I just heard a radio ad for a supermarket, where the woman was stressing because of all of the people she’s hosting at Thanksgiving. Sigh.
So was she stressing over the logistics of hosting all those people for Thanksgiving, or stressing over putting all those people’s lives at risk?
Not a mention about not having people over. It was all about the logistics.
Yeah, I figured that was likely the case since it was an ad for a supermarket. Of course, what these types of ads do is to normalize the idea of still having people over for Thanksgiving this year, when every infectious disease expert is saying that’s the last thing people should be doing.
People are very suggestible (which is why advertising works), especially if it’s what they want to do anyway, and especially if they think everyone else is doing it. (i.e. Well, if [blank] is having everyone over for Thanksgiving, it must be OK!)
Not to mention the fact that a lot of people are oblivious to the news and what health experts are advising in the first place.
I’ve been wondering the same thing. Here are some possibilities:
- The Moderna vaccine is in a different solvent (or has different additives in the aqueous solvent) and something in the solution helps stabilize the little globes of mRNA
- The lipid pouch holding the bits of Moderna mRNA is structurally different from the Pfizer one, making it a little more stable and protecting the mRNA at less extreme temperatures.
- The Pfizer vaccine is comparable, but they didn’t test it at milder temperatures.
While -70C is harder to get than an ordinary freezer, it’s not quite as rare and difficult as some of the press would have you believe. I worked in a research lab in the 1970s and we had a chest freezer that we referred to as the -70 freezer. I wore gloves when I fished stuff out of it. This wasn’t a huge, fancy lab – this was one of many many ordinary labs at a local hospital. (We also had a fridge, and our fridge came from Sears. This was not a lab that bought fancy stuff for the sake of burning grant money.)
And those freezers are used for a lot of research. I’m told there’s currently more demand than supply, but they are a thing that can be had “off the shelf” so to speak.
And we just had the governor of California attending a party over the weekend.
COVID apparently was circulating in Italy a few months before the first reported case in Wuhan:
I do wonder if they’ve made sure the tests aren’t detecting antibodies to other coronaviruses, such as those that cause colds.
Thanks! Interesting and illuminating!
I get it that research facilities would have those freezers, but how many of the places people would go to get vaccinated–pharmacies, doctor’s offices, etc.–do? If they’re not terribly expensive, I could see some of those places getting them in, but could supply keep up with sudden, overwhelming demand?
I’m betting Pfizer has already considered this. I wonder what their take is .
Was that the b-day party at French Laundry or a newer one? If it’s a newer one he needs to be given a serious dope slap.
It was the French Laundry party.
Pfizer has developed a storage/shipping container that’s good for … I think 15 days.
Many doctor’s offices are at hospitals, and could have access to a shared freezer. Pharmacies and independent doctor’s offices are not going to be able to stock this.
When I was a kid I vaguely remember waiting in an enormous line to get the rubella vaccine. I think that’s how this will play out. Some site will advertise and attract enough people that they will be able to use up one shipment of vaccine. And people will line up (masked, outdoors, spread apart) and several hundred people will get vaccinated, all in a row. And those same people (or most of them) will come back 4 weeks later for the second dose. Think of it as a vaccine drive, not as a walk-up sort of thing.
According to the NY Times report, it’s this.
I think they should do workplace drives. The vaccine can go a few hours in just a normal fridge, I believe - load up a few thousand doses and start hitting the big significant workplaces that have had to stay open - factories, meat-packing plants, warehouses. They’re prime vectors for covid spread, you can easily keep track of who you’ve given it to, you can find them again when you need them, and they don’t even need time off to get it.
I remember the same – standing in a long line, with my mom, probably in the basement of a school, waiting to get a shot from the big injector gun.
Around here I think they’re starting planning for drive-up vaccinations. You don’t get out of the car, just roll down the window and present your arm. – I remember, a number of years ago and well before covid, they ran a test of this system using flu shots; you could get a free flu shot by participating in the test. So the local people have at least a little experience to draw on.
– what I vaguely remember, as a kid, was being in a car jammed full of other little kids (long before it was only one to a seat), all of us on our way to get the first widely available polio shot.
Interesting. The only shot I ever got from an injection gun was for smallpox.
Honestly, I may well be remembering a smallpox shot (I’d guess I was 5 or 6). Either way, it was definitely a mass public vaccination thingy.
Those storage issues are going to be difficult for poorer countries. The WHO is setting up a fund to pay for it, but this makes the logistics much harder. Also, apparently, the richer countries are already buying up all of the supply.
As someone said: Vaccines won’t stop the pandemic; vaccinations will.
The vaccine is necessary, but not sufficient. We’ll have to keep up masks and distancing for a while. But it’s nice to have a light at the distant end of the tunnel.
Woo hoo! Got it in three. 
For myself, I know what the vaccination was, but either I remember getting it when I was no more than 2, or I was required to get it after routine vaccination stopped in the US, because I was traveling internationally. I can’t find anything about when it stopped being required for travel here.