COVID-19 Update: Monday, February 1, 2021
- Ginger Cameron, PhD
- Feb 1, 2021
- 2 min read
masks required long-term effects, herd immunity and new vaccines are coming.
New regulations were just passed requiring masks on mass transportation including planes, trains and buses. Fines and possible jail time for those in violation. You can read more here https://www.npr.org/2021/01/21/959398694/no-mask-no-fly-biden-signs-order-requiring-face-coverings-on-planes and here https://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/masks/mask-travel-guidance.html
According to a pre-print study, 80% of people who get COVID are reporting long term symptoms. There is a range of symptoms being reported but the most common are: fatigue (58%), headache (44%), attention disorder (27%), hair loss (25%), dyspnea (24%), and anosmia (24%). You can read more about this in a pre-print study here https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.27.21250617v1 Remember, pre-print studies have not yet been peer-reviewed so take them lightly.
The threshold for herd immunity may now be 80-85%. Remember that herd immunity takes into account several factors one of which is how effective vaccines are. The less effective they are, the higher the threshold needs to be. So as new variants emerge, reducing the effectiveness of the vaccines, the threshold goes up. And as new vaccines come out, their effectiveness will be calculated in - adjusting that further. It will be a little while before we have a solid number. But I would anticipate it would be at least 80% (based purely on historical evidence).
Noravax and J&J vaccines are on the way - so if you have been hesitant to get the mRNA vaccines you will soon have other options.
FINAL THOUGHTS: Happy Monday! I hope you got some rest over the weekend. I turned off all electronics and I slept about 12 hours Friday night - which did wonders for me. I hope you are walking into this week renewed. But if not, feel free to rest. This has certainly been a long journey and knowing that we are not nearly as close to the end as we would hope can be daunting. Each day the best we can hope is to focus on the day. Don't try to tackle tomorrow, today is enough.
Comments