Dan Patrick blames Blacks for surge. Implying Texans or just whistling for pups?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/08/20/dan-patrick-covid-african-americans/

“The latest data from the Texas Department of State Health Services shows that the African American population there is not driving the increase in cases. Black residents in Texas accounted for 16.4 percent of the state’s cases and 10.2 percent of deaths as of Aug. 13. Black people make up about 13 percent of the state’s population, according to census data.

While vaccination rates are low among Black Texans, the highest coronavirus case rates are among Whites and Hispanics. Non-Hispanic White people, who make up about 41 percent of the state’s population, make up 34.9 percent of covid cases, according to the latest data. Hispanics, who account for almost 40 percent of the Texas population, make up 35.8 percent of the state’s cases.”

Like the scorpion, the Republicans just can’t help themselves. It’s their nature.

Is it helpful to accuse Pfizer of promoting booster shot for just profit?

“That sounds to me like a money-making operation for Pfizer,” Trump, who was secretly vaccinated last January at the White House, told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo. “Think of the money involved. An extra shot … How good a business is that? If you’re a pure businessman, you’d say, ‘you know what, let’s give them another shot,’ that’s another $10 billion of money coming in — the whole thing is crazy.”

That ought to help convince the hesitant folks.

To be fair, earlier in the interview he did endorse the vaccine in general:

“I recommend that people take it,” he said. “I also recommend that you have your freedoms to do what you want to do.”

Trump added: “Now one thing: When you have the vaccine, people that do — and it’s a very small number relatively, but people that do get it — get better much quicker. And it’s very important to know. They don’t get nearly as sick, and they get better. [Sen.] Lindsey Graham is an example. He said, if I didn’t have this vaccine, I would have died.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/08/18/trump-went-fox-promoted-vaccines-then-host-goaded-him-into-bashing-boosters/

So at the goading of FOX, he accuses Pfizer of phony boosterism of the booster shots.

Vaccines show declining effectiveness against infection overall but strong protection against hospitalization amid delta variant

Source: The Washington Post, via MSN.

A couple of weeks ago media were widely promoting 98% as the ratio of unvaccinated Covid-19 patients to vaccinated patients in hospitals. This item today reports that breakthrough infections account for about 15% to 20% of hospitalizations. That’s a big difference, a shift of almost 20%.

The likely explanation is that the earlier percentage was just a guesstimate, whereas the newer percentages are data-driven.

I’m not inclined to speculate on what the data is telling us, except to note that you can’t really blame hospital capacity shortages on the unvaccinated with so many vaccinated patients taking up beds.

The breakthrough infection hospitalization rate bears watching.

The other kind of immunity

Nasal swabs can mislead

File this under ‘something I should have seen but didn’t.’

So, why did so many vaccinated people test for COVID, but still not get sick?

Intramuscular vaccinations stimulate strong IgG antibodies and cellular immunity which protect you from serious illness, but they don’t result in high IgA antibodies which are found in nasal and other mucous.

Nasal spray vaccines and natural infections do stimulate IgA more effectively.

So, COVID, especially Delta, take hold in the nasal passages and throat, so you test positive, but the disease doesn’t get much beyond that.

That explains a lot. but I’ll still get my booster when I can.