I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop with Texas.
I think the big cities are doing great with vaccines. I know Houston has over 30% fully vaccinated and over 40% with at least their first shot. More rural areas are not getting vaccinated though and I think it’s less than 20% fully vaccinated state wide. That’s going to be a problem eventually.
ETA: 28.5% for at least one dose state wide. 16% fully vaccinated.
I think the rural areas not vaccinating is not going to be that big of issue. I think the people who want to be vaccinated who live in the rural areas will do it. The country folk are more spread out and less on top of each other like the urban areas. So I am leaning towards focusing on the positive. My FB have mostly been folks getting vaccines not that it represents all of Texas or anything.
I don’t know if I’d be so quick to shrug off the rural parts of the country. Plenty of rural areas got hit HARD during Covid waves and they simply don’t have the hospital capacity that urban areas do. Plus, rural areas aren’t just filled with old white people living on multiple acres; there are plenty of workers (predominantly low-income and/or immigrants) who are responsible for our food supply and live and work in close quarters. They were also more likely to get sick and die during the pandemic.
We’ve seen a similar trend in my state where the urban areas are vaccinating more quickly and the rural areas have tons of appointments. But that’s also allowing them to get creative like waiving appointments and eligibility requirements and vaccinating entire families at a time. (On a tangent, it irks me that wealthier urbanites are trying to take advantage of looser requirements intended to help rural Hispanic families. Just because you can drive four hours for a vaccine-cation doesn’t mean you should.)
It was rushed in the sense that we got it quickly.
I don't know if you are trying to catch me in semantics, but I am certainly not implying that proper protocol was not followed. But yeah we got a new vaccine in a year. That is a fast turn around. It is remarkable. I gladly felt those side effects for 24 hours for the protection.
I wish people wouldn't say the vaccine wasn't rushed. Of course it was rushed! We're in the middle of a crisis, rushing was and remains 100% appropriate! It isn't even "approved" yet in the normal sense. None of that means it isn't worth the still pretty low risk and relatively mild side effects. But to say it wasn't rushed? It's a flat out lie and I think we lose credibility if we repeat it. I think we lose credibility just by it being out there.
Rushed implies the safety and efficacy protocols were rushed. They weren't. We just got lucky that recent vaccine developments (for Ebola, Zika, etc.) have yielded more plug-and-play technology. So the vaccine manufacturing for both the animal studies and the human trials was much quicker than having to grow multiple candidate vaccines in eggs or cells.
The rest of the speed basically came from the drug companies spending additional money and taking financial risks. Most of the time, it's cheaper to write and stick with one protocol than to adapt and revise it. I've signed multiple consent forms for Pfizer where they were just expanding the trial to more people or younger age groups. Now they are testing a third shot as a booster.
They also spent a lot more money recruiting large numbers of people in Phase 3. When you are testing a vaccine for efficacy, you can either wait a long time for enough people in a small trial to be exposed to/contract the disease so you can calculate the efficacy. Or you can spend millions of extra dollars to add 10,000 more people to the study because the larger the group, the more cases. Then you have to continue to monitor them for the rest of the study. And if a safety issue turned up with the earlier trial participants, they run the risk of having to cancel the whole trial and lose even more money than usual.
Obviously the companies are not spending the extra money for completely altruistic reasons, but they could have chosen to do everything more slowly and cheaply on a more traditional timeline. The FDA could have waited until the end of the trial in two years instead of doing an emergency authorization. But these expedient options are in place for a reason. I hate the word "rush" because of its negative connotations. It's a scientific miracle that we have multiple safe vaccine options in a year.
They did actually test 10, 20, and 30 microgram does, and the side effects were similar between 20 and 30. (And the side effects were similar to those observed with other adult vaccines.) Since 30 was a better immunogen in the 55-85yo age group, they proceeded with 30ug for the phase 2/3 study.
Thank you for offering some actual facts behind my general remembrances! I wonder if they'll eventually do a lower dose for under 55. Don't older adults get a stronger flu shot, too?
Yes, older adults can get a more immunogenic flu shot. I highly doubt they will do a lower dose for younger people because the side effect profiles were so similar between 20 and 30 micrograms, and 10ug was less immunogenic. It's better logistically and in terms of safety monitoring to be able to give all adults the same vaccine.
