Vaccine Priorities — A Contrarian View
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54 responses to “Vaccine Priorities — A Contrarian View”
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No, the Guv himself in the latest presser said teachers can work remotely. He said they are “not essential.” He finally took a position, and revealed he’s also fine with worthless virtual classes. Do you hear or see teachers pushing to be at the head of the line? No. No. Them and the horse they rode in on.
If their attitudes were different (and for many it is) I’d agree with you. But until the students get shots too many would still refuse to work. Kamras reported 90% of his staff wants to stay out. That floored me, as they serve the most threatened population of students.
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And these people have no pangs of guilt staying safe at home while others go to work every day in spite of the risk to provide for their food, power, safety and other needs? Something is wrong here.
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New fall back position for teachers that don’t want to work. Side effects of the vaccine. What if the side effects are too much of burden to bear? We clearly must allow teachers to sit on the sidelines until……
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/covid-19-vaccines-may-have-potentially-unpleasant-side-effects-n1247485
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I can only assume the author grows all of his own food; not sure how else one could be so dismissive of vaccinating the workers who have been risking their lives for the last 9 months so that the rest of us can still have access to food at the grocery store.
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Nope. Don’t grow my own food. I don’t mean to be dismissive of grocery store workers. However, first of all, customers are required to be wearing masks. At the stores where I shop, the clerks also are protected by plexiglass shields. Finally, their contacts with customers are brief; they are not confined in a room for several hours as teachers would be.
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Dick,
I’m inclined to agree with your article, but the above makes no sense. The daily screening, temperature checks, and other protocols are much more elaborate and severe at schools. Everyone must wear a mask and practice social distancing.
We live where schools are open and my wife sometimes needs to visit multiple schools in a day. She gets screened and has her temperature checked at every school, every time she enters.
I would prioritize vaccines for teachers if it will open the schools and stop the lasting damage being done to a generation of youth. But if the schools would remain closed anyway, to hell with those teachers. I’d give it to them last.
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I was under the impression that about 1/2 the people were asymptomatic including temperature, no?
I had a Doctor appointment and bloog lab yesterday. They stopped me at the entrance and asked a bunch of questions about being sick and being in contact with others and then forehead temp check.
None of this is done at the Lowes or Walmart – just masks.
The problem in schools is longer-term contact in a closed space and schools are now closing even in Sweden where the infection rate is going way up.
But if a large number of people show no symptoms… does that
mean 1/2 the infected people are being allowed into the building? -
Oh, I agree. Provide the vaccination for the teachers and open the schools. The teachers, of course, would not be required to get the vaccination, but they would have to report to school, regardless.
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I see this more as a thought experiment, since it’s unlikely to happen.
Additionally, I don’t think the timeline would work. I haven’t calculated the logistics and math, but my guess is that by the time all the teachers were vaccinated and ready to show up, the spring semester would likely be over anyway.
How far we have come from the teachers who sacrificed themselves at Virginia Tech and other places to protect their students from harm.
I think when this is over, we should pay some kind of tribute to those who kept essential services running, in spite of the risk to their own health and safety. Some teachers in Virginia are providing in-person instruction. That should not be forgotten. There are also healthcare workers, EMTs, LEOs grocery clerks and a host of others whom we never see and rarely hear about. Remember the slaughterhouse workers we heard about months ago?
Not everyone has the option of staying home and working virtually, or not at all.
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The nursing home population in the U.S. is around 200,000. Could be vaccinated quickly.
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I agree with Dick — front-line health care workers (including those in long-term care facilities) should be the first priority, teachers and essential school staff the second. The rest of us can continue to self-isolate a while longer in order to get kids back in school for in-person learning.
I find Northam’s attitude baffling. But then… it seems his attitude is widely shared.
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Well, not grocery store “clerks” – but the folks who handle the food in the supply chain including meat packers.
I like the teacher idea but then you need to also include school workers, cafeteria, librarians, and administrators.
