Scholarship table
It's basically on the honor system.
The article mentioned it, and I “get” fear sells and gets more clicks, but the vaccine work is a modern day miracle. I don’t think people appreciate how quickly and how decisively strong these vaccines are against Covid-19. If these vaccines hadn’t arrived until late 2021, I can’t imagine how miserable I’d be. Without supply chain issues, anyone who wants a vaccine should be able to almost have both doses by Memorial Day. That’s eff’n amazing.
Right. Growing weary of the “but is a third way coming?” ...when there is no real indication one is actually coming.
Total cases in the US have plateaued in the past few days at levels that are still higher than the summer surge. With more contagious variants spreading and states rolling back restrictions, another increase is a real possibility.https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/01/cdc-director-really-worried-about-states-rolling-back-covid-measures-as-cases-appear-to-plateau-.htmlThe declines in Covid-19 cases seen since early January now appear to be stalling at around 70,000 new cases per day, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said during a White House news briefing. “With these statistics, I am really worried about more states rolling back the exact public health measures we have recommended to protect people from Covid-19.”———————We need to stay vigilant.
I know all that. Just tired of a teaspoon of fantastic news being followed by a gallon of pessimism. And a lot of the increase makes sense. Schools and colleges are back (although we are seeing minuscule numbers compared to last semester). The real question is will hospitalizations and deaths follow at the same rate?
If you want optimism, try this. If we continue with masks and social distancing for a few more months and get most people vaccinated, we might get out of this without a vaccine-resistant strain emerging. There’s your optimism.
This won’t make sense to you because your caution and patience is well established but that’s not optimism at all. That’s more of what we’ve been hearing for quite some time. “Just hold the line and mask up/lockdown/social distance for x amount of time and we’ll get through this”. That may be the best advice and guidance, but more of that guidance, even with vaccine progress, isn’t going to be some optimistic burst that gets people’s spirits up.
I keep seeing people post about getting vaccinated and I *know* they are not eligible yet. Are the vaccinators checking at all?Am I a sucker for not hunting for a shot and jumping the line?Asking for a friend.
I get what you’re saying, but I think a realistic prediction is better than an overly optimistic prediction which we then don’t achieve.
I can’t find a written story, but I just heard on the NBC news that CDC is actively studying whether people who previously had Covid only need a single dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine.If this strategy is ultimately approved, it would accelerate the rollout even further.
I never said anything about overly optimistic predictions. I actually am not talking about Scoop discussion at all.I am talking about the overall messaging around Covid and the vaccination campaign. We are selling it wrong. We need to be doing everything we can to sell people on this, and the way you do that is through hope and optimism. Not through "yeah you better get your shot before more variants pop up and oh yeah plan on wearing masks through 2021."
One other thing. We have about two and a half months left of us having the political and social will to mitigate like we have for the last year. If we are lucky. Therefore we need to do all we can to drive people to get vaccinated because I think that is going to be more of a demand issue than a supply one in about six weeks. Do you honestly think that Evers for instance will have the political will to extend a mask mandate into the summer? Doubtful. It will soon become an albatross. We are already having questions from parents and students about what next year will look like. They have no desire to go through another year like this one, and we are thinking very carefully about what precautions we are going to keep.Unless something changes drastically for the worse, people are going to be done. Restaurants and bars will open to near capacity. Schools will be likely fully in-person. Family events will be taking place. Let's make sure people are protected first and foremost.
I was listening to a WSJ podcast, and it sounds like the only reason J&J is one dose is that is how they ran their clinical trials. They didn’t test on the impact of two doses.If they go back and do that, their efficacy numbers would likely increase. They also said, don’t pass up the J&J vaccine to wait for one of the others. It’s still a very effective drug. Plus, we don’t really have the luxury of choosing our brand.
I'll also add that I bet you see J&J add in a booster based off the South African strain. That will give them their equivalent "2 dose" regime and likely boost their overall efficacy to match those of Pfizer and Moderna.Had Pfizer and Moderna went with a 1-dose trial, they would have been approved as such.
Under a White House-brokered deal, Merck will help boost supplies of its rival Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine.https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/03/02/world/covid-19-coronavirus?campaign_id=60&emc=edit_na_20210302&instance_id=0&nl=breaking-news&ref=headline®i_id=108420427&segment_id=52619&user_id=d36dcf821462fdd16ec3636710a855fa#under-a-white-house-brokered-deal-merck-will-help-boost-supplies-of-its-rival-johnson-johnsons-vaccineThe pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co will help manufacture the new Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine under a highly unusual deal, brokered by the White House. The move could substantially increase the supply of the new vaccine and ramp up the pace of vaccination just as worrisome new variants of the virus are taking hold in the United States.President Biden is expected to announce the arrangement, first reported by The Washington Post, on Tuesday, according to two senior administration officials, who confirmed the arrangement on condition of anonymity to discuss a matter that has not yet been made public. It comes just days after the Food and Drug Administration granted emergency authorization to the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.Merck is an experienced vaccine manufacturer whose own attempt at making a coronavirus vaccine was unsuccessful. Officials described the partnership between the two competitors as “historic,” and said it harkens back to Mr. Biden’s vision of a wartime effort to fight the coronavirus, similar to the manufacturing campaigns waged during World War II.According to one official involved, the administration has been scouring the manufacturing landscape for weeks, ever since it became evident that Johnson & Johnson’s was running behind on its manufacturing. But just how quickly Merck will be able to ramp up is unclear. It will take months for the company to be able to convert its facilities to manufacture and package a vaccine that it did not invent.Under the agreement, Merck will dedicate two of its facilities to production of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, which unlike the other two vaccines that have emergency approval in the U.S. requires only one shot.
The clarification helps.You're talking public messaging and what the general public will probably accept. I'm talking science and what we should do to best mitigate the threat. Very different targets, and you're right: the general public likely would see my realistic message as pessimistic.Things would probably have been different if the first message back in early 2020 was 'this is going to be a difficult fight, and we are going to have to make real sacrifices.' Instead, the messaging started with 'just the flu,' and public health officials have been fighting an uphill battle ever since.