Promising New Coronavirus Vaccine

[TechTalk]

To switch to Moderna or Pfizer requires setting up a whole different procedure for double dose appointments

How did you come to the conclusion that it "requires setting up a whole different procedure for double dose appointments"? Why would it require any "procedure" that differs beyond making two appointments 3 or 4 weeks apart instead of just one? How complex and difficult is that to accomplish? If your doctor wants to schedule a followup appointment when you visit, does it require "setting up a whole different procedure" than your initial appointment?

[LesPalenik]

How did you come to the conclusion that it "requires setting up a whole different procedure for double dose appointments"? Why would it require any "procedure" that differs beyond making two appointments 3 or 4 weeks apart instead of just one? How complex and difficult is that to accomplish? If your doctor wants to schedule a followup appointment when you visit, does it require "setting up a whole different procedure" than your initial appointment?

In Ontario, the pause between the two shots has been lately stretched to 3-4 weeks.
How effective is the first shot for the first 3-4 months, and how effective is the second shot after 3-4 months as compared to 2-3 weeks per original guidance?

[Alan Klein]

I don't know where you're getting your assumptions regarding the cold chain requirements for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. I would guess it's most likely you get them where your other assumptions originate.

There are very few locations that have ultra-cold storage equipment for the mRNA vaccines and it is not neccessary for vaccination sites to have any special equipment for storage of their vaccine supplies from Pfizer and Moderna. The shipping containers used will retain the correct temperature using dry ice or other means during transport by FedEx and UPS. The Pfizer vaccine, which requires the colder ultra-cold storage, can be maintained in their unique shipping container for 30-days by replenishing the dry ice every 5-days and ships with one dry ice replenishment. It can then be stored in a conventional freezer for two-weeks, and a refrigerator for 5-days once unfrozen.

Moderna vaccine can be stored at normal refrigerator temperature for 30-days after removal from the shipping container. Your doctor, pharmacy, clinic, stadium, or wherever you get your vaccination from, does not have special equipment requirements as you have assumed.

More detailed instructions are below...

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/info-by-product/moderna/storage-summary.pdf

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/info-by-product/pfizer/storage-summary.pdf

You're assuming that outlets only giving Johnson have Pfizer or Moderna as backup in their facilities.  No one is keeping storage like that.  So once the Johnson vaccinations are stopped, the facility would have to wait for a shipment of Moderna or Pfizer.  How long does that take?  Even I don't think Trump's Operation Warp Speed is that efficient.

[Alan Klein]

How did you come to the conclusion that it "requires setting up a whole different procedure for double dose appointments"? Why would it require any "procedure" that differs beyond making two appointments 3 or 4 weeks apart instead of just one?How complex and difficult is that to accomplish? If your doctor wants to schedule a follow up appointment when you visit, does it require "setting up a whole different procedure" than your initial appointment?

You're mistaken again.  A facility can only set up so many appointments based on their staff and operation.  So let's say they had set up 4000 single dose Johnson vaccination appointments over the next month.  Because PFizer and Moderna require two shots and two appointments, they would only be able to vaccinate 2000 people during that time instead of the originally scheduled 4000.  All the appointments they originally scheduled with the single dose Johnson vaccine for later in the month would have to be cancelled as those appointment slots would be needed for the second dose of the first 2,000 people. 

[Alan Klein]

Do you not even bother to read your own posts? How is "recommending a pause" the "opposite" of what nearly everyone has posted here — except for your own descriptions.

You conveniently ignored the part of the article I put in the post #1327 that shows that everyone in the world apparently stopped their Johnson vaccinations.  No one it appears took it as a recommendation and continued the vaccinations.  They stopped them.  Let me copy it for you again:

Quote: While they framed the move as a recommendation to health practitioners, the impact was immediate. By Tuesday evening, every state, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico had announced a pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccine injections.

The same went for the U.S. military, federally run vaccination sites, and CVS and Walgreens, two pharmacy giants that participate in the federal program, officials said. Rite Aid, Walmart and Publix also announced that they had paused Johnson & Johnson injections.

Beyond American shores, Johnson & Johnson said it would delay the rollout of its vaccine in Europe, where several countries were poised to start administering it this week. South Africa, devastated by a more contagious variant of the virus that emerged there, also suspended use of the vaccine. Australia announced it would not purchase any doses.

[Alan Klein]

In Ontario, the pause between the two shots has been lately stretched to 3-4 weeks.
How effective is the first shot for the first 3-4 months, and how effective is the second shot after 3-4 months as compared to 2-3 weeks per original guidance?

