Vaccine Rollout - State starts out with an 'F' but much improved, Big Island gets B+

[kalakoa]

the African variant has yet to be introduced here

As far as we know -- Hawaii does very little genome sequencing.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

Some COVID news today:

From the CDC:
“It’s possible that some people who are fully vaccinated could get Covid-19. The evidence isn’t clear whether they can spread the virus to others. We are continuing to evaluate the evidence.”
... data published by the C.D.C. showing that one dose of the Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was 80 percent effective at preventing infection, and two doses were 90 percent effective.

All the details:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/01/healt...ensky.html

[terracore]

"South African variant may evade protection from Pfizer vaccine, Israeli study says"

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/sou...r-BB1fxbW5

"the research has not been peer reviewed"

"Eric Shawn: ‘Court packing’ could be back at the Supreme Court
Billionaires Jay-Z and Beyoncé's Net Worth Just Got Even Bigger

(Updates April 10 story with details on plans for a booster shot)


By Maayan Lubell

JERUSALEM, April 10 (Reuters) - The coronavirus variant discovered in South Africa may evade the protection provided by Pfizer/BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine to some extent, a real-world data study in Israel found, though its prevalence in the country is very low and the research has not been peer reviewed.

The study, released on Saturday, compared almost 400 people who had tested positive for COVID-19, 14 days or more after they received one or two doses of the vaccine, against the same number of unvaccinated patients with the disease.

It matched age and gender, among other characteristics.

The South African variant, B.1.351, was found to make up about 1% of all the COVID-19 cases across all the people studied, according to the study by Tel Aviv University and Israel's largest healthcare provider, Clalit.

But among patients who had received two doses of the vaccine, the variant's prevalence rate was eight times higher than those unvaccinated - 5.4% versus 0.7%.

This suggests the vaccine is less effective against the South African variant, compared with the original coronavirus and a variant first identified in Britain that has come to comprise nearly all COVID-19 cases in Israel, the researchers said.

"We found a disproportionately higher rate of the South African variant among people vaccinated with a second dose, compared to the unvaccinated group. This means that the South African variant is able, to some extent, to break through the vaccine's protection," said Tel Aviv University's Adi Stern.

[Carey]

As many of you know, there are a few different Federal Providers assisting our state & county in the vaccination effort. So far, Hilo Medical Center & the Dept of Health have supplied many of our large scale vaccination efforts. In the last 30 day (during the complaints times & after) the DOH has supplied 10,000 vaccinations (just a part of their 4 month effort) & HMC has delivered over 25,000 total since the beginning, in our county
For most of the East-side large-scale the DOH & HMC have utilized 2 venues of the Ho`olulu County Complex (the EK Tennis Stadium & the AC Civic Center).
We just got this information from our MRC newsletter "We plan to wrap up our Hilo PODs at Civic Center and Tennis Stadium in next several weeks due to the venue availability. We will announce the new venue as soon as it is confirmed."

[1voyager1]

This may have been posted, but I haven't seen it.
I have been sitting on it for several days.
It has been updated since first seeing it.

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55659820

[ChunksterK]

The J&J-Jensen vaccine has been paused from most mass vaccination programs due to blood clots:

https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2021/04/13...d-vaccine/

This seems like an extreme "abundance of caution" given that the occurrence was only six with one fatality out of 6.8 million doses given. All the clots occurred 6-13 days post vaccination in females between ages 18 and 48. I hope this doesn't feed the anti-vax proponents' argument against getting a shot. Here in Hawaii, Long's Drugs has cancelled its J&J appointments in the near term, but others are available.

[kalakoa]

seems like an extreme "abundance of caution"

That's "the new normal" for you.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

‘An Abundance of Caution’

Starring Hayden Christianson & Renée Zellweger
A middle aged couple scroll through websites, searching for a safe Summer 2021 vacation destination.  One of them won’t fly, the other refuses to sleep in too many different beds or eat in restaurants.  Both of their scheduled appointments for the J&J vaccine cancel.  

Maybe they should add a new streaming service? “What do you think hon?”
“Or two?” 
They can’t decide on an empty stomach so order too much bland Asian takeout for delivery.
By the end of the flick they run low on wine, both the Merlot, and Chardonnay. (Setting up a potential sequel ’Red White & The COVID Blues’.)

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

News today about booster shots for the Pfizer vaccine:

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said people will “likely” need a booster dose of a Covid-19 vaccine within 12 months of getting fully vaccinated. His comments were made public Thursday but were taped April 1.
Bourla said it’s possible people will need to get vaccinated against the coronavirus annually.

“A likely scenario is that there will be likely a need for a third dose, somewhere between six and 12 months and then from there, there will be an annual revaccination, but all of that needs to be confirmed. And again, the variants will play a key role.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/15/pfizer-c...onths.html


Also, Moderna announced today:

* Moderna’s vaccine continues to provide strong protection six months later
* “Moderna will make as many updates to our COVID-19 vaccine as necessary until the pandemic is under control.

The story is from the Boston Globe, behind a paywall.

[terracore]

That sounds very lucrative.

"Pfizer expects to produce up to 2 billion doses of its COVID-19 vaccine and make $15 billion in sales from the shot in 2021"

https://www.businessinsider.com/pfizer-v...021-2?op=1

Meanwhile, the "cheap" J&J jab is "paused".