And it's hard to keep in perspective because we get so few primary immunizations as adults, but even though the side effects feel super severe when we are going through them (and we have millions of people going through them simultaneously), they are almost always temporary and relatively mild/moderate. I haven't gotten a shingles vaccine, but my SIL reported side effects similar to her covid vaccine.
One of the major health care systems in my region has scheduled a "drive-through" J&J vaccine clinic for later this month.
After patients receive their vaccines, they will need to pull over in the parking lot for 15 minutes due to the risk of adverse reactions.
By the way, this is all going to happen in the parking lot of an almost-dead shopping mall, so there will be plenty of parking.
I hope that patients who are driving themselves actually stay for the full 15 minutes.
My understanding is that all drive through sites are doing this.
My mother was vaccinated in a drive thru site in Hudson County NJ and they did this. She waited on a line in her car; a staffer signaled her when to pull into a large garage sort of building with maybe 2-3 other cars and the garage doors were shut; the medical staffer administered the dose; the doors opened and she was signaled to pull into a parking area; a staffer checked on her once or twice and after 15 mins signaled her to leave.
I got my shot in a Safeway. The pharmacist said to stay for 15 min. Both times a couple people just left after their shot. So I'm thinking if people aren't being monitored they just scoot. Your mileage may vary on this anecdote.
Competent, well-informed people who know what they’re talking about, and understand nuance, are my favorite. Thank you for being one of them in this post! 👍
I think a lot of people (maybe fewer here) also seem to forget that science is not often funded the way that it needs to be to keep multiple things going. As a researcher, I cannot tell you how many projects we had in the pipeline that needed funding before we could even think about starting them. And this was for influenza, so something that got a good amount of funding in relation to other viruses. I mean, we waited years to do our human studies and that was pretty widely supported. Ah, memories.
It just goes to show that when people and companies funnel a lot of money and pull a lot of people to work on one project, as raleighnc said, it's like a scientific miracle. Of course with a novel virus you're dealing with a whole new ballgame vs influenza which doesn't tend to have too many mutations.
Curious what folks think of this opinion piece. It remains so weird to me that different parts of the country have such drastic differences in realities right now. I'm in the DC area, where there are very much still mask mandates, limits on indoor capacities at restaurants and other businesses, etc. But then I see photos of folks in Florida and it's like there isn't even a pandemic going on. But I'm getting my first shot next week and I'd really like to think it's a starting point for returning to some greater sense of normalcy. I don't need to eat in a restaurant, but I would like to see my family and friends indoors and without masks.
"When to Reopen Let’s stop pretending that pandemic rules that made sense in April 2020 still make sense a year later."
I like this piece. But unfortunately, it assumes many Americans have common sense and understand nuance. Lifting mandates doesn't mean people should engage in the behavior the mandate prohibited, but alas, that's what happens. Not with everyone of course, but enough when we're talking about an infectious disease. No one wants to be told what to do and in this particular case with masks, many people have been fervently anti-mask that they won't wear them for common sense reasons just to stick it to the government.
I got my shot in a Safeway. The pharmacist said to stay for 15 min. Both times a couple people just left after their shot. So I'm thinking if people aren't being monitored they just scoot. Your mileage may vary on this anecdote.
Walgreens here and similar. Pre-shot it was “sit in chair and wait your turn.” After it was “stay in the store for about 15 minutes. You can shop while you wait.” I contemplated leaving, because where we were going next had us driving right by the hospital in about 12 minutes.
We got an email today about vaccination requirements at my job (I work for a large university):
"Given the importance of mass vaccination in protecting our community, we will require all students coming or returning to our campuses this fall, and who do not require religious or health exemptions, to be vaccinated. We strongly urge, and may soon require, all faculty and staff to be vaccinated as well.
We will seek to facilitate opportunities for students who are unable to get vaccinated in their home jurisdictions to be vaccinated when they arrive on campus, and we are working to make on-campus vaccination available for all members of our community. Ensuring that the overwhelming percentage of our community’s population is vaccinated will greatly reduce the risk of the virus’s spread on our campuses and will also protect our neighbors in [city]...
