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

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

to clarify, I didn’t mean to jump on anyone or say so what, I was musing and didn’t express that well. I didn’t mean that the variants are everywhere; therefore we shouldn’t sequence and track. I meant that it’s likely not the first case anywhere, and the big surges we’ve been seeing has likely been at least somewhat related to that.

I’ve had to stop looking at the news this week because everything is so doom and gloom, variants are here and the end is near, level of reporting.

We absolutely should sequence and trace. But, we should’ve been doing that all along, and I just wonder what we would’ve seen if we had been.

edit - I meant to quote MacKenzie too, but I can’t figure out how to add a quote in an edit, or how to tag someone. Ugh.

Oh you're fine no worries really I didn't think your post was jumping on me I just thought it was still relevant (variants were being discussed on the prior page). They figured it was already here but the confirmation is sorta like a "hey we gotta watch out".

I'm interested in seeing if they can figure out where it came from, we border CO which was one of the first to get it, it was a student with classes having resumed January 19th, with the person being an athlete I don't know if they resumed practices and whatnot prior to that, what their activities were before, etc. None of the news stories advise just when the test was taken that yielded the positive result and the date when the sequencing was done. I'm more interested in the information but don't presently intend to view the information as alarming. I'm totally with you on sequencing. Who knows what oodles of information we could have by now if we had been doing that.

 

[Colleen27]

Now here's the thing that is good and what I wish would be occurring all over: The person is a student who is also an athlete at a University which is located nearly 4 hours away from me. They have weekly testing at that University for athletes and that's how they found out that the student was 1) positive and 2) because they were aware of the UK variant the state has ben making a concerted effort to do more genetic testing

It is interesting that the first case in your area was a student athlete... the same is true here in Michigan, and I think I read it about one other state as well. It is almost like all the testing protocols in the world don't make having student athletes traveling all over the country to compete with one another safe during a pandemic. But the NCAA is such big business that universities seem mostly to be sticking to their view that athletes have to be on campus and competing while students sit home because classes are too high risk.

 

[RamblingMad]

Looks like it will take most European countries 2-3 years to vaccinate 75% of their population according to the recent Bloomberg tracker. This is going to suck for International travel. The US is on track by the end of the year, which is slightly slower than the UK.

 

[gwynne]

Looks like it will take most European countries 2-3 years to vaccinate 75% of their population according to the recent Bloomberg tracker. This is going to suck for International travel. The US is on track by the end of the year, which is slightly slower than the UK.

There is zero chance Europeans will happily twiddle their thumbs for two or three years waiting for vaccine. They also have businesses, entertainment and travel industries that need to recover.
I firmly believe the pace will be ramped up considerably in the coming months.

Surely bloomberg made the point that they were making an extrapolated prediction based on current limited availability..

 

[RamblingMad]

There is zero change Europeans will happily twiddle their thumbs for two or three years waiting for vaccine. They also have businesses, entertainment and travel industries that need to recover.
I firmly believe the pace will be ramped up considerably in the coming months.

Surely bloomberg made the point that they were making an extrapolated prediction based on current limited availability..

What else do they have to base their numbers on? They were also hoping kids could be vaccinated this year, which seems unlikely.

 

[DLgal]

Can we please keep politics out of this thread? Thus far we’ve been able to keep it civil and have had a good discussion. I don’t want to have it locked.

I am interesting reading more about the J&J vaccine because it’s the one I’ll likely end up getting. I hope they publish their study like pfizer and Moderna did. I’d like to know how they define serious and moderate illness. Also, how long after the shot does it need to take effect?

I'm pretty sure J&J is the one that said they defined serious illness as "bad enough that you have to stay home from work and may end up needing hospitalization."

 

[TLSnell1981]

Looks like it will take most European countries 2-3 years to vaccinate 75% of their population according to the recent Bloomberg tracker. This is going to suck for International travel. The US is on track by the end of the year, which is slightly slower than the UK.

Do they intended to continue to restrict international travel until that time? I know many old family businesses that won't survive. They are really struggling right now.

 

[Colleen27]

Looks like it will take most European countries 2-3 years to vaccinate 75% of their population according to the recent Bloomberg tracker. This is going to suck for International travel. The US is on track by the end of the year, which is slightly slower than the UK.

That Bloomberg tracker is utter garbage and says so right in the article (Quote: "The calculations will be volatile, especially in the early days of the rollout, and the numbers can be distorted by temporary disruptions. "). It is the absolute worst sort of clickbait covid coverage, designed entirely to appeal to the tendency to share doom-and-gloom predictions.

All they're doing is taking the current rate of vaccination and projecting it across time... and by their "methodology" (if it could even be called that) where we're at right now with vaccine supplies and rollout is exactly where we'll be next month and in six months and in a year. So it will take years, if and only if the number of vaccines administered in the past week is predictive of the number administered each week for the rest of this year and into coming years. Which, of course, no reasonable person believes will be the case.

 

[DLgal]

What else do they have to base their numbers on? They were also hoping kids could be vaccinated this year, which seems unlikely.

It is quite likely kids 12-15 will be vaccinated by this summer (Pfizer has already begun this 2 month safety study in this population and Moderna is enrolling now). 5-12 is expected this fall (those studies are currently being designed) Under 5 may take until next year, if ever approved. There is a question about kids 2-5 potentially suffering worse outcomes after getting vaccinated due to an immune phenomenon called immune enhancement that has been known to occur with other viral vaccines in very young children. I believe this is being evaluated right now to determine whether this population can safely be vaccinated for this virus.

 

[TinkB278]

I’m listening to a health podcast I normally enjoy but the doctor is interviewing a scientist named Dale Harrison who says the Covid vaccines do not provide sterilizing immunity and therefore, we will never reach herd immunity. Hearing this was a huge blow to my morale. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

 

[gwynne]

What else do they have to base their numbers on? They were also hoping kids could be vaccinated this year, which seems unlikely.