I agree about the long term care – get the care folks vaccinated and that will solve a lot of the problem.
In terms of priority order – that’s harder and I can see disagreements.
A lot depends on how fast the vaccine will roll out and be available and I’d be curious how many health care workers versus how many school personnel?
We have a lot more K-12 schools than we have hospitals… Private schools? Colleges? Day care?
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No matter where you work, the risk factors are age and known pre-existing conditions. Those should be the priority, regardless of profession. I’d tell folks who had been sick and recovered to wait, but that won’t happen. After the health care staff and senior care staff, go straight to age and pre-existing conditions. That’s alot of people, and will be heavily minority.
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You’d not say age and pre-existing for retired would you? Shouldn’t the folks actually in the economy doing real work take priority?
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Over 90% of the deaths are 55 or older. You’d put them last, Larry? Of course you would…..
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The article and most comments seem to be based on the assumption that demand will far exceed supply for an extended period of time. That may well be true, but at this point there seems to be a fair amount of anti-vaxxer sentiment out there. I’m curious how many will want the vaccine right away, vs waiting or not wanting it at all.
The elderly should obviously be given priority in terms of who is permitted to receive it first. But might we reach a point where supply exceeds demand and incentives are introduced?
My own experience with college students leads me to believe that as a group they won’t obey restrictions, and probably won’t seek out vaccinations unless proof of vaccination is required to attend classes.
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EMS providers should also be high on the list as well as LEOs
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I agree.
At this point, we don’t know how many doses are going to be delivered and how often verses the classes of workers and others at risk.
When we say health care workers – do we mean ALL of them – from primary care nurses to dentist assistants ? Anyone who is involved in “health care”
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I’m with Dick on this. I understand where the ‘grocery clerk’ priority is coming from — the check-out or curbside-delivery folks are the only persons the elderly cannot avoid coming in contact with these days (ya gotta go buy food) — but protecting teachers (some of whom are also elderly) is the critical path obstacle to reopening elementary in-person education, where socialization is a major part of what’s being taught (and can’t easily or effectively be taught remotely). It’s certainly true that those little kids can be carriers who bring home asymptomatic covid to their parents who pass it along to the elderly living in the home or visited, and, the risk of covid from surface contacts with groceries and grocery bags is slight but not zero risk and there are elderly folks at home who are scared (perhaps irrationally) even to go out to buy food. That said, I think the in-person education of those little ones outweighs easing the elderly’s path to grocery shopping.
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Have any of the vaccines been tested/”approved” for pediatric use? I thought it was only “approved” for adult use.
Also, I was surprised you prioritized K>3 instead of 12>? due to the better fit for adult vaccines and for allegedly more typical infection/spread to adults than via 9 year olds and younger.
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None have yet be cleared for teens or younger.
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Your suggestion certainly runs contrary to data driven decision making. Front line health care workers (including those who clean Covid patients areas), those with certain pre-existing conditions and staff and residents in long-term care facilities should be at the head of the line. They have the highest risk and constitute the highest mortality rate. Our American society already throws many of our elderly and infirm citizens figuratively into the trash heap, even when the science says otherwise. The data and science should inform these decisions, not the popular politics. Moving teachers to the head of the line will not salvage the 20-21 school years, despite what their unions might say. In my opinion the saving of lives should take priority over all else.
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“Your suggestion certainly runs contrary to data driven decision making.”
You don’t seem to understand how data, and data driven decision making works. Behind every numerical calculation there are often several value judgements and subjective considerations. Mathematical formulas don’t create themselves. They are often built upon assumptions, and very subjective value judgements.
“In my opinion the saving of lives should take priority over all else.”
That’s a perfectly reasonable approach, but it’s not the only possible conclusion of a data driven decision. What about years of life? Would you weight saving one month of life of a terminally ill cancer patient as being equal to 50 or more years of potential life for someone else?
Throughout history societies have placed the safety and well being of children above almost all else. That’s a value judgement, but it formed the basis of many life and death decisions.
