Will Arizona ‘Follow The Science’ On COVID-19, Or Not?

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On Tuesday, the Center for Disease Control issued new Interim Public Health Recommendations for Fully Vaccinated People:

Updates as of July 27,2021

  • Updated information for fully vaccinated people given new evidence on the B.1.617.2 (Delta) variant currently circulating in the United States.
  • Added a recommendation for fully vaccinated people to wear a mask in public indoor settings in areas of substantial or high transmission.
  • Added information that fully vaccinated people might choose to wear a mask regardless of the level of transmission, particularly if they are immunocompromised or at increased risk for severe disease from COVID-19, or if they have someone in their household who is immunocompromised, at increased risk of severe disease or not fully vaccinated.
  • Added a recommendation for fully vaccinated people who have a known exposure to someone with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 to be tested 3-5 days after exposure, and to wear a mask in public indoor settings for 14 days or until they receive a negative test result.
  • CDC recommends universal indoor masking for all teachers, staff, students, and visitors to schools, regardless of vaccination status.

Appearing on MSNBC’s All In With Chris Hayes, Dr. Anthony Fauci explained the reason for the CDC reversing its earlier recommendation from May,

In May, the Delta variant was only 1% of COVID-19 infections, and the vaccines were highly effective (up to 95%) against the prevalent versions of COVID-19 circulating at the time. More importantly, fully vaccinated persons with “breakthrough” cases of COVID-19 did not produce a virus load capable of transmitting the disease to others.

Now, the far more virulent Delta variant has become the dominant virus, infecting upwards of 85% of all new cases in some areas of the country. The effectiveness of the two doses vaccines were 93.7% among persons with the alpha variant, but only 88.0% among those with the delta variant. More importantly, there are ‘Worrisome’ Signs of Delta Being Spread by Vaccinated People:

The CDC said in May that vaccinated people don’t need masks, a recommendation based partly on data indicating that vaccinated people were less likely to transmit the virus to others. But the Delta variant – now the dominant strain in the US – behaves differently than previous versions of the virus, Walensky said.

“Information on the Delta variant from several states and other countries indicates that, on rare occasions, some vaccinated people infected with the Delta variant after vaccination may be contagious and spread the virus to others,” Walensky said during a press call on Tuesday.

“This new science is worrisome and unfortunately warrants an update to our recommendations.”

Walensky said CDC investigations have found that the amount of virus present in vaccinated people infected with Delta is similar to the levels found in unvaccinated people with Delta infections.

That’s an indication that vaccinated people can easily transmit the virus — even if they’re less likely to get sick on the whole.

Still, Walensky added, “the vast majority of transmission, the vast majority of severe disease, hospitalization, and death is almost exclusively happening among unvaccinated people”.

The CDC estimated last week that unvaccinated people represent about 97 percent of hospitalized COVID-19 cases in the US.

[B]ut in areas of high transmission, Walensky said, about one in 20 – or even one in 10 – of a person’s contacts could lead to a breakthrough infection (a case diagnosed after someone is fully vaccinated). That’s assuming vaccines are 90 to 95 percent effective.

So far, vaccines appear to be slightly only less effective against Delta than against other strains.

In other words, the new masking recommendations are to prevent the spread of the virus by both the unvaccinated and the vaccinated. The vaccinated are largely protected against serious illness and hospitalization; the unvaccinated have no protection.

Our “Wimpy Kid” Governor, “Do Nothing” Doug Ducey, issued a statement rejecting the new CDC guidelines:

“Arizona does not allow mask mandates, vaccine mandates, vaccine passports or discrimination in schools based on who is or isn’t vaccinated. We’ve passed all of this into law, and it will not change.”

Dr. Cara Christ, Arizona Department of Health Services director, begs to differ with our little tinpot dictator. She will follow the science. Health officials: Masks recommended again for indoor use in many Arizona counties, all schools:

Federal health officials are recommending people wear masks indoors in counties with higher COVID-19 transmission rates and that all people wear face masks in schools, regardless of vaccination status and community transmission.

State health officials say they will update Arizona health guidelines as well.

Seven Arizona counties are reported to have high COVID-19 transmission rates, and six have substantial rates, according to state data.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday in parts of the country where the COVID-19 virus is surging, people should resume wearing masks, even if they are vaccinated.

The CDC recommended unvaccinated people get vaccinated and wear face masks until they do.

