sonia | Links: some good Covid news (Reply)

COVID-19 cases hit lowest point in U.S. since pandemic began by Sam Baker, Andrew Witherspoon at Axios, June 2, 2021.

The bottom line: The vaccines work. They’ve brought cases to their lowest point yet, and because that improvement is the result of vaccines, there’s no reason to believe the virus will start gaining significant ground again any time soon.

And also,

What’s next: Cases and deaths are still soaring around the world, especially in the developing world, and the Biden administration is facing consistently mounting pressure to export more vaccines, now that the U.S. has contained the virus.

Immunity to the Coronavirus May Persist for Years, Scientists Find by Apoorva Mandavilli, NY Times, May 26, 2021.

Together, the studies suggest that most people who have recovered from Covid-19 and who were later immunized will not need boosters. Vaccinated people who were never infected most likely will need the shots, however, as will a minority who were infected but did not produce a robust immune response.

Gosh, that would be nice. And hey, it might offer a way to confirm one way or the other whether I had Covid in March 2020. I thought that would be forever uncertain.

I also thought vaccine development would be take much longer, produce vaccines that were much less effective, and require at least annual boosters to stay effective. I am SO HAPPY to be wrong about all of that.

This one isn't as joyful, but it's clarifying. The lab-leak hypothesis for COVID-19 is becoming a conspiracy theory by Dan Samorodnitsky at Massive Science, May 26, 2021.

One hypothesis requires a colossal cover-up and the silent, unswerving, leak-proof compliance of a vast network of scientists, civilians, and government officials for over a year. The other requires only for biology to behave as it always has, for a family of viruses that have done this before to do it again. The zoonotic spillover hypothesis is simple and explains everything. It’s scientific malpractice to pretend that one idea is equally as meritorious as the other. The lab-leak hypothesis is a scientific deus ex machina, a narrative shortcut that points a finger at a specific set of bad actors. I would be embarrassed to stand up in front of a room of scientists, lay out both hypotheses, and then pretend that one isn’t clearly, obviously better than the other.