Tell me, was Operation Pied Piper a decision that ran “contrary to data driven decision making”?
“One of the most, if not the most, emotionally wrenching decisions made by the British government during World War II was its decision to relocate its children out of urban centers to locations where the risk of bombing attacks was low or non-existent. Called Operation Pied Piper, millions of people, most of them children, were shipped to rural areas in Britain as well as overseas to Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. Almost 3 million people were evacuated during the first four days of the operation, making it the biggest and most concentrated population movement in British history.”
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The idea of innoculating the folks in nursing homes is far more humanitarian. They need to be at least #3. It ends their isolation.
Groceries can be delivered.
Teachers #2 is good.
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I’m inclined to agree. (Which is the same thing I said to Dick.)
I’m happy to engage in a hypothetical debate, but wouldn’t want to actually make the final determination in some of these situations. Just as I wouldn’t want to be the person who decides which recipient gets the liver transplant.
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Nathan says:
“I’m happy to engage in a hypothetical debate, but wouldn’t want to actually make the final determination in some of these situations. Just as I wouldn’t want to be the person who decides which recipient gets the liver transplant.”I agree.
Typically, fools go where Angels fear to tread.
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I hope we never, EVER, learn the identities of those who will have to make the decisions of priority when it comes.
1 because they will become the targets of a world of crazies, and
2 that way we won’t find out that they moved themselves to the top of the list.
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1 Healthcare workers and people in hospital who are Covid negative.
1a US military strike forces.
2 School employees over 45 or with comorbid conditions.
3 Nursing home residents and (this’ll PO this crowd) inmates.
4 The essentials who have face to face with John Q. Public, so as much as I admire their efforts, sanitation workers get lumped with the rest of us.
Yada, yada, yada…Oh, and last the Lt. Gov of Texas who was willing to sacrifice those over 70 when he was 69.
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“Oh, and last the Lt. Gov of Texas who was willing to sacrifice those over 70 when he was 69.”
No comment about Ezekiel Emanuel? Or the fact they he is one of Biden’s (age 78) coronavirus advisors?
“A doctor and medical ethicist argues life after 75 is not worth living”
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The bad news for people who don’t think life after 75 is worth living who then reach 75 is that making 76 is almost a certainty. Kinda wierd this probabilty stuff.
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That reminds me of a joke. Do you know what the secret of living to 100 is? Drum roll please. Here it is:
“Live to age 99, and then be VERY careful.”
You didn’t really say much about Ezekiel Emanuel as advisor to Biden. In my view, someone with his extreme views and callous disregard for human life should not be anywhere near where public policy is made.
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Uh, and Trump?
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“Uh, and Trump?”
President Trump is rough around the edges, but I can’t think of anything he’s said that even remotely compares with the idea that what, 40 or 50 million people in the U.S.? have no right to be alive.
At some point the “but look at Trump” deflection will no longer work. What then?
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Don’t know the context Nate. For all I know that could’ve been a statement about lifestyle, e.g., smoking, drinking, skydiving….
And, no, Nate. Trump always works. He’s actually trying to elect Democrats in Georgia.
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“Don’t know the context Nate. For all I know that could’ve been a statement about lifestyle, e.g., smoking, drinking, skydiving….”
If you don’t know the context NN, it’s because you don’t want to know, and refuse to look. Unlike many of the outlandish accusations made against conservatives which are based on taking an off hand comment out of context, my concerns about Ezekiel Emanuel are based on his own carefully written and published article.
“Why I Hope to Die at 75
An argument that society and families—and you—will be better off if nature takes its course swiftly and promptly”https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/10/why-i-hope-to-die-at-75/379329/
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Oh Hell, Nate. My mother lived to just shy of 97. The last 15 years of her life, she was physically active, an avid reader, and constantly said, “Uh, you don’t want to live to be 82… 83… 84… etc., etc.”
