CDC Notifies States, Large Cities To Prepare For Vaccine Distribution As Soon As Late October

[Jonfw2]

For the first time in 4 months, the % of positive tests in the US is below 5.

 

[aggiedog]

But is it probable? Justt because one is infected they are able to spread? My understanding it is likely the viral load is so low they won't transmit the virus.

We don't know for sure. As a physician, I'm trained to first look for evidence based facts and make decisions on those. Early studies do suggest less symptoms, less viral shed. Also less viral load exposure, less ultimate disease, on average. Early studies suggest that the vaccines do slow/stop viral transmission. But until we KNOW those things, we have to assume that the virus is still being transmitted and act appropriately to prevent others from getting it. I'm sure you don't want your doctor to tell you "Well, we think this medicine works. We're not sure, and we could do something else that would totally help but is more inconvenient, but let's do the easy unsure way first."

 

[TLSnell1981]

We don't know for sure. As a physician, I'm trained to first look for evidence based facts and make decisions on those. Early studies do suggest less symptoms, less viral shed. Also less viral load exposure, less ultimate disease, on average. Early studies suggest that the vaccines do slow/stop viral transmission. But until we KNOW those things, we have to assume that the virus is still being transmitted and act appropriately to prevent others from getting it. I'm sure you don't want your doctor to tell you "Well, we think this medicine works. We're not sure, and we could do something else that would totally help but is more inconvenient, but let's do the easy unsure way first."

At some point we will have to move forward...trial and error. Nothing is absolute except death, taxes and Disney's yearly price hikes.

 

[Jonfw2]

Just an observation: my wife’s clinic in Ohio does rapid Covid testing without an appointment. Six weeks ago, they had a line around the building before opening. If you got there after, say, ten am, they’d tell you to come back tomorrow.

Now: walk in, walk back, out in twenty minutes.

 

[TLSnell1981]

Just an observation: my wife’s clinic in Ohio does rapid Covid testing without an appointment. Six weeks ago, they had a line around the building before opening. If you got there after, say, ten am, they’d tell you to come back tomorrow.

Now: walk in, walk back, out in twenty minutes.

We are seeing an overall decrease. Of course some panic because they feel we aren't testing enough. The cases are simply going down even though restrictions continue to be lifted.

 

[Joe in VA]

Been a few days, so I will provide a daily case update. Cases continue to plummet, 69,000 cases today (the lowest on a Sat since October) and down 20% from last Saturday.

1/9 258,000
1/16 206,000
1/23 174,000
1/30 146,000
2/6 109,000
2/13 87,000
2/20 69,000

 

[aggiedog]

At some point we will have to move forward...trial and error. Nothing is absolute except death, taxes and Disney's yearly price hikes.

Move forward in what fashion? I'm not sure what you're referring to.

 

[Jonfw2]

Move forward in what fashion? I'm not sure what you're referring to.

At the risk of putting words in TL’s mouth, he means as cases and deaths continue to drop and more people are vaccinated, the economy needs to fully reopen and life needs to go back to normal.

 

[TLSnell1981]

...

At the risk of putting words in TL’s mouth, he means as cases and deaths continue to drop and more people are vaccinated, the economy needs to fully reopen and life needs to go back to normal.

 

[huskies90]

We don't know for sure. As a physician, I'm trained to first look for evidence based facts and make decisions on those. Early studies do suggest less symptoms, less viral shed. Also less viral load exposure, less ultimate disease, on average. Early studies suggest that the vaccines do slow/stop viral transmission. But until we KNOW those things, we have to assume that the virus is still being transmitted and act appropriately to prevent others from getting it. I'm sure you don't want your doctor to tell you "Well, we think this medicine works. We're not sure, and we could do something else that would totally help but is more inconvenient, but let's do the easy unsure way first."

You are 100% correct. The problem is you and other health professionals are who the general public are listening to. And when they hear vaccines may not work because we don’t have all the scientific data and therefore we need to keep distancing, masking, locking down and canceling, the public is going to say “why bother with the vaccine?” which is not the behavior we want. There was an article in The NY Times yesterday detailing this:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/19/briefing/ted-cruz-texas-water-iran-nuclear.html
you’re probably familiar with the idea of vaccine alarmism. It goes something like this:

The coronavirus vaccines aren’t 100 percent effective. Vaccinated people may still be contagious. And the virus variants may make everything worse. So don’t change your behavior even if you get a shot.

