By John Woolfolk and Harriet Blair Rowan
The fast-spreading COVID-19 omicron variant (click here) has rocketed to dominance over the highly contagious delta strain across much of the U.S., jumping from less than 13% of sequenced cases on Dec. 11 to more than 73% in a week’s time, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Monday.
It was unclear how fast omicron has spread in California — the California Department of Public Health had not updated its variant tracking data and had no immediate comment Monday. But the rapid spread across the rest of the country alarmed infectious disease experts.
“Amazing — this is faster than I expected,” said Dr. John Swartzberg, clinical professor emeritus of infectious diseases and vaccinology at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health. “I think this is fair to say: This is explosive.”...
I believe there is a test case in Senators Warren and Booker. (click here) There is no statement as to the variant the two Senators contracted, but, they are ill after being vaccinated and this is the first Level Three Virus that circumvents immunity. So, currently, in looking at Moderna's statement and the two Senators, it is reassuring there is great degree of protection from the variants with a two injection initial shots and a booster. The three shots are providing a really good degree of protection. That is reassuring. We are on the right path with these viruses and there is good news to the efforts by research scientists.
December 20, 2021
Yahoo Finance’s Anjalee Khemlani (click here) explains the latest coronavirus news as Moderna announces the results of its booster vaccine dose against the Omicron variant, COVID-19 cases rise, and Europe braces for lockdowns....
...We've got news out of Moderna saying that their booster shot-- so the half dose compared to the initial course-- is effective against the omicron variant in addition to a full dose suggested as a booster or as an option. They've studied both and have come out with results showing that the half-dose booster is 30-- gives you 37-fold protection against omicron, and a full dose-- that's 100 milligrams-- gives you 83. That's in comparison to Pfizer, which had reported 25-fold increase protection from a booster dose....
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