Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

https://twitter.com/hawaiiathletics/status/1428824046775402502?s=21

Yikes.   Is this the first?  Inevitable?

Hawaii has a very high vaccination rate too.  

I think its an over reaction

I really dont think football is big there

so no loss from their viewpoint

Hope your right. 

THE MORNING DISPATCH
The Morning Dispatch: Tripling Down on COVID Shots

. . .

Is a Third Shot in Your Future?
While the world’s attention has been understandably focused on the situation in Afghanistan, the Delta variant has continued doing what it does best: spreading.

The sources upon which TMD had come to rely in compiling its daily COVID data have unfortunately stopped providing some of the more relevant statistics, but the New York Times’ Coronavirus in the U.S. data visualization has proven a worthy replacement.
The seven-day average for confirmed new cases has climbed to 143,792—a 44 percent increase over the past two weeks, reaching a level not seen in the United States since early February. Hospitalizations and deaths are following suit, with their rolling averages rising 53 and 108 percent over the past 14 days, respectively.

The current wave—of which, per CDC surveillance testing, the Delta variant now makes up nearly 99 percent—is absolutely pummeling the southeastern United States. The Alabama Hospital Association said there was not a single ICU bed available in the state on Wednesday, and Mississippi just opened its second emergency field hospital this week. Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida are averaging about one daily COVID-19 death per 100,000 residents—nearly four times the national average of 0.27.
This isn’t happening in a vacuum. Alabama and Mississippi have the two lowest vaccination rates in the country, with just 36 percent of residents fully vaccinated, and Louisiana is fifth lowest at 39 percent. Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves last week labeled the shots safe, effective, and the “best tool we have moving forward to beat the virus,” but added a few days later he will “always defend” his constituents’ right not to get them.

But whether it’s the growing number of public- or private-sector mandates, or simply fear of the Delta variant, the pace of daily vaccination is once again on the rise. One month ago, the United States was averaging 497,000 shots per day. Now, that average is up to 823,000—and more than 1 million shots were administered yesterday, for the first time since July 1. All in all, slightly more than 70 percent of the nation’s eligible people have received at least one vaccine dose, and slightly less than 60 percent are fully vaccinated.

The definition of “fully vaccinated,” however, could soon be in flux. On Wednesday—just days after the FDA and CDC approved COVID-19 booster shots for immunocompromised individuals only (because they have been demonstrated to have a uniquely poor immune response to the vaccine)—the Biden administration’s top public health officials issued a joint statement announcing their plan to begin offering third doses to all Moderna and Pfizer vaccine recipients this fall eight months removed from their second dose, pending FDA and CDC approval. (They say Johnson & Johnson recipients will likely need a booster as well, but data will not be available for a few more weeks.)

To justify the move—which is a reversal from the agencies’ position six weeks ago—the CDC released a flurry of studies showing that the immunity of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines confer against infection wanes over time.

• One, looking only at long-term care facilities, found that efficacy among nursing home residents fell from about 75 percent in March through May to 53 percent in June or July. The study’s authors conceded, however, that they “could not differentiate the independent impact of the Delta variant from other factors, such as potential waning of vaccine-induced immunity.”
• Another study focused on New York state data, and determined that the overall age-adjusted vaccine effectiveness against infection fell from 92 percent at the beginning of May to 80 percent at the end of July.

What these studies also show, however, is that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines’ protection against hospitalization remained very stable over the same time period. In the New York study, efficacy hovered between 92 and 95 percent. A third study—looking at data from 21 hospitals in 18 different states—found that “no decline in vaccine effectiveness against COVID-19 hospitalization was observed over 24 weeks.” This research is consistent with real-world CDC data, which, as of August 9, show that 5,725 of 166 million fully vaccinated Americans (approximately 0.003 percent) have been hospitalized due to COVID-19 and 1,246 of 166 million fully vaccinated Americans (0.0008 percent) have died from it.


The aforementioned joint statement—from CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci, among others—acknowledges this reality, but argues it’s better to be ahead of the curve than behind it. “The available data make very clear that protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection begins to decrease over time following the initial doses of vaccination, and in association with the dominance of the Delta variant, we are starting to see evidence of reduced protection against mild and moderate disease,” the officials write. “Based on our latest assessment, the current protection against severe disease, hospitalization, and death could diminish in the months ahead, especially among those who are at higher risk or were vaccinated during the earlier phases of the vaccination rollout.”

The plan has been met with its fair share of criticism—and not just from the World Health Organization, whose director earlier this month argued we cannot “accept countries that have already used most of the global supply of vaccines using even more of it, while the world’s most vulnerable people remain unprotected.” (President Biden brushed this criticism off in an ABC News interview earlier this week, arguing the United States will provide half a billion shots to the rest of the world by mid-2022 and is “doing more than anybody.”)

Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, doesn’t buy that an erosion of vaccine efficacy against severe disease and hospitalization is just around the corner. “For protection against serious disease, really all you need is immunological memory,” he told The Dispatch. “You don’t necessarily have to have high titers, the virus’ neutralizing antibodies in your circulation. Immunological memory is longer lived.”

On a micro-level, there’s not really a downside to a third dose. Clinical trials—for both Moderna and Pfizer—have demonstrated boosters to be safe, and to yield even higher amounts of neutralizing antibody titers against COVID-19 (and its variants) than a two-dose regimen. Real-world data out of Israel this week found the Pfizer booster shot to reduce the risk of infection among those 60 and older by 86 percent and the risk of severe disease by 92 percent.

“I think it will be safe, and I think—without question—it will boost immunity,” Offit said. “But my problem is do you need to do it now, or why couldn’t we wait until there was some evidence that you really needed to do it? … I just worry that it sends the wrong message out there that people aren’t protected and now will feel unprotected when they’re really not unprotected.”
The move also has the potential to further dissuade those who have thus far refused the vaccine from changing their minds, either because three shots seems like a big lift or because they perceive the vaccines to be less effective than they actually are. “That sounds to me like the moneymaking operation for Pfizer,” former President Donald Trump told Fox News earlier this week. “You wouldn’t think you would need a booster. You know, when these first came out, they were good for life.” (The vaccines were never promised to be good for life.)

This is ultimately why Offit is frustrated with the Biden administration’s strategy here. “We now are about to devote a fair amount of resources to boosting people who’ve already been vaccinated,” he said. ”I think that will have little impact on the transmissibility of this virus. … If we want to get on top of this pandemic, the issue is not giving a booster dose to the vaccinated, it’s vaccinating the unvaccinated.”

This is ultimately why Offit is frustrated with the Biden administration’s strategy here. “We now are about to devote a fair amount of resources to boosting people who’ve already been vaccinated,” he said.

Dude,

the unvaccinated aren't going to get vaccinated.  They've had their chance at those resources and passed.

the unvaccinated aren't going to get vaccinated.  They've had their chance at those resources and passed.

I think there is a hard core group that won't, maybe 20% of adults, and another group that is "wait and see" who could be convinced, maybe 20%.

I don't think the wait and seers are close to 20%.  Maybe half that.  Maybe.  The rest, just won't ever do it. 

But we also have to account for kids under 12 that will eventually be approved.  For various reasons, I expect their vaccination rates to be even lower than adults, but it's still a decent chunk of supply to hold back.