I cannot help feeling this way. The CDC under Biden has just screwn

[NNadir]

122. There is increasing evidence that antibodies are only a small part of the story.

This is offset by T-Cell induced immunity. There was an article in Cell just recently on the topic. I briefly discussed it here: Reduced neutralization of SARS-CoV-2 B.1.1.7 variant by convalescent and vaccine sera.

I think people are misreading the CDC advice as "don't wear a mask ever!" That's not what it says.

There are many diseases besides Covid that effect immune compromised people; some of which are nearly as fatal or even more fatal than Covid. The world did not require masks to protect them from, say, tuberculous, or serious flus. There are places where the levels of infection have fallen to very low levels.

Last week I took my cat to the vet. They had a big sign on the door. "Don't come in without a mask. We have high risk employees here." I think respect is called for; but let's be clear; the anti-maskers were here before the CDC advice and they're not going away. We who have been vaccinated or will be vaccinated shortly have never had control over them.

As for reaching the level where everyone who wants one will get one, we are getting closer by the hour. I was personally involved in the scale up of HIV Protease Inhibitors and we could not make them fast enough for a long time - we lost sleep when we were behind - and then boom! Suddenly we had a huge inventory.

This point is approaching fast.

I do believe we're going to need to modify the sequences and get additional shots periodically; mostly because of India and other underserved countries. This means that we will need to continue to scale, but here in the US, under Biden, I'm fairly confident that the worst is over.

There are hidden material and environmental costs associated with the justifiable use of all this gear. I don't think this decision is "Joe Biden's." I think he's listening to the scientists and as always, here and elsewhere there are people who assume, often without justification, that they know more than what the scientists know.

As for the report on NPR, my general perception of journalism as it touches science is falling to new lows; and it's been quite low for some time. My standard joke is that "you cannot receive a degree in journalism if you have passed a college level science course with a grade of C or better." We can always find specific cases of concern in anything, but we often choose to ignore, because our attention is driven to be selective by journalism, the general case.

My personal experience is that more than 75% of the time I hear a journalist speaking about a scientific topic with which I'm familiar, the reporting is distorted and misleading.

I certainly hold the level of modern journalism responsible for the tragedy that has befallen us. They legitimized Trump, for one thing, treated him way too seriously while carrying on about, among many things, "the emails."

Their science reporting is like that.

In this case, I'm not sure that the journalists really know about what the word "antibodies" is.