Similar studies in the UK start with the observation that 10% of the UK population was immune to COVID even before the outbreak. If Brazil had more corona virus before COVID, their natural immunity might be even higher.
More on the double-mask issue.
More on Iowa lifting restrictions.
‘Our rights we will prize, and our rights we will maintain’
I could do a study of tampon purchasers and find that 92% of them were female. Sample population matters.
107,855,946 total cases
2,364,978 dead
79,871,568 recovered
In the US:
27,897,214 total cases
483,200 dead
17,827,323 recovered
Yesterday’s numbers for comparison:
I’m afraid this is overly optimistic but would love to be wrong:
What he meant was that by April the priority system will fall away and an unseemly scrum encompassing all the 250M Americans who want a shot will start.
I’m not being a naysayer or a cynic here. We were eventually going to get to the place where it’s open to anyone = open to everyone. The problem is going to be all the sharp elbows jostling at the front and all the logistical hiccups scaling up point of delivery from what it is today to 10x what it is today.
Gonna be an ugly scrum with lots of trampled folks. Who “needs” or “deserves” a shot sooner will not be part of the outcome.
The “bright side”, such as it is, is the mind-bogglingly large number of Americans who intend to voluntarily sit it out. I’d much rather fight through a 250M scrum for my shot than through a 350M scrum.
Will it be that many? An awful lot of people fall into 1A or 1B.
I’m ballparking. Feel free to pick your own favorite number.
My point largely remains: If you (any you) thought the phone lines and internet sites were jammed with all the 65 yos trying to get shots, imagine what happens when the entire under-65 populace is added to the baying horde. Noting that we won’t have finished the over-65s by then either. At least not everywhere.
The NYT reports 33.8M one dose recipients and 10.5M two dose recipients so far in the USA. [total 54.8M doses]
Current injection rate is 1.56M per day (also per NYT)
April 1 is in 48 days.
April 15 is in 63 days. (cite: calendar)
63*1.58M = 99.54M shots by April 15
My rough estimate is 54M fully vaccinated and 42M single shot by 15 April. Sounds good to me, but I don’t know how big groups 1 and 2 are. And the J&J rollout should improve these numbers.
About 1 in 3 Americans say they definitely or probably won’t get the COVID-19 vaccine, according to a new poll that some experts say is discouraging news if the U.S. hopes to achieve herd immunity and vanquish the outbreak.
The poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that while 67 percent of Americans plan to get vaccinated or have already done so, 15 percent are certain they won’t and 17 percent say probably not. Many expressed doubts about the vaccine’s safety and effectiveness.
The poll suggests that substantial skepticism persists more than a month and a half into a U.S. vaccination drive that has encountered few if any serious side effects. Resistance was found to run higher among younger people, people without college degrees, Black Americans and Republicans.
…
Also, the under 16s won’t be trying to get a shot, as the vaccine isn’t approved for them. And almost people get vaccinated, case counts will go down, and it will feel less urgent. And systems will be better.
I guess we will see, but I think it will be better, not worse.
Surely this won’t be allowed to happen!
Japan may have several million fewer coronavirus vaccine doses than originally planned because the country does not have the appropriate syringes, in another setback to one of the slower vaccination rollouts among developed economies.
The Pfizer vaccine normally contains five doses per vial. But a special syringe, known as a low dead space syringe, which expels more medicine from the space between a syringe’s needle and plunger, can eke out six doses per vial.
“We will use all the syringes we have that can draw six doses, but it will, of course, not be enough as more shots are administered,” Health Minister Norihisa Tamura said Tuesday.
This means that the Pfizer vaccines, that could have been enough for 72 million people, will only cover 60 million. The Kyodo news agency reports that Japan will try to purchase additional doses from Pfizer.
…
The US has the same problem though right? It used to be five but then someone using the low waste syringe figured we could get 6. So Pfizer is all “okay 6” now. We will just ship less. Thanks suckers!
The categories and priority groups vary by state, so it’s impossible to say who will have been vaccinated by April.
A doctor in Houston is being prosecuted for giving leftover vaccine doses to various, eligible people. CNN Article here, and a more recent New York Times article is here (but paywalled).
The Times article says that medical societies sided with the physician, the judge scolded the prosecutor, and the case was dismissed.
It’s quite upsetting to be accused of a crime, and also expensive in that you have to hire a lawyer. However, so long as you weren’t wrongly convicted, I would say that the system worked.
Despite the judge dismissing the case, the NYT article said that the district attorney is still going to present it before the grand jury.
Re grand jury, it’s probably an idle threat, but I should have mentioned it.
Here’s a legitimate link with less likelihood of a the paywall:
This bit from the NYT article was interesting, “Dr. Gokal said that no one from the district attorney’s office had ever contacted him to hear his version of events. And when his lawyer requested copies of the written protocols and waiting list referred to in the complaint, a prosecutor told him by email that there were no written protocols from late December; nor had a written wait list yet been found.”
Elsewhere, the article mentions that what he was being told was that he gave the vaccine to too many “Indian people”. He was calling people from his phone contacts, and given that he is Pakistani, I’m not surprised that many of the people were also Pakistani or Indian. Remember that the vial was opened at 6:45pm to administer a dose to the last scheduled patient. After that, there was a window of perhap six hours during which the vaccine remained viable.