Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

[Zaxxon]

As of today, the US is over 1M doses/day for the rolling 7-day period. Now let's do 2M.

1.16M doses/day.

1.25M doses/day. 401 days to 80% fully vaxxed at this rate.

1.30M doses/day. 381 days to 80% of 328M Americans fully vaccinated at the current 7-day average rate (would be Feb 14, 2022).

[malchior]

My wife mentioned that she noticed yesterday and today there were no vaccination lines in the parking lot at work. And that is because...NJ gets 100K/week but administers at 25K/day. Anecdotally no one in my wife's group who lives in our county has gotten the vaccine. We have a megasite but there are no stats that I can find to see where vaccine is being distributed because it is still a corrupt black box.

[Smoove_B]

Oddly enough, the megasite in my area (Morris County) is closed for the weekend - they're out of vaccines (after 3 weeks).

I'm not so sure about daily administration doses. I am not sure how the state is reporting info as they've told us they possess (I'm assuming "they" is the entire state) the ability to provide ~500K vaccinations a day. What I don't know is how many of that 500K is through the state and county run sites vs the private pharmacies and/or hospital systems. Either way, by all accounts we have a supply issue right now and I think the next three weeks are going to help us understand how the remainder of the vaccination process will work in our state.

The site that's literally down the road from me (run by a corporate pharmacy) was over-run yesterday with senior citizens that gave up trying to call and get appointments; they were all turned away and told to try again (call) next week.

Complete chaos.

[malchior]

I got the 100K / week number from NJ.com. They said next week it'll be 130K / week. Is that the supply that gets passed down to only state run stuff vs. private. Who knows. The lack of transparency is aggravating. Heck, the registration process is just the least user friendly thing ever. You register and get an on-screen notice. No email. No login. No tracking. Did it work? Did it not work? Who knows.

Edit: I'm going to hit the roof. We just found out the 22-year old daughter of my wife's boss just texted my wife that she 'miraculously' just got vaccinated. WTF. Total chaos is right.

[RMC]

I have to say, none of what you are describing is happening in Ohio, that I am seeing. We actually have volunteers from other teams working the phones, so when anyone calls they talk to a human being. We are scheduling at a few sites, including using our management operations building. So not a clinical building at all, but one that we can use for ease of admittance and centrally located for the most part.

I am shocked to hear that other states/healthcare systems are not invested in the process. I will say that the govenor of Ohio, has been very progressive on a lot of the Covid policies. And yes, he is a republican, and the state voted for Trump. So anyway, I wish that all the different governments were working as well as what I am seeing.

I know I am bias, since I work in healthcare and for the system I am talking about, but I think it has been fairly positive all over Ohio. I am sure there are some rough times, as there always will be. But I have talked to several of the reciepients in a few different roles and have gotten all positive feedback. <shrug> Just my take, to try to make it not so doom and gloom here.

[Smoove_B]

I got the 100K / week number from NJ.com. They said next week it'll be 130K / week. Is that the supply that gets passed down to only state run stuff vs. private. Who knows. The lack of transparency is aggravating. Heck, the registration process is just the least user friendly thing ever. You register and get an on-screen notice. No email. No login. No tracking. Did it work? Did it not work? Who knows.

My understanding (and I'm about as low on the pole as you can get) is that the 100-130K doses coming in are the total. Then through some type of magic calculation (that isn't being shared) those doses are given out to the various sites in a very specific amount. I am hoping they're prioritizing the mega sites based on whatever throughput they can handle, but I honestly don't know.

One of the South Jersey sites had a sync error yesterday where they double-booked vaccination slots. I guess they were taking their own registrations and then somehow had registrations from the state system pushed into their local system. They had to then turn away people that were told they had spots after they arrived and found out they were notified in error. If only they just maintained a single system for registrations and appointments instead of letting everyone recreate the wheel....

Edit: I'm going to hit the roof. We did find out the 22-year old daughter OF my wife's boss just texted my wife that she 'miraculously' just got vaccinated. WTF. Total chaos is right.

Sounds about right. Now she can YOLO.

[malchior]

<shrug> Just my take, to try to make it not so doom and gloom here.

Oh for sure. NJ was corrupt in normal times but it is off the hook right now when it comes to vaccines. On top, our governor has been a poor fairly poor administrator since he took office barring COVID-19.

[malchior]

Sounds about right. Now she can YOLO.

That is why I'm angry. She was YOLO all summer. She'd appear at my wife's office to intern and casually drop she'd just been in Florida or California and my wife would throw her out. I'm not bagging on her - she is a nice girl who means well but just is young. How she got the vaccine...madness.

