You know what holds danger for China? Covid.
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Yeah, about those. An older relative is refusing to get a 4th jab now âbecause itâs just the same thing. Itâs not updated, so whatâs the point?â 
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Because the protections from the earlier one wear off over time. Itâs like refusing to refill the gas tank of a car: âitâs the same stuff I filled it with last time, whatâs the point?â
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Iâm wrestling with this now.
Weâre still able to avoid people indoors but just recently a couple people we know, who weâve had contact with for brief periods outdoors, had covid unknown to us.
Iâm sure weâre safe but waiting till October for the second booster may or may not be a good idea.
My concern is that we get it now and they come out with a new one in October will we be eligible for that one or will we have to wait a few months.
Fun times.
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Largely the difference between circulating, neutralizing antibodies (letâs not the virus in the first place) and immune memory (we might get it, but it wonât put us in the hospital.) Considering the increasing recognition of the consequences of long covid, I would prefer to not get it at all. And, when the variant-specific vaccine comes along, I def want that one in my arm. However, I really donât expect to see that argument carry much weight with âcertainâ folks. Hell, the attitude is metastasizing! I have folks who have gotten their kids vaccinated previously who have now ârethoughtâ that choice and are refusing normal childhood vaccines because âthey just donât trust the government.â 
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Even if youâve just recently had a non-variant-specific booster?
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There will probably be a 4-6 month wait between those, I am guessing. My plan is still to hold off on #4 until fall, and see what progress has been made. We shall seeâŚ
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The interesting part is who they trust instead 
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Thatâs the host of CBC White Coat, Black Art. Ontario, but I imagine itâs the same all over.
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Can confirm. It most certainly is.
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Another recently published study affirmed the vaccine-escape properties of BA.5. The research, from Columbia University, found BA.4 and BA.5 were four times more resistant to vaccine-induced antibodies compared to the original Omicron variant.
âOur study suggests that as these highly transmissible subvariants continue to expand around the globe, they will lead to more breakthrough infections in people who are vaccinated and boosted with currently available mRNA vaccines,â said David Ho, lead on the study.
So it is clear BA.5 is likely leading to a spike in SARS-CoV-2 infections both by hunting down those individuals who, so far, had avoided Omicron infection, and reinfecting others for the second or third time. But a much more difficult question to answer is whether BA.5 generates more severe disease compared to prior variants.
And yet more and more people are so completely over this whole mask-wearing thing.
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Hopefully there will be updates in October or November: 
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Yeah⌠itâs scary and depressing.
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COVID-19 is making a big comeback here in Japan, with 12 prefectures setting new records for daily cases and the nationwide total expected to top 75,000 for the first time since February.
Tokyo is at about 11.5k and Osaka is just shy of 10k. With 62% of the population now boosted, the government advisory panel is saying that restrictions on activities are not necessary at this time.
BA.5 is no joke. These numbers have more than doubled in the past week.
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Old and busted: BA.5
New and hotness: BA.2.75
httpss://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/12/centaurus-virologists-express-concern-at-new-covid-subvariant-omicron
Just FTR, had an outdoor barbecue organised by the office last Thursday. Our boss told us his son had COVID and was isolating in their flat, and asked if anyone would have doubts about him coming along.
Noone had. Outdoors, he had no direct contact to his son for a week. He tested himself twice that day.
Two days later, his test was positive. PCR confirmed that.
Another two days later, it was clear a colleague got COVID from him.
Iâm still not nervous about it. But I am pretty sure I caught HMFD this weekend, on another occasion. And this sucks, since the starting symptoms are overlapping with what I hear from all around in regard to BA.5âŚ
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Yeah, you can see the drumbeat building here in the newspapers. An article before the weekend noted that over half of Canadians got Omicron and another that the death toll for those over 60 was high, more than the previous two waves combined.
Semi-good news, however, is a development at the University of Toronto 
. A new, cheap test for immunity is good. Needing it, because that immunity is waning, is not good.
Edit: 
grammar
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