Tag: Covid-19 Vaccine

I’ve gotten my Covid vaccinations. I’m all immunized. How ’bout you? When are you planning on getting your shots?

As I’m writing this post the number of Covid-19 vaccines that have been administered is here in the United States is 218,947,643. President Biden’s initial pledge of 100 million shots in his first 100 days in office has been more than doubled and even his updated pledge of 200 million in 100 days is a safe bet to be exceeded by more than 10%.

As President-elect Joe Biden pledged to administer 100 million vaccine shots into American arms in his first 100 days as President. He ended up more than doubling that goal. (Credit: New York Post)

27.1% of all Americans have now been fully immunized while more than 50% have had at least their first shot. Over the last month an average of about 3 million people per day have received a shot and all Americans over the age of 16 have now been declared eligible to receive their shots. (All of these statistics are courtesy of the Center for Disease Control CDC.)

The drive to get people vaccinated is one of the largest peacetime efforts ever undertaking by federal, state and local governments. (Credit: Beaumont Health)

All of that means that we are reaching a critical turning point in our war against a disease that in only a single year has killed more Americans than any of our wars except the civil war. 570,611 Americans have lost their lives to Covid-19 and 31,950,831, nearly one tenth of our country’s population have been sickened according the Johns Hopkins University Covid-19 resource center.

At its peak the covid pandemic death toll was so high that makeshift morgues had to be used to store all of the dead! (Credit: The New York Times)

If we can only continue to vaccinate people at our current pace we will almost certainly reach ‘herd immunity’ within another month or two. Such an achievement will mean that by mid summer the US can begin to really open up. Restaurants, movie theaters, sporting events, all of the industries that have suffered enormously because of the pandemic will be able to resume near normal operations. Our economy, which has recently shown signs that it is ready, even anxious to get back to business will be able to do just that. Simply put we’ll be able to get our lives back.

Contagious diseases need a lot of potential victims in order to spread. When the majority of a population gets vaccinated the disease is unable to take hold and spread. (Credit: Wikipedia)

There is a bit of bad news mixed in with the good. There have been cases identified of people who have received their vaccinations and nevertheless later tested positive for covid. That’s actually to be expected, during testing that efficacy of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were measured at 95%, which is really good, but still means that 5% of those vaccinated could still get the disease. Even so to date no one who has come down with covid after being vaccinated has become seriously ill or required hospitalization. In other words the vaccines not only do a great job at preventing covid, they virtually eliminate serious cases of the disease.

Some of the vaccines developed to combat Covid are very efficient but none are perfect. (Credit: Statista)

Of course the worst news are those cases of blood clots that have developed in a few people who have received the Johnson and Johnson vaccine. The latest information is that 15 people, all women to my knowledge, have shown symptoms of serious blood clotting after receiving the J&J vaccine and one death has occurred. That number of cases is out of the over 8 million people who have received the single shot J&J vaccine so obviously the incidence of blood clots is very rare. Nevertheless the situation was serious enough that the Food and Drug Administration ordered a pause in the administration of the J&J vaccine while the incidents were investigated. After eleven days of data collecting and analysis of the data both the FDA and CDC decided that the benefits of the vaccine far outweighed the potential risks and lifted the pause while adding a warning to women under 50 informing them of the risk of blood clots.

There is evidence for both the Johnson and Johnson and Astrazeneca vaccines causing blood clots, but there is a greater risk of blood clots from taking birth control pills and even worse for smoking! (Credit: Hindustan Times)

After all consider the odds. Out of about 330 million people living in the US more than 31 million have now gotten covid, that’s nearly a 10% chance of getting the disease and more than half a million have died, a 0.17% chance. On the other hand your chance of getting a serious blood clot from the J&J vaccine is .000188% far, far less likely than the risk due to covid. In fact right now about 700 Americans are still dying every day because of covid while only 15 people have gotten sick because of the J&J vaccine. And remember no deaths thus far have been linked to the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

So it’s difficult to understand why so many people are still hesitant about getting vaccinated. In fact current polling data suggest that approximately 17% of Americans only plan on getting vaccinated if it’s required while a further 8% refuse to get vaccinated under any circumstances. These numbers are so large that they could pose a risk to the effort to achieve herd immunity.

According to polls vaccine hesitancy is falling as more and more people get inoculated. We need everyone to realize the benefit of immunization however! (Credit: Statista)

Now there have always been people whose fear of having substances they don’t understand directly injected into their bodies makes them resolute ‘antivaxxers’. Then you can add those people who devoutly believe that faith in god is the only healthcare system they need. Finally in our nation’s current political climate we have many people whose distrust of authority has led them to proclaim ‘their right as Americans to not get vaccinated’. As if the freedom to ignore the deaths of a half million of their fellow citizens is somehow enshrined in the Constitution.

If only it were that easy. (Credit: Henry Kotula)

Remember, covid is a virus; it is incapable of understanding ‘liberty’ in any sense of the word. It is neither a democrat nor republican, neither a liberal nor conservative. It is just going to try to infect you and maybe kill you, that’s all it knows how to do! Face facts, you can’t fight a virus with an assault rifle, nor is this just a left wing plot to destroy conservative American culture. Covid is a disease that is presently out of control and vaccines are our best weapon against it!

Sensible people know this, and know how to analyse risk versus reward. (Credit: SBS)

I’m not going to try to argue with those who will never listen. All I can do is to relate my own medical history as testimony. My parents had our whole family inoculated against polio as soon as the vaccines became available. When I joined the US Navy I was vaccinated I don’t know how many times. I’ve been vaccinated against tetanus, shingles, etc, etc, and I get a flu shot every year. None, I repeat none of those vaccines, including the Pfizer covid vaccine I just received my second dose of, have ever done me the slightest harm.

