It’s Official : Covid-19 Booster Is Effective Against Omicron-19

Group of older people showing thumbs up

Pfizer and BioNTech recently released research which found that the new booster generates a strong immune response against the Omicron-19 variant.  Better late than never I suppose—I have already gotten mine.  But hopefully the research will prove to those skeptical against getting vaccinated at all.

As If We Haven’t Had Enough Stress, A New Omicron Variant Arrives

Just as the number of infections started plummeting and it appeared that it would soon be safe to go outside again, health authorities have announced that a more infectious type of the Omicron variant has surged and now accounts for a full one-third of global COVID-19 cases sequenced in recent weeks.  Known as BA.2, this strain may extend the length of a new COVID-19 wave.  “We’re looking not only at how quickly those peaks go up, but how they come down,” World Health Organization (SHO) epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove told The Wall Street Journal.  “And as the decline in cases occurs…we also need to look at: Is there a slowing of that decline?  Or will we start to see an increase again?”  she continued.  Fingers crossed that this is not another huge wave.

 

Free N95 Masks Coming Soon To A Drugstore Near You

The Biden administration is expected to begin distributing a whopping 400 million free N95 masks to Americans all over the country.  The masks are coming from the Strategic National Stockpile and will be distributed via local pharmacies and community health centers.  The number of masks being distributed comprise about half of our National Stockpile.

 

Nursing Homes Being Hit Hard Again By COVID-19

The Omicron variant of COVID-19 is hitting the elderly and nursing homes particularly hard, with the highest number of cases ever documented among staff and a near-record number of residents falling ill with the virus.  This, on top of a worker shortage which has hit virtually every industry, has made this particularly difficult to deal with.  For the week ending January 9, there were 32,061 new confirmed COVID-19 cases among nursing home residents, nearly triple the number of cases the week before (6,406), according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-19-cases-surge-at-nursing-homes-11641924320