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18.7 Million Americans Vaccinated

183 points by codeconut 6y ago

rossdavidh 6y ago
...or, at least halfway there (both Pfizer and Moderna vaccines require two doses). One dose is probably already somewhat useful, but how useful is not super-well characterized. Still, it's a lot more than a month ago.
- Gibbon1 6y ago
  I saw a data plot from Pfizer's trial. Between 7 and 14 days after the first shot the number of infections falls off. Also a report from Israel says infections and hospitalizations fall 60% three weeks after the first shot.
  - rossdavidh 6y ago
    Israel is definitely the place we'll see the first big impact (or at least we all really hope so). They are already well past 30% with the first shot. I was kind of nervous last week, when they were the leading nation in the world at getting vaccinated, and simultaneously shooting up to new record highs of new cases. But, this week we are just starting to see the first signs of a beneficial impact. This would suggest that you need something like 30% of population with one shot (depending on how many have already been infected, of course) to see a slowdown. The U.S. is currently at 5%, and we're actually one of the countries furthest along.
    - Gibbon1 6y ago
      At 30% with first shot they're probably half way there to effective herd immunity. One thing I read out of Israel was vaccinating the most venerable would bring the death rate down dramatically. Something like a 80/20 applies. What I'm worried about is a surge in infections in the gap between population wide herd immunity and just most the venerable. As the death rate falls people will get really careless.
      - rossdavidh 6y ago
        The confirmed cases in Israel is over 6% of the population, and the multiple of that which would include asymptomatic and others who just didn't get tested is unknown, but probably somewhere from 4-8. Even if it's as the low end of that range, you could already be halfway to herd immunity. Of course, the ones getting vaccinated may often already have had it (whether they know it or not). Since the death rate tends to lag the confirmed cases rate by a couple weeks, I think the deaths will still go up for a bit regardless of whether or not people get careless.
umvi 6y ago
At what number can we stop wearing masks, stop social distancing, start dining in, etc.? That's the number I care about. Because until somebody influential picks that number, we'll just keep masking and social distancing until the end of time.
- randmeerkat 6y ago
  According to this yahoo article about 65 - 70% of the population needs to be vaccinated until we can get back to normal. That said there still may be mutations or other complicating factors that could throw a wrench in things. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/around-65-75-of-the-population-needs-to-take-a-90-effective-coronavirus-vaccine-johns-hopkins-expert-says-185102526.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/around-65-75-of-the-populatio...
  - repsilat 6y ago
    That number has been thrown around for here immunity. But I don't think it answers the GP's question because * Herd immunity numbers assume no ongoing vaccination -- they more or less say, "If life went back to normal, would the virus slow down or speed up?" * Age-related mortality and age-related vaccination rates are important. If we vaccinate all of the people who are at serious risk, the danger is mostly gone. There have obviously been deaths in populations not at serious risk, but not in proportion to the economic costs of locking down the economy. And as an aside, vaccine immunity is estimated to be about as good as post-infection immunity. And most estimates of the actual infection rate put them several times (some estimate 8-10x, but that's looking unlikely IMO) the measured case rate.
    - randmeerkat 6y ago
      Imho you’re underestimating the impact of the disease in general. Disease is much more than who lives or dies, there’s also people who “survive”. A number of asymptomatic covid patients have severe lung damage. Vaccinating “at risk” people who might die doesn’t account for all the people who might live permanently disabled lives as a result of a covid infection. https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2021/01/14/asymptomatic-covid-lung-damage/ https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2021/01/14/asymptomatic-covid-l...
kfrzcode 6y ago
Can someone help me understand the difference between this and other vaccines? From what I know, the COVID-19 vaccine is only effective in reducing symptoms for those who get inoculated. Is it accurate to say this vaccine does not prevent infection or help develop an immunity? I just do not understand how vaccines work. Would love a (peer-reviewed) source or sources I could read to brush up. This is not a political or bait post I really am looking for some signal in all the noise. Why am I being downvoted for seeking knowledge?
- deleted 6y ago
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- cstejerean 6y ago
  Vaccines never quite prevent infection. What they do is give the immune system a head start so they can overtake the infection early. Hopefully early enough to prevent symptoms, and ideally early enough to prevent transmission. But just how early the immune system can win will depend on the strength on the immune reaction and the specifics of the virus. So for this specific one we don’t yet know whether it’s early enough to prevent subsequent transmission. For example if transmission would require coughing and you never develop a cough, then there probably won’t be much transmission. But the potential for pre-symptomatic transmission suggests that it won’t be that simple, and while in theory this should reduce transmission it probably won’t eliminate it entirely.
- war1025 6y ago
  > Why am I being downvoted for seeking knowledge? Because people are assholes. As for the rest, I haven't really gotten a straight answer on the vaccine. Seems there are people who say it is the best thing since slice bread, and others who say it will be about as useful as the yearly flu vaccine. No one actually knows.
- SamBam 6y ago
