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Dear Editor:
Austin, and much of Texas, is in a COVID hot zone.
The ICUs are full. We don’t go out much at all. Groceries all come via Instacart and the rest of shopping is done on Amazon or other varied online shopping.
Early in the summer, I worked on COVID vaccines and therapy grant proposals for BARDA and DARPA. While our scientists, and those in Britain and other parts of the world, are doing incredible work to develop vaccines, much of it is new RNA/DNA-based vaccine. We’ve never done this before, so there is a lot we don’t know.
Also for us older folk, our immune systems may not respond as strongly. And, we have no idea how long any coronavirus vaccine may be effective.
The virus is here to stay – and will likely mutate again – not for the better. So, that means we should all get really comfortable with our masks and social distancing for the coming years.
There is good news on the therapeutic side with lots of trials of existing anti-virals and other new and repurposed drugs ongoing.
Deborah Vollmer Dahlke, DrPH
Texas