It's more than obvious now that early April represented our peak vaccination rate and we're now declining pretty steadily.
This whole thing is just such an ungodly shame. For all the endless griping about how badly we screwed up our response to the pandemic, nobody can complain about our vaccine development. The Chinese released the coronavirus genome on January 10; we had the first vaccines developed by January 12; and they were ready for distribution by December. That's just mind-boggling. Overall, we've also done a good job of distributing them, with something like half the country vaccinated within four months.
But now, just as we're on the brink of truly crushing the coronavirus, we can't quite take the final step. Masking and other countermeasures are being abandoned too quickly and we're now having trouble getting the other half of the country to get the vaccine. All we need is a few more weeks. That's it. And we can't quite do it.
We'll get there eventually. Everyone forgets this now, but vaccine hesitancy ran around 30% for the polio vaccine too, so response to the coronavirus vaccine is not unprecedented. I'm just not sure if that makes me feel any better.
I'm just hoping the hold-outs don't give us a new variant that can jump vaccine immunity. COVID's not the flu, but it's also fast enough that we've had some nasty variants already 18 months into this, and it's not a guarantee that we won't get an immune-resistant variant the longer this takes.
Vaccines in general had a hard road to acceptance, with opposition from the same type of people who are spreading lies and misinformation about them now.
I fear, too, that New York City Mayor-in-waiting Andrew Yang is also likely antivaxxx-curious, at the least, & no different than his fellow clownshow 2020 Democrat primary rival, Marianne Williamson, or copy-of-a-copy-of-a-copy of a Kennedy, Robert, Jr.
Defeating El Jefe Maximo in November 2020 didn't make out government nor our electorate smarter.
Ashis Jha, drawing upon the experience in Israel, sees a sharp drop in cases once 45 - 50% of the population is vaccinated.
https://twitter.com/notifications
Here in Connecticut, we are about to test that conjecture. We have 40% fully vaccinated; ~10% infected and survived; no data on the intersection of those sets, presumably the union of sets comprises individuals with some degree of immunity. Fourteen-day average cases are down 40%; hopeful we’ll see the trends continue.
I think Jha's threshold is around 50% of the population or 65% of adults.
If vaccinations don't pick up in the South, they'll be another summer surge. Not as bad as last year, but totally avoidable.
Nah. They already opened. The surge is already underway.
No question that variants are a worry, although I think the major risk of variants is not from the comparatively small number of Americans who refuse to get vaccinated but rather from the large parts of the world where vaccination hasn't got nearly as far.
And as to the Idiot Americans -- I'm thinking here of the story I saw from the Florida EM doc who said the 60 or so deaths per day they're seeing include a heavy proportion of 50-somethings who haven't got vaccinated -- you can lead a horse to water, etc. I just hope they confine their maskless, unvaccinated socialization to people like themselves, so the die-back stays relatively confined.
I think the analogy to the polio vaccine isn’t quite right. There was a significant degree of hesitantly about the polio vaccine because there were in fact some risks associated with the vaccine, particularly earlier on, even though it was on balance truly miraculous. That’s clearly not the case with the COVID-19 vaccine which has been taken but a truly immense number of people without much downside.
The thing that’s being overlooked is that the “hesitating” is almost entirely politically motivated. And, to repeat what I said yesterday, that politically driven is being facilitated by the way in which the larger society is catering to these petulant assholes. We are making it easier and safer for them to politically posture against public health measures and the vaccine because the adherence by others insulates from the consequences of their actions.
We are wearing masks mainly to keep others safe but this isn’t reciprocated. People who have been vaccinated could be beginning to lead increasingly normal lives with vaccine passports. We don’t have vaccine passports because of fear that these people will feel excluded. Yet, increasingly it’s being recognized and accepted (as me in implicitly doing) that herd immunity may be out of reach for years or even decades. If it’s a choice between a COVID ravaged future or excluding these entitled assholes from society, I say we need to change direction and stop protecting these people from themselves
NY Times has a story today saying what you're saying: herd immunity is a goner, we're living with this forever.
The political implications are interesting to me.
For one thing, I think it makes a vaccine mandate in the states that would support it more attractive.
For instance, say California has a vaccine mandate. Doesn't that make it a much better tourist destination? Plus a destination for retirees to move to?
What if Florida basically indulges the anti-vaxxers? (See the other NYT story today about the hoity toity Miami charter school which fires any teachers who've been vaccinated!) Given so much of Florida's tourist economy is based on being elderly-friendly (i.e.., cruises and condos), does this start to make a dent in that business?
