- Most young people aren’t getting latest Covid-19 booster, but they’re not filling hospital beds at three large health care systems CNN
- Kansas’ bivalent COVID booster rate is just 15.8%. These counties have lowest uptake Wichita Eagle
- Only 28% of eligible Peterborough residents have received COVID-19 booster in last six months: health unit The Peterborough Examiner
- Opinion | Should Future COVID Boosters Include the Ancestral Strain? Medpage Today
- Local doctor shares what an annual COVID vaccine could mean for Americans KOLO
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Tag Archives: booster
Covid booster? No thanks! Staggering 96 per cent of NHS appointments for mRNA top-up jab still available with just days of latest vaccination campaign to go – GB News
- Covid booster? No thanks! Staggering 96 per cent of NHS appointments for mRNA top-up jab still available with just days of latest vaccination campaign to go GB News
- Last chance for under-50s to get coronavirus booster – what are the side effects? Express
- Last chance for people in Coventry and Warwickshire to get winter Covid booster Coventry Live
- Covid booster deadline for under-50s coming in February 2023 | Andover Advertiser Andover Advertiser
- Under-50s warned they have just days left to get their Covid booster jabs Express
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Elon Musk Reveals ‘Major Side Effects’ After 2nd COVID Booster
Elon Musk said he felt like he “was dying” after his second COVID-19 booster shot.
“I had major side effects from my second booster shot,” the new Twitter boss wrote in a social media post. “Felt like I was dying for several days. Hopefully, no permanent damage, but I don’t know.”
Musk didn’t provide medical records to back his claim. Neither did he say which company’s COVID booster he took.
The Epoch Times can’t verify his claim independently.
Moderna and Pfizer didn’t respond to requests for comments at the time when the article was published.
He took Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine and the first mRNA booster without side effects, Musk said.
Musk posted a string of Twitter posts in response to a post by Rasmussen Reports which is criticizing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s narrative that major side effects after COVID vaccination are “rare.”
Americans Link COVID Vaccines to Mysterious Deaths
A new Rasmussen Reports poll, released on Jan. 2 and based on a representative sample of 1,000 American adults, shows that nearly half of Americans believe that the COVID-19 vaccines probably caused a “significant number of unexplained deaths,” while over a quarter said they personally know someone whose death may have been caused by vaccination side effects.
Pollsters asked people a series of questions, including whether they got the COVID-19 shot and how likely is it that the jab’s side effects “have caused a significant number of unexplained deaths.”
Forty-nine percent of the respondents said they think it’s “likely” that the COVID-19 vaccine’s side effects are responsible for a significant number of deaths that remain unexplained.
A large majority (71 percent) said they themselves have been vaccinated against COVID-19, with 38 percent of those believing that the vaccine side effects are at least somewhat likely responsible for unexplained deaths.
Among the 26 percent who said they haven’t been jabbed, 77 percent said it’s at least somewhat likely that the vaccination’s side effects caused significant numbers of mysterious deaths, the survey found.
Another question was whether people think there are “legitimate reasons” to be worried about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines, or whether people who are concerned about vaccine safety “are spreading conspiracy theories.”
Forty-eight percent of respondents said they think there are legitimate reasons to be concerned about COVID-19 vaccine safety, 37 percent think people who are worried about this issue are pushing conspiracy theories, and 15 percent aren’t sure.
Tom Ozimek contributed to this report.
Reports of Serious Adverse Events After Updated COVID-19 Booster Shot Among Children Rare
A new review of safety data by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found just two incidents of serious adverse events following the nearly 1 million updated COVID-19 booster shots administered to children ages 5-11 since October.
© (Jane Tyska/Digital First Media via Getty Images)
A child receives her Covid-19 vaccination from a nurse at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds in San Jose, CA, on June 21, 2022.
The study, which was published Thursday by the CDC, examined more than 900 reports to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System and found that about 99.8% of submissions for children ages 5-11 years were deemed not serious. Most of the reports were related to vaccination errors, like children receiving the wrong dose for their age.
The two serious events reported included one child who developed symptoms consistent with Miller Fisher syndrome, which is a rare neurological condition that is considered to be a variant of Guillain-Barré syndrome, and another child who was hospitalized with hives and arthritis.
