The COVID-19 vaccine exists. Side effect statistics mirror other vaccines with de minimis risks, mostly potential allergic reactions. The FDA joins governmental agencies from other nations (like the UK and Canada) to approve the safety and efficacy of several vaccines. We do not get herd immunity containment without 70% of our population generating antibodies or appropriate immune responses. We are not sure if those who have contracted the virus and recovered have sustainable immunity, and we do not know how long immunity will last for those who are inoculated. In short, we have a pretty short time to get the vaccine out there as quickly as we can.
Unfortunately, there are so many variables working against the necessary efforts. Thinking that the pandemic was ending soon, the government failed to order enough of the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine. To this day, there is no clear structure on how vaccine that has been ordered and is arriving will get to the ultimate recipients, and there are still questions about priorities. Despite a greater degree of cooperation in Joe Biden’s transition, the Trump administration has yet to share the details of a prospective rollout. We do not know why. The President is distracted, still holding super-spreader rallies with maskless COVID deniers and marginalizers, and pretty much ignoring the soaring infection and mortality rates, pretending that the dwindling remaining hospital/ICU capacity just plain does not exist. Meanwhile, more Americans are getting infected and dying than at any other time during the pandemic.
As restauranteurs and bar owners protest rising lockdowns, mythology about safety continues to soar. It’s not as if those small businesses do not have a point. If they operate with outdoor dining, masks and safe distancing deployed, it can work. The problem remains that when a minority of these venues ignore the safety rules, they totally become super-spreaders. If there were a way to eliminate these scofflaws, I suspect we could take a cautious approach to reopening in those counties where lockdowns have been reinstated. But many chiefs of police are simply refusing to use their officers in what they wrongfully believe is a political, not a medical, issue. It just does not work when people ignore realities and create their own rules… and expose others to the disease.
We are learning a lot from recent studies in South Korea, exploding mythologies as to how safe any indoor activity might be. Even a 20-foot perimeter is turning out not to guarantee safety. Victoria Kim, writing for the December 10th Los Angeles Times, presents the South Korean results: “Dr. Lee Ju-hyung has largely avoided restaurants in recent months, but on the few occasions he’s dined out, he’s developed a strange, if sensible, habit: whipping out a small anemometer to check the airflow… It’s a precaution he has been taking since a June experiment in which he and colleagues re-created the conditions at a restaurant in Jeonju, a city in southwestern South Korea, where diners contracted the coronavirus from an out-of-town visitor. Among them was a high school student who became infected after five minutes of exposure from more than 20 feet away.
“The results of the study, for which Lee and other epidemiologists enlisted the help of an engineer who specializes in aerodynamics, were published last week [first week in December] in the Journal of Korean Medical Science. The conclusions raised concerns that the widely accepted standard of six feet of social distance may not be far enough to keep people safe… The study — adding to a growing body of evidence on airborne transmission of the virus — highlighted how South Korea’s meticulous and often invasive contact tracing regime has enabled researchers to closely track how the virus moves through populations.
“‘In this outbreak, the distances between infector and infected persons were ... farther than the generally accepted 2 meter [6.6-foot] droplet transmission range,’ the study’s authors wrote. ‘The guidelines on quarantine and epidemiological investigation must be updated to reflect these factors for control and prevention of COVID-19.’
“KJ Seung, an infectious disease expert and chief of strategy and policy for the nonprofit Partners in Health’s Massachusetts COVID response, said the study was a reminder of the risk of indoor transmission as many nations hunker down for the winter. The official definition of a ‘close contact’ — 15 minutes, within six feet — isn’t foolproof… In his work on Massachusetts’ contact tracing program, he said, business owners and school administrators have fixated on the “close contact” standard, thinking just 14 minutes of exposure, or spending hours in the same room at a distance farther than six feet, is safe… ‘There’s a real misconception about this in the public,’ said Seung, who was not involved in the South Korea study. ‘They’re thinking, if I’m not a close contact, I will magically be protected.’”