Gonna be interesting.
I think the only path forward is a vaccine passport. That creates a clear line of demarcation between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated which will allow businesses to operate safely and increasingly normally. Plus, we should have legal protections for those who refuse service or employment to the unvaccinated.
I saw the article and skimmed -- but will have to read it again. What I'm wondering is, why doesn't vaccination hesitancy just make herd immunity's arrival later (rather than not reachable, ever)? In other words: millions of non-vaccinated Americans already have covid immunity via infection. Wouldn't the virus simply continue to spread among the non-vaccinated population until herd immunity is nonetheless reached for the population as a whole (say, 65% vaccinated + 25% acquired immunity via infection for a 90% total)? Is it because immunity fades with time? Variants?
One hope I have is that covid19, even if it's around indefinitely, will eventually mutate into less dangerous forms. I'm not sure we've seen that up until now (quite the opposite, it would appear) but my layperson's understanding is that, throughout history, many pathogens have tended to evolve toward reduced lethality because of selective pressure against pathogen varieties that kill their hosts.
Skepticism of the original polio vaccine was easier justify, as the vaccine was based on a "killed" virus, and screwups in manufacturing could and did result in polio virus being injected into the people it was intended to protect. The Moderna and Pfizer mRNA vaccines contain only a tiny fragment of virial RNA making it impossible to transmit COVID.
I think the key will be the vaccines getting fully FDA approved.
Once that happens it will be much easier to make it mandatory for the military, for all students (the way so many other vaccines already are to enroll). And yea, once they're FDA approved a vaccine passport for everything else will be a much easier sell.
I wouldn’t disagree with you but, at the same time, I’m not sure what would be vital about a paper review that would be more important than the real world experience of vaccinating hundreds of millions of people without uncovering any significant problems.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for a vaccine passport right now, driven by the private sector... in fact I'd like to see the vaccine hesitant treated like draft dodgers by the media, instead of coddled.
But yea, it's long term safety data that's standing in the way of FDA approval I'd think, so it not a matter of how many millions of people get the shot with no problems, it's a matter of time. "Nobody grew a tail in year 3? Ok, sweet!"
For the government to make it mandatory for the military or students I'm sure that FDA approval is what's standing in the way, and in general FDA approval would jettison the only "legitimate" concern for hesitancy.
Of course it could be that long term data isn't required, and the FDA will approve the vaccines very soon. I guess we'll find out.
Apparently, Pfizer will be coming out with a pill to treat the disease. It will be interesting to see if those people who are hesitant to get the vaccine will also be hesitant to take a pill made by the same company that makes the vaccine. And if they are willing to take a pill to treat the disease if they get it, why not get the vaccine that prevents it?
I think they are okay with free riding on everyone else’s sacrifices. They don’t wear masks because they don’t think they need to if everyone else is and they don’t needed the vaccine because everyone else will get it and so they’ll be safe. They’re wrong, of course, but that won’t safe us from their petulance and poor judgment.
Ultimately, what will drive vaccination rates much higher will be private employers making vaccination a condition of employment. The Biden administration could jump start that process by requiring any private business and industry with a federal contract to require that their employees be vaccinated.
and/or private industries creating a bifurcated system, whereby vaccinated people get to participate fully and others don't (e.g., concerts, events, even restaurants). Like the old smoking sections (lol), but instead it'll be vaccinated sections.
I'm expecting something like that sooner rather than later for public events.
Doable for fully approved vaccines. Emergency approved--not clear cut. Full approval will take years of follow up studies, but we really do need something in the interim.
With 148,000,000 people vaccinated (over 10,000 times larger than the typical clinical trial), the follow up studies should go relatively quickly.
Unfortunately, long term safety studies my definition take time, no matter how many people you add.
If you can estimate long term effects over a lifetime by studying a group of a few thousand for "years", you can certainly do a bit better with a group of 148,000,000.
By contrast, I'm extremely optimistic about this whole thing. Just because the vaccination rate has leveled off instead of continuing to increase doesn't mean vaccinations are tailing off - it just means that growth in vaccinated numbers is linear instead of geometric. At current rates, in another 100 days we'll be over 70% having received at least one dose. That's honestly 1-2 months faster than I expected when vaccines were first rolling out in December-January (I made a friendly, non-monetary wager with friends that it would be October; I also expected not to be able to get my dose until late summer but am fully vaxxed as of yesterday).
