Tag: vaccine

COVID-19 Vaccine Developers Ask the SEC to Help Keep the Secret of How They Set Prices

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.newsweek.com/covid-19-vaccine-developers-ask-sec-help-keep-secret-how-they-set-prices-1565904

Excerpt:

When the U.S. government awarded over $10 billion in contracts and advance- purchase commitments to drug companies working on COVID-19 vaccine and treatments, it did not require the recipients of government money to agree to offer their products at fair prices or share intellectual property rights to enable faster production.

Now, two of the companies awarded those contracts—Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson—are trying to prevent shareholders from voting on resolutions to require the companies to disclose information about the impact of government funding on vaccine access.

Author: Julia Rock

Publication Date: 1 February 2021

Publication Site: Newsweek

What went wrong with America’s $44 million vaccine data system?

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/01/30/1017086/cdc-44-million-vaccine-data-vams-problems/

Excerpt:

The chaos of the vaccine rollout in the US has been well documented: states receiving half their expected doses; clinics canceling first shots because of unreliable supplies; people endlessly hitting “Refresh” on sign-up websites or lining up outside clinics without an appointment, hoping for a spare shot. 

The CDC saw this coming.

“VAMS was intended to fill a need that states and jurisdictions were not equipped to do themselves,” says Noam Arzt, the president of HLN Consulting, which helps build health information systems. 

Author: Cat Ferguson

Publication Date: 30 January 2021

Publication Site: MIT Technology Review

COVID-19 vaccinations: Why are some states and localities so much more successful?

Mary Pat Campbell
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2021/01/25/covid-19-vaccinations-why-are-some-states-and-localities-so-much-more-successful/

Excerpt:

The Maryland/West Virginia gap is one of many such anomalies across the country. Why has North Dakota managed to use 85% of the doses it has received for inoculations compared to 49% for Massachusetts? Why does New Mexico have an inoculations/doses received ratio of 77%, versus just 43% for Virginia? What differences of institutions, strategies, and leadership explain these gaps?

Author: William A. Galston

Publication Date: 25 January 2021

Publication Site: Brookings

There is almost no evidence that vaccinated individuals can transmit the virus to others

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://polimath.substack.com/p/in-which-i-finally-lose-my-mind

Excerpt:

Where does this idea that a vaccinated person could still be carrying COVID come from? Whenever you dig into the details of this concept, it comes from the fact that a rigorous study of asymptomatic COVID transmission among vaccinated participants was not a part of the Phase 3 study. In other words, we cannot *prove* that COVID *doesn’t* asymptomatically tag along for the ride in a vaccinated person.

When it comes to transmitting COVID to another person, a mask is only helpful for airborne transmission. That means the virus would have to be coming from your upper respiratory tract for a mask to be effective at stopping it. But if there is enough COVID virus in your upper respiratory tract for you to be transmitting it, then there is enough COVID virus for a testing swab to detect. In essence, if you had enough virus in your exhalations to infect another person, you would be testing positive for COVID… which is exactly the observed measurement that the vaccine prevents.

Author: PoliMath

Publication Date: 22 January 2021

Publication Site: Marginally Compelling

Joe Biden’s Covid-19 Vaccine Plan: How He Intends to Speed Up Distribution

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/joe-bidens-covid-19-vaccine-plan-how-he-intends-to-speed-up-distribution-11610794800?st=b86yaopaxch9dgx&twopenpaywall

Excerpt:

President will add community vaccination sites, deploy mobile units and enlist pharmacies to achieve his pledge that 100 million doses will be administered in U.S. during his first 100 days in office

President Joe Biden has promised a more forceful U.S. government response to the coronavirus pandemic, and on his second day in office released a national strategy and signed 10 executive orders and other directives as part of the plan.

Authors: Betsy McKay and Sabrina Siddiqui

Publication Date: 21 January 2021

Publication Site: WSJ