D&D and the rising pandemic

[MoonSong]

Just to pile up on logistics. My country has had ridiculously and painfully slow vaccination progress rates. Yet, we are way ahead in comparison with the rest of Latin America. I wish we could have the brigades om the streets like back when they made thw campaign against smallpox, but there are just not enough doses, syringes and the world is a huge place.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The transport and storage needs of the vaccine are much different from those of fruit. We are talking temps of -76F and below.

Not to mention that you can't just supply the vaccine - you have to have people trained to handle it at the destination.

The logistics of this is why I firmly believe the J&J vaccines- and the new pills from a couple of pharma corps- will play an outsized role in the future of handling COVID.

 

[Cadence]

The transport and storage needs of the vaccine are much different from those of fruit. We are talking temps of -76F and below.

Not to mention that you can't just supply the vaccine - you have to have people trained to handle it at the destination.

And we are not talking about a shot. We are talking about hundreds of millions of doses of vaccines, that have to be administered twice over a month, and then again six months later for a booster. That's not like shipping pineapples, that's a commitment to medical services.

Which is not to say it cannot be done. But doing it isn't a simple one-off drop of a box of avocados.

It seems odd on page 2 of https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/info-by-product/pfizer/downloads/storage-summary.pdf that the Pfizer one can stay refrigerated longer (a month) than it can stay in a normal freezer (two weeks)? (Or am I misreading?)

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

It seems odd on page 2 of https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/info-by-product/pfizer/downloads/storage-summary.pdf that the Pfizer one can stay refrigerated longer (a month) than it can stay in a normal freezer (two weeks)? (Or am I misreading?)

It means that you can store it in a freezer for up to two weeks, and after that put in in the fridge for up to 31 days.

Use of the freezer extends the theoretical "shelf-life" of the vaccine.

 

[Umbran]

It seems odd on page 2 of https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/info-by-product/pfizer/downloads/storage-summary.pdf that the Pfizer one can stay refrigerated longer (a month) than it can stay in a normal freezer (two weeks)? (Or am I misreading?)

It is a little more complicated than that, because from the freezer it can be returned to deep-freeze, but once you thaw it, there is no going back.

 

[CleverNickName]

Got my third vaccine (the "booster") the other day. I didn't really have any side effects at all from the first two injections, but that third one was a doozy and left me tired, achy, and queasy for about 12 hours afterward. It was nothing that soup and ibuprophen couldn't fix, but it was surprising given my history with the other Covid-19 vaccines.

 

[Umbran]

The logistics of this is why I firmly believe the J&J vaccines- and the new pills from a couple of pharma corps- will play an outsized role in the future of handling COVID.

J&J has its place. But, initial studies are showing it faces similar losses of effectiveness against Omicron as other vaccines, but it starts off worse to begin with - the end result is it being "nearly worthless" against Omicron. More study is needed, but I'm expecting J&J may need to go back to the drawing board to stay relevant.

The anti-virals you take once you've got covid, however, are not dependent on the shape of the spike protein, so they still show a lot of promise.

 

[Rabulias]

I wish we could have the brigades om the streets like back when they made thw campaign against smallpox, but there are just not enough doses, syringes and the world is a huge place.

Another logistical wrinkle is there are a lot more people in the world now compared to the 1960s and 1970s (like twice as many).

 

[Umbran]

I don't want to jinx this, but...

My wife and I usually take a vacation in the wintertime. We didn't last year, for obvious reasons.
This year, we planned one back some time ago, because things started looking good. Now, we are nervous.

I checked, however, and at the moment, our intended destination has roughly 10% of the case rate, per capita, that my home area does. If that holds, it'll be safer to go on vacation than to stay home!

Knock on frikken wood!

 

[Eltab]

... Stupid headline ...

The really stupid headline will come next week:
Cornell Students Finish Semester, Go Home For Holidays

Including any students who were exposed but not sick. Instead of getting them tested before allowing them to depart. Keep the infected on campus and cure them. Then they can go home for the remaining holiday.