But as we seem to be nearing the finish line, reality seems equally inclined to keep moving that finishing line farther away. You get all of these glowing projections from HHS and the CDC on how many units of the vaccine will be deployed by “when,” with absolutely no details on how that could possibly be accomplished. What’s worse, the litany of mixed messages, which continue to emanate from the White House, continue to marginalize the severity of the most recent surge and suggest that the pandemic is already dissipating… when it absolutely is getting worse fast.
With the Christmas and New Year’s “gathering” holidays on the immediate horizon, as the nation reels from the after-infections from Thanksgiving, according to the credible admonition of Dr Anthony Fauci (who will continue into the Biden administration), mid-January could be our darkest experience with the virus. Too many people are picking the government message that they want to believe, justified or not, and acting accordingly. We could face 500,000+ deaths by the end of the first quarter if the disease keeps accelerating. We’re at 300,000 now.
With the very notion of “I’ll overrule the scientists” vector of the President’s words, combined with his continue marginalization of the pandemic and the accelerated, “Operation Warp Speed” mantra of the vaccine development program, we currently have enough skepticism in the general population – particularly in minority communities – such that herd immunity just might elude us for much longer than people would believe, with even many of the willing expecting to wait to see how it goes.
The December 10th Associated Press drills down into some of the details: “As states frantically prepare to begin months of vaccinations that could end the COVID-19 pandemic, a new poll finds only about half of Americans are ready to roll up their sleeves when their turn comes… The survey from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows about a quarter of U.S. adults aren’t sure if they want to get vaccinated against COVID-19. Roughly another quarter say they won’t.
“Many on the fence have safety concerns and want to watch how the initial rollout fares — skepticism that could hinder the campaign against the scourge that has killed nearly 290,000 Americans. Experts estimate that at least 70% of the U.S. population needs to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity, or the point at which enough people are protected that the coronavirus can be held in check… ‘Trepidation’ is a good word. I have a little bit of trepidation towards it,’ said Kevin Buck, a 53-year-old former Marine from Eureka, Calif…
“In the survey of 1,117 American adults conducted between Dec. 3 and Dec. 7, about 3 in 10 said they are very or extremely confident that the first available vaccines will have been properly tested for safety and effectiveness. About an equal number said they are not confident. The rest fell somewhere in the middle… About 7 in 10 of those who said they won’t get vaccinated are concerned about side effects. Pfizer and Moderna say testing has uncovered no serious ones so far. As with many vaccines, recipients may experience fever, fatigue or sore arms from the injection, signs the immune system is revving up.
“But other risks might not crop up until vaccines are more widely used. Britain health authorities are examining two possible allergic reactions on the first day the country began mass vaccinations with the Pfizer shot… Adding to the challenge are political divisions that have hamstrung public health efforts to curtail the outbreak. The poll found 6 in 10 Democrats said they would get vaccinated, compared with 4 in 10 Republicans. About a third of Republicans said they would not.” It is so frustrating that so many of us, obviously science averse, have taken a serious medical problem and turned it into a political choice, a reflection of party loyalty. Totally insane.
A little post-script. On Friday December 11th, Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, telephoned FDA head Stephen Hahn on behalf of the President. Twice. Without knowing that Hahn was about to approve the BionTech-Pfizer vaccine (he did), Meadows told Hahn that if he did not approve the vaccine by December 12th, he would be fired. That little telephonic exchange leaked to the public, notwithstanding efforts by Dr Hahn to operate as if there were no interference. Stupid on stupid as public receptivity to the vaccine continues to fall:
“Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University’s school of public health, called the pressure an ‘unforced error’ by the White House that could chip away at public confidence in a vaccine… ‘It creates a veneer of political meddling,’ Jha said. ‘Every time you see the president get involved, you see vaccine confidence drop by 10%.’” Associated Press, December 11th. Now that Donald Trump has run out of courts to reverse the election results, at least he will be gone in a little over a month!
I’m Peter Dekom, and an army of high-profile influencers have a lot of influencing to do, and the burden on the President-elect is substantial.
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