We are in the process of establishing a system for [school] affiliates to register their vaccination status, so you should retain documentation when you are vaccinated. Registration will be required for students, and we will urge faculty and staff to voluntarily report their status to help us determine the appropriate level of public health protections over the summer and fall. More information on the registration process will be available in the coming weeks. "
I think a lot of people (maybe fewer here) also seem to forget that science is not often funded the way that it needs to be to keep multiple things going. As a researcher, I cannot tell you how many projects we had in the pipeline that needed funding before we could even think about starting them. And this was for influenza, so something that got a good amount of funding in relation to other viruses. I mean, we waited years to do our human studies and that was pretty widely supported. Ah, memories.
It just goes to show that when people and companies funnel a lot of money and pull a lot of people to work on one project, as raleighnc said, it's like a scientific miracle. Of course with a novel virus you're dealing with a whole new ballgame vs influenza which doesn't tend to have too many mutations.
I was talking to a patient about this re: funding being so generous for the covid vaccines. And it was actually a good point that she made - that if governments and pharmaceutical companies could all of a sudden decide to fund this vaccine, why can't they fund housing and healthcare and other necessities that people need that if they don't get they die? She said that made her not trust the vaccine and government and pharmaceutical companies even more. I told her I totally agree with her that funding priorities are often very messed up in this country.
On dosage, my understanding is that many vaccines are adjusted over years of data collection. Anecdotally, when I had to get the rabies vaccination last summer it was 4 doses and my doctor said it used to be 5 but they were able to confirm over time that 4 was enough. (They also said it used to hurt a lot more; maybe that was related to dosage being higher?)
I think the rural areas not vaccinating is not going to be that big of issue. I think the people who want to be vaccinated who live in the rural areas will do it. The country folk are more spread out and less on top of each other like the urban areas. So I am leaning towards focusing on the positive. My FB have mostly been folks getting vaccines not that it represents all of Texas or anything.
I don’t know if I’d be so quick to shrug off the rural parts of the country. Plenty of rural areas got hit HARD during Covid waves and they simply don’t have the hospital capacity that urban areas do. Plus, rural areas aren’t just filled with old white people living on multiple acres; there are plenty of workers (predominantly low-income and/or immigrants) who are responsible for our food supply and live and work in close quarters. They were also more likely to get sick and die during the pandemic.
We’ve seen a similar trend in my state where the urban areas are vaccinating more quickly and the rural areas have tons of appointments. But that’s also allowing them to get creative like waiving appointments and eligibility requirements and vaccinating entire families at a time. (On a tangent, it irks me that wealthier urbanites are trying to take advantage of looser requirements intended to help rural Hispanic families. Just because you can drive four hours for a vaccine-cation doesn’t mean you should.)
Isn't it also true that lots of transmission is from small in-home GTGs? If it's true that transmission is low outdoors, then it seems like urban vs rural is probably less of a distinction than following distancing/mask rules or not. Rural people can hang out indoors with friends and family in the same way that urban people can.
We got an email today about vaccination requirements at my job (I work for a large university):
"Given the importance of mass vaccination in protecting our community, we will require all students coming or returning to our campuses this fall, and who do not require religious or health exemptions, to be vaccinated. We strongly urge, and may soon require, all faculty and staff to be vaccinated as well.
We will seek to facilitate opportunities for students who are unable to get vaccinated in their home jurisdictions to be vaccinated when they arrive on campus, and we are working to make on-campus vaccination available for all members of our community. Ensuring that the overwhelming percentage of our community’s population is vaccinated will greatly reduce the risk of the virus’s spread on our campuses and will also protect our neighbors in [city]...
We are in the process of establishing a system for [school] affiliates to register their vaccination status, so you should retain documentation when you are vaccinated. Registration will be required for students, and we will urge faculty and staff to voluntarily report their status to help us determine the appropriate level of public health protections over the summer and fall. More information on the registration process will be available in the coming weeks. "
I’m really interested to see how many schools eventually do this. We have already announced we are not requiring it at this time. I do hope we change our minds, but I don’t see it going over very well here.