Dr. Cara Christ, Arizona Department of Health Services director, said the state health department plans on updating its guidelines to be consistent with the CDC’s new recommendations. Before the CDC released this new guidance, ADHS did not recommend face masks for vaccinated individuals, which mirrored the CDC’s older guidance.

The seven Arizona counties with high COVID-19 transmission are Maricopa, Pinal, Mohave, Yavapai, Gila, Navajo and Apache counties, according to the CDC.

The same data showed that six counties in Arizona are listed with substantial COVID-19 transmission (Pima, Coconino, Graham, Greenlee, La Paz and Santa Cruz), and two (Yuma and Cochise) are listed as low transmission.

As of Tuesday, only 51.7% of Arizonans have received at least one dose of vaccine, according to data collected by the Arizona Department of Health Services.

U.S. COVID-19 vaccine tracker: See your state’s progress – Mayo Clinic

The national goal was to have 70 percent of Americans vaccinated with at least one shot by July 4th. Our “Wimpy Kid” Governor, “Do Nothing” Doug Ducey, obviously has done a terrible job of getting Arizonans vaccinated, at only 51.7 percent of Arizonans vaccinated with at least one shot (well below the national average of 69.1 percent of Americans with at least one vaccination shot – CDC).

“Do Nothing” Doug Ducey has been criminally negligent throughout the Coronavirus pandemic, being too slow to adopt remedial measures at first, and then caving in to right-wing political organizations to reopen too soon last year, which directly resulted in a massive second wave of infections last fall and winter.

Then he and the GQP-controlled legislature passed laws this spring prohibiting mask mandates, vaccine mandates, testing and contact tracing, and vaccine passports. These anti-science, anti-vaxxer, COVID deniers wanted to pretend that the Coronavirus pandemic was all over, “it is behind us, everyone go on about your lives as normal.”

This was a green light to MAGA/QAnon cult voters in Arizona to whom being anti-science, anti-vaxxer, COVID deniers is now a test of fealty to the Trump death cult and tribal loyalty, i.e., to refuse to get vaccinated because “freedom!” to get sick and die and to spread this deadly disease to others.

COVID-19 is now an entirely preventable disease, there is an abundance of vaccines available to Americans at numerous pharmacies and other vaccination locations, free of charge. To refuse a vaccine at this point is criminal negligence. You know that you pose a threat to your family, friends, neighbors, coworkers and the public at large. And yet you do not care.

Scientists fear that we are one or two new emergent variants of COVID-19 away from a variant that can defeat the current vaccines, and we will be right back where we started in January 2020, simply because people refused to get vaccinated and served as a host for a new variant to develop and emerge. Thanks for nothing, you narcissistic, ignorant assholes!

Our “Wimpy Kid” Governor, “Do Nothing” Doug Ducey, who has a delusional fantasy of running for president in 2024 (at this point, Arizona doesn’t even want him, why would anyone else?), tried to deflect from his criminal negligence in handling the Coronavirus pandemic, and pathetically tried to shift blame to President Biden, who is actually trying to save American lives, unlike “Do Nothing” Doug Ducey.

Laurie Roberts of The Republic writes, Ducey says a hard no to masks and manages to work in a shot at Biden (shocking, I know):

As expected, Gov. Doug Ducey has offered up his response to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendation that we once again break out the masks:

That’s a hard no and besides that, it’s Joe Biden’s fault.

“Arizona does not allow mask mandates, vaccine mandates, vaccine passports or discrimination in schools based on who is and isn’t vaccinated,” he said. “We’ve passed all of this into law, and it will not change.”

Heaven forbid, we allow locally elected school boards to decide what is best, based upon spread of the virus.

Or that we allow businesses to run their operations as they see fit.

Or that we listen to the public health experts or follow the science, as a certain governor once pledged to do.

That was then, when Ducey was trying to grow a backbone.

This is now, when this term-limited governor is trying to grow his national status.

“This is just another example of the Biden-Harris administration’s inability to effectively confront the COVID-19 pandemic,” Ducey proclaimed on Tuesday.

Um….what?

I realize it is all the [right-wing] rage these days to blame Biden for, well, everything. But come on…

To hear Ducey tell it, the CDC’s revised recommendations “will unfortunately only diminish confidence in the vaccine.”

Sorry, sir, but I think you’re confusing the CDC with far-right Republican Party leaders who have openly scoffed at vaccinations for months now.

