxed.

Because of a temporary shortage of the vaccine back around February (?) my appointment for my second shot was cancelled, and I was told to just walk in on a different day, which I did. The CDC duly sent me a notice of the cancellation, but because the clinic had me go in for my second shot without an appointment, it's entirely possible that the CDC statistics show me as never getting the second dose. Something like this may be happening with other folks. I got my booster a while back so maybe they think now that I've had two shots rather than three.

And now that people can walk in for the shot, I imagine that keeping track is difficult.
 
California is now offering boosters to all adults over 18 as long as at least six months have passed since their second dose of the vaccine.
I received mine as a walk-in two weeks ago... along with the seasonal influenza shot. ;)

 
Last edited:
California is now encouraging boosters for an adult over 18 as long as at least six months have passed their second dose of the vaccine.

California, New York, and Colorado. Hopefully a lot more to follow. Running out of time before the holidays, and can’t wait on the FDA (though I expect them to say something in the next week or so).
 
I can't easily get a booster appointment now - 2 to 3 weeks wait time.
Yeah, was good to get it early. Most people nationwide are already eligible - BMI of >25 would qualify according to CDC criteria, so 75% of Americans or so. If I ate a big meal I would qualify. But I got boosted already so no big deal.

I wonder if they’ll flex and open more appointments?

Bedford says mutation rates have slowed WAY down, and now future mutations will be more balanced towards immune escape. We’ll see how good the virus is at that…at least we have not seen obvious examples of that yet. I like this picture very much, and I am hoping the LOESS fit stays flat, even if it is too much to hope for.

 
Last edited:
California is now offering boosters to all adults over 18 as long as at least six months have passed since their second dose of the vaccine.
I received mine as a walk-in two weeks ago... along with the seasonal influenza shot. ;)

Unlike EVNow, it was relatively easy to book here in Nor Cal. I got mine (Moderna booster; 1st two shots were Pfizer) this past Saturday (11/13) in CA. I didn't yet meet CDC's guidance (Coronavirus Disease 2019).

For my county via Home - COVID-19 Vaccination Eligibility and Scheduling, I originally wanted an Saturday (11/13) appointment and there were plenty of slots. I shouldn't have snoozed as they were gone by the next afternoon (Fri 11/12, around 3 pm). But, luckily, some popped back up and I got one of MANY available in Morgan Hill, CA right before 6 pm on Fri 11/12. Not sure if it was a web site bug or somehow them releasing batches/adding slots in bulk at a certain time.

It wasn't that busy when I went. Not clear if they checked appointments that carefully and whether they were taking walk-ins.

I had met the 6+ months past completing series as I got my initial Pfizer doses by calling ton of pharmacies back then asking to be their leftover wait list, if they had one. I got my 1st dose over a week before I was eligible for my county by driving to another place over 80 miles away that had leftovers.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Jeff N
Unlike EVNow, it was relatively easy to book here in Nor Cal. I got mine (Moderna booster; 1st two shots were Pfizer) this past Saturday (11/13) in CA.
This is what I hope to do, but one friend said the Moderna booster knocked him out for 5 days. I am going to boost vitamins and hydration 2 days in advance (counting on at least the placebo effect, I know science not strongly behind that). How was your experience if I may ask? And any suggestions?

Has anyone heard of any evidence, or hypothesis behind any planned research, to indicate when initial vaccines start to lose efficacy for preventing infection? Fairfax City, VA, in spite of very high vax rate went asymptoti/vertical over the weekend - no news if those were breakthrough infections, influx of visitors for some event or what. Unfortunately deaths also higher, so I can’t easily explain it as “just infections, not hospitalizations”
 
This is what I hope to do, but one friend said the Moderna booster knocked him out for 5 days. I am going to boost vitamins and hydration 2 days in advance (counting on at least the placebo effect, I know science not strongly behind that). How was your experience if I may ask? And any suggestions?
No symptoms after Moderna booster (None with the first two either). This doesn't count a bit of soreness where the shot was if you pressed on it--that's pretty normal for any kind of shot.
 
  • Helpful
  • Like
Reactions: CatB and madodel
This is what I hope to do, but one friend said the Moderna booster knocked him out for 5 days. I am going to boost vitamins and hydration 2 days in advance (counting on at least the placebo effect, I know science not strongly behind that). How was your experience if I may ask? And any suggestions?

Has anyone heard of any evidence, or hypothesis behind any planned research, to indicate when initial vaccines start to lose efficacy for preventing infection? Fairfax City, VA, in spite of very high vax rate went asymptoti/vertical over the weekend - no news if those were breakthrough infections, influx of visitors for some event or what. Unfortunately deaths also higher, so I can’t easily explain it as “just infections, not hospitalizations”

There doesn't seem to be any way to predict who will have worse side-effects or who will have none. My side effects after the Pfizer second and third doses were minor, and after the first dose just slight tenderness at the injection site, so I decided (based on nothing whatsoever) that my regular cardio was the reason for my easy experience. :cool:

What I've read is that six months after second dose of either of the mRNA vaccines you are still highly protected against a severe case (hospitalization or death) but that protection against infection has waned significantly. Note however, that even that reduced level would be considered good protection were it not for the amazingly strong protection these vaccines give early on, and again after the booster.
 
  • Informative
Reactions: CatB and jerry33
1637074873271.png


Cold weather = start of the winter surge in the U.S.?