Personally, I am not anxious for the life some people live after reaching, I’ll say, 85. But, only because I have known some very athletic 83 year olds.
If that’s Zeke’s opinion of life quality after 75, well, he’ll probably find out.
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NN – If I were responsible for signing off on the priority list, I would need to see the data, assumptions and math behind these recommendations. I’ve worked with complex models and understand the complexities that can be involved.
For example, are you assuming nursing home residents have zero risk of dying from complications from receiving the vaccine? If so, please document the basis for that. How many nursing home recipients were part of the trials? What was their age? Condition?
My mother is 92 and lives in an assisted living facility (which is for all practical purposes a nursing home). She smoked for decades, has limited mobility, has avoided exercise like the plague all her life, has poor circulation etc. Is getting the vaccine directly the best way to protect her, or might it be to vaccinate those with whom she comes in contact with?
“It ends their isolation.”
Again, might that goal be best accomplished by residents getting the vaccine directly, or might it be better to vaccinate those with whom they would want to visit?
I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I would have literally hundreds more questions like these if I were evaluating vaccine deployment risks and benefits.
Here’s another. Who are the super spreaders? Would identifying and vaccinating them early provide the greatest benefit for the most people?
If providing the vaccine to teachers (and others working in schools) would bring back in-person instruction, that would theoretically benefit dozens of individuals with each vaccine. There’s potentially some positive math there.
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I thought I heard that the vaccine had NOT been tested on elderly, no?
re: vaccinating the super spreaders…
there is where logic and emotion collide! 😉
Great Idea – every NFL game and every bar/restaurant has free vaccinations!
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“I thought I heard that the vaccine had NOT been tested on elderly, no?”
It’s my understanding that elderly recipients have been very limited, and only those in good health. I’m 100% sure, however.
I’m especially concerned about those who are especially frail with various conditions in addition to age. My 92 year old mother has severe dementia, so I must make these decisions for her. I really hate making decisions for others, but that’s a necessity in this situation. I hope we get more information before that time comes.
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I meant to say “I’m NOT 100% sure, however.”
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re: “value judgements”
Indeed and they are not uniform per person, even decision-makers.
and agree, there is no way they are going to get teachers vaccinated in time for the 2d half.
This is not going to happen as fast as some think.. Remember, this is the govt! 😉 “warp speed” is a mythical concept.
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Oh no way. I will be amazed, beyond amazement, if the healthcare workers are all vacinated by June/July.
You and I might see a vacination opportunity by Christmas.
720,000,000 doses in 31,536,000 seconds?
“With the question of opening schools the biggest thing on everybody’s mind”. Sorry, it is not the biggest thing on elected Democrats’ minds. Not even close. Every evidence we have is that the teachers unions, thus the Democrats, want them to remain closed for at least the rest of the school year.
it’s likey going to take 2-3 months just to get the health care folks and first responders.
Even if they gave teachers priority just behind health care workers, it will be middle of spring before the start.
A bigger question might be – when they do get vaccinated in late spring / summer , should school re-start and keep going till summer 2022?
Sherjockj says “Sorry, it is not the biggest thing on elected Democrats’ minds. Not even close. Every evidence we have is that the teachers unions, thus the Democrats, want them to remain closed for at least the rest of the school year.”
Precisely right. That is all Northam cares about.
With regard to reality, in lieu of politics and ignorance, consider this written by Professor of Medicine Jay Bhattacharya (of Stanford University) in Imprimis:
“My goal today is, first, to present the facts about how deadly COVID-19 actually is; second, to present the facts about who is at risk from COVID; third, to present some facts about how deadly the widespread lockdowns have been; and fourth, to recommend a shift in public policy.
1. The COVID-19 Fatality Rate
In discussing the deadliness of COVID, we need to distinguish COVID cases from COVID infections. A lot of fear and confusion has resulted from failing to understand the difference.