  > From what I know, the COVID-19 vaccine is only effective in reducing symptoms for those who get inoculated. Is it accurate to say this vaccine does not prevent infection or help develop an immunity? These statements are not accurate, but I think that there may be a misunderstanding with the discussion of whether the vaccine prevents symptomatic spreading. First, to the second part of your statement, no vaccine really "prevents" infection. A vaccine primes the immune system to fight an infection, but the immune system typically only recognizes the attack once at least some cells have been infected and start producing more viruses. However, being vaccinated typically means that your body will wipe out the virus before it has a chance to take hold and make you sick. But this doesn't mean it is just "reducing symptoms" the way, say, Sudafed reduces nasal congestion without attacking the cold -- being vaccinated really does mean that your body's defenses are armed to fight and destroy the virus the moment it invades. So it's completely wrong to say it simply "reduces symptoms." What I think you're confusing this with is that scientists are saying that there is still a chance that you can become infected and become an asymptomatic spreader, even if you don't get sick. The scientists aren't quite sure if this is the case or not, because it wasn't measured in the large vaccine trials. It's very likely that the vaccine at least reduces your ability to spread the virus, if not completely eliminates it, because that's the way most vaccines work. However, the reason the question is still unknown because certain respiratory diseases can still be spread after vaccination, because those viruses can sometimes replicate within the mucosal tissues in the nose, "hiding" from the body's main immune system.
whycombagator 6y ago
My Adblocker won’t let me load the submitted site. I wonder if it’s stats are better than Bloomberg’s?[0] Which shows US & global distribution, also claims over 22m Americans have been vaccinated [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-global-distribution/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-glo...
- cvcvc 6y ago
  The Bloomberg number is _shots given_, so one person receiving two doses counts twice. The link above counts _number of people_ with at least one dose.
tasty_freeze 6y ago
Bloomberg also has a vaccine tracker that has more information https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-global-distribution/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-glo...
- cvcvc 6y ago
  Bloomberg gives number of shots given, not number of people vaccinated.
perardi 6y ago
I had a bit of a frustrating experience getting my elderly parents signed up for a jab today. They are patients of a local hospital conglomerate. (I realize that’s typical in the States, Kaiser et al., but I’ve been living in Ontario, where you’re not wedded to some particular chain.) The hospital system said they’d notify patients who qualify, which both of my parents do, in spades. Dad was just in the ICU, during the pandemic, thought not for COVID. Now, how did they choose to notify people? Well, how would you choose to notify elderly patients? A phone call, right? Perhaps a letter in the mail? Maybe a text? Ha. No. They are apparently notifying people…through their patient portal app. No push notifications. No email notifications. The message just appears in your inbox, and it’s up to you to find it. Which is, you know, less than optimal for the patients in these 1a and 1b vaccine groups. You know what a lot of elderly people aren’t great at? Constantly checking an app to see if they got a message. Of course, for all I know, they may have other methods to contact people. But do they communicate those methods anywhere? No. Ugh. I know. This is all complicated and rolling out at record speed. I get it. The logistics of this whole mess are horrifying. But just the teeniest bit of information and UX design here would got a long ways.
- jjoonathan 6y ago
  Kaiser is one of the good ones, too. How can it be worse? Well, you can not have insurance, but you already knew that one. You can have an insurance company that's poorly integrated with providers, resulting in "edge cases" that somehow always involve you paying more. A lot more. Here's the one affecting me, though: insurance companies use pricing to ensure that my employer picks a new plan every year, which always has an extremely decrepit sign-up process every year, which no doubt shakes some fraction of the generally young and healthy workforce from going through it at all. It usually takes hours, even for someone of my technical aptitude, because you have to go on a scavenger hunt for the correct links, ID numbers, and codes. It's not bad UX, it's brilliant UX, but the masters it servers are... not us.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Here's the one affecting me: insurance companies use pricing to ensure that my employer picks a new plan every year, which always has an extremely decrepit sign-up process every year, which no doubt shakes some fraction of the workforce from going through it at all. That's probably not the insurer’s intent, since it's in their interest to have the most people possible enrolled.
shouldiquitamzn 6y ago
This whole thing is hopeless. Mutations will invalidate the vaccine, lockdowns will never fully stop the spread. Year after year, each reinfection you get damages your internals a little more, drastically lowering your life expectancy.
- bioinformatics 6y ago
  Yes, everyone that is alive today will be dead one day.
dougmwne 6y ago
I'm interested in how vaccinating a small number of people can make a big impact on the effects of the pandemic. The risk of death and severity rapidly increases with age. We also have a good idea of the kinds of preexisting conditions put you most at risk. We have already been targeting health care professionals (increases health care capacity) and people over 65 (the majority of the at-risk population). If we are able to reduce the severe case rate by 10x or 100x, do we even need to reach herd immunity or would to be best just to remove all social distancing controls and let it burn itself out, knowing that the negative impact from those infections would be small enough to not put a strain on healthcare resources?
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  We know of a half dozen human coronaviruses that stay in circulation rather than burning themselves out, so there’s reason to worry this one wouldn’t either. The exact question is probably academic, because it won’t be politically feasible to maintain social distancing when severe cases are down 100x, but we’ll definitely want to keep vaccinating.
  - dougmwne 6y ago
    The Dutch have started burning their bicycles in protest. That's a pretty good sign we're at the end of the public's patience for this. The deaths are terrible, but you know what killed more people over the past year? Cigarettes. And they sell those at the grocery store.
- supertrope 6y ago
  Old people 65+ are about 90% of hospitalizations and deaths. Israel finished vaccinating their seniors and hospital admissions are down 60%.
  - forrestthewoods 6y ago