[Isgrimnur]

Hashtag-Blessed.

[LordMortis]

I have to say, none of what you are describing is happening in Ohio, that I am seeing. We actually have volunteers from other teams working the phones, so when anyone calls they talk to a human being. We are scheduling at a few sites, including using our management operations building. So not a clinical building at all, but one that we can use for ease of admittance and centrally located for the most part.

I am shocked to hear that other states/healthcare systems are not invested in the process. I will say that the govenor of Ohio, has been very progressive on a lot of the Covid policies. And yes, he is a republican, and the state voted for Trump. So anyway, I wish that all the different governments were working as well as what I am seeing.

I know I am bias, since I work in healthcare and for the system I am talking about, but I think it has been fairly positive all over Ohio. I am sure there are some rough times, as there always will be. But I have talked to several of the reciepients in a few different roles and have gotten all positive feedback. <shrug> Just my take, to try to make it not so doom and gloom here.

It's crap in Michigan unless you live in Oakland county. Then things are going great. Anywhere else and the county and health care systems (same ones you would find in counties outside of Oakland) will tell you about the difficulties vaccine distribution and that there is no update at this time and you should check back weekly for updates. Everyone has hotlines so you call and be informed about the difficulties vaccine distribution and that there is no update at this time and you should check back weekly for updates.

https://www.michigan.gov/coronavirus/0, ... --,00.html

My parents are 79 and 77. My dad has breathing and heart problems. And they are being told April or May, they're not sure yet. Keep checking back.

[malchior]

NYS to allow indoor dining again starting on ... Valentine's Day. At least they are taking this seriously.

[$iljanus]

NYS to allow indoor dining again starting on ... Valentine's Day. At least they are taking this seriously.

Covie is sure to be making dinner reservations!

[RMC]

Last report that we got internally is that my health system has vaccinated almost 40k, including healthcare workers, and I think 10k of those are older individuals that have registered from the community.

Now I know we ran out of doses on Friday, so the clinics are closed until Wednesday I think. We are administering 2nd doses to healthcare staff. But yeah, only 10k from one of the big two health systems in the Cleveland area, so I think it is tough, I am just seeing the rosey part that we are keeping working smoothly, but those volumes are not anywhere near what an LA or NYC environment would have to do...

[Zaxxon]

As of today, the US is over 1M doses/day for the rolling 7-day period. Now let's do 2M.

1.16M doses/day.

1.25M doses/day. 401 days to 80% fully vaxxed at this rate.

1.30M doses/day. 381 days to 80% of 328M Americans fully vaccinated at the current 7-day average rate (would be Feb 14, 2022).

1.35M/day. 370 days to 80% of 328M (2/4/2022).

[hitbyambulance]

As of today, the US is over 1M doses/day for the rolling 7-day period. Now let's do 2M.

1.16M doses/day.

1.25M doses/day. 401 days to 80% fully vaxxed at this rate.

1.30M doses/day. 381 days to 80% of 328M Americans fully vaccinated at the current 7-day average rate (would be Feb 14, 2022).

1.35M/day. 370 days to 80% of 328M (2/4/2022).

if vaccination is happening seven days a week, then it's mid-October 2021

[Zaxxon]

As of today, the US is over 1M doses/day for the rolling 7-day period. Now let's do 2M.

1.16M doses/day.

1.25M doses/day. 401 days to 80% fully vaxxed at this rate.

1.30M doses/day. 381 days to 80% of 328M Americans fully vaccinated at the current 7-day average rate (would be Feb 14, 2022).

1.35M/day. 370 days to 80% of 328M (2/4/2022).

if vaccination is happening seven days a week, then it's mid-October 2021

2 doses/person.

[Max Peck]

Once the less expensive single dose vaccines are approved and in distribution, I'd expect that many, if not most, people will be getting a single jab.

[hitbyambulance]

As of today, the US is over 1M doses/day for the rolling 7-day period. Now let's do 2M.

1.16M doses/day.

1.25M doses/day. 401 days to 80% fully vaxxed at this rate.

1.30M doses/day. 381 days to 80% of 328M Americans fully vaccinated at the current 7-day average rate (would be Feb 14, 2022).

1.35M/day. 370 days to 80% of 328M (2/4/2022).

if vaccination is happening seven days a week, then it's mid-October 2021

2 doses/person.

to be sure. but if we assume (at this constant rate) that the last of the first doses are administered by mid-October, the country (even with a bunch of two-jabbers only on their first jab) will have a significantly raised protection baseline (compared to having a bunch of people with no doses administered). no, it's not herd immunity by any means, but we could (should?) be better off at that point.