Well, it probably sounds like semantics but maybe they should say, "If the current limited vaccine availability persists it will take 2 or 3 years to vaccinate their population."

I believe the vaccine situation is in flux everywhere as new ones gradually become available.

 

[DLgal]

I’m listening to a health podcast I normally enjoy but the doctor is interviewing a scientist named Dale Harrison who says the Covid vaccines do not provide sterilizing immunity and therefore, we will never reach herd immunity. Hearing this was a huge blow to my morale. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

He is right about the sterilizing immunity thing but that doesn't mean we won't ever reach herd immunity. It is similar to the flu, though. We will need annual vaccines going forward, but the presence of a large number of vaccinated people in combination with people who acquired natural immunity will definitely lead to herd immunity such that we are no longer in a pandemic state.

This virus will always be around going forward. Know that. Accept that. Get vaccinated as recommended.

The vaccines turn this virus into something much less deadly and scary.

 

[billlaurie]

Yeah, but still! They certainly approved Pfizer and Moderna quicker than that. What's the problem now?

Pfizer submitted 11/20, advisory committee held 12/10, EUA approved 12/11. Pretty much the same.

 

[RamblingMad]

That Bloomberg tracker is utter garbage and says so right in the article (Quote: "The calculations will be volatile, especially in the early days of the rollout, and the numbers can be distorted by temporary disruptions. "). It is the absolute worst sort of clickbait covid coverage, designed entirely to appeal to the tendency to share doom-and-gloom predictions.

All they're doing is taking the current rate of vaccination and projecting it across time... and by their "methodology" (if it could even be called that) where we're at right now with vaccine supplies and rollout is exactly where we'll be next month and in six months and in a year. So it will take years, if and only if the number of vaccines administered in the past week is predictive of the number administered each week for the rest of this year and into coming years. Which, of course, no reasonable person believes will be the case.

Daily vaccinations have leveled off. It seems reasonable to make a guess based on the available data and plan accordingly.

 

[Jonfw2]

Daily vaccinations have leveled off. It seems reasonable to make a guess based on the available data and plan accordingly.

You can't use 3 or 4 days of data and say they've "levelled off". Daily vaccinations WILL continue to grow as supply increases and society gets more efficient at delivery.

 

[Joe in VA]

Hard to think the UK strain will make things that much worse here when infections in the UK are dropping at a dramatic rate, added to the fact that the vaccines seem to work as well on that strain as others. If you want to point to the South African strain, cases there are dropping faster than even the UK and US.

 

[Colleen27]

What else do they have to base their numbers on? They were also hoping kids could be vaccinated this year, which seems unlikely.

They could take manufacturing capacity projections and contracted vaccine doses into account. Canada, for example, has had logistics issues with the vaccine roll out but has contracted for enough doses to vaccinate the entire population 4x over... but Bloomberg's projections suggest all of those doses will either not be delivered or will sit in storage while the country takes 10 years go get them to the population. That's not an even slightly reasonable assumption if truth or accuracy is the priority. There are plenty of health experts doing *actual* projections that take these factors into account. But those don't make for the same viral potential as a headline screaming that the pandemic won't end for 7 years.

I’m listening to a health podcast I normally enjoy but the doctor is interviewing a scientist named Dale Harrison who says the Covid vaccines do not provide sterilizing immunity and therefore, we will never reach herd immunity. Hearing this was a huge blow to my morale. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

My thoughts? You get more readers/listeners with shocking proclamations than with level-headed facts. We *don't know* if covid vaccines will provide sterilizing immunity. We also *don't know* that they will not. Anyone who makes a definitive statement in either direction is more interested in his message, agenda, or profile than in the science.

It is also worth remembering that the vast, overwhelming majority of pandemics in human history ended without a vaccine. We didn't vaccinate our way to herd immunity in 1918, but the pandemic still ended as the population developed some level of immunity based on natural exposure. That flu is the parent strain of most of the flu we see today, but it was only unusually deadly when it was new and the entire population uniquely vulnerable to it.

Here's a good, very well-sourced explainer on the current state of the science (as of about a month ago) regarding sterilizing immunity. https://www.verywellhealth.com/covid-19-vaccines-and-sterilizing-immunity-5092148

 

[Joe in VA]

Daily vaccinations are MUCH higher than a few weeks ago, the daily numbers aren't really how you gauge the way they are going. Production will be higher next week than this week, and we will likely have 50-60M JNJ single dose vaccines come on line within a month. We're looking at 120M+ vaccinated by March even without a big increase in production. Add that to the # with antibodies and the trajectory should continue to look VERY good.

 

[Jonfw2]

Daily vaccinations are MUCH higher than a few weeks ago, the daily numbers aren't really how you gauge the way they are going. Production will be higher next week than this week, and we will likely have 50-60M JNJ single dose vaccines come on line within a month. We're looking at 120M+ vaccinated by March even without a big increase in production. Add that to the # with antibodies and the trajectory should continue to look VERY good.

Joe, I must say after seeing your posts the last few days: huge fan.

Thanks for your sensible contributions!

 

[Jonfw2]

Let me give you a personal example of how and WHY vaccine numbers will keep improving per day:

My uncle is over 80 and lives in California. He was told weeks ago that he had to get vaccinated through his hospital. Only option. His hospital just told him daily they had no supply and would let him know when they did.

So last Friday, he got an email that everyone in San Diego who was eligible could register for a massive vaccine drive at Petco Park (home of the Padres). He got an appointment for six days later (yesterday) and was in and out in one hour.

More and more states and areas are figuring out what works. As we speak.