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A Double Thumbs Up

Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins

VP Visit
It was an honor welcoming the 49th Vice President of the United States Kamala Harris to NIH on January 26, 2021. She received her second dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine at the NIH Clinical Center in a livestreamed event. All was a thumbs up afterwards. The NIH community thanks Vice President Harris for her kind words and looks forward to her future visits to the NIH campus. Credit: NIH

3 Comments

  • Steve White says:

    I am very concerned the new variants of SARS CoV2 have been allowed to enter the US due to inadequate restrictions on international travelers.

    The Manaus/Brazil variant is strongly suspected of causing a huge new wave of infections in Manaus. They had a huge wave only about 9 months ago, and some reports were over 60% infection rate – if this was true, then it is clear the new variant can cause a new epidemic here- even IF our vaccines work, since we do not have the vaccines in arms so far.

    In this situation it was imperative to prevent this variant from getting here, but clearly inadequate actions were taken – one can read the rules for travelers arriving from overseas on the CDC website, they are STILL inadequate. Swiss cheese would be a good description.

    The CDC and White House need to have real control over this – it MAY not be too late to keep the Manaus/Brazil variant out, though found in Minneapolis, it was in the traveler, with good luck it may not have spread,

    It is too late to stop the South Africa variant from getting here, but preventing more infected travelers from spreading it could slow it down – since we are told the vaccines will most work against it, and we are in the race against the virus to get the vaccines in arms, this seems to be a worthwhile effort …

    • Brent says:

      Here’s a thought… Instead of vaccinating the elderly first, how about the younger who travel and stimulate the economy more. We then can go on spring break and return to full school activities.

      • Steve White says:

        It could be vaccinations need to be given to the people who spread it the most, but I think the vaccinations may not work at all on the new variants. And if they are much more contagious, as is also likely, then the old measures will not be adequate either. I thought it was a good idea to put everyone we could from 18 to 30 in a work corps, isolated from other people, paid to upgrade infrastructure, prevent forest fires, anti-crime, etc – and let them out after going through isolation, or, since we have tests now, after shorter isolation and testing – with the main spreaders immune, the rest of us would be much safer. WIth the hope of vaccines this idea seemed less important, but now/???

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