All about risk
Excerpt:
The Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines are more than 80% effective at preventing hospitalisations from COVID-19 in those over 80 after one dose of either shot, Public Health England (PHE) said on Monday, citing a pre-print study.
Author(s): Alistair Smout
Publication Date: 2 March 2021
Publication Site: Reuters
Excerpt:
Administering Covid-19 vaccines comes with a valuable perk for retail pharmacies: access to troves of consumer data.
Chains such as CVS Health Corp., Walmart Inc. and Walgreens-Boots Alliance, Inc. are collecting data from millions of customers as they sign up for shots, enrolling them in patient systems and having recipients register customer profiles.
The retailers say they are using the information to promote their stores and services, tailor marketing and keep in touch with consumers. The companies also say the information is critical in streamlining vaccinations and improving record-keeping, while ensuring only qualified people are receiving shots.
Author(s): Sharon Terlep
Publication Date: 2 March 2021
Publication Site: Wall Street Journal
Link: https://blog.d4bl.org/racial-disparities-in-covid19-vaccination-data/
Graphic:
Excerpt:
Below is a chart containing data from a number of states and Washington, D.C. to help visualize the gap between how many Black people are dying from COVID-19 and how many are receiving the vaccine. U.S. states and the percentages of Black people are respectively on the y- and x-axes. For each location, there are 3 data points:
Percent of State’s Black Population (Pct Population Black/AA): How many residents of the state identify as Black/African-American. Displayed as the blue dot.
Percent of State’s Vaccinated Population that are Black (Pct Vaccinations Black/AA): How many residents of the state have received at least one vaccine dose and identify as Black/African-American. Displayed as the gray dot.
Percent of State’s COVID-19 Deaths that are Black (Pct COVID Deaths Black/AA): How many residents of the state who died from COVID-19 identified as Black/African-American. Displayed as the orange dot.
Author(s): Paul Watkins
Publication Date: 25 February 2021
Publication Site: Data for Black Lives Blog
Link: https://nypost.com/2021/03/01/tensions-over-vaccine-equity-pit-rural-against-urban-america/
Excerpt:
The U.S. vaccine campaign has heightened tensions between rural and urban America, where from Oregon to Tennessee to upstate New York complaints are surfacing of a real — or perceived — inequity in vaccine allocation.
In some cases, recriminations over how scarce vaccines are distributed have taken on partisan tones, with rural Republican lawmakers in Democrat-led states complaining of “picking winners and losers,” and urbanites traveling hours to rural GOP-leaning communities to score COVID-19 shots when there are none in their city.
In Oregon, state GOP lawmakers walked out of a Legislative session last week over the Democratic governor’s vaccine plans, citing rural vaccine distribution among their concerns. In upstate New York, public health officials in rural counties have complained of disparities in vaccine allocation and in North Carolina, rural lawmakers say too many doses were going to mass vaccine centers in big cities.
Author(s): Associated Press
Publication Date: 1 March 2021
Publication Site: NY Post
Excerpt:
In Israel, there is concern that the unvaccinated population, whatever their reasons, will be left behind or shunned. Small protests warning that green passes create a new hierarchy in society have been held.
Fresh ethical questions were raised last week when the Knesset, the country’s parliament, agreed to give local authorities personal details of unvaccinated residents to help them carry out targeted inoculation campaigns. Tamar Zandberg, a lawmaker, said it was a “slippery slope” for personal privacy.
Author(s): Oliver Holmes, Quique Kierszenbaum
Publication Date: 28 February 2021
Publication Site: The Guardian
Link: https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/02/08/1017621/why-arent-kids-getting-vaccinated/
Excerpt:
While much of the world is engaged in a frantic scramble to get vaccinated against covid-19, there’s one group noticeably absent from the queues of people at vaccine clinics: children.
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is still approved for use only in those aged 16 years or older, and the Moderna vaccine is only for adults. Both are now in trials for younger age groups, and results are expected by the summer. The Oxford-AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines are also due to start trials in children soon. But in a world where most vaccines are given to children under two, why is it that during a global pandemic, children are being left behind? And what does it mean for how the pandemic will unfold in adults?
One reason children are not yet priorities for vaccination is that they are much less affected by SARS-CoV-2 infection than adults. Children make up nearly 13% of all cases reported in the United States so far, but less than 3% of all reported hospitalizations and less than 0.21% of all covid-19 deaths. When they have symptoms, they are similar to adults’—cough, fever, sore throat, and runny nose—but less severe.