    65+ is 90% deaths. But only 65% of hospitalizations. And, counter-intuitively, only 40% of ICU admissions. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Er2kghUXcAAWyzx?format=jpg&name=medium https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Er2kghUXcAAWyzx?format=jpg&name=...
jariel 6y ago
Here is a interactive chart showing various nations [1] Israel will be #1 by far. They have apparently paid $65/dose or something like that, far ahead of what others have paid, moreover, the dealing looks a little problematic. Obviously, it's worth far, far more than $65 a person, but it may not make too much sense to get into a vicious bidding war as it's unlikely to increase the rate of production and the surpluses would just be going into the hands of Parmacorps. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations
- xiphias2 6y ago
  Why not? Bidding should be time based to provide better incentives for the companies to spend money on factories.
  - jariel 6y ago
    Because the need for massive, acute production capacity for a specific variation of vaccine is short-lived. What's the odds that we're going to have another pandemic in the next 10 years that has nRNA vaccine? There's no need for massive production capacity other than during a global pandemic, and you probably don't know what you need, supply chains etc. until the time of production or thereabouts. So - the money won't go into building out production capacity for something, when we don't know what that something is, it's constituent parts, or what technologies will be utilized.
    - xiphias2 6y ago
      The money printing that has been done because of COVID (that shows the economic damage) is many trillions of dollars, while the whole market cap of Moderna and BioNTech are in tens of billions. The amount we're spending on productionizing vaccines is nothing compared to the damage the virus creates every day. Businesses a failing every day, and when they go bankrupt they won't be able to come back.
      - jariel 6y ago
IgorPartola 6y ago
Does anyone know where I can find how many doses have been distributed to each state and how many are stockpiled federally or by the manufacturers? That’s the info I really can’t seem to find and it would be really interesting to see. Also would love to see production numbers day by day if possible. The simplistic estimates I keep seeing on places like CNN basically just take the current daily vaccination rate and use that as the rate for future projections which is obviously incorrect as production and distribution is ramping up. This site is nice, but also it only shows the percentage of people who got a single dose, which is basically meaningless. We really should stop counting a dose as one vial and stop counting how many people got just one dose.
- belltaco 6y ago
  Search for 'Bloomberg Vaccine tracker'.
  - deleted 6y ago
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- skronch 6y ago
  This is a pretty good resource: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-global-distribution/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-glo...
  - IgorPartola 6y ago
    Exactly what I've been looking for, thank you!
- ac29 6y ago
  https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations
unishark 6y ago
> * Herd immunity numbers assume no ongoing vaccination -- they more or less say, "If life went back to normal, would the virus slow down or speed up?" I'd say ongoing vaccination (after herd immunity is reached) is irrelevant to the herd immunity calculation. Is that what you meant? Though we'd obviously still need vaccinations as much of the world will not have herd immunity for a long time, if ever. And certainly the percentage needed will differ whether we assume social distancing and travel restrictions are continued or not. Personally I hope we keep a lot of it, at least a long while more. I really hate catching flu's and colds.
- repsilat 6y ago
  > ongoing vaccination (after herd immunity is reached) is irrelevant to the herd immunity calculation. Is that what you meant? Though we'd obviously still need vaccinations Yeah, exactly. Depending on other model factors (like ongoing vaccinations, relative mortalities, economic costs etc) the best time (and degree) to open up may be earlier or later than the technical herd immunity point. To make an unfair argument: is 65% vaccination the end of WFH, or just when we should open up outdoor dining? If we vaccinate the youngest 65%, clearly we'd have different restrictions than if we'd vaccinated the eldest 65%. Etc.
- AndrewBissell 6y ago
  > Personally I hope we keep a lot of it, at least a long while more. I really hate catching flu's and colds. Are you blissfully unaware of the enormous mental health and developmental problems these measures are causing, or do you just rate those as less important than suffering an occasional mild illness while you eat DoorDash and watch Netflix?
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cobookman 6y ago
America has ~330 million people. Let's assume the 18.7 Million was just in the month of january..not 100% acurate, but not 100% inaccurate. That gives us a timeline of more than 1 year at current rate to vaccinate the entire US. Even vaccinating 70% the population will take roughly a year at current pace. Puts things in some perspective.
- sneak 6y ago
  Yeah, in Q3 I was really hoping to be on an airplane this summer. I realized in December or early January that due to the insane mismanagement it's going to ruin this summer too, and it'll likely be Q3 of this year before travel is really safe or reasonable again.
  - swarnie_ 6y ago
    If only you had some form of centralised health infrastructure to help co-ordinate this program. Didn't some US politician try this not too long ago?
    - sneak 6y ago
      The US already has plenty of centralized health infrastructure (and did before Obama); this comment is a (partisan pot shot) red herring, and completely irrelevant to the vaccine distribution clusterfuck. The issue is not lack of infrastructure, it's gross incompetence of the regional authorities who are responsible for distributing the vaccine. If you thought the federal government sucked, wait until you see how bad the states are.
- Invictus0 6y ago
  Production is still ramping up though; we haven't even started to receive the J&J vaccine.
- scrollaway 6y ago
