Tag: vaccine

People are fed up with broken vaccine appointment tools — so they’re building their own

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/02/01/1016725/people-are-building-their-own-vaccine-appointment-tools/

Excerpt:

That very day, January 2, Craver worked from 3 in the afternoon until 11:30 at night to create Covid19 Vaccine TX, a site listing possible vaccination locations across the state. As a digital product designer, she knew that a site like this would have to be easy to read, intuitive to navigate, and quick to update. The idea was that people could upload information about vaccination sites, with each entry answering three questions: Was the vaccine available that day? Was the location taking appointments? Was there a wait list?

Craver loaded the project on the cloud-based spreadsheet service Airtable, posted a link on Reddit, and went to bed. When she woke up the next morning at 7 a.m., one entry was filled out. “At least somebody cares,” she remembers thinking. She spent the rest of the day manually inserting information for about 1,400 locations in the state. “I’ve been going nonstop since,” she says, estimating that she puts in about 40 hours of her free time every week to maintain the site. It has received 50,000 total visitors since launch.

Author(s): Tanya Basu

Publication Date: 1 February 2021

Publication Site: MIT Technology Review

Public Health Systems Still Aren’t Ready for the Next Pandemic

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.governing.com/next/Public-Health-Systems-Still-Arent-Ready-for-the-Next-Pandemic.html

Excerpt:

Like public health officials everywhere, Dr. Jeffrey Duchin marvels at the miraculous production of highly effective vaccines against COVID-19 in mere months.

But Duchin, head of public health in Seattle and King County, Washington, doesn’t dwell on the only triumph of the pandemic response. Instead, he quickly pivots to the huge deficiencies plaguing the rollout of those lifesaving injections.

The lack of planning and coordination. The insufficient workforce and training. The inadequate public messaging and outreach. And the failure to create a uniform database to track inventory and equitably distribute shots.

“We’re seeing the consequences now of a complete and utter failure to ensure we have a full and robust vaccination system,” Duchin said. The chaotic execution of state and local vaccination programs is only the latest in a series of missteps by public health departments during the worst pandemic in more than a century. They include lackluster testing, contact tracing and data collection, and the failure to protect minority communities, which have borne the brunt of this disease.

Author(s): MICHAEL OLLOVE AND CHRISTINE VESTAL

Publication Date: 1 February 2021

Publication Site: Governing

Israel provides first signs of mass vaccination driving down virus cases

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.ft.com/content/0cdc8563-1e6d-4089-bedb-b0f675c0d683

Graphic:

Excerpt:

Cases and hospital admissions in Israel are falling steeply among vaccinated age groups in the first clear sign worldwide that Covid-19 jabs are preventing illness following a mass inoculation campaign.

Daily case rates among people aged 60 and above have fallen by 46 per cent relative to their mid-January peak, compared with a much smaller decline of 18 per cent among under-60s, according to analysis by a team from the Weizmann Institute of Science near Tel Aviv.

Author(s): John Burn-Murdoch in London and Mehul Srivastava

Publication Date: 5 February 2021

Publication Site: Financial Times

As Covid-19 Vaccines Raise Hope, Cold Reality Dawns That Illness Is Likely Here to Stay

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/as-vaccines-raise-hope-cold-reality-dawns-covid-19-is-likely-here-to-stay-11612693803?mod=djemwhatsnews

Excerpt:

Vaccination drives hold out the promise of curbing Covid-19, but governments and businesses are increasingly accepting what epidemiologists have long warned: The pathogen will circulate for years, or even decades, leaving society to coexist with Covid-19 much as it does with other endemic diseases like flu, measles, and HIV.

The ease with which the coronavirus spreads, the emergence of new strains and poor access to vaccines in large parts of the world mean Covid-19 could shift from a pandemic disease to an endemic one, implying lasting modifications to personal and societal behavior, epidemiologists say.

“Going through the five phases of grief, we need to come to the acceptance phase that our lives are not going to be the same,” said Thomas Frieden, former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “I don’t think the world has really absorbed the fact that these are long-term changes.”

Author(s): Daniela Hernandez and Drew Hinshaw

Publication Date: 7 February 2021

Publication Site: Wall Street Journal

Slow Covid-19 Vaccine Rollout, New Variants Shift Some Business Plans

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/slow-covid-19-vaccine-rollout-shifts-some-business-plans-11612702801?mod=djemwhatsnews

Excerpt:

Consumers are unlikely to resume travel, dining out and shopping in stores at a pre-pandemic cadence until later this year, chiefs of some large companies told Wall Street analysts and investors in recent weeks. Some CEOs said consumer activity could pick up as soon as spring. Others pointed to a recovery later in the year—or even 2022.

“Let me underscore that progress on economic growth is contingent on an effective vaccine rollout program globally,” said Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO David Solomon. “In its absence, economic recovery will be unnecessarily delayed.”

The pandemic has unevenly bolstered and derailed growth prospects; divided workforces into staff able to shelter at home and those who must report in person for duty; and reshaped consumer purchasing as stay-at-home orders change. The rapid shifts have complicated financial forecasts and made consumer behavior hard to predict.