My vaccination card for the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine! I’m now all immunized, I can get back to my life…What ’bout you! (Credit: R. A. Lawler)

In fact since the vaccines against Measles, Mumps and Rubella weren’t developed until after I had all those diseases Mumps left me with permanent deafness in my right ear! What I wouldn’t give to have been able to take the MMR vaccine, which you’ll recall is falsely alleged to cause autism, and still have my hearing! So if you’re thinking about getting vaccinated but are hesitant please think of the risks. Over a half a million Americans have died because of covid and maybe one person has died because of a vaccine. Repeat that simple fact about ten times AND GO GET VACCINATED!!!

Pharmaceutical Giant Pfizer has released initial data on its Covid-19 vaccine. The Vaccine is safe and more than 90% effective but there’s some bad news as well.

Over the past month the news about the Covid-19 pandemic has just gone from bad to worse. Currently the daily increase in the number of cases has climbed above 100,000 while the death rate has risen to over 1,000 a day. Hospitalizations are surging and if the trend continues medical facilities in many states will soon be overwhelmed, possibly resulting in the deaths of many people who could have been saved if adequate medical care had been available.

Will this image of the Covid-19 virus become a new symbol of death for our age? (Credit: FDA)
As more and more Covid patients are hospitalized will we be forced to start rationing medical care? (Credit: Bloomberg)

It was hardly surprising therefore that the release of the initial data from the Phase 3 trial of Pfizer corporation’s Covid-19 vaccine was proclaimed throughout the media as something close to a divine miracle. In fact the news was good, better than expected. Of the 44,000 people who participated in the trial none showed any sign of harm that could be attributed to the vaccine.

More importantly the preliminary estimate for the effectiveness of the vaccine was calculated at more than 90%. Now it’s important to understand how that estimate is derived. First of all, only half of the 44,000 volunteers actually got the vaccine, the other 22,000 were given a placebo. Then, over the course of more than three months 94 of the participants tested positive for Covid-19 but 90% of those who tested positive were from the placebo group while less than 10% were from the group that had received the vaccine. Statistically that implies that Pfizer’s vaccine provides immunity to Covid-19 to more than 90% of those who receive it.

Stages of Vaccine development. Pfizer and Moderna are nearing the end of Phase III and are hoping to obtain FDA approval for wide distribution of their vaccine soon. (Credit: IndianYug)

While the full testing isn’t over yet, Pfizer hopes to have enough data to be able to ask the FDA for an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) by the end of November. If that EUA is granted then Pfizer could begin to supply as many as 20 million doses of their vaccine by the end of the year with more to come in the first months of 2021.

Basic outline of the distribution plan for the Covid-19 vaccine once approved. (Credit: WTVD)

Other drug companies are also nearing the conclusion of their vaccine testing. Just this last Monday the drug company Moderna has announced initial results showing that their vaccine is 94.5% effective. And like Pfizer, Moderna hopes to ask the FDA for an EUA by the end of November. This progress is generating real hope that enough people could be vaccinated by next May or June to finally bring this horrendous disease under control.

That’s the good news; there are a few potential problems as well. The big one is going to be transportation, distribution and administration of the vaccine. You see in order to maintain its effectiveness the Pfizer vaccine needs to be kept at a temperature of -70ºC (-94ºF), and while many vaccines need to be kept cool, -70ºC is unusually cold. So cold in fact that very few refrigerated trucks are capable of such a low temperature, which will make transportation difficult. At the same time your personal physician or local pharmacy is unlikely to have the refrigeration necessary to keep a supply of the vaccine on hand. So the question becomes, how is the vaccine going to get to you? This is the big reason why it will take almost half a year to get enough people vaccinated to make a difference.

Most Vaccines need to be stored at low temperatures but Pfizer’s Covid Vaccine needs to be kept very cold. (Credit: Financial Times)

Longer term there is also the question of how long will the immunity provided by Pfizer’s, or any vaccine last. Individual cases of people becoming infected with Covid-19 a second time have been cropping up now for months and studies have indicated that the anti-bodies produced by our bodies start to decay after only a few months. Currently epidemiologists are coming to the conclusion that it may be necessary for people to get vaccinated for Covid-19 every year, just like your yearly flu shot.

Getting a yearly Flu shot has become a routine part of many people’s lives. Will a yearly Covid shot have to become one as well? (Credit: Harvard Health – Harvard University)

Finally there are the ongoing difficulties of those people who needed to be hospitalized because of Covid-19 and survived, but whom months later have still not fully recovered. These patients have been given the designation of Covid-19 ‘Long Haulers’ and the question of just how long the disease will continue to impact their health is at present totally unknown. There are now tens of thousands of these unfortunate people, and more are joining this ill-fated group everyday.

So many people are suffering from long term effects of Covid-19 that they are even beginning to establish support groups. (Credit: Fox13)

There has even been speculation in the media that, assuming the ‘pre-existing conditions’ statue in Obamacare is struck down, Health Insurance Companies may try to classify anyone who has tested positive for Covid-19 as having a pre-existing condition. Just a few more ways in which Covid-19 may still be harming people years from now. Humanity has been suffering from the Covid-19 epidemic for almost a year now and even if the development of the first safe and effective vaccine is a big step forward there is still going to be a lot more suffering to come. We can only hope that the scientists who are studying Covid-19 now can learn enough lessons to enable us to handle the next pandemic better.