  Not only is production still ramping up, but keep in mind the following: 1. As time goes on, more staff is trained and protocols are learned. Bugs are ironed out. Vaccinating people becomes faster overall. 2. All the high-impact vaccinations are done at the beginning. By the end of January, most western countries will be done vaccinating their highest-risk groups. This is the highest impact of all the vaccination phases because the high-risk groups represent the highest amount of hospital cases, so this will greatly reduce load on hospitals, which in turn will reduce transmissions in hospitals and free up healthcare personnel, and so on. 3. More vaccines are still being approved. The Pfizer vaccine is the one that is most in use right now, and it has logistical complexity attached due to its storage requirements. With more vaccines in play, this will become less of an issue making distribution easier outside of cities especially, and speeding up vaccinations overall. There's good reasons to be positive about the vaccines right now. I do wish my country (Belgium) would focus all its efforts on it, because our current vaccination logistics are pathetic.
bigcorp-slave 6y ago
This is unabashedly great news. For those debating if it is a sterilizing vaccine, if it’s perfect, what it means, etc, I point you to the following chart from Moderna’s trial: https://www.zq1.de/~bernhard/images/share/mRNA-1273-trial.png https://www.zq1.de/~bernhard/images/share/mRNA-1273-trial.pn... I think this pretty much says it all.
- nitrogen 6y ago
  What is the Y axis, and how was it measured? It's not clear from the legend on the image.
  - colinmhayes 6y ago
    Percent of subjects with a confirmed case.
_ZeD_ 6y ago
Do you know some equivalent resource for EU?
- Barrin92 6y ago
  https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations is a good go to resources for all things covid related.
lbeltrame 6y ago
One thought: do we need herd immunity at all? Wait, hold off pushing the downvote button. Why is this virus a problem? Not strictly because of deaths, although one would want to avoid unnecessary ones. It's due to the pressure on the healthcare system, because many people end up hospitalized, even though most of them recover (more on long COVID at the end of the post). The vast majority of people ending up in hospitals are also belonging in the "at risk" population. To relieve pressure on the healthcare system, these must be vaccinated (along with healthcare workers). But once the most vulnerable and the most at risk of hospitalization are vaccinated, the pressure on the healthcare system should lower or cease for the most part (and the early data from Israel seem to indicate just that). Of course, vaccination should continue (for those who want to get vaccinated), but with the risk of overwhelming hospitals gone completely, it would not be a problem. So society should reopen. And yes, in this case the virus will become endemic (it almost is already, save for a handful of places). What about the others? Aside those who vaccinate, those recovered who did not have serious complications can go on like normal, like everyone else. According to data from Qatar[1] the risk of reinfection is low, and, most importantly, the vast majority of reinfections are asymptomatic (and asymptomatic people spread much less than symptomatic people, FTR[2]). In the context of the virus mutating towards (in the timespan of years, rather than months) completely escaping immunity, it is much better to rely on a combination of vaccination and natural immunity, so that subsequent, possible reinfections are not severe. That would also give time to adjust the vaccines if need be. Unfortunately even throwing natural immunity along with vaccination is now a taboo topic, given how politicized the debate has become. "What about long COVID?" some people may say. Well, the problem with long COVID is that, while it certainly exists, it is poorly characterized. Most studies lack a baseline before infection (or rely on self-reporting), so it is hard to determine what and for how long happens after an infection. Lastly, "regular" pneumonia can actually wreck someone for months or even a year, and some of these issues we're seeing may due to that: we're just seeing them at an increased rate because more people are experiencing that. [1] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.15.21249731v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.15.21249731v... [2] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2774102 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...
- toast0 6y ago
tenken 6y ago
> members of the U.S. population who have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine ... This is not necessarily vaccinated with a full dose.
pelasaco 6y ago
Great news, 5% of the population already. That shows me how my home country - Germany, which was once saw as example on the fight against COVID-19 - still far behind. We only vaccinated 1.8% of our population. I wonder if the credits of a good rollout and access to such amount of vaccine will be given to the Trump administration as it should be?
- swarnie_ 6y ago
  1.8% is pretty good compared to the rest of the EU right? I'm still not sure why a lot of countries started so late or so slowly. Still, like a lot of things, the last 20% is magnitudes harder then the first 20%. Finishing vaccination programs will come down to how well each government can educate their populist. I fear this is where America will fall down.
  - anovikov 6y ago
    I believe in the end of the day, it will be directly or indirectly forced. Like, people who were not vaccinated will be fined, or later, detained if they are caught leaving their homes. I just see no other way around it, or pandemic never stops in most countries.
    - WA 6y ago
      Not sure where you're from, but most Western countries have no legal basis to detain people leaving their homes just because they're not vaccinated. There might be some restrictions like air travel though.
      - pelasaco 6y ago
        even though I agree with you, The government has no business in saying who and how many people I invite to my home, or either who i meet in the Park. And here we are.
        mbg721 6y ago
kikowi 6y ago
Any advice on how to help close friends/family members with strong beliefs in vaccine hoaxes (e.g. government will inject chips into our bodies)? It got so far that they might lose their job, because they believe in the hoax and refuse to get vaccinated.
RickJWagner 6y ago
I like the trajectory Jan 11 - Jan 12. More of that would be good.
thoughtstheseus 6y ago
Are we prepared for a much worse pandemic? Are we building a healthy population? Vaccines are only one part of the long-term solution here.
- stuckindider 6y ago
  I agree. We need to start instituting temperature checks at all businesses and mandatory mobile phone contact tracing. This would help reduce crime as well.
  - thoughtstheseus 6y ago
    So you’re advocating for persistent surveillance of people? This approach doesn’t seem effective. Reducing existing underlying health conditions (obesity), improving surge capacity for hospitals, and domestic production for critical supplies all seem like better places to start.
deleted 6y ago
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183 points by codeconut 6y ago

