Alex Azar said the following about distribution of the two vaccines this morning:
On Moderna’s vaccine, Azar said:
“So it’s going to be amenable to that program we announced last week, going to your local chain or community pharmacist and getting vaccinated. The Pfizer one’s going to be really good for big institutional vaccination, say a whole hospital setting, several nursing homes at once.” (from CNN)
Makes a lot of sense to me.
Yes, the states’ distribution of H1N1 flu vaccines didn’t go so well (allocated based on state population, saw low healthcare worker vaccination rates, high rates of vaccination in ‘power’ players, or those otherwise connected).
States have been asking CDC for guidance in creating their distribution plans, not sure where that is. Regarding distribution, I also don’t have a good understanding of the number of vaccines that are earmarked for the US and those for the ROW.
Zeke Emanuel, one of Biden’s covid team members, developed a Fair Priority Model for vaccine distribution:https://science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6509/1309
Regarding operating ongoing vaccine trials (like JNJ’s) after one (or two) vaccines gain EUA approval …things become complicated. First question: how does JNJ (or any other company) retain study participants?..especially those who believe they received the placebo (who will be able to get an approved vaccine now, thereby negating their participation in the JNJ vaccine trial).
I am impressed with the Maine CDC. The Director said they’ve been working on the distribution plan for months and I trust him to do a good job. Of course it helps that we have only 1.3 million people.
There will be a lot learned from those early participants. Not only do we need to find out how long immunity lasts, we also need to see if a second reinfection of the same or a similar virus ends up better/similar/worse than the first time.
On the terrific end, immunity will be long lasting with a booster needed only once in a decade - if that. On the horrific end, second infections will be worse (happened with a vaccine before). There’s a lot of room between the two extremes too.
And… if there’s a time period where many people have immunity, we can hope the virus really dies down.
More is also known about how to treat folks when/if they get it. I expect that will continue.
As mentioned before, a ton of unknowns, but promising news beats the alternative. Really promising news definitely gives one hope. We’re still hoping/planning on traveling in 2021. We’re also mentally braced for a “time will tell,” just in case.
Absolutely agree. State plans didn’t work for test distribution! My state has it’s own vaccine prioritization plan (but won’t reveal it yet).
So on CNN think it was the lead on this newer vaccine and he said if we start soon that by “Next” winter things should be back to normal. Also another report saying no one knows if this will be a yearly vaccine like the flu shot going forward. That to me seems logical.
Even after effective vaccine is available to everyone, there will still be anti-vaccine people… if the number of such is large (and it appears to be non-trivial, in the 20% or so range in some surveys), the virus will continue to be endemic, so there will not be herd immunity to protect those medically unable to get the vaccine or in the 5% (or whatever) who do not gain immunity from the vaccine.
It’s not as black and white as pro vaccine and anti-vaccine. For example, there are many people who aren’t necessarily anti-vaccine who don’t get annual flu vaccines.
Note that the US never achieves herd immunity for flu.
An alternate proposal would be to prioritize likelier superspreaders. Obviously, this is based on the assumption that the vaccine will reduce asymptomatic contagious infections (possible or likely, but not proven or checked for in vaccine trials).
https://www.wired.com/story/covid-19-vaccine-super-spreaders/
However, this would probably not be a good look politically, since it would be seen as rewarding those with the “worst” behavior (e.g. those who host or go to fraternity parties and other avoidable superspreader events), although some superspreader-prone situations may be politically more acceptable (e.g. workers and residents in nursing homes).
I have a serious question that’s not about he vaccine.
It pertains to the rapid testing. And to the comment earlier that Elon Musk had 4 rapid tests, 2 were positive and 2 were negative. I also keep hearing of athletes being tested, having a positive test and then multiple negative ones.
When will we decide that rapid tests are pretty ineffective and go to another system? Why are they even used? Do they have any value?