I think a lot of people (maybe fewer here) also seem to forget that science is not often funded the way that it needs to be to keep multiple things going. As a researcher, I cannot tell you how many projects we had in the pipeline that needed funding before we could even think about starting them. And this was for influenza, so something that got a good amount of funding in relation to other viruses. I mean, we waited years to do our human studies and that was pretty widely supported. Ah, memories.
It just goes to show that when people and companies funnel a lot of money and pull a lot of people to work on one project, as raleighnc said, it's like a scientific miracle. Of course with a novel virus you're dealing with a whole new ballgame vs influenza which doesn't tend to have too many mutations.
I was talking to a patient about this re: funding being so generous for the covid vaccines. And it was actually a good point that she made - that if governments and pharmaceutical companies could all of a sudden decide to fund this vaccine, why can't they fund housing and healthcare and other necessities that people need that if they don't get they die? She said that made her not trust the vaccine and government and pharmaceutical companies even more. I told her I totally agree with her that funding priorities are often very messed up in this country.
So so so very true. And it makes me really angry. Government funding in general pisses me off. As a lab, we'd do our best to spread our spend out over 12 months but if we had a surplus towards the end of the fiscal year it was all "spend spend spend" because if we didn't spend our money it was assumed we didn't need it. Such a messed up way to "budget" if you ask me.
Anyway, yes. Funding priorities are messed up. Funding is messed up.
Post by Velar Fricative on Apr 10, 2021 6:10:34 GMT -5
More details about the situation in Michigan. I honestly don’t blame Whitmer for not imposing restrictions despite cases surging. I don’t think there is any appetite *anywhere* for broad shutdowns anymore. Not with this vaccination progress. But OTOH, we’ve seen how wonderful “personal responsibility” has turned out in a pandemic.
We got an email today about vaccination requirements at my job (I work for a large university):
"Given the importance of mass vaccination in protecting our community, we will require all students coming or returning to our campuses this fall, and who do not require religious or health exemptions, to be vaccinated. We strongly urge, and may soon require, all faculty and staff to be vaccinated as well.
We will seek to facilitate opportunities for students who are unable to get vaccinated in their home jurisdictions to be vaccinated when they arrive on campus, and we are working to make on-campus vaccination available for all members of our community. Ensuring that the overwhelming percentage of our community’s population is vaccinated will greatly reduce the risk of the virus’s spread on our campuses and will also protect our neighbors in [city]...
We are in the process of establishing a system for [school] affiliates to register their vaccination status, so you should retain documentation when you are vaccinated. Registration will be required for students, and we will urge faculty and staff to voluntarily report their status to help us determine the appropriate level of public health protections over the summer and fall. More information on the registration process will be available in the coming weeks. "
I’m really interested to see how many schools eventually do this. We have already announced we are not requiring it at this time. I do hope we change our minds, but I don’t see it going over very well here.
@@@@@
No more religious exceptions for vaccines. If your religion prevents you from getting vaccinated, you need to choose a private or homeschool.
I’m really interested to see how many schools eventually do this. We have already announced we are not requiring it at this time. I do hope we change our minds, but I don’t see it going over very well here.
No more religious exceptions for vaccines. If your religion prevents you from getting vaccinated, you need to choose a private or homeschool.
Unfortunately my school has made it clear they won’t mandate staff let alone students be vaccinated. Someone actually asking in a town hall “will we be fired if we don’t get vaccinated” and the college president made a huge show of “of course not, personal decision.”
I think I’ll be masking in office forever I e been on campus 2 days per week since the original lock down ended. They are also forcing all faculty (not my role) to teach at least 1 hybrid or in person class by summer session...even faculty who before COVID didn’t teach on campus.
I don’t really trust them at all. I know of at least 6 staff people who got severe Covid (thankfully they all lived) most likely on campus and heard through the grapevine about pockets of students (departments) who had big outbreaks but from their official stance you would never know we even had 1 staff/student. If I hadn’t already received my first shot I would be terrified of summer/fall return since we will have to be on campus more/possibly full time w/a lot more students. We also do no testing.