[Defiant]

to be sure. but if we assume (at this constant rate) that the last of the first doses are administered by mid-October, the country (even with a bunch of two-jabbers only on their first jab) will have a significantly raised protection baseline (compared to having a bunch of people with no doses administered). no, it's not herd immunity by any means, but we could (should?) be better off at that point.

Assume the math above for two doses is correct (early Feb), the last of the first doses should be given early January. (Since you would take the second dose 3-4 weeks after the first dose).

My fear is March/April, when the new, more infectious strain will likely become dominant while we only have, maybe, 15-25% of the population vaccinated.

[Daehawk]

Trump administration spent $200M to send foreign nations 8,700 ventilators

And now they have no idea where some of those are.

The watchdog found that the initiative was not based on guidance from U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The GAO is not sure what guidelines Trump was using for the distributions of ventilators.

El Salvador received 600 ventilators when it had 74 new cases a day of COVID-19, while Honduras, which had 161 cases a day or more than twice as much as El Salvador, received 210 ventilators.

The ventilators were sent to 43 countries. The GAO report said USAID is not aware of where some of the ventilators are. While it says it knows how many ventilators are in each country, it does not know where the ventilators were sent within each country.

[Smoove_B]

Just a follow up on the WI pharmacist that destroyed vaccines:

“Some of the conspiracy theories Brandenburg told [the coworker] about included: the earth is flat; the sky is not real, rather it is a shield put up by the Government to prevent individuals from seeing God; and Judgment Day is coming,” the 26-page filing says.

The coworker, identified in the document as pharmacy technician Sarah Sticker, told authorities that Brandenburg carried a .45-caliber handgun to work, which he said he needed “in case the military came to take him away.” Cops seized several firearms from Brandenburg’s home on New Year’s Eve.

[Jaymon]

I ordered a pile of KN95, so I can double mask when doing the grocery run. Thanks for the tips on that. I know its not as good as N95, but I left those so people who need them more can buy them. Thats probably not what will happen, but I won't put my straw on the camel.



Here in Oregon, I have PT appointment twice a week. Thank you 2020 for the seemingly unending string of injuries leaving me on a first name basis with all the good folks at Albany Sport and Spine Physical Therapy. All the therapists have already got their vaccine, so something has gone right with the state vaccinations.



Nobody at my house has tried to check on vaccine appointment. All we do is stay home, go to the grocery, or go to the doctor. This is our life now, and we're OK with it.

[raydude]

Nobody at my house has tried to check on vaccine appointment. All we do is stay home, go to the grocery, or go to the doctor. This is our life now, and we're OK with it.

At our house, it's just my wife who's received the vaccine, on account of she's an NP and sees patients. She just got her second shot this past Saturday.

APL just sent out a memo and form letter: APL employees are included in Maryland's Phase 1C vaccination phase under their status as essential workers in the Sector Coordination Council for the Defense Industrial Base (DIB). However, since I'm working at home anyway and don't plan on going to work anytime soon, and since I don't want to figure out if I apply under Virginia's Phase 1C, I'm going to skip this phase and let someone more essential take the shot.

In other news, APL in partnership with Johns Hopkins Medicine is opening its Kossiakoff Center as a mass vaccination site. It makes sense. The center is a large space with multiple rooms and I assume will have lots of parking if the majority of APL is still working from home.

I count myself lucky to live in an area (Alexandria City) where we currently have only a 7.7% positivity rate, several free COVID 19 testing sites, and a neighborhood that mostly practices proper mask-wearing. And after seeing the City Council's email notice saying how they are still seeking volunteers, I decided to sign up for the Alexandria Volunteer Medical Reserve Corps as a non-medical volunteer. Even if it's just data entry I figure it frees an actual medical person to do the real work.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

Some seemingly promising trends coming out of Israel, where they've done a pretty good job at getting the most vulnerable vaccinated:

[Kurth]

Two articles I read about COVID today. Media messaging compare and contrast time:

In one corner, we have CNN: 'The end of the beginning.' The dark winter is here and Americans see no end

January saw a record number of coronavirus deaths, with even more predicted by the end of February. Vaccines have arrived and others are on the way, yet more contagious variants of the virus have emerged. As tens of millions of Americans await vaccinations, lagging inoculation numbers and vaccine shortages temper expectations of normality anytime soon. "We're not at the beginning of the end of this pandemic," said sociologist, physician and Yale professor Nicholas Christakis, who wrote "Apollo's Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live."

"We're just at the end of the beginning."

In the other corner, we have the NYT: The vaccine news continues to be better than many people realize.

Infections aren’t what matters
The news about the vaccines continues to be excellent — and the public discussion of it continues to be more negative than the facts warrant.