I can’t answer your questions, but it doesn’t seem like there is another system to go to, is there? Our testing continues to be sub-standard and is partially to blame for our inability to control viral spread.
This is an interesting twist/addition to the Covid mystery:
“The new coronavirus was circulating in Italy in September 2019, a study by the National Cancer Institute (INT) of the Italian city of Milan shows, signaling that it might have spread beyond China earlier than thought.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-italy-timing-idUSKBN27W1J2
Three thoughts come to my mind.
Did it mutate to become more deadly?
Did they test folks for the flu in 2019 or just assume they had the flu?
Could this be why Australia continues to get small sporadic outbreaks?
The existing rapid antigen tests are prone to false-negative results. Although it seems that Musk doing four of them and getting some positive results suggests that doing more than one is more likely to catch a positive case than doing just one.
Unfortunately, the more accurate PCR tests that take 2-3 days to get results mean that by the time you get a negative result, you only know that you were “safe” 2-3 days ago. But you could be contagious now, since 2-3 days ago, you could have been in the early incubation period after a recent exposure (unlikely to be detected by a PCR test, but also unlikely to be contagious yet), or you could have been infected after the test and will soon be contagious if not already so.
So if you want to use a PCR test before (for example) visiting an elderly relative or having a family holiday gathering, you want to be extra careful/paranoid about avoiding risky situations for several days before the PCR test, and between the PCR test and your visit. Everyone else you will be meeting should do something similar.
Unfortunately some, maybe many, areas of the country are back to only allowing symptomatic people to get tested. Testing appointment times can be difficult to find, and the wait for PCR test results is approaching one week in some places as well, which, unless the person is quarantining, isn’t very helpful.
I’m ordering horse wormers today - something I do a couple of times per year. This time the first thing I see on the page is this:
Warning from the Manufacturer
COVID-19 ALERT CONCERNING BIMEDA® IVERMECTIN PRODUCTS: WARNING! A number of BIMEDA products including BIMECTIN® EQUINE DEWORMER, EQUIMAX® EQUINE DEWORMER, BIMECTIN POUR-ON, and BIMECTIN INJECTION all contain ivermectin, an active ingredient used to treat parasites in certain animals. Despite media reports that Ivermectin could potentially be effective against novel coronavirus COVID-19, ivermectins, including the above-mentioned products, are not approved or safe for human use and use, in any quantity whatsoever, could cause severe personal injury or death.
It’s in bright red to get noticed.
One has to wonder about some people, no?
Missing From State Plans to Distribute the Coronavirus Vaccine: Money to Do It
The government has sent billions to drug companies to develop a coronavirus shot but a tiny fraction of that to localities for training, record-keeping and other costs for vaccinating citizens.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/14/health/covid-vaccine-distribution-plans.html
@Creekland A friend who works in healthcare in a rural area told me that people in her hospital suffering with covid ask for all kinds of crazy cures. This is probably one of them!
Ivermectin is prescribed for humans. I have taken it with no ill effects, in the past. There was a study that showed some effectiveness with COVID. Obviously noone should take it until approved and prescribed.
Everyone I talk with says there guests, including college and adult kids coming home, are doing a test and then joining the household. I wish everyone could read @ucbalumnus’ posts. There should be more public info on this before the holidays.
Ivermectin is used against all sorts of parasites in critters (including humans), but using these horse wormers as a DIY cure for Covid seems way out there.
I heard about ivermectic being tried for Covid (in Australia?) back near the beginning of the pandemic. Haven’t heard a thing about it since.
Med school lad told me he was trying to figure out exactly how it might help and was coming up blank. (I shared this with him.)
An article:
https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/89613
about a study:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.27.20220970v2.full-text
with an associated calculator:
http://www.predictcovidrisk.com/
This is about the likelihood of death from COVID-19 among the Medicare population based on various factors: age, sex, race, comorbidities. Does not include ages lower than 65 or other bad outcomes of COVID-19 (e.g. post-recovery disabilities).