...or, at least halfway there (both Pfizer and Moderna vaccines require two doses). One dose is probably already somewhat useful, but how useful is not super-well characterized. Still, it's a lot more than a month ago.

Gibbon1 6y ago
I saw a data plot from Pfizer's trial. Between 7 and 14 days after the first shot the number of infections falls off. Also a report from Israel says infections and hospitalizations fall 60% three weeks after the first shot.
- rossdavidh 6y ago
  Israel is definitely the place we'll see the first big impact (or at least we all really hope so). They are already well past 30% with the first shot. I was kind of nervous last week, when they were the leading nation in the world at getting vaccinated, and simultaneously shooting up to new record highs of new cases. But, this week we are just starting to see the first signs of a beneficial impact. This would suggest that you need something like 30% of population with one shot (depending on how many have already been infected, of course) to see a slowdown. The U.S. is currently at 5%, and we're actually one of the countries furthest along.
  - Gibbon1 6y ago
    At 30% with first shot they're probably half way there to effective herd immunity. One thing I read out of Israel was vaccinating the most venerable would bring the death rate down dramatically. Something like a 80/20 applies. What I'm worried about is a surge in infections in the gap between population wide herd immunity and just most the venerable. As the death rate falls people will get really careless.
    - rossdavidh 6y ago
      The confirmed cases in Israel is over 6% of the population, and the multiple of that which would include asymptomatic and others who just didn't get tested is unknown, but probably somewhere from 4-8. Even if it's as the low end of that range, you could already be halfway to herd immunity. Of course, the ones getting vaccinated may often already have had it (whether they know it or not). Since the death rate tends to lag the confirmed cases rate by a couple weeks, I think the deaths will still go up for a bit regardless of whether or not people get careless.

umvi 6y ago

At what number can we stop wearing masks, stop social distancing, start dining in, etc.? That's the number I care about. Because until somebody influential picks that number, we'll just keep masking and social distancing until the end of time.

randmeerkat 6y ago
According to this yahoo article about 65 - 70% of the population needs to be vaccinated until we can get back to normal. That said there still may be mutations or other complicating factors that could throw a wrench in things. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/around-65-75-of-the-population-needs-to-take-a-90-effective-coronavirus-vaccine-johns-hopkins-expert-says-185102526.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/around-65-75-of-the-populatio...
- repsilat 6y ago
  That number has been thrown around for here immunity. But I don't think it answers the GP's question because * Herd immunity numbers assume no ongoing vaccination -- they more or less say, "If life went back to normal, would the virus slow down or speed up?" * Age-related mortality and age-related vaccination rates are important. If we vaccinate all of the people who are at serious risk, the danger is mostly gone. There have obviously been deaths in populations not at serious risk, but not in proportion to the economic costs of locking down the economy. And as an aside, vaccine immunity is estimated to be about as good as post-infection immunity. And most estimates of the actual infection rate put them several times (some estimate 8-10x, but that's looking unlikely IMO) the measured case rate.
  - randmeerkat 6y ago
    Imho you’re underestimating the impact of the disease in general. Disease is much more than who lives or dies, there’s also people who “survive”. A number of asymptomatic covid patients have severe lung damage. Vaccinating “at risk” people who might die doesn’t account for all the people who might live permanently disabled lives as a result of a covid infection. https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2021/01/14/asymptomatic-covid-lung-damage/ https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2021/01/14/asymptomatic-covid-l...