Researchers also looked at more than 3,200 submissions to v-safe, a safety surveillance system established by CDC to monitor adverse events after COVID-19 vaccination, and found that no children enrolled in the program received hospital care after vaccination with the updated shot.
Additionally, no incidents of myocarditis or death were reported after the shot.
“Preliminary safety findings from the first 11 weeks of bivalent booster vaccination among children aged 5-11 years are reassuring,” the study said.
The Food and Drug Administration authorized the updated booster shots for kids as young as 5 in October, citing concerns over “increased risk of exposure” as children returned to school. The shots target omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 as well as the original coronavirus strain.
“While it has largely been the case that COVID-19 tends to be less severe in children than adults, as the various waves of COVID-19 have occurred, more children have gotten sick with the disease and have been hospitalized,” the FDA’s top vaccine official, Peter Marks, said at the time. “Children may also experience long-term effects, even following initially mild disease. We encourage parents to consider primary vaccination for children and follow-up with an updated booster dose when eligible.”
Since its authorization, fewer than 1 million children in the 5-11 age group have gotten the shot, according to CDC data. That accounts for about 2% of the total number of updated booster shots administered as of last week. The Biden administration has been pushing the updated shot as it eyes a potential switch to annual COVID-19 booster strategy.
Copyright 2023 U.S. News & World Report
Continue Reading
Watch Rocket Lab attempt its 1st launch from US soil today with an Electron booster
Update for 5:50 pm ET: Rocket Lab reports it is in a HOLD for the its launch tonight at the T-12 minutes mark due to high upper-level winds. Tonight’s 2-hour launch window opens at 6 p.m. ET and closes at 8 p.m. ET.
After years of launching rockets from New Zealand, the commercial space company Rocket Lab is ready for its U.S. launch debut.
The California-based Rocket Lab will launch its first mission from U.S. soil today (Dec. 18) from its new Launch Complex 2 at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia. The mission, which will use an Electron rocket to launch three HawkEye 360 satellites into orbit, will lift off during a two-hour window that opens at 6 p.m. EST (2300 GMT) and you can watch it live in the window above for free. Rocket Lab will begin its launch webcast about 40 minutes before liftoff.
“Obviously, this is a significant milestone for Rocket Lab,” CEO Peter Beck told reporters in a prelaunch briefing on Dec. 14. “It feels great to be at this point.” Rocket Lab initially aimed for a Dec. 13 launch, but pushed the liftoff back for extra checks, weather and to complete final flight paperwork.
Related: Rocket Lab’s 1st US launch may be visible along East Coast on Dec. 18
Rocket Lab launch Visibility!
Rocket Lab’s 1st U.S. launch could be visible to millions along the East Coast! Here’s where and when to look. If you see it, let us know with photos and comments at spacephotos@space.com!
Sunday’s launch, called “Virginia Is For Launch Lovers” (a play on the state’s tourism motto “Virginia Is For Lovers”), will mark the start of a new age of flexibility for Rocket Lab as it aims to serve launch customers around the world. The company worked with NASA at Wallops, as well as the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport overseeing commercial launches from Wallops, to develop the new pad.
Until now, Rocket Lab has used its two pads at its Launch Complex 1 on the coast of New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula to fly missions. A U.S. launch pad will allow the company to launch missions for customers who require a U.S.-based launch, like government or military customers, Beck has said.
Rocket Lab opened its Launch Complex 2 in 2019 and originally planned to launch its first mission from there in 2020. But that first flight was delayed for two years due to holdups in NASA’s development of a new autonomous flight termination system, a safety system required for Electron launches from the Wallops Flight Facility. Rocket Lab is using a version of the NASA autonomous flight termination system, which the company calls Pegasus, for its Electron flights.
David Pierce, NASA’s director of the Wallops Flight Facility, told reporters that errors discovered in the NASA system’s software, and subsequent testing by the space agency, U.S. Space Force and the Federal Aviation Authority, were the reasons for the delay. NASA and the FAA completed their certification of the system before Sunday’s launch attempt, and signed off on final launch paperwork on Saturday (Dec. 17).
