Thread by @trvrb

I support making boosters broadly available for those 18 and older. Even if breakthrough cases are generally mild in younger age groups, there is significant societal benefit to reducing circulation. 1/6
nytimes.com/2021/11/16/us/…

Currently Washington State is seeing almost 30% of cases as breakthrough cases (doh.wa.gov/Portals/1/Docu…). 2/6

Here, I think of @alexismadrigal's piece on the implications of a positive COVID test (theatlantic.com/health/archive…). It's crazy to me that we're saying to healthy younger individuals they must isolate for 10 days after a positive test, but that they're not eligible for a booster. 3/6

We should have consistency in how we're thinking of public health interventions. Either we're promoting interventions to reduce circulation or we're only thinking about disease as endpoint. 4/6

All this has been complicated by vaccine availability. Given constrained supply it makes sense to prioritize the vulnerable, but we should be clear that that's the decision being made, not that boosters are not necessary because protection against severe disease is robust. 5/6

Anyway it seems the ship is now sailing, which is welcome news. And of course, can we invest the resources to please address vaccine equity? This @OurWorldInData map remains depressing (ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinat…). 6/6