kfrzcode 6y ago

Can someone help me understand the difference between this and other vaccines? From what I know, the COVID-19 vaccine is only effective in reducing symptoms for those who get inoculated. Is it accurate to say this vaccine does not prevent infection or help develop an immunity? I just do not understand how vaccines work. Would love a (peer-reviewed) source or sources I could read to brush up. This is not a political or bait post I really am looking for some signal in all the noise. Why am I being downvoted for seeking knowledge?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
cstejerean 6y ago
Vaccines never quite prevent infection. What they do is give the immune system a head start so they can overtake the infection early. Hopefully early enough to prevent symptoms, and ideally early enough to prevent transmission. But just how early the immune system can win will depend on the strength on the immune reaction and the specifics of the virus. So for this specific one we don’t yet know whether it’s early enough to prevent subsequent transmission. For example if transmission would require coughing and you never develop a cough, then there probably won’t be much transmission. But the potential for pre-symptomatic transmission suggests that it won’t be that simple, and while in theory this should reduce transmission it probably won’t eliminate it entirely.
war1025 6y ago
> Why am I being downvoted for seeking knowledge? Because people are assholes. As for the rest, I haven't really gotten a straight answer on the vaccine. Seems there are people who say it is the best thing since slice bread, and others who say it will be about as useful as the yearly flu vaccine. No one actually knows.
SamBam 6y ago
> From what I know, the COVID-19 vaccine is only effective in reducing symptoms for those who get inoculated. Is it accurate to say this vaccine does not prevent infection or help develop an immunity? These statements are not accurate, but I think that there may be a misunderstanding with the discussion of whether the vaccine prevents symptomatic spreading. First, to the second part of your statement, no vaccine really "prevents" infection. A vaccine primes the immune system to fight an infection, but the immune system typically only recognizes the attack once at least some cells have been infected and start producing more viruses. However, being vaccinated typically means that your body will wipe out the virus before it has a chance to take hold and make you sick. But this doesn't mean it is just "reducing symptoms" the way, say, Sudafed reduces nasal congestion without attacking the cold -- being vaccinated really does mean that your body's defenses are armed to fight and destroy the virus the moment it invades. So it's completely wrong to say it simply "reduces symptoms." What I think you're confusing this with is that scientists are saying that there is still a chance that you can become infected and become an asymptomatic spreader, even if you don't get sick. The scientists aren't quite sure if this is the case or not, because it wasn't measured in the large vaccine trials. It's very likely that the vaccine at least reduces your ability to spread the virus, if not completely eliminates it, because that's the way most vaccines work. However, the reason the question is still unknown because certain respiratory diseases can still be spread after vaccination, because those viruses can sometimes replicate within the mucosal tissues in the nose, "hiding" from the body's main immune system.

whycombagator 6y ago

My Adblocker won’t let me load the submitted site. I wonder if it’s stats are better than Bloomberg’s?[0] Which shows US & global distribution, also claims over 22m Americans have been vaccinated [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-global-distribution/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-glo...

cvcvc 6y ago
The Bloomberg number is _shots given_, so one person receiving two doses counts twice. The link above counts _number of people_ with at least one dose.

tasty_freeze 6y ago

Bloomberg also has a vaccine tracker that has more information https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-global-distribution/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-glo...

cvcvc 6y ago
Bloomberg gives number of shots given, not number of people vaccinated.

perardi 6y ago

I had a bit of a frustrating experience getting my elderly parents signed up for a jab today. They are patients of a local hospital conglomerate. (I realize that’s typical in the States, Kaiser et al., but I’ve been living in Ontario, where you’re not wedded to some particular chain.) The hospital system said they’d notify patients who qualify, which both of my parents do, in spades. Dad was just in the ICU, during the pandemic, thought not for COVID. Now, how did they choose to notify people? Well, how would you choose to notify elderly patients? A phone call, right? Perhaps a letter in the mail? Maybe a text? Ha. No. They are apparently notifying people…through their patient portal app. No push notifications. No email notifications. The message just appears in your inbox, and it’s up to you to find it. Which is, you know, less than optimal for the patients in these 1a and 1b vaccine groups. You know what a lot of elderly people aren’t great at? Constantly checking an app to see if they got a message. Of course, for all I know, they may have other methods to contact people. But do they communicate those methods anywhere? No. Ugh. I know. This is all complicated and rolling out at record speed. I get it. The logistics of this whole mess are horrifying. But just the teeniest bit of information and UX design here would got a long ways.

jjoonathan 6y ago
Kaiser is one of the good ones, too. How can it be worse? Well, you can not have insurance, but you already knew that one. You can have an insurance company that's poorly integrated with providers, resulting in "edge cases" that somehow always involve you paying more. A lot more. Here's the one affecting me, though: insurance companies use pricing to ensure that my employer picks a new plan every year, which always has an extremely decrepit sign-up process every year, which no doubt shakes some fraction of the generally young and healthy workforce from going through it at all. It usually takes hours, even for someone of my technical aptitude, because you have to go on a scavenger hunt for the correct links, ID numbers, and codes. It's not bad UX, it's brilliant UX, but the masters it servers are... not us.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Here's the one affecting me: insurance companies use pricing to ensure that my employer picks a new plan every year, which always has an extremely decrepit sign-up process every year, which no doubt shakes some fraction of the workforce from going through it at all. That's probably not the insurer’s intent, since it's in their interest to have the most people possible enrolled.

shouldiquitamzn 6y ago

This whole thing is hopeless. Mutations will invalidate the vaccine, lockdowns will never fully stop the spread. Year after year, each reinfection you get damages your internals a little more, drastically lowering your life expectancy.

bioinformatics 6y ago
Yes, everyone that is alive today will be dead one day.

dougmwne 6y ago

I'm interested in how vaccinating a small number of people can make a big impact on the effects of the pandemic. The risk of death and severity rapidly increases with age. We also have a good idea of the kinds of preexisting conditions put you most at risk. We have already been targeting health care professionals (increases health care capacity) and people over 65 (the majority of the at-risk population). If we are able to reduce the severe case rate by 10x or 100x, do we even need to reach herd immunity or would to be best just to remove all social distancing controls and let it burn itself out, knowing that the negative impact from those infections would be small enough to not put a strain on healthcare resources?

