Complicated, but I work for one health system but work on the campus of another health system (they are affiliated). I am not a direct care professional but do visit various medical offices/clinics on a regular basis.
We got info from our campus health system today and it says it will not require the vaccine but it is strongly recommended. Lots and lots (a few pages) of detail about the vaccines, FAQ’s, procedures, etc. They are equipping people to make informed decisions.
In order to get herd immunity I believe we need 70% to be immunized.
I don’t know much about this topic, but it’s hard for me to imagine COVID being helpful to the Social Security fund. Maybe there will be fewer payouts for old age benefits, but I can’t imagine it will offset the recession impact to program revenue. The vaccine is arguably the first step towards normalization of the economy. That is very, very important for the Social Security fund.
Regarding people’s willingness to get the COVID-19 vaccine, here is a recent survey:
Would get percentages by demographics:
60% US adults
67% Men
54% Women
83% Asian
63% Hispanic
61% White
42% Black
75% Age 65+
60% Age 50-64
53% Age 30-49
55% Age 18-29
75% Postgraduate
66% College graduate
55% Some college
56% HS or less
69% Dem / lean Dem
50% Rep / lean Rep
71% Upper income
60% Middle income
55% Lower income
I’ve seen a range of herd immunity % estimates, but remember we are only talking about ages 18+ (maybe 16+ for Pfizer) right now…so one has to remember to net out the number of kids who aren’t getting vaccinated anytime soon when calculating the percent of only adults we have to vaccinate to reach herd immunity.
OTOH, the millions who have already had covid will help wrt herd immunity, but we don’t know the total infected, or how long their protection will last.
It is also bothersome that the “economy at all costs” viewpoint does not seem to realize that the way to restore the economy is to contain the virus so that people can (at least mostly) go about their normal business without worrying about getting sick and dying or suffering long term disability or giving it to their medically vulnerable family and friends. The US is in a “worst of both worlds”, suffering from both high COVID-19 infection and death rates, while also being unable to get anywhere close to normal in socioeconomic measures because of the ongoing COVID-19 situation.
Web site based on the model letting you change the parameters of the situation (e.g. room size, ventilation, filtering, mask use, mask types, behavior, etc.):
Looking at the web site, it looks like some of the default settings for some of the spaces may be on the optimistic side compared to real world situations, so be sure to adjust the settings to what you are likely to encounter.
I think it’s premature to have herd immunity as a goal. The most immediate goal should be to dramatically slow the spread, especially among individuals who are likely to need hospital care. We don’t even know if herd immunity is possible, as we don’t know how long the immunity lasts or whether the vaccine actually prevents infection, or simply prevents serious illness. But we do know that it is a huge problem when hospitals and morgues get overwhelmed. So I think that is priority #1.
Also, the health care workers, of course. They are most likely to be exposed on a frequent basis, and they are in frequent contact with medically vulnerable people, and any health care worker who gets sick reduces health care capacity while the sick health care worker is not able to work until clearing the virus.
However, if the worst case scenario occurs and the vaccine does not prevent or reduce asymptomatic contagious infections, then there still needs to be frequent quick testing of health care workers just before they go to work each day to prevent any who are asymptomatically contagious from infecting anyone else.
What we know about the Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna vaccines:
They greatly reduce the risk of symptomatic COVID-19.
They greatly reduce the risk of severe COVID-19.
What we do not know about these vaccines:
Whether or not they significantly reduce the risk or length of asymptomatic contagious infection.
What it means after you get the vaccine, but before the vaccine has been readily available for everyone who wants it to get it, or studies of asymptomatic contagious infections find that the vaccine prevents or substantially reduces it:
Continue to be careful to avoid unknowingly potentially spreading the virus when in situations near people who may not have been able to get the vaccine yet. For example, continue to minimize time in public enclosed spaces and wear a mask while there.
However, social distancing and masking can be relaxed if everyone in or who could enter a place has received the vaccine. This could include an extended family gathering in a private home after everyone has received the vaccine.
I didn’t say that herd immunity was an initial goal. I was just sharing a statement received in a communication I received from the health care system I work for about herd immunity.