If we are being dragged right back to the bad old days of the pandemic, governor, look no further than Reps. Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs and the Republican-run Arizona Legislature and, well, yourself.

Look no further than all of the GOP leaders who are so quick to worry about the “freedom” of the unvaccinated and to heck with the freedom of the rest of us to get back to living normal lives.

But just proclaiming it doesn’t make it so, sir. Neither does touting your limited success in selling vaccinations, governor.

The delta variant is here and it is making people sick and even your own state health director, Dr. Cara Christ, is recommending that we follow the CDC guidelines.

“We want to make sure that Arizonans are taking every step to protect themselves, their family, and their community from further COVID-19 transmission,” Christ said.

Meanwhile, the governor’s answer is to dig in his heels, blame Biden and tout his own record in handling COVID-19.

“Here in Arizona,” Ducey said, “we’ve been consistent from the beginning: Arizonans should get this vaccine. Over 51 percent of our population has received at least one dose of the vaccine, and over 46 percent are fully vaccinated. That’s great news…”

Actually, no governor, that’s below the national average. [see map above.]

Our “Wimpy Kid” Governor, “Do Nothing” Doug Ducey, is a miserable failure. His criminal negligence in mismanaging the Coronavirus pandemic is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Arizonans, and perhaps thousands more with his latest defiant stance. He should have resigned from office in disgrace long ago.




6 thoughts on “Will Arizona ‘Follow The Science’ On COVID-19, Or Not?”

  2. Max Boot writes “People are dying because of Republican hostility to science”, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/07/28/people-are-dying-because-republican-hostility-science/

    If you want to know why the United States is in such big trouble, look at the findings of a new Gallup poll. The percentage of Republicans expressing a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in science has plummeted from 72 percent in 1975 to just 45 percent today. (By contrast, the number of Democrats with confidence in science has grown from 67 percent to 79 percent.)

    Roughly a quarter of Republicans endorse QAnon’s lunatic beliefs, a third say that coronavirus vaccines are definitely or probably being used by the government to implant microchips, and a majority back the “big lie” that Donald Trump won the 2020 election. Many on the right will believe anything, no matter how loony and illogical, that comports with their political proclivities.

    The Republican rejection of science makes it extremely difficult, verging on impossible, to deal with two of the biggest crises we currently face: global warming and the coronavirus pandemic.

  3. “Was it something I said?” Arizona Department of Health Services Director Dr. Cara Christ is leaving her post next month, as the state contends with a growing number of COVID-19 cases, to take a job in the private sector.

    The announcement comes on the heels of a disagreement between Ducey and the Centers for Disease Control, which issued new guidelines on Tuesday for masking as COVID cases continue to rise in Arizona and across the country.

    Ducey lashed out at the federal government, calling it “unnecessary and unhelpful” and criticizing the new recommendations as self-defeating. However, Christ said ADHS would update its guidelines on masking to fall in line with CDC recommendations. That means the state is asking people to wear masks in schools and in enclosed public spaces, regardless of whether they’ve been fully vaccinated.

    However, masking though remains strictly voluntary because of new state laws Ducey signed this year prohibiting mask mandates, including in schools.

    Christ and Ducey have not always seen eye-to-eye on issues related to COVID mitigation. Earlier this month, Christ said that schools should be able to quarantine unvaccinated students who have been exposed to COVID-19, something that Ducey said schools should not be allowed to do.

    The Arizona Mirror “Cara Christ is leaving ADHS for a top job at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona”, https://www.azmirror.com/blog/cara-christ-is-leaving-adhs-for-a-top-job-at-blue-cross-blue-shield-of-arizona/

  4. Vaccine booster shots are definitely in the offing. CNN reports, “Pfizer data suggest third dose of Covid-19 vaccine ‘strongly’ boosts protection against Delta variant”, https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/28/health/pfizer-third-dose-data-bn/index.html

    A third dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine can “strongly” boost protection against the Delta variant – beyond the protection afforded by the standard two doses, new data released by Pfizer on Wednesday suggests.

    The data posted online suggest that levels of antibodies that can target the Delta variant grow fivefold in people 18 to 55 who get a third dose of the vaccine.

    Among people ages 65 to 85, the Pfizer data suggest that antibody levels that should protect against Delta grow 11-fold more than following a second dose.

    The data, which involved tests of 23 people, have not yet been peer-reviewed or published.

