I was surprised to receive a call from Seattle Cancer Care Alliance about 5 pm last Wednesday, asking me if I’d like to be vaccinated. In what seemed like a snap, I had an appointment for Friday morning. This isn’t what I usually mean when I say breast cancer is the “gift that keeps on giving.”
The quasi-mass vaccination process at the Fred Hutchinson Research Center in Seattle was seamless, embellished with laughter and helpful nurses and staff. The entire process took about 30 minutes, from initial check-in to departure after my 15-minute observation. Side-effects over the weekend: minor swelling, a little fatigue and a headache that was exorcised with two Excedrin Migraine tablets.
I was stunned and yet resigned to learn Sunday that record keeping had not been a strong suit of the prior Administration. Appearing on Fox News Sunday, new CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said that the federal government does not know how many vaccine doses it has on hand.
By mid-year, the country should have enough doses of our current vaccines (BioNTech-Pfizer and Moderna) to fully vaccinate 200 million people, assuming neither Pfizer nor Moderna run into manufacturing challenges.
And yet.
The US still accounts for 1-in-4 global cases of COVID-19, with about 3% of the world’s population. We account for 1-in-5 deaths. At least 7.6% (25 million) of the US population has been infected with COVID-19; the percentage is certainly larger, given lack of testing initially and asymptomatic cases.
The attacks on September 11, 2001 claimed 2,988 lives. Our seven-day average death rate was 2,988 on 08 December 2020. For each day since then, sans one, the seven-day average has been more than 3,000 deaths. That’s 48 days of 9-11, over and over. Distributed, defused, dismissed.
On Thursday, the Biden Administration released its COVID-19 vaccination plan. It includes using the Defense Production Act (DPA) to produce “low dead space needles” which could be used to “extract a sixth dose of Pfizer’s vaccine from the vial.” The DPA may also be used to “ increase the supply of the lipid nanoparticles needed to make all mRNA vaccines” like the Moderna and BioNTech-Pfizer vaccines. It’s not clear how quickly either could be up and running and actually impact initial vaccinations and vaccine manufacturing.
Then Monday, President Biden upped his December goal of 100 million vaccinations in 100 days to 150 million. We have recently had days where 1 million vaccinations occurred (just not on a Sunday; 885,588 were reported yesterday). But will we have that many doses in hand to deliver?
Also on Monday, Biden extended travel bans that would have expired Tuesday. Travelers from South Africa who are not US citizens will not be allowed entry due to concerns about the coronavirus variant spreading there. Travelers are also banned from Brazil, Britain and 27 European countries.
Banning travelers from South Africa will not stop the spread of that variant. On Monday, New Zealand announced its first case of community spread in months, and it’s the South African variant (B.1.351).
Please continue reading: US hospitalizations hit six-week low : 25 January 2021
Known for gnawing at complex questions like a terrier with a bone. Digital evangelist, writer, teacher. Transplanted Southerner; teach newbies to ride motorcycles. @kegill (Twitter and Mastodon.social); wiredpen.com