COVID VACCINE - The Megathread

Would you get the Pfizer vaccine if it were available to you?


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    77

mgr22

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What is the overall risk of serious morbidity or mortality from COVID for an individual who is not in a high risk group?
Regarding morbidity, research on "long COVID" (long-term disability associated with COVID) is still scarce, but here are abbreviated results from two studies:

- Among 3700 COVID patients from 56 countries, 65% reported the following symptoms most commonly for at least six months: fatigue, post-exercise malaise, "brain fog," neurological sensations, headaches, memory issues, muscle aches, insomnia, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, balance issues, and speech issues.

- More than 75% of 1733 COVID patients discharged from a hospital in Wuhan had at least one symptom six months later, including fatigue, insomnia, depression, anxiety, and diminished lung function.

Neither study focused on patients in high-risk groups or not in high-risk groups.

Anecdotally, I've seen dozens of reports of long-term COVID-related disability among patients not in high-risk groups.
 

PotatoMedic

Has no idea what I'm doing.
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Well the day after I was quite miserable. Tired, felt sick but no fever, headache. Took some tylenol and ibuprofen together and felt back to normal outside of mild soreness at the injection site.
 

Carlos Danger

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Regarding morbidity, research on "long COVID" (long-term disability associated with COVID) is still scarce, but here are abbreviated results from two studies:

- Among 3700 COVID patients from 56 countries, 65% reported the following symptoms most commonly for at least six months: fatigue, post-exercise malaise, "brain fog," neurological sensations, headaches, memory issues, muscle aches, insomnia, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, balance issues, and speech issues.

- More than 75% of 1733 COVID patients discharged from a hospital in Wuhan had at least one symptom six months later, including fatigue, insomnia, depression, anxiety, and diminished lung function.

Neither study focused on patients in high-risk groups or not in high-risk groups.

Anecdotally, I've seen dozens of reports of long-term COVID-related disability among patients not in high-risk groups.
I appreciate the reply, but that doesn't really answer my question. I was more curious about the overall risk of death (or also, as I said, significant morbidity) to any random member of the general public who is not in a high risk group. They say that overall mortality rates have increased by about 10% in the US over the past year, but that is almost entirely accounted for by older folks.

Is any of this sequelae that you mention unique among from other viral respiratory pathologies of sufficient severity to warrant hospital admission?
 

Carlos Danger

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Well the day after I was quite miserable. Tired, felt sick but no fever, headache. Took some tylenol and ibuprofen together and felt back to normal outside of mild soreness at the injection site.
I rarely get sick and I'll be first to admit that when I do, I'm not very stoic about it, hence my whining on here yesterday. My symptoms started about 12 hours after I got the second shot and lasted about 24 hours. I can't believe how lousy I felt. It was like I imagine I'd feel if I had the flu and a bad hangover at the same time. Still not 100% today, but way better than yesterday.
 

mgr22

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I appreciate the reply, but that doesn't really answer my question. I was more curious about the overall risk of death (or also, as I said, significant morbidity) to any random member of the general public who is not in a high risk group. They say that overall mortality rates have increased by about 10% in the US over the past year, but that is almost entirely accounted for by older folks.

Is any of this sequelae that you mention unique among from other viral respiratory pathologies of sufficient severity to warrant hospital admission?
To answer that last question, I'd have to be familiar with all viral respiratory pathologies of sufficient severity to warrant hospital admission. I'm not. I doubt anyone else here is. But I get your point.

As for mortality rates, the only fresh knowledge I can contribute is that in Tennessee, COVID deaths in the over-60 age group have been increasing relative to the 0-20 age group.
 

VentMonkey

Family Guy
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Moderna shot #1. I’m curious to see if I’ll present with any symptoms given the fact that I am still within my 90 day bubble.
 

VentMonkey

Family Guy
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Moderna shot #1. I’m curious to see if I’ll present with any symptoms given the fact that I am still within my 90 day bubble.
Welp, woke up early this morning with some pretty good body aches, and a temp.

All symptoms seemed to have subsided after I downed some Tylenol though.
 

akflightmedic

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I even know a guy....LOL
 

MMiz

I put the M in EMTLife
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Someone help me work through this. The Washington Post reports the reserve was exhausted in December. Pfizer reports to have doses on hand and expects no US supply problem. Many states are having significant supply problems.

