Day 685: National Nullification Day

It's the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, and in imitation of the spirit (if not the catchy sloganeering) of our ancestors, the Unity Project has declared it National Nullification Day. Though the call is for general COVID rebellion, the organization itself is particularly devoted to not jabbing schoolchildren.

Why rebel? Just for example, The Washington Post opines on the FDA and CDC progressing from ignoring their expert panels to failing to convene expert panels at all—most notably in extending boosters to 16- and 17-year-olds with no discussion of myocarditis, or anything else.

In local news, Omicron is speeding around Massachusetts faster than we can sequence it—which apparently isn't all that fast:

Researchers from Yale New Haven Hospital and the University of Washington this week posted data showing increasing numbers of samples with the genetic change.

But it takes seven to 10 days to complete the full genomic sequencing that would confirm the presence of Omicron. As a result, the official case counts probably represent a fraction of the current infections, Lemieux said.

“It is alarming to see how quickly this virus is spreading,” said Bronwyn MacInnis, director of pathogen genomic surveillance at the Broad Institute.

P.S. Massachusetts cases were up two-thirds of a percentage point today.