AZ will be the same too next week. Too bad my parents don’t want to travel
PFE delaying shipments / production for vaccines coming from their EU plant. US still on track, EU/Canada less so.
1 Like
My mother (age 65) just got the Pfizer vaccine today in New York State, at the fairgrounds in Syracuse.
I was able to “find” open appointments in a creative way, although it seems like NYS might have clamped down on that already.
4 Likes
Congrats on finding the appointment.
I hope they’ve be finished by the start of the gun show.
Washington Post these days, just letting you know where they stand on their priorities.
But speed comes at a cost of favoring individuals with greater privilege who live in more well-resourced areas.
Relying on existing places of health-care delivery means that those who are uninsured, lack primary care physicians and reside in underserved areas will face more barriers to access. A “first come, first serve” approach will leave out many of the most vulnerable, who may not be able to phone a hotline right as it opens or camp out overnight to get a shot… Given how much covid-19 has disproportionately affected communities of color and low-income individuals, an exclusive emphasis on speed could worsen existing disparities.
What would it look like to prioritize equity instead? The federal government could identify areas with predominant minority populations and direct more doses there, even if it runs the risk of these areas having lower demand and vaccines ending up unused. Vaccines could be saved for those who reside in the most underserved Zip codes, as some members of the D.C. Council have suggested, even if there is higher demand from other surrounding areas. If minority members of priority groups express vaccine hesitancy, they could be given time for targeted education rather than immediately redistributing their doses.
Let me translate their proposal from “woke” to English
old mostly white people should continue to die from the virus so we can offer poor younger black people a vaccine they mostly won’t take anyway. And, after they refuse, we still shouldn’t give those unwanted vaccines to people who want it, and instead we should keep them on ice while we give these reluctant folks some extra convincing.
They should have gone broke years ago peddling this nonsense, but I guess Bezos had enough foresight to know it’s harder to get canceled when you own a major newspaper, something Trump perhaps learned too late. What’s $250M for the right to speak to the public?
4 Likes
Replying here on vaccine policy to this post,
Looking at over represented deaths by population subgroup isn’t the best way to see how to save lives. For example, if you compare the death rate per case from the CA numbers above,
Latino = 14.3k/1.115M = 0.0124 or about 1.25 deaths per case
White = 9.7k/415k = 0.0235 or about 2 1/3 deaths per case
Said another way, among people equally likely to be infected otherwise, these numbers show that if you vaccinate 100 such Latinos with a perfect vaccine you will save 1.25 people, while if you did it with whites, it would save 2.3 people. This is because, as you might expect, the white population demographic is CA is much older than the Hispanic one and age is a much bigger risk factor than race for covid.
age is the strongest predictor of mortality, with risk climbing after age 55. Patients under the age of 50 with COVID-19 have only a 1 percent chance of dying. Those 85 and older have at least a 34 percent chance of dying if they get COVID-19.
This is partly why doing things like vaccinating prisoners or front line workers instead of the elderly doesn’t make a lot of sense. Even if you think stopping one younger aged farm worker from getting it prevents the spread to 20 others, it would still be better to vaccinate an 85 year old since you’d expect 0.35 deaths from the latter vs 0.18 deaths from the whole group of the former. These are currently equal priority under the CA vaccine scheme.
The reason you’re seeing over representation by race is because for whatever reason, some groups are more likely to get infected (due to line of work, lack of adherence to precautions, systemic racism, or whatever), but that’s different than their health risks.
1 Like
That assumption seems to require showing the groups are being tested similar amounts, which presents a problem.
Yes, which all figures into chance of dieing from it…
You won’t find people disagreeing with this… welll except 85+ is very old and more risk from a vaccine as well, because they might be too frail for the (relative to an infection) very minor shock to the system.
You best protect these people by vaccinating everyone who would interact with them and controlling the infection in the population at large.
I told the RN that this was the start of the gun show as I rolled up my sleeve. No laughs 
3 Likes
similar to whooping cough with infants.
which is already figured into the chances of dying reflected in the chart.
Think about it this way, if you’ve got 10 high risk people (old whatever) and 1000 nearly zero risk people (college kids), where do you put your vaccines if you’ve got 10 of them? The old people, not the spreaders.
Only in situations like nursing homes where there are a very limited number of contacts to your high risk people can you try to control it that way.
we are (were) trying to eradicate the disease too, but I think that’s too late with variants and our behavior
Israel’s already over 27% vaccinated
Both of my parents fall into this category (if you overlook my father remaining at Jack Benny’s age). Neither of them or frail/fragile, but neither have a desire for the vaccine. They’re leary of it.
ETA: Also, my mother (and probably father) have already had it, so they figure the vaccine is superfluous.
1 Like
Israel has smart people and prepared way ahead of the US.
CDC now saying you can mix and match your mRNA vaccine shots, but try not to. Nothing to back this up - seems like a bad idea to me.
3 Likes
I can’t find the actual guidance, but here’s what the article says (emphasis mine):
Sounds like exceptional circumstance. Both mRNA vaccines work the same way, right? I would expect them to be “biologically” interchangeable, we just don’t (and may not) have any tests to prove it. So the question really is whether it’s better to receive just one shot, or take a chance (50/50?) at mixing with a 2nd shot.
You Don’t Mess with the Zohan
2 Likes
Yes, and then they can apply for their educational forgiveness handout, payoff, whatever-the-official-marketing-approved-name-is. 
This is an excellent article on the different major vaccines, and in particular, how much partial protection one might expect after the first shot of the two shot ones.
Short answer - none for two weeks, then quite a bit - probably closer to the full level provided by the vaccine than the early 50% estimates suggested. Those citing 50% were including people who got sick in the first 0-2 weeks before their bodies would have had time to make antibodies from the first vaccine shot.
3 Likes
Question - what is “partial protection”? How are you 50% protected against something you either have or you do not have? Its not like you can get 50% infected.
Isnt that 50% representative of the amount of people who are protected by a single dose, not the protection level on an individual basis?
1 Like