I see Biden says he's renaming "Operation Warpspeed" but don't see much else beyond that.

Where is the hang up? What parts should be privatized?

I remember during Hurricane Katrina Walmart was helping the federal government with logistics. I would imagine Walgreens, CVS, and Walmart have the supply chain experience to make this happen better than we're seeing right now.
 

Carlos Danger

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Someone help me work through this. The Washington Post reports the reserve was exhausted in December. Pfizer reports to have doses on hand and expects no US supply problem. Many states are having significant supply problems.

I see Biden says he's renaming "Operation Warpspeed" but don't see much else beyond that.

Where is the hang up? What parts should be privatized?

I remember during Hurricane Katrina Walmart was helping the federal government with logistics. I would imagine Walgreens, CVS, and Walmart have the supply chain experience to make this happen better than we're seeing right now.
I can't say what I think exactly should have been done differently because I don't know the whole process and it seems like no one knows what has gone wrong (SHOCKING!!), but it seems like minimizing the moving parts and attaching a profit to it being done efficiently is always the best recipe for having things done right.

I envision a simple system where the doses are shipped directly from the manufacturers to ONE (or no more than 2 or 3, in the case of the geographically larger states) warehouse in each state. Then a private logistics company is contracted to deliver from the state warehouse directly to the hospitals and clinics per that state's distribution plan for the first rounds of doses to LTC residents and healthcare workers. This would require a fair amount of coordination between hospital systems and their local LTC facilities and local health authorities, but local planning and coordination is always better than top-down. After that initial phase, CVS, Walgreens, WM, etc could have been made responsible for retrieving their own doses from that warehouse once cleared for distribution to the general public.
 

NomadicMedic

I know a guy who knows a guy.
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The idea that states are being punished with fewer does of vaccine for failing to expeditiously deliver vaccines is mind boggling to me.

The administration of doses should have been privatized. We should have allocated 30 days for 1a then start moving on. If you don’t get it, you have to get to the back of the line. in PA we are still struggling with 1a vaccines.

“Given the logistical issues associated with the vaccines, in conjunction with the recent announcement from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that states already lagging behind will be penalized with fewer doses, it's more important than ever for allocation to be as seamless as possible.“

 

OceanBossMan263

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The idea that states are being punished with fewer does of vaccine for failing to expeditiously deliver vaccines is mind boggling to me.

The administration of doses should have been privatized. We should have allocated 30 days for 1a then start moving on. If you don’t get it, you have to get to the back of the line. in PA we are still struggling with 1a vaccines.

“Given the logistical issues associated with the vaccines, in conjunction with the recent announcement from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that states already lagging behind will be penalized with fewer doses, it's more important than ever for allocation to be as seamless as possible.“


I'm in NY where the process is being run, well like it's being run by the State. Website crashes at almost every turn, not prepared for the traffic. Appointments being cancelled because doses are being diverted to other facilities.

They opened up 1A and they had their own time for a bit, but now it seems like every other day they just keep adding eligible groups while the previously open groups hadn't been able to make any arrangements yet.

Should have been privatized with actual time blocks set up for different priority groups. Large enough employers (municipalities) could have their own events set up separate from the public. It seems nice to make it convenient for everyone, but it should have been a registration and then vaccine time assigned by the company/state. State should kick in with an order for paid time off for the purpose of vaccines like they did with quarantine time.
 

akflightmedic

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I will write about my own state since I am heavily involved at both the Private and Public Level. As for the public level, here is how our rollout went.