America may have been very lackadaisical about masks, but we did a good job in pushing the development and securing the vaccine in enough doses to apparently match our ability to gear up to currently giving 3 million doses a day.  When the Johnson vaccine was stopped, I think it was Pfizer who said they would up their manufacturing an additional 20 million doses by the end of the month. 

Did Canada change it to 3-4 months because of Johnson cancellation?  Or was that what they decided before the Johnson issue?  The latter procedure was a contentious issue here in the USA.  But I believe all facilities decided on giving second doses within the 3-4 week period rather than giving out only single doses to more people and spreading out the second dose. .

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

All you need to know about Dr. Fauxi and Faucism:

[Robert Roaldi]

You're mistaken again.  A facility can only set up so many appointments based on their staff and operation.  So let's say they had set up 4000 single dose Johnson vaccination appointments over the next month.  Because PFizer and Moderna require two shots and two appointments, they would only be able to vaccinate 2000 people during that time instead of the originally scheduled 4000.  All the appointments they originally scheduled with the single dose Johnson vaccine for later in the month would have to be cancelled as those appointment slots would be needed for the second dose of the first 2,000 people.

I'm sorry to be so rude, but why should we read your opinion about how these places are managed? Why would we consider your opinions credible, since you've been SO wrong about SO many things before.

[Robert Roaldi]

I dunno, Robert, why DO you(*) read and respond to his opinion about anything? He is ignorant on every subject, makes assumptions that suit his extreme political views, and is dishonest to boot. And yet you allow him to lead you by the nose down these alleyways of stupidity.

(* yes, me too probably)

You are correct, of course.

[faberryman]

You're assuming that outlets only giving Johnson have Pfizer or Moderna as backup in their facilities.  No one is keeping storage like that.  So once the Johnson vaccinations are stopped, the facility would have to wait for a shipment of Moderna or Pfizer.  How long does that take?  Even I don't think Trump's Operation Warp Speed is that efficient.

More assumptions without any evidentiary support.

I will share an anecdote about my vaccine experience. I got my first shot in early March. It was a drive through site. The vaccine was Pfizer. I had a short wait of perhaps five or ten minutes. There were three cars in front of me. My follow up dose was scheduled for a Thursday three weeks later. Thursday arrived, and I received a notification that my appointment had been rescheduled for Friday because it was raining. On Friday there was a long line. I probably waited an hour. The tech that administered my shot apologized for the wait, and told me there were fulfilling appointments for both Thursday and Friday. Just making sure everyone got their shots in a timely manner. Oh, I didn't see a freezer anywhere. I suspect that is different from your experience in January and February. There are over 3000 counties in the US, some of which have several vaccination locations. I suspect each of them is doing things a little differently.

I think I may have mentioned that different locations in my county use different vaccines. When the FDA and CDC recommended pausing the J&J vaccine, the J&J location used one of the other vaccines. I doubt that my county is unique in that regard. At least in my county, getting an appointment is not a problem. There are so many appointment slots going unfilled, some of the locations are taking walk-ins.

[Chris Kern]

In Ontario, the pause between the two shots has been lately stretched to 3-4 weeks.
How effective is the first shot for the first 3-4 months, and how effective is the second shot after 3-4 months as compared to 2-3 weeks per original guidance?

Which vaccine?  I've read that most experts believe extending the interval between the first and second doses of the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccines by several weeks and possibly longer is likely to provide equivalent protection to using the intervals that were selected for their respective clinical trials, but I haven't come across any rigorous studies that validate that.  However, there is some evidence that for the AstraZeneca vaccine, a longer interval may actually provide superior protection:

. . . vaccine efficacy after a single standard dose of vaccine from day 22 to day 90 after vaccination was 76·0% (59·3–85·9). Our modelling analysis indicated that protection did not wane during this initial 3-month period. Similarly, antibody levels were maintained during this period with minimal waning by day 90 (geometric mean ratio [GMR] 0·66 [95% CI 0·59–0·74]). In the participants who received two standard doses, after the second dose, efficacy was higher in those with a longer prime-boost interval (vaccine efficacy 81·3% [95% CI 60·3–91·2] at ≥12 weeks) than in those with a short interval (vaccine efficacy 55·1% [33·0–69·9] at <6 weeks). These observations are supported by immunogenicity data that showed binding antibody responses more than two-fold higher after an interval of 12 or more weeks compared with an interval of less than 6 weeks in those who were aged 18–55 years (GMR 2·32 [2·01–2·68]).