Here’s the key fact: All five vaccines with public results have eliminated Covid-19 deaths. They have also drastically reduced hospitalizations. “They’re all good trial results,” Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University, told me. “It’s great news.”

Many people are instead focusing on relatively minor differences among the vaccine results and wrongly assuming that those differences mean that some vaccines won’t prevent serious illnesses. It’s still too early to be sure, because a few of the vaccine makers have released only a small amount of data. But the available data is very encouraging — including about the vaccines’ effect on the virus’s variants.

“The vaccines are poised to deliver what people so desperately want: an end, however protracted, to this pandemic,” as Julia Marcus of Harvard Medical School recently wrote in The Atlantic.

Why is the public understanding more negative than it should be? Much of the confusion revolves around the meaning of the word “effective.”

I don't know, maybe the public understanding skews to the negative because we are being bombarded with sensationalist stories from CNN and other media outlets screaming that "We're not at the beginning of the end of this pandemic . . . We're just at the end of the beginning." FFS

[hitbyambulance]

that's kinda interesting, as the NYT is usually the endtimes and doom headline generator

[Daehawk]

Wonder what Fox was covering today? *goes and looks*.....ahhh all anti Biden stuff except for the story of Dustin Diamond's death.

[hitbyambulance]

to be sure. but if we assume (at this constant rate) that the last of the first doses are administered by mid-October, the country (even with a bunch of two-jabbers only on their first jab) will have a significantly raised protection baseline (compared to having a bunch of people with no doses administered). no, it's not herd immunity by any means, but we could (should?) be better off at that point.

Assume the math above for two doses is correct (early Feb), the last of the first doses should be given early January. (Since you would take the second dose 3-4 weeks after the first dose).

My fear is March/April, when the new, more infectious strain will likely become dominant while we only have, maybe, 15-25% of the population vaccinated.

some new info on this:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... 21250653v1

[Ralph-Wiggum]

SC announced yesterday that it’s changing the way percent positive is counted. Instead of #people positive/#people tested, they are now calculating it as #tests positive/#tests taken. This has dropped the % positive from consistently in the mid 20s to single digits, which makes me skeptical at the reasons for the change. Any thoughts, Smoove, on how % positive is generally calculated in other states?

[Max Peck]

Canada inks deal to produce millions of COVID-19 shots domestically

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced today a plan to produce millions of COVID-19 shots at a plant in Montreal starting later this year, securing a domestic supply of vaccines as the global market contends with delivery delays and protectionist measures.

The National Research Council-owned Royalmount facility will churn out tens of millions of doses of the product developed by Maryland-based Novavax, Trudeau said. That company submitted its vaccine to Health Canada for regulatory approval last Friday.

"This is a major step forward to get vaccines made in Canada, for Canadians.... We need as much domestic capacity for vaccine production as possible," Trudeau said. "We won't rest until every Canadian who wants a vaccine has received one."

The agreement will help jump start Canada's largely dormant domestic vaccine manufacturing industry but it will do little to meet the short-term demand for COVID-19 vaccines.

It looks like this will be coming online too late to make a difference with the initial round of vaccination for COVID-19, but it will hopefully better position us with a domestic production capacity for future pandemics.

[stessier]

SC announced yesterday that it’s changing the way percent positive is counted. Instead of #people positive/#people tested, they are now calculating it as #tests positive/#tests taken. This has dropped the % positive from consistently in the mid 20s to single digits, which makes me skeptical at the reasons for the change. Any thoughts, Smoove, on how % positive is generally calculated in other states?

They claim this is the CDC preferred method for calculating things.

I'm a bit confused about it though. Over the summer, they would report the number of tests and the number of positives. Dividing the two would give the percent positive. Does this really mean they were reporting the number of people tested and the number of people who were positive? If so, that is some really poor communication/data labelling in the past.

[UsulofDoom]

SC announced yesterday that it’s changing the way percent positive is counted. Instead of #people positive/#people tested, they are now calculating it as #tests positive/#tests taken. This has dropped the % positive from consistently in the mid 20s to single digits, which makes me skeptical at the reasons for the change. Any thoughts, Smoove, on how % positive is generally calculated in other states?

That will really change the numbers. I know a nurse who works at a nursing home. They are tested 3 to 4 times a week. So If you go by test numbers and not people the numbers will really be lowered by those who take tests weekly.

[Smoove_B]

SC announced yesterday that it’s changing the way percent positive is counted. Instead of #people positive/#people tested, they are now calculating it as #tests positive/#tests taken. This has dropped the % positive from consistently in the mid 20s to single digits, which makes me skeptical at the reasons for the change. Any thoughts, Smoove, on how % positive is generally calculated in other states?