This thing was always going to take until late summer to get us close to herd immunity numbers among those who can take the vaccine, and it was always going to take until sometime in 2022 to truly reach herd immunity because that's when vaccines should be available for children.
Can I still take your bet? I've been consistently betting that Mission Accomplished (in the USA) would be declared on July 4th. Of course, I also was thinking I'd get vaccinated in February instead of April/May.
Let me guess.. when you take lack of access off the chart it's almost exclusively dumb white people refusing the vaccine... At least we are consistent (dumb).. argh.. bust out a chart KD
Every analysis I've seen indicates that white vaccination rates exceed black vaccination rates.
At this point, excess production should be shipped out of country to where it is needed, with a reserve stockpiles kept in the US in case there are manufacturing hick-ups. Immediately ship out half the excess production, with the remainder building up a reserve as needed. Let more supplies needed for vaccinations and vaccine production be shipped out too--that may cut into our capacity a bit, but that's ok now.
IF
- there is enough vaccine that we are complaining that not enough people are being vaccinated
THEN
- WTF are we not authorizing vaccinations for kids (and all kids, not just over 15 or whatever)?
This is basic psychology. At least part of what is going on is that it's a hassle to vaccinate each member of a family piecemeal, as eligibility rules allow; far easier to just cart everyone to the doctor one time and get them all injected.
Like so much these days, America now cares more about the optics of "apparent equity" than with reality and everything associated with that (including that for families, ESPECIALLY the marginalized families that are supposed to be the focus of all this equity yammering) it's just much easier to do this sort of thing one time, not an endless procession of visits first for grandma, then two weeks later grandpa, then three weeks later mom and dad, then two months later the teenager kid, then another month later the young kids.
“... an endless procession of visits first for grandma, then two weeks later grandpa, then three weeks later mom and dad, then two months later the teenager kid, then another month later the young kids.”
Obviously with the exception of the kids since none of the vaccines are approved for them yet, this has been *exactly* my extended family’s experience... and literally none of us are complaining about it. Most people in America own cars and don’t live with grandparents, and most parents in America are used to having to take different members of the family to doctors/dentists/etc at different times. (I mean it’s not like all your children get braces or fillings at the same time... necessitating multiple “inefficient” trips to the dentist.)
> nobody can complain about our vaccine development
It wasn't branded as "operation faster than ever before"; it was branded as "operation warp speed".
One huge country is approaching 50% of adults fully vaccinated. What about the rest of the world?
Vaccine distribution in the U.S. peaked 4 months after vaccines were approved for broad distribution. Why couldn't the second production line have been set up starting 4 months before the vaccines were distributed? The fact that we didn't know whether or not the vaccines would work doesn't matter; the point was to make an expensive gamble to save money down the road.
The number of people fully vaccinated in the U.S. is just over 100M.
For some reason, my doctor still hasn't called me up to ask me if I've been vaccinated yet.
Measles, Polio, and Smallpox each have an R0 much higher than Covid-19. If they mostly got shutdown despite a 30% hesitancy rate, we might not be doing so bad with this one...
Thought it would be a good time to point to this: https://bityl.co/6fUs
"Surgo Ventures Projects U.S. COVID-19 Vaccination Rates will Plateau in Late April—Before We Reach Herd Immunity"
We're not going to get to herd immunity through vaccinations. It's time to accept reality.
See, we're all missing a critical feature of closing in on herd immunity: lowered R0. The fewer infections and smaller outbreaks we have, the more the vaccine-hesitant Americans will be disinclined to get vaccinated. They will rationalize that, because the risk of infection is now substantially lower, there is no need to get a shot.
There was a damn good reason to be hesitant to take the polio vaccine. We use the Sabin weakened virus vaccine, not the Salk killed virus. The Sabin vaccine has an advantage that the Salk does not -- vaccinated people shed weakened virus into the environment leading to secondary immunity. The Sabin vaccine also has a tremendous downside that the Salk vaccine does not -- there will always be some irreducible number of people who catch polio from the vaccine itself. The US made the decision that it was worth some percentage of people contracting polio from the virus as the cost of achieving secondary immunity.
I think it is not. I think the right way to address immunity is to make it illegal to refuse the vaccine except when it will threaten the patient's health. No religious exemptions, no Constitutional nutbags, no ignorant left wing antivaxxers. You get the vaccine or you go to jail.