[Obi-wan Kenobi voice] Daily Galaxy. Now that's a name that I haven't heard in a long, long time ....
So, are they any more reputable than they used to be, now that they've been acquired by a venture capital firm, instead of being more focused on the fringier edges of science?
Ours is an old carrier. The interior dimensions are 16 inches tall, 14 inches wide, and 24 inches long. Our cat was maybe 14 inches tall, but of course she wouldn't want to stand fully upright and either bang her head on the roof, or constantly brushing her ears against it. Plus the bath mat and towel 'raised' the floor a bit. And sometimes when you scream, you just want to throw your head back and let go!
I like the bath mat because I can suction it to the bottom of the carrier, so neither she nor the towel slide around like they would on plain plastic or metal.
One cat would yell for a while, then settle down. When she was older, it took longer for her to settle down, until she was just yelling constantly for hours. I finally gave up and let her out of the carrier - the only time I've ever done that, and we were an hour from home with no traffic and no stops needed - and she stopped yelling immediately, just stood on my lap, panting.
At which point I realized that, as large as our car carrier was (it's one of the largest 'carryable' ones I've seen), it wasn't quite tall enough for the cat to stand completely upright and she was in pain because of her arthritis. We'd been torturing her, for hours! We made some changes after that!
For people who have carriers with a smooth or only slightly rough bottom: your cat may be yelling because they can't keep traction and are unexpectedly sliding a bit on curves and turns. We got one of those non-slip shower mats and cut it down to size, to reduce slipping, then added a beach towel for comfort. Everything is still washable (use white vinegar to get rid of the smell of cat urine), but the cat is much happier!
Moderna is a bit stronger than Pfizer, so that makes sense. For anyone having a strong reaction to the mRNA vaccines, you should consider NovaVax, a more traditional protein subunit vaccine for covid.
I could totally see Tesla realizing some part needed a recall and not wanting the poor publicity, so they tell it to randomly display a message saying "possible error in
<some part>
, please see your dealer". And then when the user comes in, they stealthily fix the part without telling anyone.
Every time you saw one of those MAGA freaks complaining about the cost of food, and looked at photos of their actual grocery carts, it's like these people had never considered the cost of food before. All of it's high-end food that they're bitching about being expensive.
I hadn't paid that much attention to their grocery carts, but I still think the economic anxiety argument holds weight. They look at their grocery carts and rising prices and they get anxious, because they know how tenuous their hold on their economic status is. They didn't want to lose that status, because they know how badly the next lower rungs are treated and they didn't want that for their family
We're all going to be in a lot of pain these next few years. I'm perfectly happy to celebrate the people responsible for creating that pain to also have to feel it.
Hey, question on NovaVax, if you have any thoughts? I got NovaVax last fall, and I know you're supposed to get two shots to establish your initial immune response. But of course I couldn't get a second shot because they only do single shots these days. I followed it up with a second NovaVax last spring and a third one this fall. Am I gaining any resistance from such distantly-spaced NovaVaxes?
[For context, I also have 2 Pfizers and 4 Modernas.]
Part of the issue is that the FDA got hyper-focused on the mRNA vaccines, and NovaVax takes longer to produce so their paperwork takes longer to put in. For the first few years, the FDA gave their yearly approval for NovaVax several weeks after the mRNA vaccines, often in very late October, so NovaVax kept missing out on all the early-fall newsbeat of "get your vaccine! get your vaccine!" It didn't help that a lot of US pharmacy chains didn't stock it; iirc, the only major chain to stock it last year was Costco; it's profile this year was helped by the fact that CVS decided to stock it.
NovaVax is slightly less effective than Pfizer (which itself is slightly less effective than Moderna [tbf, I think there's only like a 5-point spread between the three]), but a couple studies came out last year showing that NovaVax's main effectiveness may last slightly longer than the mRNA vaccines' roughly 4-month effectiveness (though the difference may be only a matter of weeks).
For people who are vulnerable to poor outcomes, but who don't qualify to be in the "yes, get vaccinated every couple months if you want" category (mostly people who's immune system doesn't produce a lasting response), NovaVax is an option to consider, though you'll have to weigh the risk and reward. As someone who falls into that category, I've been getting NovaVax when it's available early enough and when I expect a milder covid season; if I expect it to be a bad covid season, I'll get the mRNA vaccines.
For me the timing works out as: the primary effectiveness is the first four months, so I try to time my shots to maximally cover the winter heating period and the summer cooling period, when HVAC systems are most in use and help spread the virus. If I get my fall shot in mid-October, I'll be maximally covered through the end of February (includes the winter holidays through Valentine's Day); and if I get my spring shot in early May, I'll have max coverage from Memorial Day to mid/late September. [September is a time to be wary, as your protection will have faded somewhat, a lot of places may still be using A/C, and schoolkids will be spreading various diseases, including covid.]
signed, someone who is generally healthy but who almost certainly has a genetic predisposition to dying from covid (as in, every other close family member was vaccinated and still died during the pandemic), who has been closely tracking the virus and the vaccines, and who has had 2 Pfizer, 4 Moderna and 3 NovaVax.
PS: for those who've made it this far, I'll leave you three of my favorite virus tracking sites. The CDC's variant tracking page shows which variants are making up what percentage of covid cases, and has a lineage tree. By knowing which lineage your vaccine protects against, and which variants are most prevalent, you can make a better-informed decision on your risk level.
Next, the CDC's covid tracker page shows data for the past week, on both a national and a state level: what percentage of tests were reported positive (less useful now that su many places don't bother reporting), what percentage of ER visits were for covid, and what percentage of deaths were from covid. This is very useful because you can see a surge coming (infections lead to hospitals lead to deaths), and because it's on a national and state level so you can gauge your local risk and regional trends.
Finally, the Wastewater Surveillance project which collates data from participating wastewater processing sites. [important note: most facilities don't do testing, and those that do don't test for all possibilities. So just because your closest plant doesn't show results for, say, RSV, doesn't necessarily mean that RSV isn't circulating in your area.] However, you can see national and regional trends, and search a specific area for participating sites, for data on the 10 diseases they're tracking. And on the charts page, if you select a state, you can see local trends for those diseases.
[Obi-wan Kenobi voice] Daily Galaxy. Now that's a name that I haven't heard in a long, long time ....
So, are they any more reputable than they used to be, now that they've been acquired by a venture capital firm, instead of being more focused on the fringier edges of science?