Page 2 - aruba-today-20220120

A2 UP FRONT
Thursday 20 January 2022
Continued from Front that address. As those com- signed to jump-start home Dr. David Michaels, a for- science officer for home
The government website's plaints surfaced on social test production. mer member of President testing service eMed, who
limit of four tests may not media, people began shar- Countries like Britain and Joe Biden's COVID-19 advi- once called for using billions
go very far in some house- ing advice on how to enter Germany purchased and sory board, said the admin- of tests per month to crush
holds. apartment or unit numbers distributed billions of the istration will probably need the pandemic. "We should
Kristen Keymont, 30, is a in a way that the website tests soon after they be- to request more federal now be thinking about how
voice and piano teacher would accept them. came available last year. money to fund testing for to use these tests in a strate-
who teaches online and The U.S. bungled its initial "If you leave the manu- years to come. gic way. We don't want to
shares a house in Ipswich, rollout of government- facturers to their own de- "Congress was willing to just dilute them out across
Massachusetts, with her made COVID-19 tests in vices, they're just going to put trillions of dollars into the population." Mina was
partner and two other the early days of the out- respond to what's happen- infrastructure primarily to until recently a professor at
people. When one of her break and has never re- ing right now," said Dr. Amy improve transportation. Harvard and has informally
housemates tested positive ally gotten back on track. Karger, a testing special- This is infrastructure," said advised federal officials on
just before Christmas, she While private companies ist at the University of Min- Michaels, a public health testing.
and her partner spent $275 are now producing more nesota Medical School. professor at George Wash- Mina and others acknowl-
buying more than a dozen than 250 million at-home "And then there's not a lot ington University. "We need edge widespread use of
tests. tests per month, that is still of bandwidth if something billions more in testing to rapid tests is not without
"One test each is nice, I not enough to allow most surprising happens, as it did save lives and maintain the its downsides. Results from
guess," she said. "I'm glad Americans to frequently with omicron." Even with economy." at-home tests are seldom
we have them, but we're test themselves. government intervention, For now, testing will proba- reported to health authori-
still going to need to buy The Biden administration the U.S. faces a massive bly continue to be strained. ties, giving an imperfect
more if one of us gets ex- focused most of its early testing load because of its And even the most bull- picture of the spread and
posed." COVID-19 efforts on rolling population, which is five ish proponents say the U.S. size of the pandemic.
It would be better, she said, out vaccines. As infections times larger than Britain's. will have to carefully weigh More than 2 million test re-
if requests were linked to fell last spring, demand for The U.S. would need 2.3 where home tests can sults a day are being report-
each person rather than testing plummeted and billion tests per month for have the greatest benefit ed to U.S. health officials,
each residential address. many manufacturers be- all teens and adults to — for instance, by dispens- but nearly all of them come
Also, some people who live gan shutting down plants. test themselves twice per ing them to those most vul- from laboratory-processed
in buildings with multiple Only in September — after week. That's more than nerable to the virus. tests. Some researchers es-
units had their requests the delta surge was in full double the number of at- "The fact is we just don't timate the real number of
for tests rejected, with the swing — did the Biden ad- home tests the administra- have that kind of mass test- daily tests is roughly 5 mil-
website saying tests had ministration announce its tion plans to distribute over ing capacity in the U.S." lion, when accounting for
already been ordered for first federal contracts de- several months. said Dr. Michael Mina, chief at-home ones.q

Prior infection, vaccines provide best protection from COVID

By MIKE STOBBE Associ- people who had no past unknowns to rely only on a the coronavirus is likely to also looked at COVID-19
ated Press infection. past infection, especially a become less and less ef- hospitalizations in Califor-
NEW YORK (AP) — A new The Centers for Disease long-ago one, added im- fective against newer, mu- nia.
study in two states that Control and Prevention, munologist Ali Ellebedy at tated versions. Overall, about 70% of the
compares coronavirus which released the study Washington University in St. However, she and other adults in each state were
protection from prior infec- Wednesday, noted sever- Louis. "There are so many experts said, there are a vaccinated; another 5%
tion and vaccination con- al caveats to the research. variables you cannot con- number of possible other were vaccinated and had
cludes getting the shots is And some outside experts trol that you just cannot factors at play, including a previous infection. A little
still the safest way to pre- were cautious of the find- use it as a way to say, 'Oh, whether the vaccine's ef- under 20% weren't vac-
vent COVID-19. ings and wary of how they I'm infected then I am pro- fectiveness simply faded cinated; and roughly 5%
The study examined infec- might be interpreted. tected,'" Ellebedy said. over time in many people were unvaccinated but
tions in New York and Cali- "The bottom line message The research does fall in and to what extent mask had a past infection.
fornia last summer and fall is that from symptomatic line with a small cluster of wearing and other behav- The researchers looked at
and found people who COVID infection you do studies that found unvac- iors played a part in what COVID-19 cases from the
were both vaccinated generate some immunity," cinated people people happened. end of last May until mid-
and had survived a prior said immunologist E. John with a previous infection CDC officials noted the November, and calculat-
bout of COVID-19 had the Wherry of the University of had lower risks of COVID study was done before the ed how often new infec-
most protection. Pennsylvania. "But it's still diagnosis or illness than omicron variant took over tions happened in each
But unvaccinated peo- much safer to get your im- vaccinated people who and before many Ameri- group.
ple with a prior infection munity from vaccination were never before infect- cans received booster Compared with unvacci-
were a close second. By than from infection." ed. doses, and so it's not clear nated people who hadn't
fall, when the more con- Vaccination has long The findings do seem what impact boosters been diagnosed with CO-
tagious delta variant had been urged even after a plausible, said Christine might have. The analy- VID-19, case rates were:
taken over but boosters prior case of COVID-19 Petersen, a University of sis also did not address — 6-fold lower in California
weren't yet widespread, because both kinds of pro- Iowa epidemiologist. She the risk of severe illness or and 4.5-fold lower in New
those people had lower di- tection eventually wane said a vaccine developed death from COVID-19. York in those who were
agnoses than vaccinated — and there are too many against an earlier form of The study authors conclud- vaccinated but not previ-
ed vaccination "remains ously infected.
LIKE US ON the safest strategy" to pre- — 29-fold lower in Califor-
vent infections and "all nia and 15-fold lower in
eligible persons should be New York those who had
up to date with COVID-19 been infected but never
vaccination." vaccinated.
The researchers looked at — 32.5-fold lower in Cali-
infections in California and fornia and 20-fold lower
New York, which together in New York in those who
Facebook.com/arubatoday/ account for about 18% of had been infected and
the U.S. population. They vaccinated.q