Tag: vaccination

Covid-19 Vaccinations Are Slowing, So Officials Target Markets, Schools

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-19-vaccinations-are-slowing-so-officials-target-markets-schools-11620044791

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As demand wanes, states, municipalities and healthcare providers are trying everything from one-on-one education in nontraditional locations to incentives including a free drink and cash.

West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice said recently the state would offer a $100 savings bond to residents aged 16 to 35 who receive a vaccination. The state had been an early leader in vaccinations.

In Detroit, $50 prepaid debit cards are being offered to drivers who take a city resident for a shot. In Connecticut, Gov. Ned Lamont rolled out a campaign where some restaurants will give a free drink to anyone who shows a vaccination card.

Author(s): Melanie Grayce West, Talal Ansari

Publication Date: 3 May 2021

Publication Site: Wall Street Journal

U.S. Lifts Pause, Will Restart J&J Vaccinations with Warning

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.nationalreview.com/news/u-s-should-restart-jj-vaccinations-with-warning-cdc-advisory-group-says/

Excerpt:

The United States will resume Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccinations after health officials lifted an 11-day pause on the shots at the recommendation of a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory panel on Friday.

The pause in inoculations was triggered by concerns over six cases of a rare blood clot that occurred out of more than 7 million people who had received the vaccine in the U.S.

The panel voted 10 to 4 to recommend restarting the vaccinations, saying the benefits of the shot outweigh the rare risk of blood clots. However, the group suggested that the vaccine include a warning about the increased risk of the very rare but severe blood clots.

Author(s): Brittany Bernstein

Publication Date: 23 April 2021

Publication Site: National Review

First Dose of Chinese Covid-19 Vaccine Offers Little Protection, Chile Learns

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/first-dose-of-chinese-covid-19-vaccine-offers-little-protection-chile-learns-11618775502

Excerpt:

Across Chile — which has mounted one of the world’s most rapid vaccination campaigns using the vaccine made by Chinese drugmaker Sinovac Biotech Ltd. — health authorities are scrambling to deal with a surge in new infections and deaths.

More than 7.6 million people, half of Chile’s adult population, have received at least one vaccine dose, most made by the Chinese drugmaker, making the country a testing ground for a vaccine Beijing is supplying to countries across the developing world.

The problem, public-health officials say, was that people in general overestimated the effectiveness of the vaccine after only one of the two recommended doses and moved to ease up on pandemic-control restrictions too soon.

“With one dose, we know the protection is very weak,” said Claudia Cortes, an infectious-disease expert at the Santa Maria Clinic in Santiago, where about 10% of the Covid-19 patients at her hospital have received one shot. “It was not clearly explained that you need two doses — that you need to wait.”

Author(s): Ryan Dube

Publication Date: 18 April 2021

Publication Site: Wall Street Journal

Covid-19 Cases Rise in Parts of U.S. Even as Vaccinations Pick Up

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-faces-critical-weeks-as-covid-19-cases-rise-again-in-some-places-11618845433

Excerpt:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Monday that the seven-day average of new Covid-19 cases is at more than 67,443, up 1% from the prior seven-day average of 66,702. Four weeks ago, the seven-day average was 53,000 cases a day, said Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, during a press briefing Monday.

The U.S. is in a “complicated stage” of the pandemic, Dr. Walensky said.

“The more people get vaccinated, the fewer infections there will be, which means fewer variants will emerge and fewer breakthrough infections will occur and the quicker we can get back to doing the things we love,” said Dr. Walensky.

More than a quarter of the U.S. population has now been fully vaccinated against Covid-19, according to CDC data. The country administered an average of 3.2 million doses a day over the past week, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of CDC data.

As of Monday, all American adults are eligible to receive a Covid-19 vaccine, with every state meeting the April 19 deadline set by President Biden.

Author(s): Melanie Grayce West

Publication Date: 19 April 2021

Publication Site: Wall Street Journal

Massachusetts COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker

Mary Pat Campbell
COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker

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COVID-19 vaccination, particularly the disparity of rates between racial and ethnic groups, takes up much of the current talk about the pandemic. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) publishes vaccination data every day, for municipalities, tracking rates by age group, racial and ethnic groups, and by gender.

Pioneer is proud to present a new vaccine tracker, the newest tool in our COVID-19 tracking project. Pioneer distilled the vaccination data down to those who are either fully vaccinated or partially vaccinated, by all the demographic categories published by the DPH. Use the new tool below to compare rates among groups, by municipality and by county. We will update the data every week.

Date Accessed: 20 April 2021

Publication Site: Pioneer Institute

What Makes You More Likely to Get Side Effects From COVID Vaccine?

Mary Pat Campbell
What Makes You More Likely to Get Side Effects From COVID Vaccine?

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Chicago’s top doctor, Chicago Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady, broke it down Thursday, saying in Facebook Live that younger people are more likely to experience side effects “because younger people have more robust immune system broadly.”

And, according to Loafman, the body’s immune system is what creates the symptoms.

“That’s simply a reflection of the immune response, just the way we have when we get ill,” he said.

Publication Date: 13 April 2021

Publication Site: NBC Chicago

Vaccine Efficacy and the Immunity Time Spans

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://polimath.substack.com/p/vaccine-efficacy-and-the-immunity

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Let’s refer back to the Pfizer study submitted to the FDA. In that study, 18,555 people were vaccinated and 18,533 people received the placebo injection. In these groups, 7 days after the second dose was administered, we saw that the vaccinated group got infected at only 5% the rate that the placebo group was infected.

Furthermore, this is the number of cases we see over the course of a two month study. So those 9 people out of 18,555 were not symptomatic and infectious that whole time, but only for a few weeks.

So, to take CNN’s example and re-imagine it for the reality we have with this data.

