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

[RamblingMad]

Well, yes, hopefully we'll be beyond the election one month from now. It might be wishful thinking because of all of the mail-in ballots, but we can hope. I think we'll have word of the first vaccine candidate soon after the election, and then others will follow. I think C.D.C head Redfield said that most Americans can expect to get a vaccine by late 2nd quarter/early 3rd quarter....so April to June. The logistics behind the rollout are a big deal.

I see a couple of news pieces tonight, in the WP and NYT about the administration wanting to "embrace herd immunity"....put forth by three epidemiologists in a paper called the Great Barrington Declaration. It basically sounds like opening everything up wide open, letting younger people roam free as the risk is lower to them, somehow reaching herd immunity. The idea being to move us through to herd immunity more quickly than vaccine distribution to the public, to alleviate the mental and physical health issues, particularly on communities at high risk, the poor and certain minority communities.

I understand the appeal of this approach. I guess my question is, how on earth would the administration think that they'll be able to convince the entire country to follow any sort of nation plan/edict now? I mean, even if this administration continues into 2021 (wins election), I really just don't see that happening.

The UK tried the herd immunity approach. They quickly gave up on it.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/...ndemic-herd-immunity-uk-boris-johnson/608065/
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/...herd-immunity-to-beat-coronavirus-we-need-it/
Let's not follow in their footsteps. COVID-19 is out of control in the UK and France.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/
and

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/france/
And the WHO response:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-54518286

 

[tarheelmjfan]

And the WHO response:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-54518286

This headline says it all to me. The whole experience has me disgusted with the human race. I have no respect for anyone who supports herd immunity. It further supports the "all about mentality" that has become prevalent in the US in recent years.

 

[Jonfw2]

Let’s not forget that in terms of vaccines, the US did not put all its chips on one candidate- there are several that are still very much progressing towards the point of their studies where they will have conclusive evidence.

 

[Jonfw2]

Regarding herd immunity: defeating Covid will ultimately come from a combination of things. Some will be successfully vaccinated, testing will keep people with Covid from spreading it and, yes, many will already be immune do to their makeups or having already been infected.

 

[dvcgirl67]

This headline says it all to me. The whole experience has me disgusted with the human race. I have no respect for anyone who supports herd immunity. It further supports the "all about mentality" that has become prevalent in the US in recent years.

Right, I agree. Objectively though, would it matter to you if the administration all of the sudden declared that all U.S. citizens embrace herd immunity? Who cares? There's never been a national plan beyond the "15 days to stop the spread", which turned into "30 days to stop the spread". That was it. After that it was "liberate!", and off we went. States, cities, towns, schools, businesses and individuals began to operate under their own set of rules and regulations, strict, or lax....that's what happened. And that's where we are now.

Where I live, 80-90% of professionals are still working from home. The NJ transit train station parking lot resembles what it typically looks like on Christmas Day, and has looked that way since the middle of March. Restaurants with enough sidewalk space or a parking lot have giant white tents with expensive new heaters inside to try and prolong outdoor dining as long as possible to attempt to stay in business. We're still at just 25% indoor dining. And our numbers are heading steadily....up.

It's going to be a dicey 6 months or so. Hopefully by the spring a lot of Americans will get vaccinated and we can try to get back to a sense of normality.

 

[Jonfw2]

100,000 more doses of antibody drugs at no cost to consumers.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cn...ike-deal-for-covid-19-antibody-treatment.html

 

[Cogswel_Cogs]

Yipee

 

[Colleen27]

Right now, we only know of at most a dozen cases. But, what I was trying to point out previously is, part of the limitations in possibly knowing about more reinfections are the current procedure of testings and the costs to verify a reinfection.
Patient samples used in COVID-19 testing are not being even occasionally stored. Storage costs are not cheap. You can’t just throw them into a household or commercial type freezer.
Let’s say you do have a possible reinfection case and you were able to obtain a stored sample, then the cost of confirming through genomic sequencing is in the several thousands of dollars and up (unless you’re testing hundreds of them in parallel). This isn’t like taking a 23andMe test.

I understand all of that. I didn't address the actual prevalence of reinfection at all, only 1) the lack of data on such cases and 2) that the majority of the limited sample that is available does not point to a more severe second case being the norm, as you implied in the post I quoted.

 

[Jonfw2]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cn...se-approval-for-vaccine-in-late-november.html

 

[dvcgirl67]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cn...se-approval-for-vaccine-in-late-november.html

Good news. Of all of the vaccine candidates, this is the one that needs to be kept in a deep freeze, at -80 celsius. I think it requires a booster shot as well. Still, it's good news as other therapeutics aren't faring as well in recent studies. I saw one about Remdesivir yesterday, done by the W.H.O. Not peer reviewed yet, but definitely diminishes the value of that drug in aiding mortality rates in COVID. https://www.ft.com/content/ee9b611f-2b4b-4572-afe1-b0b804d17a94

But with numbers really skyrocketing in Europe, with lots of new regional lockdowns and strict measures being put in place, and our numbers really starting to spike as well (66,000 cases here yesterday), we need to know these vaccines will be widely available by the spring for most of us. It's the only way we get back to normal as a nation.