1. The Maine CDC receives and houses all the vaccine.
2. Any entity wishing to be a vaccine administrator has several approval steps involving a lot of paperwork. Pictures, checklists, signatures, license verifications, and so much more.
3. TRAINING! There were mandatory videos and quizzes for all levels of administrator who were to be involved. Top down training from the CDC, the State, and the Manufacturers.
4. Then State EMS is involved in the roll out. Yay, more cooks in kitchen. An office which has 4 full time staff.
5. The State EMS scrambles to ensure everyone knows how to give an IM, also rapidly trying to alter its online EMS reporting system to ensure a report is generated on every patient in order to extract the data required to be reported to Maine and Fed CDC. Website has glitches...other glitches are found AFTER roll out and clinics start.
**Important comment I keep making from the Top Down is this....everyone had a FULL TIME job BEFORE all of this...developing, rolling out and overseeing this IS a new full time job. So either hire new people with skills and experience or privatize it!!
6. State EMS develops a roll out plan which they try to apply equally across the state, in every county which is just stupid. Put out some suggested guidelines and then let each county chase their own success.
7. The slowdown....is because the State EMS and Maine CDC are trying to have each county complete each phase entirely prior to moving to next phase. I will toot my own horn here...I kicked ARSE in my county!! I have been done with Phase 1 for two weeks yet prohibited from moving on because other counties had not. So what is the solution?? The Maine CDC stops sending me vaccine, they withhold it. Even though other counties were sent enough to do their phase 1, I stopped getting shipments. So they are trying to regulate how much vaccine is out there which is plain stupid. If we want herd immunity, let me start with developing it as fast as possible.
8. I am now getting 400 more doses this coming Mon and Tues. I could already have pumped out 1000s.
**As of this past Friday, the State of ME had NOT distributed even HALF of what it has received from CDC.

And regulatory compliance!! I have a 40 page document on how to store and transport the vaccine. 40 pages!!

And while the big pharmacy chains are great, have infrastructure, not every state has one of those on every corner FYI...my state is littered with mom and pop pharmacies. And again, even the little places, even the big places...they all had jobs prior to this. Staffing is an issue...even using off duty EMS staff, staffing is an issue.

**Remember kids...the vaccine is FREE !! The CDC sends you the vaccine and thee supplies to administer it for FREE. We can NOT charge for the vaccine or the supplies. We can bill insurance if available, can NOT collect copays or balance billing. We can NOT turn away anyone without insurance.

So all these costs associated with these services are upfront and out of pocket! Remember that !!! All my labor costs, benefits, equipment (iPads, storage for vaccine, building space) etc...NOT FREE and out of pocket up front in order to give the vaccine. So this hinders a lot of businesses unless you are one of those billion dollar chains or a publicly funded entity.

The staff I use for my public role, I pay time and half rates. I will be able to seek reimbursement at a later date from The Cares Act...however, the government will first see how much I collected from the insurance companies and then subtract that from the OT I sought reimbursement for. And how much will the insurance pay me??? It is between $18-$28 per shot.

Do the math and you will see where additional slow downs are and why.

I am meeting'd out...we have these mandatory Zoom meetings several times a week. WHY!? We sit and discuss BS. Just give me the vaccine and let me push it out. It is becoming so mundane and stupid and painfully obvious none of these people are qualified to be making these types of decisions or plans.

Meanwhile I am fielding phone call after phone call, emails and in person visits of businesses and people needing the vaccine. Yet here I sit on my thumbs.

Anyways..being the solutions guy and the entrepreneur I am...I have done a thing. :)

I actually have done mass vaccine roll out programs...in Afghanistan. In my former business owner life...I actually imported vaccines to Afghan. My staff administered in excess of 100K+ vaccines all over the country. What we need here in my state is the easiest shlT ever compared to what I did before. Cold chain concerns....really?? I have that nailed. Assembly line, Warp Speed administration...I got it covered.

Anyways, like I said, I know a guy...and he should get his CDC approval number this week and then he will be in it to win it.
 

DrParasite

The fire extinguisher is not just for show
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It's amazing... the Trump administration is being blamed for the lack of available vaccines. Not the States that are actually handling the administration. Not big pharma that is actually manufacturing the vaccine. And don't forget DHHS, the state's CDC, and local public health officials... all Trump's fault...

The is a failure at the local level, as they are in charge of distribution. There are conflicting reports on numbers (WaPo says there are none left, yet pfizer says they got plenty), with some states reporting shortages. and then you have states like New York, where they are simply discarding unadministered vaccines. And it's happening in other states, such as Mass and Oregan, where reports of thousands of doses were trashed.

It's not easy to do, but it's also not impossible: and this is what public health departments are for. And as was mentioned above, there are costs to this "free" vaccine, esp when the private industry gets involved. storage costs, manpower costs, training costs (even though it should be minimal), and while a government entity can use existing staff, doing so in the private world would take people away from their day jobs.

However, as the supply chain gets more developed, and with less misinformation floating around from the media, things will get better... hopefully
 
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