We have heard much this year about the “case fatality rate” of COVID. In early March, the case fatality rate in the U.S. was roughly three percent—nearly three out of every hundred people who were identified as “cases” of COVID in early March died from it. Compare that to today, when the fatality rate of COVID is known to be less than one half of one percent.
In other words, when the World Health Organization said back in early March that three percent of people who get COVID die from it, they were wrong by at least one order of magnitude. The COVID fatality rate is much closer to 0.2 or 0.3 percent. The reason for the highly inaccurate early estimates is simple: in early March, we were not identifying most of the people who had been infected by COVID.
“Case fatality rate” is computed by dividing the number of deaths by the total number of confirmed cases. But to obtain an accurate COVID fatality rate, the number in the denominator should be the number of people who have been infected—the number of people who have actually had the disease—rather than the number of confirmed cases.
In March, only the small fraction of infected people who got sick and went to the hospital were identified as cases. But the majority of people who are infected by COVID have very mild symptoms or no symptoms at all. These people weren’t identified in the early days, which resulted in a highly misleading fatality rate. And that is what drove public policy. Even worse, it continues to sow fear and panic, because the perception of too many people about COVID is frozen in the misleading data from March.
So how do we get an accurate fatality rate? To use a technical term, we test for seroprevalence—in other words, we test to find out how many people have evidence in their bloodstream of having had COVID.
This is easy with some viruses. Anyone who has had chickenpox, for instance, still has that virus living in them—it stays in the body forever. COVID, on the other hand, like other coronaviruses, doesn’t stay in the body. Someone who is infected with COVID and then clears it will be immune from it, but it won’t still be living in them.
What we need to test for, then, are antibodies or other evidence that someone has had COVID. And even antibodies fade over time, so testing for them still results in an underestimate of total infections.
Seroprevalence is what I worked on in the early days of the epidemic. In April, I ran a series of studies, using antibody tests, to see how many people in California’s Santa Clara County, where I live, had been infected. At the time, there were about 1,000 COVID cases that had been identified in the county, but our antibody tests found that 50,000 people had been infected—i.e., there were 50 times more infections than identified cases. This was enormously important, because it meant that the fatality rate was not three percent, but closer to 0.2 percent; not three in 100, but two in 1,000.
When it came out, this Santa Clara study was controversial. But science is like that, and the way science tests controversial studies is to see if they can be replicated. And indeed, there are now 82 similar seroprevalence studies from around the world, and the median result of these 82 studies is a fatality rate of about 0.2 percent—exactly what we found in Santa Clara County.
In some places, of course, the fatality rate was higher: in New York City it was more like 0.5 percent. In other places it was lower: the rate in Idaho was 0.13 percent. What this variation shows is that the fatality rate is not simply a function of how deadly a virus is. It is also a function of who gets infected and of the quality of the health care system. In the early days of the virus, our health care systems managed COVID poorly. Part of this was due to ignorance: we pursued very aggressive treatments, for instance, such as the use of ventilators, that in retrospect might have been counterproductive. And part of it was due to negligence: in some places, we needlessly allowed a lot of people in nursing homes to get infected.
But the bottom line is that the COVID fatality rate is in the neighborhood of 0.2 percent. …”
For a lot more see:
https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/sensible-compassionate-anti-covid-strategy/
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More from above Professor of Medicine Jay Bhattacharya (of Stanford University) in Imprimis
“2. Who Is at Risk?
The single most important fact about the COVID pandemic—in terms of deciding how to respond to it on both an individual and a governmental basis—is that it is not equally dangerous for everybody. This became clear very early on, but for some reason our public health messaging failed to get this fact out to the public.
It still seems to be a common perception that COVID is equally dangerous to everybody, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. There is a thousand-fold difference between the mortality rate in older people, 70 and up, and the mortality rate in children. In some sense, this is a great blessing. If it was a disease that killed children preferentially, I for one would react very differently. But the fact is that for young children, this disease is less dangerous than the seasonal flu. This year, in the United States, more children have died from the seasonal flu than from COVID by a factor of two or three.