Author(s): Sarah Krouse

Publication Date: 7 February 2021

Publication Site: Wall Street Journal

Building robust and ethical vaccination verification systems

Mary Pat Campbell
Building robust and ethical vaccination verification systems

Excerpt:

The rapid development of an effective COVID-19 vaccine provides hope that the pandemic might be brought to an end, but as societies roll out vaccines and begin to open up, policymakers face difficult questions about how to best verify individuals’ vaccine records. Building vaccine record verification (VRV) systems that are robust and ethical will be vital to reopening businesses, educational institutions, and travel. Historically, such systems have been the domain of governments and have relied on paper records, but, now, a variety of non-profit groups, corporations, and academic researchers are developing digital verification systems. These digital vaccine passports include the CommonPass app developed by the World Economic Forum to verify COVID-19 test results and vaccine status, as well as similar systems several major tech companies are actively exploring.

VRV systems present both opportunities and risks in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic. They offer hope of more accurate verification of vaccine status, but they also run the risk of both exacerbating existing health and economic inequalities and introducing significant security and privacy vulnerabilities. To mitigate those risks, we propose a series of principles that ought to guide the deployment of VRV systems by public health authorities, policymakers, health care providers, and software developers. In particular, we argue that VRV systems ought to align with vaccine prioritization decisions; uphold fairness and equity; and be built on trustworthy technology.

Author(s): Baobao Zhang, Laurin Weissinger, Johannes Himmelreich, Nina McMurry, Tiffany Li, Naomi Schinerman, and Sarah Kreps

Publication Date: 26 January 2021

Publication Site: Brookings

National COVID-19 Numbers Improve

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2021/01/28/national-covid-19-numbers-improve/

Excerpt:

President Joe Biden’s administration is reorganizing federal pandemic management efforts. The tracking team has left out its usual list of observations and recommendations.

In place of the weekly notes, the team has included a statement indicating that, “The weekly State Profile Reports are currently under review. The format and content may change in coming reports.”

The weekly reports have distilled current knowledge about COVID-19 trends that could shape benefits costs for every life and health product, including annuities, and efforts to ease pandemic-related social distancing rules.

One question is whether the new COVID-19 vaccination program will have any early effect on the pandemic intensity level.

Graph:

Author(s): Allison Bell

Publication Date: 28 January 2021

Publication Site: Think Advisor

CDC: Black people make up just 5% of those vaccinated against COVID-19

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.upi.com/Health_News/2021/02/01/CDC-Black-people-make-up-just-5-of-those-vaccinated-against-COVID-19/7121612203443/

Excerpt:

White people received more than half of all vaccinations against COVID-19 during the first month of the rollout, according to data released Monday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Just over 5% of the nearly 13 million people who received the shot between Dec. 14 and Jan. 14 people vaccinated against the coronavirus in the U.S. so far have been Black, and just under 12% were Hispanic, the data shows.

Author: Brian P. Dunleavy

Publication Date: 1 February 2021

Publication Site: UPI

Israel’s vaccine programme gives hope to the world

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/02/03/israels-vaccine-programme-gives-hope-to-the-world

Graph:

Excerpt:

OVER ONE-THIRD of Israel’s population has received a vaccination against covid-19 since December 19th. Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, has campaigned heavily for vaccinations, personally lobbying the boss of Pfizer, an American drugmaker, to secure early shipments of its vaccine. He was the first Israeli to be jabbed, live on television. He promised that “Israel will be the first country in the world” to emerge from the pandemic—by the end of March. (Conveniently, this is when Israel will be holding a parliamentary election and Mr Netanyahu believes success will boost his Likud party.) This was a bold claim considering nobody was sure that vaccines would successfully lower infection rates by enough to lift lockdown restrictions.

There is now evidence that the vaccination programme is having an impact. Analysis from Eran Segal, a computational biologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, and his colleagues, has found that covid-19 cases are falling appreciably among old people in Israel. The effect is especially pronounced in hospital admissions: among people aged over 60 severe hospital cases have fallen by 26% since their peak on January 19th (see chart). In contrast, among those between 40 and 59—a group further back in the queue to be vaccinated—such severe cases have increased by 13%.

Publication Date: 3 February 2021

Publication Site: The Economist

Who the UK vaccinates next is a question of economics, not health

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/coronavirus-vaccine-priority?mc_cid=7fe047fe3e&mc_eid=983bcf5922

Excerpt:

Almost 9.3 million people in the UK have now received the first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine. The country’s plan to vaccinate the most vulnerable is, remarkably, on track to meet its spring deadline. With a limited supply, the government has had to make tough decisions about who should be first in line to receive the jab. As the first phase of the vaccination programme continues at pace, one question keeps cropping up: who’s next on the list?

The UK’s current vaccination priority list was drawn up with a single goal in mind: preventing as many deaths as possible. That meant vaccinating those carrying the highest risk of mortality from Covid-19, as well as protecting the health and social care staff and systems. The government is aiming to offer a first dose to everybody in the top four priority groups by the middle of February. The rest of the list goes down incrementally in age to those aged 50 and over, and younger people with underlying conditions. All together, these groups are estimated to make up 99 per cent of preventable deaths from Covid-19.

Author: Grace Browne

Publication Date: 2 February 2021

Publication Site: Wired UK

Covid: Israel’s vaccine rollout linked to infection fall

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55706855

Excerpt:

Israel’s vaccination programme is showing signs of working to drive down infections and illness in the over-60s.

The fall appears to be most pronounced in older people and areas furthest ahead in their immunisation efforts.

This suggests it is the vaccine, and not just the country’s current lockdown, taking effect.

Israeli Ministry of Health (MoH) figures show 531 over-60s, out of almost 750,000 fully vaccinated, tested positive for coronavirus (0.07%).

Graph:

Author: Rachel Schraer

Publication Date: 1 February 2021

Publication Site: BBC News