Only half of the initial shipment of doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine will make their way across the country the first week after the vaccine is approved by the Food and Drug Administration, The New York Times reported late Wednesday.
So Pfizer will provide enough vaccine for 1 in 5 or 6 Americans by March. What about Moderna and Astrazinica? Similar numbers? If the vaccines are deployed correctly we should be able to vaccinate nearly everybody at risk in 3 or 4 months. That will begin to bring the pandemic into control with full control a few months later. At the very least we won’t be having a 9/11 style event every day.
Operation Warped
Are we laying odds on which states will receive the vaccine first?
Yeah, the west coast gets none, and neither does the northeast. Why? Don’t have a clue.
With Trump in charge? Red states only need apply, especially red states with pliable attorney generals who will stand behind the Texas chickenshit lawsuit.
I can name the 17 states.
Warp Speed
I do not think it means what they think it means.
41 more days.
So…1% of the country gets the vaccine to start. Imagine that.
And all this time, I thought it was ‘warped speed,’ as in twisted.
Somehow, the association fit with this administration.
Acknowledgement to @jackster
We’ve known that the vaccine was going to require two doses for months now. The idea that when you procured the doses they didn’t allow for both injections is so incompetent that it can only be the work of this particular WH, and the fact that they didn’t purchase more vaccine when they had the chance is beyond incompetent. The only explanation that makes sense is that the actual managers wanted to purchase more and Donnie told them that he would negotiate better deals. Either he didn’t bother or the company wouldn’t pay the kickback that he demanded.
I would expect the initial distribution to have little or no effect on the infection rate among the general public. We can expect (because of the holidays) to have over 5,000 deaths a day when Biden is sworn in (and Fox News will start a running count as of 12:00 p.m.). By early summer things should be getting better, but only if a large percentage of the population take the vaccine.
Cautious indeed … suspect there are significant concerns about the fragility of the supply chain process … one hiccup and a large chunk of the supply could be worthless.
Also - This first wave needs to be done very carefully … because it is - in reality- a sort of extention of the clinical trial process (remember … there simply has not been the time to do a really large volume segment of eval … this upcoming roll out to Healthcare workers should provide lots of info…)
The last thing that we need would be to inoculate 6 million … and then have some glitch make it impossible to provide them with the 2nd dose in 3 weeks …
Quite Cautious. …understandable but certainly also raises a question or two
Pfizer holds all the cards in any negotiations. Every government in the world is looking for vaccine and there are not enough doses to go around. To have been offered (at the agreed upon price) and refused doses is criminal negligence.
Yes, there will be others coming and they will be easier to ship and store, but it will still be most of 2021 before everyone who wants the vaccine gets it. To be fair, that will be true in much of the world, but still…
They DIDN’T negotiate a ‘better deal’. We know that. Donnie wouldn’t ‘deal’ with Pfizer so they sold to other countries…and then Trump started berating and insulting and smearing when it was revealed he fked up.
Face the Truth: The average American will not be vaccinated until at LEAST June, 2021, at the earliest.
Only the High-Risk groups will get the Vaccine starting in January 2021:
First-Responders, Health-Care Workers, and Elderly in Nursing Homes.
Followed quickly by:
Republican Senators
CEOs and Bank Executives
Hollywood Stars and their children
Popular TV Personalities
and anyone else that has either a lot of money and can buy it early or “knows a guy…”
The rest of us: We get to wait for the 3rd distribution of the vaccines, which won’t occur until at LEAST late May.
Those masks are not coming off any time soon. We need to get to at least 70% vaccination levels until we can even begin to affect the transmission rates.
That means almost 460 Million (230 Million x 2 as it takes 2 doses) vaccinations will have to have been given before we reach “Herd Immunity”. Maybe. We don’t really know.
That means we MUST keep up the Social Distancing and Mask wearing until at LEAST the 4th of July Holiday. We MAY begin to re-open things by then, fingers crossed.
As of right now, 50% of Pfizer is/will be in Pleasant Prairie, WI, and the other half is in Michigan. However, the FDA added a requirement that the states must have a special certification for it to leave the state. Wisconsin doesn’t have it. Not yet at least. Start here!
in case they are unexpectedly needed
What the f*** does this mean? How is a vaccine “unexpectedly needed”? It’s not like it’s a cure and they save it for the communities that hit a crisis level of infection. Shouldn’t infectious disease policy specialists be using all doses immediately in a strategic way to eradicate the virus in chunks of the country?
My (intuitive and crude) understanding is that the worst situation with a virus like this is exponential growth. A vaccine controls that in the same way as social distancing etc measures, or herd immunity – flattening the curve by reducing contagion spots. I don’t understand how stockpiling vaccine could be helpful.
EDIT: I just reread the numbers. I don’t like this headline, they’re not really delaying shipping “half the supply”. A dose is two shots, and because they aren’t 100% sure they’ll have more doses in 3 weeks, it makes sense to hang onto the the booster shots. So they’re only holding something like 8% in reserve.
Donnies’ usual MO.