Whereas COVID is not deadly for children, for older people it is much more deadly than the seasonal flu. If you look at studies worldwide, the COVID fatality rate for people 70 and up is about four percent—four in 100 among those 70 and older, as opposed to two in 1,000 in the overall population.
Again, this huge difference between the danger of COVID to the young and the danger of COVID to the old is the most important fact about the virus. Yet it has not been sufficiently emphasized in public health messaging or taken into account by most policymakers. …”
For a lot more see:
https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/sensible-compassionate-anti-covid-strategy/
a few quick google queries:
Virginia now set to receive 480,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses by end of December
total number of health care workers in Virginia 377,000
total number of teachers in Virginia: 90,000
someone double check…..
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If you want to include ALL k-12 school employees, it’s probably double the 90K number.
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Wait. I thought you wanted to protect workers, not shirkers….
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It takes two.
What’s most unfortunate is people are not given full information on vaccines in order to have informed consent. In addition, vaccines manufacturers are exempt from liability of the injuries/deaths their products cause.
Since they are not advising you of the possible adverse events, look at page 16 on the FDA website https://www.fda.gov/media/143557/download?fbclid=IwAR20EB1lCNYzYok30hzScHTvtlMzVsOzkSf9uuQxGEhvf9m8rpA6WPyAcAQ.
Please don’t have a short memory. Look up the Swine Flu vaccine which was likewise rushed to market and was a major disaster that the government stopped it. I have researched vaccines for years now, and I can tell you that injuries/deaths are not rare. Look at the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).
Here’s the vaccine insert and it shows what the adverse events in a trial: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.08.17.20176651v1.full.pdf
Here’s information for U.K. Healthy Care Professionals. Look at 4.6 on fertility and breastfeeding and 4.8 on undesirable effects. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/941452/Information_for_healthcare_professionals.pdf
This article has doctors, including the head of Pfizer Research, describing issues with the vaccine, including: “The mRNA vaccines … contain polyethylene glycol (PEG). 70% of people develop antibodies against this substance – the means that many people can develop allergic, potentially fatal reactions to the vaccination.” It also states, “The Pfizer covid vaccine is approved in the UK and begins next week. What Pfizer has NOT provided: The ingredients, The results data, An independently peer-reviewed study! To save you reading the 120-page study design, here’s the summary:
– The vaccine has NOT been tested on children, pregnant women, people taking medications and individuals with comorbidities (Yet the plan is for all of the above to receive the vaccine)
– Pfizer doesn’t plan to release the results data for independent scrutiny for another 2 years
– Pfizer did not assess vaccine reactions in all 43,000 participants (just a random sunset of 8,000
– Pfizer only reported severe reactions that occurred in more than 2% (860 people). In other words, if 800 people suffered a severe immune reaction, they did not have to report it because it occurred in less than 2%!!
– Pfizer will not submit the study for peer-review until they’ve completed their analysis of safety data. Let that sink in – the vaccine is approved and they have not finished analyzing the data!
https://healthandmoneynews.wordpress.com/2020/12/02/head-of-pfizer-research-covid-vaccine-is-female-sterilization/
I copied this from Jonathan Tommy:
The shocking reason why Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine requires storage at -70C … because it contains experimental nanotech components that have NEVER been used in vaccines before.
Pfizer’s new coronavirus vaccine requires storage at -70C (-94F), which is much colder than the North Pole. If it’s not stored at this temperature, its ingredients begin to break down and it fails to work. Currently Pfizer is claiming, without evidence, that its vaccine is “90% effective.” But this claim is little more than corporate propaganda designed to drive up stock prices through false projections.
But why do these vaccines need to be kept at -70C in the first place?
The answer, it turns out, is because they contain potentially hazardous ingredients that have never been used in vaccines before.
As Children’s Health Defense explained in an August 6th article, “mRNA vaccines undergoing Covid-19 clinical trials, including the Moderna vaccine, rely on a nanoparticle-based “carrier system” containing a synthetic chemical called polyethylene glycol (PEG).”