“It’s been nothing short of a Herculean effort to get us to this point, which I view as a turning point in launch range operation, not just at Wallops, but across the United States,” Pierce said.
Rocket Lab’s Virginia Is For Launch Lovers mission is the first of three flights for the Virginia-based HawkEye 360 company, which is building a constellation of small satellites for radio frequency surveillance. Under a multi-launch agreement that HawkEye 360 struck in April, Rocket Lab will loft 15 of the small satellites into orbit by 2024.
“These missions will grow HawkEye 360’s constellation of radio frequency monitoring satellites, enabling the company to better deliver precise mapping of radio frequency emissions anywhere in the world,” Rocket Lab wrote in a mission description (opens in new tab).
We’re ticking off some big firsts for Electron this week:✅ First mission from U.S. soil✅ First mission for @hawkeye360✅ First mission with an Autonomous Flight Termination System at WallopsVirginia Is For Launch Lovers flying NET Dec 15. Stay tuned for weather updates pic.twitter.com/P7Dlq0X01hDecember 13, 2022
Rocket Lab eventually aims to launch one Electron mission a month from its Wallops pad. The company is also building a new, larger reusable rocket called Neutron that will also lift off from the U.S. launch site. The first flight of that rocket is expected for no earlier than 2024.
Beck said Rocket Lab’s launch team has already learned from the processing of its first mission at Wallops (rocket components are shipped in a container to the site) and that the basics of preparing a rocket at the new U.S. pad will carry over to the new Neutron program. Rocket Lab is also building a Neutron rocket manufacturing facility in Virginia.
“I think, you know, there’s been a lot of learnings from that,” Beck said. “The next few launches will be significantly more streamlined.”
But for now, he added, Electron needs to ace its first flight.
“The rocket is ready and it’s on the pad,” Beck said. “The team is ready and it’s time to fly.”
Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or follow him @tariqjmalik (opens in new tab). Follow us @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab), Facebook (opens in new tab) and Instagram (opens in new tab).
SpaceX launches 54 more Starlinks with a booster making its record-setting 15th flight
SpaceX launched its third Falcon 9 rocket in less than two days Saturday, sending 54 Starlink internet satellites into orbit using a recycled first-stage booster which was making its record 15th flight. It was also the California rocket builder’s 59th launch so far this year, nearly doubling its 2021 record.
Coated with soot from 14 previous re-entries, the veteran first stage’s nine Merlin engines ignited with a roar at 4:32 p.m. EST, smoothly pushing the 229-foot-tall rocket away from historic pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The launch followed a California flight Friday that put a $1.2 billion ocean-monitoring satellite into orbit, and a Falcon 9 flight from Florida Friday afternoon that sent two SES medium-altitude broadband satellites into space.
William Harwood/CBS News
The Starlink launch had been planned for Friday as well, but SpaceX delayed it to Saturday to “prioritize” the SES launch.
In any case, first stage B1058, which first flew in May 2020 — helping boost the first piloted Crew Dragon ferry ship into space — chalked up another problem free-climb out of the dense lower atmosphere Saturday.
Two-and-a-half minutes after launch, the stage fell away and flew itself to touchdown on an off-shore landing barge. It was SpaceX’s 124th droneship landing, and its 158th successful recovery overall.
SpaceX
The Falcon 9 second stage, meanwhile, completed its climb to space within seconds of the booster landing. The 54 Starlink satellites were released in a batch, pushing the total number of Starlink satellites launched to date by SpaceX to 3,612, as SpaceX continues to populate its globe-spanning constellation of laser-linked broadband relay stations.
Not all of the satellites are still operational or in orbit, but space statistician Jonathan McDowell estimates 3,230 were operational going into Saturday’s flight.
SpaceX launched 31 Falcon 9s in 2021. Two more launches are expected this year: another Starlink flight from Cape Canaveral, and the launch of an Israeli Earth-observation satellite from Vandenberg Space Force Base in Southern California. Those will push SpaceX’s total to 61 launches in 2022.
Thanks for reading CBS NEWS.
Create your free account or log in
for more features.