Let’s say 1 million people are travelling. If everyone is unvaccinated (and the window of infection is roughly one week), there will be about 1,100 infected travelers.

If, however, everyone is vaccinated, there will be about 60 infected travelers and their chance of infecting you (my dear vaccinated friend) is reduced substantially.

Author(s): PoliMath

Publication Date: 13 April 2021

Publication Site: Marginally Compelling on substack

J&J Covid-19 Vaccine Pause Driven by Risk of Mistreating Blood Clots

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/j-j-covid-19-vaccine-was-paused-over-blood-clot-treatment-concerns-11618777554

Excerpt:

U.S. health authorities came close to simply warning about a blood-clotting risk from Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine, but they decided to recommend pausing use out of concern doctors would improperly treat the condition, people familiar with the matter said.

Over the previous four weeks, U.S. health officials had become alarmed about similar blood-clotting conditions in Europe involving a Covid-19 vaccine from AstraZeneca PLC, the people said. The officials dug into a U.S. vaccine safety database and identified the cases of great concern, but they debated what action to take.

By the night of April 12, the officials resolved that urgent action was needed, the people said. Four of six women in the U.S. who developed the clots days after vaccination had initially been given blood thinner heparin, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Its use could have worsened the patients’ condition, the people said.

Author(s): Thomas M. Burton and Betsy McKay

Publication Date: 18 April 2021

Publication Site: Wall Street Journal

Blood clots as prevalent with Pfizer and Moderna vaccine as with AstraZeneca’s: study

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/blood-clots-as-prevalent-with-pfizer-and-moderna-vaccine-as-with-astrazenecas-report-2021-04-15

Excerpt:

A study by Oxford University found the number of people who receive blood clots after getting vaccinated with a coronavirus vaccine are about the same for those who get Pfizer PFE, 2.43% and Moderna MRNA, 6.67% vaccines as they are for the AstraZeneca AZN, -0.16% vaccine that was produced with the university’s help. According to the study, 4 in 1 million people experience cerebral venous thrombosis after getting the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, versus 5 in 1 million people for the AstraZeneca vaccine. The risk of getting CVT is much higher for those who get COVID-19 — 39 in a million patients — than it is for those who get vaccinated. AstraZeneca’s vaccine use has been halted or limited in many countries on blood clot concerns.

Author(s): Steve Goldstein

Publication Date: 15 April 2021

Publication Site: Marketwatch

Covid Madness: People Fleeing a Volcanic Eruption Can’t Board the Rescue Vessels Until Vaccinated

Mary Pat Campbell
Covid Madness: People Fleeing a Volcanic Eruption Can’t Board the Rescue Vessels Until Vaccinated

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The volcano on the Caribbean Island of St Vincent has erupted. Cruise liners and Ferries are rushing to the scene to evacuate people caught by the eruption – but people are not allowed to board the cruise liners until they receive a Covid vaccination.

….

In normal circumstances people are just evacuated from a deadly disaster zones, nobody refuses anyone because they might be sick. Sick people are given medical attention if required.

But because the world has become obsessed with a disease which kills up to 1% of victims, there is a real possibility that people fleeing a natural disaster will be told they have to stay and die, unless they receive an experimental and potentially life threatening medication.

As I said, not the rescuers fault – they are the meat in the sandwich. If they don’t insist on vaccination, their reward for compassion and heroism could be to be stuck in the ocean, nobody willing to take the evacuated islanders.

Author(s): Eric Worrall

Publication Date: 11 April 2021

Publication Site: Watt’s Up With That

Bhutan vaccinated almost all its adults against covid-19 in a week

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/04/08/bhutan-vaccinated-almost-all-its-adults-against-covid-19-in-a-week

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WHEN INDIA presented Bhutan with a generous gift of covid-19 vaccines in January, the neighbouring kingdom made an unusual choice. Rather than rushing to inoculate all 800,000 of its citizens, the government sought advice from the Zhung Dratshang, a body of Buddhist monks. The stars were not auspicious, they ruled. Better to wait two months, and then to make sure that the first dose be both administered by, and given to, women born in the Year of the Monkey.

So Bhutan waited until March 27th before Tshering Zangmo administered the first jab to Ninda Dema. The injection took place at a school in the capital, Thimphu, at the auspicious hour of 9.30am, after prayers were chanted and butter lamps lit. But then there was no dallying. Within a single week a world-beating 85% of Bhutan’s adult population had received a first shot. Only two countries, Israel and the Seychelles, have vaccinated a (slightly) higher proportion of people, but both took months to do so (see chart).

Publication Date: 8 April 2021

Publication Site: The Economist

The big hole in America’s plan to fight Covid-19 variants

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/07/covid-variants-drug-manufacturing-479902

Excerpt:

Vaccine makers like Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson coped with intense global demand for their original shots by manufacturing millions of doses while the vaccines were still in clinical trials. But that is not an option now, because the companies are still racing to fulfill orders for their existing Covid-19 vaccines — and some, including Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca, are struggling with major production setbacks. Pumping out second-generation shots would require factories to switch over manufacturing lines now used for the first wave of vaccines, and in some cases fire up new production processes.

The potential manufacturing gap is the latest challenge to President Joe Biden’s promise to bring the pandemic to a close. South Africa has already rejected AstraZeneca’s vaccine because an early trial showed it wasn’t effective against the B.1.351 strain that dominates there and has now reached the United States. Another variant spreading in America — P.1, first found in Brazil — has raised similar concerns about its ability to evade some of the vaccines now in use globally. Biden administration officials are working overtime to understand how the variants’ spread could alter vaccination strategies. But the lack of manufacturing capacity is limiting America’s options.

Author(s): SARAH OWERMOHLE

Publication Date: 7 April 2021

Publication Site: Politico