    “Receiving a third dose more than six months after vaccination, when protection may be beginning to wane, was estimated to potentially boost the neutralizing antibody titers in participants in this study to up to 100 times higher post-dose three compared to pre-dose three,” Dolsten said in prepared remarks. “These preliminary data are very encouraging as Delta continues to spread.”

    The data also show that antibody levels are much higher against the original coronavirus variant and the Beta variant, first identified in South Africa, after a third dose.

    Separately, Pfizer and its partner BioNtech released new safety and efficacy data for their coronavirus vaccine Wednesday, and said it shows protection holds up for at least six months, although it may start to wane slightly towards the end of that time.

    The pre-print paper, posted Wednesday to the online server medrxiv.org, updates results from Pfizer’s trial involving 44,000 volunteers around the world.

    It found the overall efficacy was about 91% during the six months. Vaccine efficacy against severe Covid-19 was about 97%, the data show. The paper has not yet been peer-reviewed nor published in a journal.

    The data show that the vaccine’s efficacy peaked at more than 96% from a week to around two months after receiving a second dose of vaccine, and then appeared to gradually decline to 83.7% four to six months later, with an average decline of about 6% over the last two months.

    Earlier this month, Pfizer announced it has seen waning immunity from its coronavirus vaccine, saying it is picking up its efforts to develop a third dose that will protect people from variants. The company also specified it would seek emergency use authorization under the US Food and Drug Administration for a third dose in August.

    Pfizer said it anticipates submitting data on a third dose of its coronavirus vaccine to the FDA as soon as next month, Dolsten said during Wednesday’s earnings call.

    “We are in ongoing discussions with regulatory agencies regarding a potential third-dose booster of the current vaccine and, assuming positive results, anticipate an emergency use authorization submission as early as August,” Dolsten said.

    In order for third doses to be administered to people in the United States, the emergency use authorization that the FDA issued for the vaccine would either need to be amended or, if the vaccine were fully FDA approved, a third dose could be given off label.

    “We continue to believe it is likely that a third-dose booster may be needed within six to 12 months after full vaccination to maintain the highest level of protection, and studies are underway to evaluate the safety and immunogenicity of a third dose,” Dolsten said, adding that data suggest antibody levels appear to decline around eight months after receiving a second dose of vaccine.

    “Pending regulatory approval, we also plan to start an immunogenicity and safety study in August to evaluate an updated version of our vaccine specifically designed to target the Delta variant,” Dolsten said.

  5. What Paul Waldman says. “I’m tired of being nice to vaccine refusers”, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/07/27/im-tired-being-nice-vaccine-refusers/

    This [may not be] the most efficacious public health message to deliver, but I’ll say it anyway: Being nice to those who refuse to be vaccinated is getting awfully tiresome.

    This is about how we as a society are treating those who in the name of their “freedom” are putting everyone else at risk.

    At the very least, we should start taking every step possible to prevent those actively refusing to participate in our mutual effort to prevent each other from getting sick and dying from doing more harm.

    [No], we aren’t going to forcibly vaccinate anyone. But because unvaccinated people pose a danger to the rest of us, we ought to be able to say that if you make that choice, the rest of us can require you to minimize the harm you’re able to do.

    [At] a minimum we ought to say that if you want the freedom not to be vaccinated, a business or organization should have the freedom to tell you to stay away until either you’re vaccinated or the pandemic is over.

    [T]here are the active refusers, the ones imbibing Fox News propaganda and Facebook conspiracy theories, the ones who think not getting vaccinated for a disease that has already killed well over 600,000 Americans makes them independent and strong.

    It won’t work to lecture or insult them. There may be nothing that can change their minds. But don’t tell us that there’s something wrong with being angry at them. We should do everything we can to stop them from putting others at risk.

    And if saying so makes them upset, and makes them bray even louder about their freedom? Too bad. After a year and a half of this pandemic, and so much suffering and death, it’s hard to care about their feelings.

    • As Trump supporters like to say, “fuck your feelings, snowflake.”

  6. Some group should quickly sue that the AZ no mask law is unconstitutional.

    Secondly, groups should sue Trump and governors like Ducey for criminal negligence causing excess deaths due to the virus. Nation wide study of this issue has already been done by a healthcare task force appointed by Lancelet. “Damning analysis of Trump’s pandemic response suggested 40% of US COVID-19 deaths could have been avoided” https://www.businessinsider.com/analysis-trump-covid-19-response-40-percent-us-deaths-avoidable-2021-2

    Peace!
    Buzz Davis, Vets for Peace

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