going for us, a lot of americans are boosted 94% of americans over the age of 64 have at least one shot. but, the vast majority of americans haven t received the latest booster, that newfangled booster that came out in december of last year, only about 60% of americans have received a bivalent booster. if americans are going to get those new booster shots, do we still as a population benefit from the baseline immunity that we all got from so many americans getting the first round of shots more than a year ago? as the virus develops and we don t get additional shots because the country is sick and tired of getting additional boosters, do we run the risk of reverting to the kind of vulnerability that essentially an unvaccinated population would have. more infections mean more chances for the virus to create new variance, does that affect the accuracy of our testing technology? does that test the effectiveness of our
if americans aren t going to get those new booster shots, do we still benefit from the baseline immunity that we got from so many americans getting the first round of shots more than a year ago, or as the virus develops and we don t get additional shots because the country is sick and tired of getting additional boosters, do we run the risk of reverting to the kind of vulnerability that essentially an unvaccinated population would have? more infections of course mean more chances for the virus to mutate and create new variants. as the virus mutates and creates new variants, does that affect the accuracy of our testing technology? does that affect the effect effectiveness of our available treatments? the treatments have been very effective. but right now things like oral anti-virals, paxlovid, those are available and effective. monoclonal antibodies have become obsolete as the virus has developed. what s the status on emerging new treatments? are there fears about some of
johnson shots that we got here. so looking at this very dire situation in parts of china right now is part of what s going on there, that their vaccines just are not as effective. and so we d never be at risk for something getting that bad here again because our vaccines have been better. china s struggle with covid right now, is there any way in which it is a salient warning for us here in the united states? there s a lot of very live questions right now about where covid is going for us. i mean a lot of americans are boosted. 94% of americans over the age of 64 have at least one shot. but the vast majority of americans haven t received the latest booster. that new-fangled bivalent booster that came out in september of last year. only 16% of americans have received a bivalent new booster. if americans aren t going to get those new booster shots, do we still benefit from the baseline immunity that we got from so many americans getting the first round of shots more than a year ago, or a
russia denied using white phosphorous munitions in ukraine. jericka, elvis told us that if other americans are thinking of volunteering with ukraine s military, they should know they ll be fighting for their lives. holly williams reporting for us. thank you for your reporting. many u.s. hospitals are feeling a strain of flu and rsv cases, this as the battle against covid rages on. dr. david agus, always good to have you on. 6,900 hospitalizations. over 360 flu deaths, according to the latest estimates by the cdc. is that a cause of concern? what does all of this mean? we re seeing flu and rsv at much higher levels in this part of the year than prior years. for two and a half years we had no immunity. so there s no baseline immunity.
of 12, although if they have not yet been vaccinated at all, they should go ahead and get the vaccine, each if they have already recovered from the coronavirus. also i want to the ask you about flu season because dr. fauci last week was saying it s going to be a pretty bad flu season in his estimation based on what we re seeing in the southern hemisphere and that flu shots, everyone should get their flu shots now. is there any concern that covid-related vaccine hesitancy has trickled into hesitancy when it comes to the flu vaccine? i really hope not because i agree that we could be in for a bad flu season because we virtually saw no flu last year and so there s pretty low baseline immunity. i really hope that there hasn t been backlash against all vaccinations including a routine childhood immunizations because of the covid vaccine. actually i hope for the opposite. i really hope that there will be a push this year for maybe a combined flu and coronavirus vaccine push in the sense