The AstraZeneca trial tested people weekly so there is information about transmission in that trial. Initial reports are that it did greatly reduce transmission but there hasn’t been data released. Dr Fauci was optimistic on the reduced transmission from the other vaccines, but can’t say for sure since they didn’t do routine testing as part of the trial. But they DO have data - they are just not saying. There will be lots of people (statistically significant) in the Moderna and Pfizer trials that were tested as a matter of course outside the trial. They would have that. I’m annoyed there has been so little data released - even though the UK has already started giving people the Pfizer shots.
Also, I feel like I have read a real range of percentages needed to get to herd immunity, but 70% was the most common estimate I’ve been hearing all year. My question is, does that percentage vary based on the effectiveness of the vaccine? Back when the vaccines themselves were expected to only be about 70% effective, I was hearing we needed about 70% of people to get vaccinated (or sick with covid) to reach herd immunity. With a 95% effective vaccine, would that percentage of people needed decrease? Or is the level
of effectiveness irrelevant to the percent needed to be vaccinated?
I am wondering about the effect on herd immunity if the population is being vaccinated in a staggered way, with long intervals between, say, the elderly and young people’s vaccines. How long do the vaccine benefits last? What if the immunity from the vaccine given to the elderly expires by the time the younger folks get it? Is this an issue? If so it would be so much better if the entire population could be vaccinated within a short time, as with the flu vaccine. Unfortunately the US did not contract for enough shots, so far, for that to happen. Hoping for info on this and also for more vaccines being available soon.
This one from my boy’s morning update is not the best news:
Health systems across U.S. question federal government’s COVID-19 vaccine distribution timeline
STAT (12/7, Goldhill) reports, “Hospitals across the United States are preparing for a COVID-19 vaccine distribution timeline that’s well behind official government targets as they face ongoing confusion about the process for inoculating frontline employees.” Operation Warp Speed officials “have repeatedly said they are on track to vaccinate 20 million people in December, enough for nearly all the health care workers and long-term care residents who are first in line to get a vaccine.” However, “those involved in vaccine planning at four health care systems, in California, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Kansas, told STAT they expect to still be giving staff their first shots in mid-January.”
But there is still one dark cloud hanging over the vaccines that many people don’t yet understand.
The vaccines will be much less effective at preventing death and illness in 2021 if they are introduced into a population where the coronavirus is raging — as is now the case in the U.S. That’s the central argument of a new paper in the journal Health Affairs (One of the authors is Dr. Rochelle Walensky of Massachusetts General Hospital, whom President-elect Joe Biden has chosen.
I asked the authors of the Health Affairs study to put their findings into terms that we nonscientists could understand, and they were kind enough to do so. The estimates are fairly stunning:
At the current level of infection in the U.S. (about 200,000 confirmed new infections per day), a vaccine that is 95 percent effective — distributed at the expected pace — would still leave a terrible toll in the six months after it was introduced. Almost 10 million or so Americans would contract the virus, and more than 160,000 would die.
This is far worse than the toll in an alternate universe in which the vaccine was only 50 percent effective but the U.S. had reduced the infection rate to its level in early September (about 35,000 new daily cases). In that scenario, the death toll in the next six months would be kept to about 60,000.
It’s worth pausing for a moment on this comparison, because it’s deeply counterintuitive. If the U.S. had maintained its infection rate from September and Moderna and Pfizer had announced this fall that their vaccines were only 50 percent effective, a lot of people would have freaked out.
But the reality we have is actually worse.
How could this be? No vaccine can eliminate a pandemic immediately, just as no fire hose can put out a forest fire. While the vaccine is being distributed, the virus continues to do damage. “Bluntly stated, we’ll get out of this pandemic faster if we give the vaccine less work to do,” A. David Paltiel, one of the Health Affairs authors and a professor at the Yale School of Public Health, told me.
Dr. David Agus said on Andy Slavitt’s In the Bubble podcast recently (In the Bubble with Andy Slavitt: Toolkit: Where and When Can I Get the Vaccine? on Apple Podcasts) that AZ vaccine recipients are not infectious when they are asymptomatic (starting around the 5:15 mark). That’s huge, and you’re right, the other studies aren’t swabbing subjects weekly. Agus assumes the other two vaccines are blocking people from being infectious…wishes they could prove it but said ‘we have that assumption now’.
For the bad news, it would appear AZ will have to run another US study to get their dosing clear before FDA will give their vaccine EUA. FirstWord