I'm not entirely clear what they were doing? Keeping (and reporting) a rolling tally of all positive people in the state compared to the number of people they tested since April? May? of last year?

Here in the Jerz we do track that raw data (total tests and total % positive - a running total since last spring), but from a more practical standpoint we report (and use) the weekly totals - # positive tests / # tests offered. The reason is that weekly snapshot offers a much better way to figure out the R0 and get as close to a real time guess as to what is happening in the population. Additionally this method also helps account for retesting or if someone is just getting multiple tests in week (for some reason). They might have just cleaned up the language to be in line with standardized reporting (tests vs people) and are now reporting the week to week (which is why the % positive is now in single digits instead of double, covering the entire population and 8+ months of testing).

The CDC's official position is "do what you want", but they do indeed use the test over test reporting method. I'm not sure if the CDC's position is going to change now that adults are in charge again (to help in unifying the data), but that ship might have already sailed.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

I actually didn't realize that SC was previously using the #people positive/#people tested metric before, but I suppose that would at least partially explain why our daily testing numbers seemed so low. I guess I wonder what the more useful metric is. Intuitively, it would seem that using the % of people testing positive gives you more info than looking at the percent of tests that came back positive, since people may be taking multiple tests. And knowing how many people are positive seems more important re: the spread of the virus. And honestly, I'm not quite sure why it would be so common for someone to get multiple tests in the same day, at least if we're talking about the PCR tests.

[Smoove_B]

Hey Florida, how's it going?

As #Flordia fights community spread of COVID on a massive scale, this is a 15-second snapshot of a supermarket in Naples. Many employees and customers- even older ones- with no masks on inside. Store sign outside cites “medical exemptions,” we can’t ask questions.

[LordMortis]

Does the virus spread to tall people less readily than it does short people? After initial dispersal does it slowly settle to the ground or float without any real weight in the air?

[Smoove_B]

Does the virus spread to tall people less readily than it does short people? After initial dispersal does it slowly settle to the ground or float without any real weight in the air?

This is all part of the academic civil war that's happening right now - trying to figure out the primary way the virus spreads, i.e. what's the greatest risk? Is it short-term large droplets that are coughed/sneezed out into the environment that arc and then fall to the ground? Is it smaller droplet nuclei that float on air currents and persist for hours? So many variables and so much comes down to the virulence (i.e. how many virions are needed to constitute an infectious dose?) as it relates to the way it's being spread. Is it more of a problem breathing the virions in through your nose or your mouth?

So much to learn. So much.

[LordMortis]

Does the virus spread to tall people less readily than it does short people? After initial dispersal does it slowly settle to the ground or float without any real weight in the air?

This is all part of the academic civil war that's happening right now - trying to figure out the primary way the virus spreads, i.e. what's the greatest risk? Is it short-term large droplets that are coughed/sneezed out into the environment that arc and then fall to the ground? Is it smaller droplet nuclei that float on air currents and persist for hours? So many variables and so much comes down to the virulence (i.e. how many virions are needed to constitute an infectious dose?) as it relates to the way it's being spread. Is it more of a problem breathing the virions in through your nose or your mouth?

So much to learn. So much.

If they can't find a way to see its actual spread, are they testing their hypothesis by looking at the rate of infection by height?

[Smoove_B]

If they can't find a way to see its actual spread, are they testing their hypothesis by looking at the rate of infection by height?

I'm not aware of anything that specific yet. I think right now the focus is trying to figure out if it's more like influenza (large droplets most likely) or more like measles (droplet nuclei). I think they were leaning towards persistence (droplet nuclei) originally but it might now be back to a matter of virulence. Like say you need 50 virions normally on average to inhale for risk of COVID-19 and maybe it's 100 virions normally for influenza (just making that up). These new variants that are being labeled "highly infectious" maybe you only need 10.

The only way they can figure things out now is doing those retroactive observational studies - looking at an outbreak event and trying to puzzle together what happened. Of course, if there's no contact tracing and no one is creating an exposure narrative, then it's making it harder. It really was (I think) the study that came out of Hong Kong last year where they had a study linked back to a restaurant and the AC allegedly blowing the virus across a series of tables in line with it that kinda kicked off the whole argument. The people sitting in line with the AC were at significantly increased risk whereas the group of tables not in line with AC were significantly lower risk.

I can certainly keep an eye out and see if there's anything (like height) that they're looking into.

[hitbyambulance]

wow, who could have predicted this

With COVID-19 vaccine in short supply, scramble is on for second shots