The CDC LT care facilities vaccine administration number looks very bad. Most N.C. nursing home workers are refusing COVID vaccine RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina’s top public health official said Tuesday that most nursing home workers are refusing to take coronavirus vaccines being offered in a state that has now become one of the slowest in the nation to get doses into peoples’ arms. Cohen noted that vaccine hesitancy among long-term care staff is “concerning,” given the anecdotal reports the state has gathered thus far. North Carolina is working with Walgreens and CVS, which are responsible for vaccinating residents and workers in long-term care settings, to access and report concrete data. She believes North Carolina is experiencing something similar to an estimate Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine made last week noting that about 60% of staff in long-term care settings have refused vaccination.
I think it's even higher at my facilities.... but a factor here is that literally all of the facilities have had widespread COVID-19 outbreaks and the vast majority of staff have had it at some point in the last year. That could explain the reluctance to take a hastily made vaccine fearing the unforseen long term side effects from the vaccine could be worse than a potential second round with COVID-19.
Good news on lasting immunity. 8M+. Could be much longer. Immunological memory to SARS-CoV-2 assessed for up to 8 months after infection | Science (sciencemag.org)
Caution 1- still anecdotal 2- limited to Long-term facility care taker (not just nurses) but... I think recent polling said ~60% would take the vaccine. 40% saying no is huge.
Half of my coworkers, enterprise wide, have not even responded to the vaccine request to be able to be vaccinated. A little less than half have requested yes, a few percent marked no, and 50% no response.
Yea, it's a continuing challenge with vaccine hesitancy. The speed and scope of Covid vaccine development, testing, emergency authorizations and new delivery technology, all combined with certain folks at very powerful level spreading conspiracy theories --> 60% vaccinating is probably a bright point.
As long as the people who need it are getting it then that's all that matters. I think we have long term care deaths down to 25-30% of total deaths but still getting that small group vaccinated would significantly blunt death tolls and hospitalization usage.
If that's the case, that's very reasonable. In fact, given the limited availability, I would have liked the CDC to said - if you have been infected, you can skip for now.
Since these two vaccines so far seems to indicate 90%+ eff, I agree overall. If it was more of the typical 40-60% eff we get with the flu, then it would leave many vulnerable, even after vaccination.
I mean, it's the reason I wasn't going to get it, and why I didn't get it earlier. It just so happened that there was a situation where a dose was going to expire in a few hours with no one else to take it, so I took it rather than letting it go to waste. I know a lot of people who are just flat out scared of the vaccine, including highly educated people in the medical field (I'm talking doctors and pharmacists here), but I don't think those are the majority of those that refuse. I think the majority who refuse simply aren't that scared of COVID-19, often due to prior exposure to the virus, and don't see a reason to get the vaccine early. A lot of people that I've talked to want to give it a few months to see what happens with those who take it early. They feel like the vaccine should still be in the testing phase and they don't want to be the Guinea pigs but they aren't entirely against it either.
I believe some states/hospitals are pushing people further down if they had recently gotten COVID. This is strictly anecdotal however.
Severe infections after vaccination were non-existent even with the lower efficacy Oxford vaccine. So efficacy isn't a perfect indicator. It seems like all of these vaccines will effectively end Covid.
Well some good news today...it looks like we did about 470k vaccinations up from the average over the past 3 days of 203k. My mom also got her vaccination and she was pretty excited about that. South Dakota is leading the way with about 3.5% of their population vaccinated and Texas is at 1.7%
China locks down part of province outside Beijing as coronavirus cases spike This thing is like a cockroach that won't die ...
I just read a long and interesting article in New York magazine that was talking about how its becoming less taboo in the scientific community to question whether COVID was actually released in a lab (apparently as soon as Trump hinted it could have come from a lab, it because a big no no in scientific circles to mention it as a possibility). It gives good counter arguments from both sides. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-escape-theory.html
Nice ramp up today again with 612k vaccinations reported and 4.13 million doses distributed. Don't really understand why the long term care vaccinations are going relatively slow, but they continue to progress.
