Remember, get your 2024–2025 COVID-19 vaccine soon
This is an addendum to my recent post, Pandemic (still) not over; current wave is pretty bad.
Dr. Kaitlin Sundling’s Video Updates
I mentioned Dr. Sundling’s live, interactive monthly video updates in the previous post. I want to reiterate my recommendation to attend her talks; it can be hard in today’s environment to feel like you’re doing the right thing by continuing to wear a respirator and to be COVID-conscious, but listening to Dr. Sundling and hearing the questions from the audience restores your confidence.
To attend, join the COVID Precaution Community (on Discord), and then have Discord open at 4pm Eastern Time (US) on first Sundays. Ask me for help with Discord if you need it.
2024–2025 COVID-19 vaccines in the US
Dr. Sundling covered a lot of information about the 2024–2025 COVID-19 vaccine. I want to share some general suggestions about them, mostly applicable in the US. I am not a medical professional and this is not specific medical advice; check with your own medical team with specific questions and to confirm any information.
It’s important to get the new, updated vaccine. Get it soon. If you recently had last year’s vaccine, you only need to wait two months after that before getting the 2024-2025 vaccine.
US CDC is on track for one COVID shot per year; really, it should be more like every 6 months, because protection wanes and because COVID isn’t strictly seasonal. Please try to influence public policy. COVID does have surges, and the timing of the surges is similar from year to year, but it’s driven by social behavior, unlike typical seasonal diseases.
The available 2024-2025 vaccines are similar to each other; you don’t need to have a big preference for one over another.
Here’s the US CDC 2024-2025 mRNA COVID-19 information page: https://www.cdc.gov/covid/vaccines/stay-up-to-date.html
PMC COVID-19 Forecasting Model, Sept 2, 2024
I wanted to get you started reading Mike Hoerger’s update from this week, because it’s dramatic. I recommend reading the whole thread here: https://x.com/michael_hoerger/status/1830708856038609342
🧵1/8
We've headed from a false summit toward a larger peak in back-to-school transmission. Next week we'll know whether this is the largest or 2nd largest summer wave all-time. Expect 1.4-1.5 million daily infections at the peak.
This secondary peak is larger than anticipated previously, even when accounting for patterns of back-to-school transmission in prior years.
One, the West and South were peaking earlier, and the Northeast and Midwest have transmission picking up much faster than its falling off elsewhere. These are atypical regional differences.
Two, the 1-day isolation policy and general decline in school-based mitigation have unleashed transmission at higher levels than would be anticipated in prior years, even when accounting for the already-high levels of transmission as children went back to school.
Three, our model uses a combination of CDC and Biobot (former CDC contractor) data, using a 60% versus 40% mix for current case estimation. Biobot has not updated their data the prior two weeks without explanation. They were running much cooler than the CDC data, whether reflective of reality, or merely reporting delays. We have downgraded them to 20% in the model, and they will be downgraded further to 0% if they do not update their data this week.
You can take points 1 and 2 to account for the secondary and higher peak (shape of transmission), when models accounting for prior years would have suggested transmission slowing already, and point 3 accounting for a shift toward a slightly higher overall estimate of transmission.
Again, link to the original message and the rest of the thread: https://x.com/michael_hoerger/status/1830708856038609342
Stay safe, stay healthy!
Pete