SpaceX booster to launch for record 15th time on Starlink mission – Spaceflight Now
Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Starlink 4-37 mission will launch SpaceX’s next batch of 54 Starlink broadband satellites. Follow us on Twitter.
SpaceX plans to launch 54 more Starlink internet satellites Saturday from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, using a Falcon 9 booster making its 15th flight to space, a record for the company’s reusable rocket fleet.
Liftoff of the 229-foot-tall (70-meter) Falcon 9 is set for 4:32 p.m. EST (2132 GMT) Saturday from Launch Complex 39A. SpaceX is going for its third Falcon 9 launch in less than 34 hours, following missions Friday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station — just a few miles from pad 39A — and Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
Those flights deployed the U.S.-French SWOT satellite, designed to survey Earth’s surface water resources, and two commercial broadband satellites for SES’s O3b mPOWER constellation.
SpaceX delayed the Starlink launch, designated Starlink 4-37, from Friday to focus on the O3b mPOWER mission for SES, one of SpaceX’s oldest customers.
There’s a 60% chance of favorable weather for the launch Saturday, with isolated rain showers and broken cloud layers predicted over Florida’s Space Coast, according to the U.S. Space Force’s 45th Weather Squadron. SpaceX has a backup launch opportunity available at 4:52 p.m., 20 minutes after the first launch time.
The Falcon 9 will arc northeast from Florida’s Space Coast, aiming for a low Earth orbit inclined 53.2 degrees to the equator. The rocket’s upper stage will release the 54 flat-packed Starlink satellites about 15 minutes into the mission.
The satellites on-board the Falcon 9 will add to SpaceX’s consumer-grade, high-speed, low-latency internet network. Subscribers can currently connect to the Starlink network in more than 40 countries and territories.
The first stage booster on the Starlink 4-37 mission will set a record for SpaceX’s reusable rockets. The booster stage, tail number B1058, debuted May 30, 2020, with the historic launch of NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken on SpaceX’s first human spaceflight mission.
It’s flown 14 times so far, helping deliver 723 satellites into orbit. That tally will increase to 777 spacecraft with the launch of 54 more Starlink internet satellites Saturday.
The missions flown by B1058 have included the launch of a South Korean military communications satellite, a space station cargo mission, two Transporter small satellite rideshare missions, and nine flights with Starlink satellites.
The launch Saturday will be SpaceX’s first Starlink mission since Oct. 27. Since then, SpaceX has launched nine consecutive missions for commercial and U.S. government customers.
After Saturday’s mission, SpaceX will have launched 3,612 Starlink satellites into orbit, including prototypes and failed spacecraft. The company currently has more than 3,200 functioning Starlink satellites in space, with about 3,000 operational and nearly 200 moving into their operational orbits, according to a tabulation by Jonathan McDowell, an expert tracker of spaceflight activity and an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
The 53 new Starlink satellites will launch into one of five orbital “shells” in SpaceX’s internet constellation.
SpaceX will Shell 4 with Saturday’s mission. The network architecture includes satellites flying a few hundred miles up, orbiting at inclinations of 97.6 degrees, 70 degrees, 53.2 degrees, and 53.0 degrees to the equator. The spacecraft beam broadband internet signals to consumers around the world, connectivity that is now available on all seven continents with testing underway at a research station in Antarctica.
SpaceX is more than halfway complete with deploying the initial fleet of 4,400 Starlink internet satellites. The company has approval from the Federal Communications Commission to eventually launch and operate up to 12,000 Starlink spacecraft, and SpaceX has signaled it could aim to fly as many as 42,000 Starlink satellites in orbit.
SpaceX is developing an upgraded, much larger Starlink satellite design sized to launch on the company’s huge next-generation Starship rocket. But the Starship has not yet attempted a launch into low Earth orbit, and delays in developing and testing the new rocket will likely force SpaceX to start launching a smaller version of the new Starlink satellite design on Falcon 9 rockets.
The Starlink network was conceived as a venture to help draw in revenue to fund SpaceX’s ambition to build a base on Mars. The Starship rocket itself, designed to be fully reusable with relatively low operating costs, is central to Elon Musk’s Mars dream.
The launch Saturday will be SpaceX’s 59th launch so far in 2022. Two more Falcon 9 rockets are scheduled to fly before the end of the year, one from Florida and one from California.