I suspect we'll see many more real-world reports about how well the vaccines work before the end of the year.  They've only been administered to the general public for a few months and it takes time to collect and analyze the data.

[JoeKitchen]

I may disagree with Bill Maher on most policy issues, but I have to commend him for always giving it straight. 

New Rule: Give It to Me Straight, Doc | Real Time with Bill Maher

What I found most interesting, and disturbing, is that he sites polling that shows nearly 70% of Dems think the hospitalization rate for C-19 is over 20%, with most thinking it is over 50%, when it is really only between 1% and 5%.  Republicans, not surprisingly, have a much better grasp on the actual C-19 numbers and rates. 

The sheer amount of hysteria created over this by the media is going to take a long time for some to get over. 

To that point, here is an article published in Slate recently, It’s About Time for Us to Stop Wearing Masks Outside.  Now the reason I post this is not for the content of the article, because honesty I have yet to wear a mask outside, but because of the visceral responses to it from lefties.  I could see at the beginning of this thinking it was necessary to wear a mask outside, but now, after all the research, the idea is absurd.  Yet, so many people have been completely mentally broken in the last year that this article was met with the equivalent indignation you would expect to see against one promoting genocide. 

The mental fallout from this is going to be severe for a lot of people.

[LesPalenik]

Which vaccine?  I've read that most experts believe extending the interval between the first and second doses of the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccines by several weeks and possibly longer is likely to provide equivalent protection to using the intervals that were selected for their respective clinical trials, but I haven't come across any rigorous studies that validate that.  However, there is some evidence that for the AstraZeneca vaccine, a longer interval may actually provide superior protection:

I suspect we'll see many more real-world reports about how well the vaccines work before the end of the year.  They've only been administered to the general public for a few months and it takes time to collect and analyze the data.

I and many of my friends received Pfizer vaccine. AstraZeneca vaccine has been re-approved and is administered now also in large numbers.

[JoeKitchen]

Do you have an actual link for this? - I didn't see it on the Gallup site, but maybe my Google-fu is weak.

(I did, however, come across a survey showing the "better grasp" Republicans are significantly less likely than Democrats to realise that CV19 is more lethal than flu)

Thanks.

Here you are, Americans Misinformed About COVID Hospitalization

I will confer, before you point it out, that Republicans are only a little better here.  I wish they would perform these polls with a subset focusing on libertarians too. 

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

I'm sorry to be so rude, but why should we read your opinion...

Then why do you?

You do realize you are participating in an Alan Klain vs. the World series on your own volition?

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... He is ignorant on every subject, makes assumptions that suit his extreme political views, and is dishonest to boot...

That is absolutely and categorically wrong.

Alan represents a common man's views on the matter, his views are not extreme politically, and definitely is not dishonest.

You et al on the other hand...

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... Republicans are significantly less likely than Democrats to realise that CV19 is more lethal than flu)

Which, of course, is not true, as I demonstrated earlier in the thread, short of the short-termism current hysteria.

[JoeKitchen]

Thanks
So, not at all what was claimed by Maher, then.

No.  Maher's point was that if the left is insistent to call out right wing news sources for misinformation, they better call out and acknowledge their own misinformation as well especially when Republicans are doing a better job in the same area.  Otherwise, they lose credibility.  One great example of this is the left's hysteria over C-19, which Maher pointed out, all of which is not supported by the facts.  Republican though have by a much better grasp on the reality of C-19, which all the polling is showing. 

Now, getting back to my point, although republicans overall are doing a much better job at being informed on the overall risk factors and data when compared to the pseudo-science party, it is not as good as I would like it to be.  To this, I do realize that conservatives, just like liberals, tend to be emotional thinkers, whereas libertarians are not, which is why I said I would like to see a break down of libertarians as well. 

[josh.reichmann]

Alan is demonstrably a liar, but I'm not going to waste more energy on proving it. He isn't worth the steam off my ...

Personal attack. This is the place we want to avoid.
Retract, reframe, or focus on something / someone else.

Josh

[Alan Klein]

Personal attack. This is the place we want to avoid.
Retract, reframe, or focus on something / someone else.

Josh

Thanks Josh for your post.  Jeremy's been personally insulting me for weeks.  I had to put him on my Ignore list along with Digital Dog who was doing the same.  It really makes it difficult to have intelligent discussions.