The unique perspective and provocative opinions of Joe O’Neill
COVID Bits
Russia has Europe’s highest death toll from the pandemic—approximately 210,000. Only 28 percent of the people are fully vaccinated.
A British clinical trial found no sign of danger in getting a flu shot and a second dose of a COVID vaccine at the same time. The study supports the advice of U.S. health authorities.
COVID cases are dropping in the vast majority of states—even as the U.S. passed the milestone of 700,000 COVID deaths.
For Pfizer and Moderna, the booster shots could be more profitable than the original doses because they won’t come with the research and development costs the companies incurred to get the vaccines on the market in the first place.
Drugmaker Merck says that its experimental pill for those sick with COVID reduces hospitalizations and deaths by half. If cleared by regulators, it would be the first pill shown to treat COVID.
The United States’ full-vaccination rate: 55 percent.
Less than one third of expectant mothers are vaccinated against COVID. But pregnant women are 70 percent more likely to die from COVID—compared to those who are not pregnant.
Twenty-twopregnant patients in the U.S. died of COVID in August, the highest number in a single month since the pandemic started.
California is the first state to require COVID vaccinations for children to attend public and private schools in person.
More than a third of Florida’s COVID-19 deaths overall have been among long-termcare residents.
It speaks gubernatorial volumes that Florida—with half the population of California—has three times as many COVID deaths.
Hillsborough public schools recorded 327 COVID cases the past week; that’s a fraction of the number recorded in late August. It’s hardly happenstance that Hillsborough maintains the area’s strictest masking order.
According to a report by the Florida Hospital Association and the Safety Net Hospital Alliance of Florida, the state is projected to be short nearly 60,000 nurses by 2035.
Among those impacted by COVID side effects: oenologists. That’s because of anosmia—the loss of the sense of smell.
George Washington ordered the inoculation of his troops in 1777 against smallpox.