 

[RamblingMad]

Good news. Of all of the vaccine candidates, this is the one that needs to be kept in a deep freeze, at -80 celsius. I think it requires a booster shot as well. Still, it's good news as other therapeutics aren't faring as well in recent studies. I saw one about Remdesivir yesterday, done by the W.H.O. Not peer reviewed yet, but definitely diminishes the value of that drug in aiding mortality rates in COVID. https://www.ft.com/content/ee9b611f-2b4b-4572-afe1-b0b804d17a94

But with numbers really skyrocketing in Europe, with lots of new regional lockdowns and strict measures being put in place, and our numbers really starting to spike as well (66,000 cases here yesterday), we need to know these vaccines will be widely available by the spring for most of us. It's the only way we get back to normal as a nation.

I doubt we will have vaccines by then. But I expect we’ll mostly be through our second wave by then. It seems to be hitting the colder regions of the country right now. This should flip flop next summer.

 

[Jonfw2]

I doubt we will have vaccines by then. But I expect we’ll mostly be through our second wave by then. It seems to be hitting the colder regions of the country right now. This should flip flop next summer.

Why do you doubt it?

 

[RamblingMad]

Why do you doubt it?

Bill Gates laid out the timing for a faster vaccine on his website. It’s still expected to take 18 months assuming the trials go well. That puts us with widespread vaccines available best case next summer. I rarely have seen best case scenarios actually happen, so I’m expecting next fall around the time we get our next flu shot for all. I hope I’m wrong, but this feels realistic to me. In the meantime, we really need more economic stimulus to get us there.

 

[Jonfw2]

Bill Gates laid out the timing for a faster vaccine on his website. It’s still expected to take 18 months assuming the trials go well. That puts us with widespread vaccines available best case next summer. I rarely have seen best case scenarios actually happen, so I’m expecting next fall around the time we get our next flu shot for all. I hope I’m wrong, but this feels realistic to me. In the meantime, we really need more economic stimulus to get us there.

I promise you I am not being snarky here, but what are your thoughts then on Pfizer's announcement? Fantasy land?

 

[RamblingMad]

I promise you I am not being snarky here, but what are your thoughts then on Pfizer's announcement? Fantasy land?

So the article says it could apply by end of November. And it’s only now starting its next trial. What it doesn’t say is if they have been producing vaccines during their trials and how many they have available. The bottleneck will be production. 350 million people live in this country. If half gets it, then that’s a lot of vaccines to produce. And per the WSJ article it has committed to provide to the EU and Japan. I doubt we’ll see much from Pfizer until later next year.

 

[Jonfw2]

So the article says it could apply by end of November. And it’s only now starting its next trial. What it doesn’t say is if they have been producing vaccines during their trials and how many they have available. The bottleneck will be production. 350 million people live in this country. If half gets it, then that’s a lot of vaccines to produce. And per the WSJ article it has committed to provide to the EU and Japan. I doubt we’ll see much from Pfizer until later next year.

okay.

 

[Jonfw2]

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/16/cor...ation-unveils-cvs-walgreens-vaccine-deal.html

 

[dvcgirl67]

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/16/cor...ation-unveils-cvs-walgreens-vaccine-deal.html

Ok, well...I guess we'll see how this goes. Which vaccine are we talking about? One of the ones that needs to be kept at -80 celsius? I'm also guessing that these companies are going to staff up *big-time* in order to send out the thousands and thousands of CVS/Walgreens staff in order to administer these vaccines to the elderly and vulnerable in these facilities.

I'm sorry, I'm old enough to remember way back in April when we had the daily 3pm CEO coronavirus task force "press events"....that were timed right before the stock market closed. Loads of promises were made back then, including a promise of a massive Google Covid website that never materialized. Also, a promise that we'd be seeing drive through testing centers popping up everywhere at CVS, Walgreens and Walmart parking lots. Also...did not happen. Also, the great promise of the Abbot Labs "rapid test" machine....which is responsible for letting an infected person get into a huge White House gathering, and infect the entire first family, and a lot of other important people.

I was hopeful hearing that Pfizer is close to possibly having a vaccine. And happy to hear that they won't even request EUA until after the election. I'll take every "deal" made between the administration and any corporation over the next 18 days with a ginormous grain of salt.

 

[Jonfw2]

Also, a promise that we'd be seeing drive through testing centers popping up everywhere at CVS, Walgreens and Walmart parking lots.

These are, in fact, all over America in those parking lots.

 

[RamblingMad]

These are, in fact, all over America in those parking lots.

Have you tried getting a test at one? I did. No times available. I ended up getting tested at urgent care. The implementation of these testing centers is not great.