Our county vaccine clinic was cancelled today. I got an email around 9 last night that there was a "facilities issue" and they had to cancel it for today. Today was supposed to be my first day of volunteering, plus it stinks that around 2,000 people will have to reschedule either their first or second dose (that's how many people got vaxxed the last time my DH volunteered).
I was there for my first shot on Thursday and it was so impressive. TONS of people. I haven't been around that many people in more than a year, lol. But it was a very smooth process. They were set up in what used to be Nordstrom, so it was a bit weird to remember what it looked like when it was a store full of racks of stuff, instead of a big empty space with various roped-off sections for standing in line, chairs for the 15-minute observation period, vax stations, etc.
While I was in my observation period, there was a young man who was also in his 15 minutes who started seizing. He was in his 20s and I overheard him tell the people who were helping him that he didn't have a history of seizures. It was definitely a reality check for me, that even though I think of vaccines as taking days/weeks to take effect, there can also be reactions within minutes -- hence the observation period. Thank goodness he didn't leave right after, and our clinic has people walking around the observation area where people are seated and actively asking people how they're feeling and checking in with anyone who looks off, so that it was noticed right away.
Now granted, there were probably 250+ people who moved through the vaccine process during the time I was there and there was just that one negative reaction, but man, it sucks for that one person.
Do we have any expectations about the time frame for full FDA approval, not just EUA? I'm 100% pro vaccine (got mine in Jan/Feb), but mandating a medical treatment that hasn't reached full approval (for continued employment) doesn't feel right to me. That said, I don't know enough about the EUA / approval process and history to know if this would be normal or not.
ETA this is in response to whether employers should mandate it or not as a condition of employment.
Do we have any expectations about the time frame for full FDA approval, not just EUA? I'm 100% pro vaccine (got mine in Jan/Feb), but mandating a medical treatment that hasn't reached full approval (for continued employment) doesn't feel right to me. That said, I don't know enough about the EUA / approval process and history to know if this would be normal or not.
ETA this is in response to whether employers should mandate it or not as a condition of employment.
I’m here. I have no idea what the timeline is but I would prefer full FDA approval before making it mandatory.
I feel lucky but tired. 2nd pfizer shot yesterday and the impending doom was right on time at the 12 hr mark. MILD fever (100.1), headache, body aches, chills, and upset stomach. But I AM STOKED!!!
I feel lucky but tired. 2nd pfizer shot yesterday and the impending doom was right on time at the 12 hr mark. MILD fever (100.1), headache, body aches, chills, and upset stomach. But I AM STOKED!!!
Do we have any expectations about the time frame for full FDA approval, not just EUA? I'm 100% pro vaccine (got mine in Jan/Feb), but mandating a medical treatment that hasn't reached full approval (for continued employment) doesn't feel right to me. That said, I don't know enough about the EUA / approval process and history to know if this would be normal or not.
ETA this is in response to whether employers should mandate it or not as a condition of employment.
Our college has said they won't mandate until some receive full FDA approval for this reason.
“With sorrow—for this Court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection—we dissent,”
There are only 3 Vancouver Canucks players who aren’t on the covid protocol list. 25 players and staff have the virus. I’ve read elsewhere that the P1 variant from Brazil is suspected. Family members are sick too.
Neighboring countries closed the borders with Brazil.
Bolsonaro refused to lock the country down this week.
4257 deaths Thursday alone.
Mass graves
And this worrisome bit—
“Despite promising news on Wednesday of preliminary results from a continuing study finding China’s Sinovac vaccine to be 50 percent effective against the P1 strain, experts have warned that the speed with which the virus is mutating could spell disaster for current vaccine campaigns.”
I feel lucky but tired. 2nd pfizer shot yesterday and the impending doom was right on time at the 12 hr mark. MILD fever (100.1), headache, body aches, chills, and upset stomach. But I AM STOKED!!!
Curious how long these side effects lasted for you... I had my second Pfizer shot yesterday and right around the 12 hour mark I developed similar symptoms. I’ve been up most of the night with bad full body aches, chills and now a temp of 101.6. Obviously it’s worth it (I keep cheering on my immune system - goooo robust immune response, go!), but i am curious just how long I am going to be out of commission..