Well. This is going to be controversial.
https://twitter.com/drcaliff_fda/status/1562837774645878785?s=21&t=fkN55VHwRrCQXdwhyBP4EQ
IIRC, part of the June discussion was that VRBPAC would want to see the latest data before issuing a recommendation. It wasnāt a blanket recommendation to proceed with the bivalent with no further input from them. 
Looking for an agendaā¦
ETA: I think ACIP actually can discuss the boosters, I think itās just that they canāt vote on a recommendation prior to the FDA EUA. IIRC, I think that happened with one of the original Covid vaccines for one of the age groups. The ACIP discussed on the first day, the FDA EUA came out that evening, then ACIP voted the second day.
@PrincipalTinker Did they recently add ads here to the forums? My phone is really struggling to load the thread today and ads are popping up repeatedly and they or other portions of the thread keep reloading? Or does my phone have an issue?
They are definitely testing ads. I have a weird banner pop up between threads occasionally and the other day i had a full blown popup ad come up taking up 1/4 of the screen and blocking the reply buttons on a post.
Eta this is what I see clicking between threads now
They are testing this weekend for a new non-subscriber ad feature
Lol. My subscription expires Sept 2. No trips planned so I was debating renewing it. Yāall planned it that way, right? 
See if being signed in (sign out first) helps.
@amvanhoose_701479 I thought this was interesting that BA.5 has stalled in NC while B1.1.529 is having a resurgence. This is through week ending 8/13. The data released this week shows a large decrease in all indicators being tracked, especially wastewater.
That is really interesting!
Iām sure there are more, but two different possibilities occur to me right offā¦
That B1.1.529 got into one or more communities that BA.5 (and the other variants more transmissible than B1.1.529) werenāt present in, so it didnāt need to compete head to head with them.
That B1.1.529 and BA.5 do not provide much immunity against each other. I think thereās already pretty decent evidence B1.1.529 doesnāt provide robust protection against infection from BA.5, thus the number of short term reinfections. However, if the opposite is also true, then people could just ping pong being reinfected between B1.1.529 and BA.5, which would be yet another sticky wicket.
I hope someone there is looking at it at a zip code level because that would give a lot of info, I think!
Itās good cases are coming down overall though. They are here too.
Hereās something else interesting. Our wastewater peak for our BA.5 wave was almost as high as for our original Omicron wave. But at the positive cases peak, there were less than 1/4 as many, meaning a lot more unreported cases. So assuming there arenāt other factors that cause the wastewater peaks to fluctuate, if we were only catching something like 1 in 5 cases in the first Omicron wave, then we only caught something like 1 in 20 in this last one. Yet another data point for risk calculations. 
But hospitalizations werenāt nearly as high in the latest wave and are also coming down. Which is likely a combinations of several factors. Increasing immunity wall from vaccinations and/or prior infections (yay! ā¦but waning is boo!), increasing access to early intervention treatments like Paxlovid (yay!), even if itās not significantly āmilderā at least BA.5 wasnāt worse (yay!), and survivor bias where unfortunately weāve lost a lot of the most vulnerable (boo!).
Me, too! I was like, oh crap, now I gotta renew.
While Iāve got you here, I caught the Texas LL catcher catch a ball off a bat right on the helmet, about forehead level. And he was still trying to go after the ball. Heās a trouper. Hurt so bad he was crying - on national TV. Went back to catching tho he seemed a bit wary.
For a brief moment in time I was a catcher. I definitely would have had trouble catching after that. But I was in high school - bit different than 12 yr olds.
Hope heās OK.
Us too! They pulled him after that inning, so Iām assuming they ran him through concussion protocols but I havenāt heard anything so hopefully thatās a good sign. Theyāre doing a welcome home celebration for them next Thursday.
Andā¦bingo card checkā¦apparently the latest āportalā over China is iridescent rainbow?
https://weather.com/news/weather/video/spectacular-rainbow-cloud-seen-over-southern-china
Iām completely terrified b/c my countyās public school system is short 900 teachers starting this school year. According to wikipedia this county employs about 9,200 teachers, so thatās a huge percentage. My kids are still in private, but we were in these public schools not long ago, and we need to return there in the future. We might move for a different school system but Iām not at all convinced that 1) the shortage would be any less there and 2) that the schools we research will turn out to be what we think they are once weāve actually moved., with this sort of problem going on And last year it was just a bus driver shortage. I havenāt heard about that yet here b/c the public schools mostly havenāt started, but friends in other places are already having problems b/c a child is never able to get on the bus at a reasonable time. I donāt blame anyone for not wanting to be a teacher or bus driver right now. It sounds incredibly difficult.
Info from the AAP:
https://twitter.com/ameracadpeds/status/1563241280741994496?s=21&t=fqw0b1ImkUgUQ4XdPB3Saw
I will say I donāt think the school staffing shortage has anything to do with the current Covid protocols.
Higher ED teacher prep programs do not seem to have enough students currently enrolled to address this issue short term.
Many educators have left the profession. In many places, low pay is not the issue.
I do find it interesting that our overwhelmingly number one referral reason is speech delay with our Early Intervention right now. There are many factors it could be (parents working from home and not being able to put in the time, little peer interaction due to the pandemic, etc), but I wouldnāt completely dismiss masks for some kids. There are different reasons for speech delays and some of them have to do with motor planning. For those kids, it is important for them to see the speakerās mouth.
I went to back to the school nights for my kids this week. A few teachers wore masks, but I saw very few masks on anyone else. The schools are bringing back all kinds of prepandemic activities and field trips this year.
The only time I wear masks at this point is in my familiesā homes for work. A lot of people in this area have moved on. You see masks here and there and no one seems to care who is doing what at this point. You do you seems to be the situation. People are getting ill, but Iām hearing of all kinds of illnesses. Those getting Covid report feeling like it is a cold or mild flu. I havenāt gotten anything other than my typical allergies this time of year, which is now 4 weeks in and really annoying.
I believe our district may be missing a couple of teachers, but nothing crazy. They did a lot of hiring over the summer. One of my kids participated in a couple of interviews. The interviewee taught a class of students who volunteered and the students got to review them. The school is looking to hire for support roles in the schools.
Somewhere up thread @amvanhoose_701479 said she ordered tests monthly from CVS w/ her insurance, GREAT idea. I just called Walgreens and the pharmacist told me that Tricare (our insurance) is the only insurance that will NOT pay for the 8 tests per month. She has Tricare as well and goes through USPS monthly to get her tests for free. So I went there and ordered more but it also states that it will stop on Sept 2nd. I wish I had understood this soonerā¦ oh well. COVID Home Tests | USPS
Thanks for posting this.
YLE did an update on boosters this week:
A couple notable bits:
Regarding that last one, Iām still catching up on podcasts 
, but Andy Slavitt did an entire podcast on the status of the nasal vaccines.
Here are my key takeaways:
They are very promising towards potentially reducing infections/transmissions, butā¦. There is no āproject warp speedā type effort going on for these. There are 12 in clinical trials, with 3-4 being in the latter stages. So in theory if at least one is successful, it could be just months away, but the reality is it could be last half of 2023 (or later) before they are available to many. There is currently no logistical pre planning being done for mass manufacturing, distribution, etc. And there is no funding to make these widely available.
I agree. There is a district in southeast Michigan that was already pushing hybrid in-person/online scheduling in 2019 because they didnāt have enough teachers. Covid certainly didnāt help, but it definitely didnāt create the problem.
I was just coming to post that.