Much of this message has some basis in truth, but it is fundamentally misleading. The evidence so far suggests that a full dose of the vaccine — with the appropriate waiting period after the second shot — effectively eliminates the risk of Covid-19 death, nearly eliminates the risk of hospitalization and drastically reduces a person’s ability to infect somebody else. All of that is also true about the virus’s new variants.

Yet the alarmism continues. And now we are seeing its real-world costs: Many people don’t want to get the vaccine partly because it sounds so ineffectual.

 

[lovethesun12]

You are 100% correct. The problem is you and other health professionals are who the general public are listening to. And when they hear vaccines may not work because we don’t have all the scientific data and therefore we need to keep distancing, masking, locking down and canceling, the public is going to say “why bother with the vaccine?” which is not the behavior we want. There was an article in The NY Times yesterday detailing this:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/19/briefing/ted-cruz-texas-water-iran-nuclear.html
you’re probably familiar with the idea of vaccine alarmism. It goes something like this:

The coronavirus vaccines aren’t 100 percent effective. Vaccinated people may still be contagious. And the virus variants may make everything worse. So don’t change your behavior even if you get a shot.

Much of this message has some basis in truth, but it is fundamentally misleading. The evidence so far suggests that a full dose of the vaccine — with the appropriate waiting period after the second shot — effectively eliminates the risk of Covid-19 death, nearly eliminates the risk of hospitalization and drastically reduces a person’s ability to infect somebody else. All of that is also true about the virus’s new variants.

Yet the alarmism continues. And now we are seeing its real-world costs: Many people don’t want to get the vaccine partly because it sounds so ineffectual.

I would suggest a person who takes accurate information and twists it that way is suffering confirmation bias so it's best not to present information a certain way just to appease them.

If a physician extrapolates data to give a more optimistic outlook and their extrapolation is incorrect (a real possibility) they lose credibility.

If a physician extrapolates the data to give a more optimistic outlook and their extrapolation is correct, the person who was uncertain on the vaccine will go and find some opinion based, not peer-reviewed article that casts doubt on the vaccine to use as the reason they still aren't getting the vaccine.

Better for health care professionals to stick to the facts - it is too premature to make a prediction.

 

[aggiedog]

We'll have to agree to disagree. I don't see stating scientific fact as vaccine alarmism. No more than germ theory is alarmism.

 

[Pyotr]

My daily dose of good news....


https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...shot-stops-covid-s-spread-israeli-study-shows

 

[dvcgirl67]

We'll have to agree to disagree. I don't see stating scientific fact as vaccine alarmism. No more than germ theory is alarmism.

I agree with you and lovethesun12. Just give us the facts and let us make informed decisions. If I've learned anything from this whole experience is that you can't hide the facts. We'll all know, soon enough, whether or not a vaccinated person can still transmit this virus in numbers large enough for it to matter. Right now, it doesn't appear to be the case. That's great news.

Public health leaders always knew that they'd have a huge task in getting most Americans to get vaccinated. We're seeing that play out now. There was so much disinformation early on in this country, that a huge level of distrust is already in the mix. We were told early on that the warm weather would make the virus disappear. We were told in the early fall that we were rounding the corner. At this point, just be honest with people.

 

[Pyotr]

I agree with you and lovethesun12. Just give us the facts and let us make informed decisions. If I've learned anything from this whole experience is that you can't hide the facts. We'll all know, soon enough, whether or not a vaccinated person can still transmit this virus in numbers large enough for it to matter. Right now, it doesn't appear to be the case. That's great news.

Public health leaders always knew that they'd have a huge task in getting most Americans to get vaccinated. We're seeing that play out now. There was so much disinformation early on in this country, that a huge level of distrust is already in the mix. We were told early on that the warm weather would make the virus disappear. We were told in the early fall that we were rounding the corner. At this point, just be honest with people.

“Two weeks to slow the spread.”

Asking to wear masks for the “first 100 days.”

There continues to be poor communication regarding the virus and the vaccine. Telling people that once they get the vaccine they still have to mask and social distance doesn’t help either.

 

[Colleen27]

I would suggest a person who takes accurate information and twists it that way is suffering confirmation bias so it's best not to present information a certain way just to appease them.

If a physician extrapolates data to give a more optimistic outlook and their extrapolation is incorrect (a real possibility) they lose credibility.

If a physician extrapolates the data to give a more optimistic outlook and their extrapolation is correct, the person who was uncertain on the vaccine will go and find some opinion based, not peer-reviewed article that casts doubt on the vaccine to use as the reason they still aren't getting the vaccine.