CHD goes on to explain:
The use of PEG in drugs and vaccines is increasingly controversial due to the well-documented incidence of adverse PEG-related immune reactions, including life-threatening anaphylaxis.
Roughly seven in ten Americans may already be sensitized to PEG, which may result in reduced efficacy of the vaccine and an increase in adverse side effects.
If a PEG-containing mRNA vaccine for Covid-19 gains FDA approval, the uptick in exposure to PEG will be unprecedented—and potentially disastrous.
Moderna documents and publications indicate that the company is well aware of safety risks associated with PEG and other aspects of its mRNA technology but is more concerned with its bottom line.
Lipid nanoparticles cause hyperinflammatory responses in the body, leading to severe reactions, hospitalization and potentially DEATH
Why are LNPs (Lipid Nanoparticles) used in these vaccines? As CHD further explains:
LNPs “encapsulate the mRNA constructs to protect them from degradation and promote cellular uptake” and, additionally, rev up the immune system (a property that vaccine scientists tamely describe as LNPs’ “inherent adjuvant properties”)
In other words, the LNPs are adjuvants, meaning they are designed to cause hyperinflammatory responses in human beings, once injected. This is done in an effort to induce the creation of antibodies that then allow the vaccine manufacturer to claim high “effectiveness” rates, even when those very same adjuvants cause severe adverse reactions.
According to recent vaccine trials conducted by Moderna, 100% of human subjects in the high-dose vaccine trial group experienced adverse reactions.
Lot’s of comments regarding priorities. That’s good. Think of this, who will administer the priorities? Who will ‘game’ the priorities? Let’s keep it simple.
1. First responders/medical personnel. No one can argue with that.
2. By age…period…easy to administer…tough to ‘game’.
Since assisted living/nursing home people are older, they will end up near the top of the list. Older school people will get the vaccine, the younger ones will have to wait. Those younger with pre-existing conditions will have to ‘isolate’…etc…just as they are doing now. Don’t panic, at the rate that the vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna…and then J&J which is a one shot vaccine) are delivered it will only be a few months before they get them. We
‘ve been waiting for almost 12 months for the vaccine…what’s a few more months if you are young? You have your whole life ahead of you. School kids/admins/teachers…20 years from now they will only remember the year they didn’t go to school. Hey, I’m 76, I want to see my grandchildren graduate for high school and college before I die from something other than covid.
In case you missed it, UVA’s self proclaimed mission is the save the world for us. How reassuring! I read their most recent claim taken from this winter’s edition of UVA Magazine is to accomplish their saving of the world by undermining confidence in soon to be approved Covid vaccines, so as to clear the way for UVA’s new vaccine that is allegedly going to be far better than all rest. Consider this from UVA Magazine:
“As early hope of containing COVID-19 outbreaks faded, focus turned to a vaccine as the path to gaining control over the pandemic. And although a handful of front-runners quickly moved into advanced clinical trials in the U.S. and elsewhere, it’s unlikely that any will prove a “magic bullet” for rapidly combating the virus. UVA researchers have several projects in early development.
To address a growing concern about waning COVID-19 immunity, professor of surgery Dr. Craig Slingluff (Col ’80, Med ’84) and his team are developing a vaccine with a “prime-and-boost” approach, likely with two different shots that would be administered several weeks apart. “Some of the emerging evidence suggests that immunity against the coronavirus is not as strong or long-lasting as we would like,” Slingluff says. “So what we anticipate is that there will be subsets of people who get the first vaccine who don’t get a very good immune response and aren’t protected, and that others may get an immune response but it wears off over time. We hope that this approach will create a stronger, more durable response.” …”
For more on how UVA is going to save our world for us all, see:
https://uvamagazine.org/articles/as_covid_persists_so_does_uvas_work_toward_a_cure?utm_source=digitaleditions&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=winter2020
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