In other news, the United Stated has now passed 350,000 coronavirus deaths with a record number of current hospitalizations and a possible Christmas and New Year's surge coming soon.
Meanwhile, British scientists say they're worried the vaccines approved for use won't protect against a new variant of the coronavirus originating from South Africa.
Simon Clarke, an associate professor in cellular microbiology at the University of Reading, said that while both variants had some new features in common, the one found in South Africa “has a number additional mutations ... which are concerning”.
He said these included more extensive alterations to a key part of the virus known as the spike protein - which the virus uses to infect human cells - and “may make the virus less susceptible to the immune response triggered by the vaccines”.
Finally, the Trump regime is reportedly considering a plan to cut the actual dose of Moderna's vaccine to spread it thinner among the population, but no one knows for sure if that will work.
(Reuters) - The U.S. government is considering giving some people half the dose of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine in order to speed vaccinations, a federal official said on Sunday.
Moncef Slaoui, head of Operation Warp Speed, the federal vaccine program, said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that officials were in talks with Moderna and the Food and Drug Administration about the idea. Moderna’s vaccine requires two injections.
“We know that for the Moderna vaccine, giving half of the dose to people between the ages of 18 and 55, two doses, half the dose, which means exactly achieving the objective of immunizing double the number of people with the doses we have,” Slaoui said.
This is the same guy who said we were going to vaccinate 20 million people by last week, so I don't feel comfortable taking his word for anything.
I hope everyone had a good holiday. You know, all things considered. Christmas eve dinner with my father went well and seeing my nieces on Christmas day was a breath of fresh air. New Year's Eve was far more emotionally fraught for me personally. So many things happened and so many things didn't happen in 2020. Closing the door on everything both good and bad was harder than I anticipated. But it's a new year and this year is for building a new life with less baggage.
I got my hair colored just before the new year, so I updated my profile again. It's one step up from black with blonde highlights.