Author(s): Bianca Nogrady
Publication Date: 8 February 2021
Publication Site: MIT Tech Review
Excerpt:
The coronavirus vaccination programs for the world’s richest countries are now in full swing. Almost one-quarter of the UK’s adult population has now had a first dose. The US, while not quite at that pace, has now given at least one dose to more than 35 million people.
But for low-income countries around the globe, the picture is very different—and may be for some time. Many of the world’s poorest are still waiting for the first doses to reach them. Estimates by the Economist Intelligence Unit suggest that some 85 countries in the developing world may not be fully vaccinated until 2023 at the earliest. For example, in January, the World Health Organization warned that the West African nation of Guinea was the only low-income country on the continent to have started vaccinating: but only 25 people (all senior government officials, the AP reported) out of the country’s population of almost 13 million had received a dose at that point.
One of the big problems is there isn’t yet any global rollout, only talk of it, says Chris Dickey, who directs the global and environmental public health program at New York University’s Global Health School. Rodriguez-Barraquer agrees. “The burden of illness and death could be prevented if there was more global coordination in vaccine supply,” she says.
Author(s): Katharine Gammonarchive page
Publication Date: 13 February 2021
Publication Site: MIT Tech Review
Link: https://www.governing.com/next/States-Vaccine-Plan-Failed-Causing-Disorder-and-Mistrust.html
Excerpt:
In the months leading up to the first COVID-19 vaccine shipments, Washington state health officials agonized over which residents should be vaccinated before others. They surveyed 18,000 people and convened focus groups, debating race, age and essential occupations.
But unlike some other states, the state Department of Health (DOH) neglected to plan for basic logistics that would have allowed for quick vaccination of those most vulnerable to the disease.
They didn’t enlist the National Guard. They didn’t centralize vaccine appointments. Key scheduling and reporting software arrived late. Providers were given vials but no strategy to process patients.
Author(s): MIKE REICHER, THE SEATTLE TIMES
Publication Date: 16 February 2021
Publication Site: Governing
Graphic:
Excerpt:
It’s possible some majority-white ZIP codes have higher rates of vaccination in part because they have higher concentrations of people in groups prioritized for the first round of vaccines.
Experts said the findings reflect festering systemic problems, including poor health care access and distrust of vaccines, colliding amid a chaotic rollout that failed to ensure equal access to communities of color.
Author(s): Nada Hassanein, Grace Hauck, Jayme Fraser, Aleszu Bajak, USA TODAY
Publication Date: 15 February 2021
Publication Site: USA Today
Graphic:
Excerpt:
Deaths from coronavirus have fallen by 62% among over-80s since 24 January, the point at which a third of that age group had some level of immunity against coronavirus, having received their first vaccine dose at least two weeks earlier, data analysis by the Guardian showed.
This drop was larger than among groups with a lower level of vaccination. Among people aged between 20 and 64 the drop in deaths was 47%, while the drop among those aged 65 to 79 was 51%.
Author(s): Anna Leach, Ashley Kirk, and Pamela Duncan
Publication Date: 16 February 2021
Publication Site: The Guardian
Excerpt:
Gov. Ned Lamont said Monday he is throwing out the state’s current playbook for the COVID-19 vaccine rollout – which had prioritized people with underlying medical conditions and certain types of workers, such as grocery store and agricultural employees – and is shifting to a system that is strictly age-based, with the next round of shots open to people who are 55 to 64 beginning March 1.
The announcement came just as the state was supposed to open up the next round of vaccines to “essential workers” such as teachers and other school staff, grocery store employees and transportation workers, as well as people 16 and older who have underlying health conditions like heart disease and diabetes.
State officials said teachers and others who work in the schools will still be prioritized in the coming weeks, with special clinics devoted just to those employees. Schools staff is expected to become eligible beginning March 1, with a goal of giving all workers who want a shot access to a first dose by late March.
Author(s): JENNA CARLESSO and KEITH M. PHANEUF
Publication Date: 22 February 2021
Publication Site: CT Mirror
Link: https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2021/02/17/third-wave-of-covid-19-continues-to-ease/
Excerpt:
The seven-day moving average number of daily cases is about 100,000.
The seven-day moving average number of daily deaths has been over 2,000 for 10 weeks.
As of Feb. 11, about 35 million U.S. residents had received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose.
Author(s): Allison Bell
Publication Date: 17 February 2021
Publication Site: Think Advisor