The higher launch rate has been aided by shorter turnarounds between missions at launch pads in Florida and California, and SpaceX’s reuse of Falcon 9 boosters and payload fairings. Launches carrying satellites for SpaceX’s own Starlink internet network, like the mission Saturday, have accounted for more than half of the company’s Falcon 9 flights so far this year.
Stationed inside a launch control center just south of Cape Canaveral Space Force Station for Saturday’s countdown, SpaceX’s launch team will begin loading super-chilled, densified kerosene and liquid oxygen propellants into the Falcon 9 vehicle at T-minus 35 minutes.
Helium pressurant will also flow into the rocket in the last half-hour of the countdown. In the final seven minutes before liftoff, the Falcon 9’s Merlin main engines will be thermally conditioned for flight through a procedure known as “chilldown.” The Falcon 9’s guidance and range safety systems will also be configured for launch.
After liftoff, the Falcon 9 rocket will vector its 1.7 million pounds of thrust — produced by nine Merlin engines — to steer northeast over the Atlantic Ocean.
The rocket will exceed the speed of sound in about one minute, then shut down its nine main engines two-and-a-half minutes after liftoff. The booster stage will release from the Falcon 9’s upper stage, then fire pulses from cold gas control thrusters and extend titanium grid fins to help steer the vehicle back into the atmosphere.
Two braking burns will slow the rocket for landing on the drone ship “Just Read the Instructions” around 400 miles (650 kilometers) downrange approximately nine minutes after liftoff.
The Falcon 9’s reusable payload fairing will jettison during the second stage burn. A recovery ship is also on station in the Atlantic to retrieve the two halves of the nose cone after they splash down under parachutes.
Landing of the first stage on Saturday’s mission will occur moments after the Falcon 9’s second stage engine cuts off to deliver the Starlink satellites into orbit. Separation of the 54 Starlink spacecraft, built by SpaceX in Redmond, Washington, from the Falcon 9 rocket was confirmed at T+plus 15 minutes, 22 seconds.
Retention rods will release from the Starlink payload stack, allowing the flat-packed satellites to fly free from the Falcon 9’s upper stage in orbit. The 54 spacecraft will unfurl solar arrays and run through automated activation steps, then use krypton-fueled ion engines to maneuver into their operational orbit.
The Falcon 9’s guidance computer aims deploy the satellites into an elliptical orbit at an inclination of 53.2 degrees to the equator. The satellites will use on-board propulsion to do the rest of the work to reach a circular orbit 335 miles (540 kilometers) above Earth.
After reaching their operational orbit, the satellites will enter commercial service and begin beaming broadband signals to consumers, who can purchase Starlink service and connect to the network with a SpaceX-supplied ground terminal.
ROCKET: Falcon 9 (B1058.15)
PAYLOAD: 54 Starlink satellites (Starlink 4-37)
LAUNCH SITE: LC-39A, Kennedy Space Center, Florida
LAUNCH DATE: Dec. 17, 2022
LAUNCH TIME: 4:32:30 p.m. EST (2132:30 GMT)
WEATHER FORECAST: 60% chance of acceptable weather; Low risk of upper level winds; Low-moderate risk of unfavorable conditions for booster recovery
BOOSTER RECOVERY: “Just Read the Instructions” drone ship east of Charleston, South Carolina
LAUNCH AZIMUTH: Northeast
TARGET ORBIT: 144 miles by 208 miles (232 kilometers by 335 kilometers), 53.2 degrees inclination
LAUNCH TIMELINE:
- T+00:00: Liftoff
- T+01:12: Maximum aerodynamic pressure (Max-Q)
- T+02:27: First stage main engine cutoff (MECO)
- T+02:31: Stage separation
- T+02:38: Second stage engine ignition
- T+02:42: Fairing jettison
- T+06:47: First stage entry burn ignition (three engines)
- T+07:06: First stage entry burn cutoff
- T+08:28: First stage landing burn ignition (one engine)
- T+08:41: Second stage engine cutoff (SECO 1)
- T+08:49: First stage landing
- T+15:22: Starlink satellite separation
MISSION STATS:
- 192nd launch of a Falcon 9 rocket since 2010
- 201st launch of Falcon rocket family since 2006
- 15th launch of Falcon 9 booster B1058
- 164th Falcon 9 launch from Florida’s Space Coast
- 59th SpaceX launch from pad 39A
- 153rd launch overall from pad 39A
- 131st flight of a reused Falcon 9 booster
- 66th Falcon 9 launch primarily dedicated to Starlink network
- 58th Falcon 9 launch of 2022
- 59th launch by SpaceX in 2022
- 56th orbital launch attempt based out of Cape Canaveral in 2022
Email the author.
Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.
Did you receive the COVID- 19 Bivalent booster ? Did you get your flu shot ?
COVID-19 and Flu vaccines save millions of lives, and they are generally free and available in many locations.
Of course it cannot be implied from those facts that the majority of people are vaccinated. It can be implied that our hospitals are bursting at the seams with patients suffering from viral respiratory failure.
Poll
4008
votes
Show Results
The updated vaccines I’ve received are
4008
votes
Vote Now!
The updated vaccines I’ve received are
3. Both COVID-19 Bivalent and Flu shot
4. Neither COVID Bivalent or Flu, but will get both as soon as I can
5. Neither because I cannot or don’t want to
Did you receive the COVID- 19 Bivalent booster ? Did you get your flu shot ?
COVID-19 and Flu vaccines save millions of lives, and they are generally free and available in many locations.
Of course it cannot be implied from those facts that the majority of people are vaccinated. It can be implied that our hospitals are bursting at the seams with patients suffering from viral respiratory failure.
Poll
4974
votes
Show Results
The updated vaccines I’ve received are
4974
votes
Vote Now!
The updated vaccines I’ve received are
3. Both COVID-19 Bivalent and Flu shot
4. Neither COVID Bivalent or Flu, but will get both as soon as I can
5. Neither because I cannot or don’t want to
What to know about the new bivalent COVID-19 booster and how to get it in Athens | City News
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the updated bivalent COVID-19 vaccine as a single dose booster on Aug. 31.
The new booster provides protection against the BA.4 and the BA.5 strain of the omicron variant, according to the FDA. The CDC reported that these strains currently cause the majority of positive COVID-19 cases in the United States.
As of Oct. 12, the CDC recommends that people ages 5 years and older receive one updated (bivalent) booster if it has been at least two months since their last COVID-19 vaccine dose, whether that was their final primary series dose, or an original (monovalent) booster. People who have gotten more than one of the monovalent boosters are also recommended to get an updated bivalent booster.
According to the Georgia Department of Health, 52% of Clarke County is fully vaccinated, meaning a full two-vaccine series, and 28% have received an additional dose. The Georgia Department of Health does not track the percentage of people who have received the updated bivalent booster.
Missy Jackson, the Director of Nursing at the University Health Center, said the UHC has been administering COVID-19 vaccines since the first monovalent vaccines were first released. They now administer both the original monovalent vaccines and the updated bivalent boosters. The University Health Center follows CDC guidelines for the bivalent booster.
“Since receiving the first COVID-19 vaccines in December of 2020, the UHC has administered over 36,000 vaccines to over 19,000 distinct individuals. Of those total vaccines, UHC has administered approximately 1,000 bivalent vaccines,” Jackson said.
If students wish to receive the bivalent vaccine at the UHC, they can schedule an appointment in the UHC patient portal or call the Allergy and Travel clinic at 706-542-5575.
Jackson also said the Georgia Department of Public Health and local pharmacies in the Athens area are available to provide the bivalent COVID-19 vaccine. She said it is important to contact the provider to verify if they have the correct vaccine when making an appointment.
Emily Harkness, a second-year anthropology major at the University of Georgia, said she got the updated booster at the same time as a flu vaccine. She said she has encouraged friends and family to get the vaccine to increase collective immunity.
“My grandma is very susceptible to COVID, so we’re all very cautious about it. I encouraged most of my family to get the vaccine, and I encouraged my friends as well, because it’s herd immunity,” Harkness said. “So if most people get it, then the chances of people getting very sick is going to be a lot less.”