Better for health care professionals to stick to the facts - it is too premature to make a prediction.

But half of any public health campaign is in the messaging and the public perception. And right now, the public perception is awful, largely thanks to articles stressing that vaccination changes nothing until 70-80% of the population has had both doses (right now, a mathematical impossibility... until we have a vaccine for children, even 100% adult acceptance won't get us there) and even then might be meaningless because of new variants.

Your assumption that people will simply seek out the information that suits their biases assumes everyone already has a strong and entrenched opinion on the subject. I don't think that's the case here. I think there are a lot of people still on the fence, whether because of discomfort with a new vaccine or because they just haven't had to make a decision when eligibility is still months off, and that group is both persuadable and vulnerable to negative messaging. And "get the vaccine but don't expect it to change anything about the reduced half-life we're all living" is the ultimate in negative messaging, currently being screamed from screens of every variety in CNN segments and NatGeo newsletters and WaPo articles.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Public health leaders always knew that they'd have a huge task in getting most Americans to get vaccinated.

See I don't see it as an American issue. Other countries experience issues with their citizens wanting a vaccine. The reasons all vary. I haven't checked back in as a lot of time has gone by but back in early January a poster from the Netherlands advised at that time their news was reporting 56% of citizens in France didn't want the vaccine as an example.

Here in the U.S. if public health leaders wanted to increase the odds of the citizens willingness to get a vaccine they needed to be transparent from the beginning. They created a layer of distrust, of misinformation, of intense fear (and no I'm not talking about fearmongering stuff I dislike that term to begin with) without much consideration for how long that could reasonably last. Are they the sole reason? Of course not. I largely think vaccines were such a far off thought that it wasn't the primary focus last spring and summer.

I'm just a bit over people blaming the citizens as if there is no culpability elsewhere and you touched on that culpability but you also made a point to say it would be a huge task in getting Americans to get vaccinated (though I'm not meaning this on a personal level it's an observation I see a lot). People tend to not give us, as a whole, enough credit. We're not all crazy, stubborn, 'Merica stereotype people as if that's the only type that exists.

I do get what you mean about hiding facts part.

 

[dvcgirl67]

“Two weeks to slow the spread.”

Asking to wear masks for the “first 100 days.”

I don't think either or the two examples you cited compares with the crazy over-the-top statements that I cited. What you cited were two examples put out by public health experts to try and buy time....to try and get the public to come around at two totally different phases of the pandemic.

As far as vaccine transmissibility and the message goes, if a person is unwilling to get the vaccine to protect herself, how likely is she to get the vaccine to protect others. A lot of those people will only get the vaccine when they are made to get it....for work, travel, etc.

 

[dvcgirl67]

See I don't see it as an American issue. Other countries experience issues with their citizens wanting a vaccine. The reasons all vary. I haven't checked back in as a lot of time has gone by but back in early January a poster from the Netherlands advised at that time their news was reporting 56% of citizens in France didn't want the vaccine as an example.

Here in the U.S. if public health leaders wanted to increase the odds of the citizens willingness to get a vaccine they needed to be transparent from the beginning. They created a layer of distrust, of misinformation, of intense fear (and no I'm not talking about fearmongering stuff I dislike that term to begin with) without much consideration for how long that could reasonably last. Are they the sole reason? Of course not. I largely think vaccines were such a far off thought that it wasn't the primary focus last spring and summer.

I'm just a bit over people blaming the citizens as if there is no culpability elsewhere and you touched on that culpability but you also made a point to say it would be a huge task in getting Americans to get vaccinated (though I'm not meaning this on a personal level it's an observation I see a lot). People tend to not give us, as a whole, enough credit. We're not all crazy, stubborn, 'Merica stereotype people as if that's the only type that exists.

I do get what you mean about hiding facts part.

I don't see it just as an American issue either. In fact, I think we all know that if we don't get poorer countries to largely vaccinate their populations that we are all going to be dealing with Covid. And honestly, I think that's exactly what is going to happen. Certainly not to the degree we have in this last year with literally no protection against the virus. But we're not going to eradicate this virus.

 

[grumpy28]

New IHME model is showing 91,000 deaths until June 1. Ugh.

Dr Fauci was on one of the Sunday morning shows saying we may have to wear a mask into next year. Ugh.

Was hopeful when Dr Makary said we would have herd immunity in April, but so far he seems to be the only one saying that. Everyone else is freaking out over the variants coming. Ugh.