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
We know of a half dozen human coronaviruses that stay in circulation rather than burning themselves out, so there’s reason to worry this one wouldn’t either. The exact question is probably academic, because it won’t be politically feasible to maintain social distancing when severe cases are down 100x, but we’ll definitely want to keep vaccinating.
- dougmwne 6y ago
  The Dutch have started burning their bicycles in protest. That's a pretty good sign we're at the end of the public's patience for this. The deaths are terrible, but you know what killed more people over the past year? Cigarettes. And they sell those at the grocery store.
supertrope 6y ago
Old people 65+ are about 90% of hospitalizations and deaths. Israel finished vaccinating their seniors and hospital admissions are down 60%.
- forrestthewoods 6y ago
  65+ is 90% deaths. But only 65% of hospitalizations. And, counter-intuitively, only 40% of ICU admissions. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Er2kghUXcAAWyzx?format=jpg&name=medium https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Er2kghUXcAAWyzx?format=jpg&name=...

jariel 6y ago

Here is a interactive chart showing various nations [1] Israel will be #1 by far. They have apparently paid $65/dose or something like that, far ahead of what others have paid, moreover, the dealing looks a little problematic. Obviously, it's worth far, far more than $65 a person, but it may not make too much sense to get into a vicious bidding war as it's unlikely to increase the rate of production and the surpluses would just be going into the hands of Parmacorps. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations

xiphias2 6y ago
Why not? Bidding should be time based to provide better incentives for the companies to spend money on factories.
- jariel 6y ago
  Because the need for massive, acute production capacity for a specific variation of vaccine is short-lived. What's the odds that we're going to have another pandemic in the next 10 years that has nRNA vaccine? There's no need for massive production capacity other than during a global pandemic, and you probably don't know what you need, supply chains etc. until the time of production or thereabouts. So - the money won't go into building out production capacity for something, when we don't know what that something is, it's constituent parts, or what technologies will be utilized.
  - xiphias2 6y ago
    The money printing that has been done because of COVID (that shows the economic damage) is many trillions of dollars, while the whole market cap of Moderna and BioNTech are in tens of billions. The amount we're spending on productionizing vaccines is nothing compared to the damage the virus creates every day. Businesses a failing every day, and when they go bankrupt they won't be able to come back.
    - jariel 6y ago

IgorPartola 6y ago

Does anyone know where I can find how many doses have been distributed to each state and how many are stockpiled federally or by the manufacturers? That’s the info I really can’t seem to find and it would be really interesting to see. Also would love to see production numbers day by day if possible. The simplistic estimates I keep seeing on places like CNN basically just take the current daily vaccination rate and use that as the rate for future projections which is obviously incorrect as production and distribution is ramping up. This site is nice, but also it only shows the percentage of people who got a single dose, which is basically meaningless. We really should stop counting a dose as one vial and stop counting how many people got just one dose.

belltaco 6y ago
Search for 'Bloomberg Vaccine tracker'.
- deleted 6y ago
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skronch 6y ago
This is a pretty good resource: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-global-distribution/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-glo...
- IgorPartola 6y ago
  Exactly what I've been looking for, thank you!
ac29 6y ago
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations

unishark 6y ago

> * Herd immunity numbers assume no ongoing vaccination -- they more or less say, "If life went back to normal, would the virus slow down or speed up?" I'd say ongoing vaccination (after herd immunity is reached) is irrelevant to the herd immunity calculation. Is that what you meant? Though we'd obviously still need vaccinations as much of the world will not have herd immunity for a long time, if ever. And certainly the percentage needed will differ whether we assume social distancing and travel restrictions are continued or not. Personally I hope we keep a lot of it, at least a long while more. I really hate catching flu's and colds.

repsilat 6y ago
> ongoing vaccination (after herd immunity is reached) is irrelevant to the herd immunity calculation. Is that what you meant? Though we'd obviously still need vaccinations Yeah, exactly. Depending on other model factors (like ongoing vaccinations, relative mortalities, economic costs etc) the best time (and degree) to open up may be earlier or later than the technical herd immunity point. To make an unfair argument: is 65% vaccination the end of WFH, or just when we should open up outdoor dining? If we vaccinate the youngest 65%, clearly we'd have different restrictions than if we'd vaccinated the eldest 65%. Etc.
AndrewBissell 6y ago
> Personally I hope we keep a lot of it, at least a long while more. I really hate catching flu's and colds. Are you blissfully unaware of the enormous mental health and developmental problems these measures are causing, or do you just rate those as less important than suffering an occasional mild illness while you eat DoorDash and watch Netflix?
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cobookman 6y ago

