A16
NEWS
Blue Mountain Eagle
Ward
Continued from Page A1
Larry Williams, executive direc-
tor of the Steel Framing Industry
Association, said with a steel-framed
home, provided the fi re can be kept
outside of the building envelope,
then the most important consider-
ation is how much combustible mate-
rial is inside the structure.
“In the event the fl ame reaches
inside the home, you can expect con-
tents that can burn will burn,” Wil-
liams said. “And that includes wood
framing.”
Ward added that no house is
fi reproof.
“Once it gets into your house and
gets into your furnishings,” Ward
said, “you know you’re in trouble.”
Ward said after 30 years of tout-
ing the benefi ts of fi re-resistant
homebuilding techniques, people are
starting to hear the message.
“Now the West Coast burned
up,” he said. “Now we have global
warming.”
Steel-framed vs. wood-framed
While steel framing historically
has been more expensive than build-
ing with wooden 2-by-4s, wood’s
Wednesday, October 13, 2021
cost advantage has shrunk consider-
ably of late, according to Larry Wil-
liams, executive director of the Steel
Framing Industry Association.
Williams said a pre-COVID-era
study done by the SFIA found that
a steel-framed house would cost
about $1 per square foot more than
one framed with wood, which for
a 2,594-square-foot house would
translate to an additional $2,594 on
a basic home costing $296,652 to
build.
Since then, however, skyrocket-
ing lumber costs have changed the
calculation for the foreseeable future.
Typically, wood prices have
ranged between $300 and $500
per 1,000 board feet, Williams
said.
But earlier this year, he pointed
out, a cost analysis from the National
Association of Home Builders found
that framing lumber prices had hit
all-time highs of $1,600 per 1,000
board feet.
Prices receded over the summer,
Williams noted, but last week they
were $676 per 1,000 board foot, sig-
nifi cantly higher than the historical
norms.
Williams noted that framing costs
are typically around 17% of the total
cost of building a home, so con-
Booster
Continued from Page A1
Whether and when booster
shots are necessary became a
hotly debated topic between
members of advisory commit-
tees at both the FDA and the
Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention.
While top health offi -
cials in the Biden administra-
tion pushed for boosters to be
made more widely available
for the general population,
scientists and public health
experts argued the U.S. should
prioritize getting shots in the
arms of the unvaccinated. The
vaccines, they said, still pro-
vide strong protections against
hospitalization and death.
An Israeli study found that
immunity from the Pfi zer vac-
cine dropped from 95% in
January through early April to
nearly 40% in June. However,
protection from severe disease
and death did not budge and
held at 90%.
Booster shot?
Ali Ellebedy, an immu-
nologist at Washington Uni-
versity School of Medicine in
St Louis, said referring to an
additional COVID-19 shot as
a booster is imprecise.
Ellebedy said that people
get a tetanus shot, a yearly fl u
vaccine or a booster against
a vaccine from childhood
every 10 years because doc-
tors know how much immu-
nity is needed to fi ght those
infections.
“When you say, I’ll give
you a booster,” Ellebedy said,
“that means I know exactly
how much immunity you
have or how much immu-
nity you need to be protected,
and we suspect your level of
immunity will be below that
needed amount for protection,
and that’s why you need the
booster.”
‘Correlate of protection’
With COVID-19, Ellebedy
said, no one yet knows what
scientists refer to as the “cor-
relate of protection,” the level
of antibodies needed to stave
off infection.
If researchers had a fi rmly
established correlate, Ellebedy
said, then it would be accurate
to deem it a booster shot.
The fi rst jabs, he said, could
be part of an initial series of
immunizations but spaced out
at later points in time.
Ellebedy said it would
not be the first vaccine
requiring three shots to
achieve a correlate of pro-
tection, citing hepatitis B as
an example.
“I think the argument
should be that this could be
part of the initial immuni-
zation that we are establish-
ing,” Ellebedy said. “We are
driving in the middle of the
sidering the total cost of construc-
tion, framing with steel has minimal
impact on the pocketbook.
Up to now, the primary market for
steel framing has been midrise build-
ings such as apartment complexes
and hotels. But Williams said mega-
fi res in California, coupled with soar-
ing lumber costs, have prompted an
uptick in interest in steel framing for
residential construction from across
the country.
Apparently, interest has risen
enough to keep Ward plenty busy. So
far this year, the steel-loving home-
builder has built six houses in Grant
County.
pandemic and we are mak-
ing decisions as things are
moving.”
Ellebedy said the hyper-
contagious delta variant
forced public health experts
and scientists to move to a
three-jab regimen for vulner-
able populations.
Ellebedy said in the six
months after the last shot,
the body generates immune
memory cells that are not
producing antibodies. Still,
he said, memory cells are
ready to engage with a patho-
gen once there is a need for
the cells. Ellebedy said the
third shot is akin to restarting
a smoldering fi re.
“Once we’ve restarted it, it
is restarted to an even higher
level,” Ellebedy said.
Scientists have been
uncertain about the virus
since the beginning of the
pandemic, Ellebedy said.
“This uncertainty is what
makes the third immunization
especially needed for those
who are 65 and older or those
who have any immunosup-
pressive eff ects,” Ellebedy
said.
Ellebedy said the third
jab is probably unnecessary
for young and healthy peo-
ple with a robust immune
response to their last shot.
Indeed, he said it is not for
people who had contracted
the virus before and then got
vaccinated.
However, Ellebedy said
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that people from vulnerable
populations who have had the
virus and got their last shot
six months ago should get the
third jab.
Myocarditis, infl ammation
in the heart in young men, is a
rare side eff ect that research-
ers have found with the Pfi z-
er-BioNtech and Moderna
vaccines, Ellebedy said, but
to his knowledge the myocar-
ditis has never led to a death.
A study published Oct.
6 in the New England Jour-
nal of Medicine reported that
11 out every 100,000 males
in that age group developed
the infl ammation of the heart.
However, studies have shown
that COVID-19 is much more
likely to cause heart problems
than the vaccination.
He said it is unclear why
a small portion of young men
get the side eff ect.
{span
style=”font-size:
1.17em;”}The new normal{/
span}Ellebedy, who told the
newspaper he is not conduct-
ing research on the vaccines
that would pose a potential
confl ict of interest, said the
coronavirus is here to stay.
“This virus is not going to
be eradicated,” Ellebedy said.
“So either you get vaccinated,
or you get infected.”
Ellebedy said those taking
a chance because they trust
their immune system are hop-
ing that the infection will be
mild. However, he noted that
young people with no signif-
icant preexisting conditions
are being intubated.
COVID-19 may become
a routine illness like a com-
mon cold or the fl u one day,
Ellebedy said.
However, he said scientists
are trying to fi gure out if the
virus is evolving more deadly
and contagious new variants.
What can be worse,
Ellebedy noted, is that if the
virus could replicate as effi -
ciently and quickly as the
delta variant but also evade
immunity better than delta.
There are trickier variants of
the virus, but so far, he said,
none of those variants have
been able to compete against
the delta variant.
“I think the major thing for
us is we really have to think
that we are not alone in this,”
Ellebedy said. “And there
are no walls that can block
the virus from coming from
outside.”
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This project was supported by Grant No. 2019-WR-AX-0027 awarded by the office on Violence Against Women, U.S. Department of
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author(s) and do not necesssarily reflect the views of the Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women.
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