America has ~330 million people. Let's assume the 18.7 Million was just in the month of january..not 100% acurate, but not 100% inaccurate. That gives us a timeline of more than 1 year at current rate to vaccinate the entire US. Even vaccinating 70% the population will take roughly a year at current pace. Puts things in some perspective.

sneak 6y ago
Yeah, in Q3 I was really hoping to be on an airplane this summer. I realized in December or early January that due to the insane mismanagement it's going to ruin this summer too, and it'll likely be Q3 of this year before travel is really safe or reasonable again.
- swarnie_ 6y ago
  If only you had some form of centralised health infrastructure to help co-ordinate this program. Didn't some US politician try this not too long ago?
  - sneak 6y ago
    The US already has plenty of centralized health infrastructure (and did before Obama); this comment is a (partisan pot shot) red herring, and completely irrelevant to the vaccine distribution clusterfuck. The issue is not lack of infrastructure, it's gross incompetence of the regional authorities who are responsible for distributing the vaccine. If you thought the federal government sucked, wait until you see how bad the states are.
Invictus0 6y ago
Production is still ramping up though; we haven't even started to receive the J&J vaccine.
scrollaway 6y ago
Not only is production still ramping up, but keep in mind the following: 1. As time goes on, more staff is trained and protocols are learned. Bugs are ironed out. Vaccinating people becomes faster overall. 2. All the high-impact vaccinations are done at the beginning. By the end of January, most western countries will be done vaccinating their highest-risk groups. This is the highest impact of all the vaccination phases because the high-risk groups represent the highest amount of hospital cases, so this will greatly reduce load on hospitals, which in turn will reduce transmissions in hospitals and free up healthcare personnel, and so on. 3. More vaccines are still being approved. The Pfizer vaccine is the one that is most in use right now, and it has logistical complexity attached due to its storage requirements. With more vaccines in play, this will become less of an issue making distribution easier outside of cities especially, and speeding up vaccinations overall. There's good reasons to be positive about the vaccines right now. I do wish my country (Belgium) would focus all its efforts on it, because our current vaccination logistics are pathetic.

bigcorp-slave 6y ago

This is unabashedly great news. For those debating if it is a sterilizing vaccine, if it’s perfect, what it means, etc, I point you to the following chart from Moderna’s trial: https://www.zq1.de/~bernhard/images/share/mRNA-1273-trial.png https://www.zq1.de/~bernhard/images/share/mRNA-1273-trial.pn... I think this pretty much says it all.

nitrogen 6y ago
What is the Y axis, and how was it measured? It's not clear from the legend on the image.
- colinmhayes 6y ago
  Percent of subjects with a confirmed case.

_ZeD_ 6y ago

Do you know some equivalent resource for EU?

Barrin92 6y ago
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations is a good go to resources for all things covid related.

lbeltrame 6y ago

One thought: do we need herd immunity at all? Wait, hold off pushing the downvote button. Why is this virus a problem? Not strictly because of deaths, although one would want to avoid unnecessary ones. It's due to the pressure on the healthcare system, because many people end up hospitalized, even though most of them recover (more on long COVID at the end of the post). The vast majority of people ending up in hospitals are also belonging in the "at risk" population. To relieve pressure on the healthcare system, these must be vaccinated (along with healthcare workers). But once the most vulnerable and the most at risk of hospitalization are vaccinated, the pressure on the healthcare system should lower or cease for the most part (and the early data from Israel seem to indicate just that). Of course, vaccination should continue (for those who want to get vaccinated), but with the risk of overwhelming hospitals gone completely, it would not be a problem. So society should reopen. And yes, in this case the virus will become endemic (it almost is already, save for a handful of places). What about the others? Aside those who vaccinate, those recovered who did not have serious complications can go on like normal, like everyone else. According to data from Qatar[1] the risk of reinfection is low, and, most importantly, the vast majority of reinfections are asymptomatic (and asymptomatic people spread much less than symptomatic people, FTR[2]). In the context of the virus mutating towards (in the timespan of years, rather than months) completely escaping immunity, it is much better to rely on a combination of vaccination and natural immunity, so that subsequent, possible reinfections are not severe. That would also give time to adjust the vaccines if need be. Unfortunately even throwing natural immunity along with vaccination is now a taboo topic, given how politicized the debate has become. "What about long COVID?" some people may say. Well, the problem with long COVID is that, while it certainly exists, it is poorly characterized. Most studies lack a baseline before infection (or rely on self-reporting), so it is hard to determine what and for how long happens after an infection. Lastly, "regular" pneumonia can actually wreck someone for months or even a year, and some of these issues we're seeing may due to that: we're just seeing them at an increased rate because more people are experiencing that. [1] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.15.21249731v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.15.21249731v... [2] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2774102 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...

toast0 6y ago

tenken 6y ago

> members of the U.S. population who have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine ... This is not necessarily vaccinated with a full dose.

pelasaco 6y ago

Great news, 5% of the population already. That shows me how my home country - Germany, which was once saw as example on the fight against COVID-19 - still far behind. We only vaccinated 1.8% of our population. I wonder if the credits of a good rollout and access to such amount of vaccine will be given to the Trump administration as it should be?

swarnie_ 6y ago
1.8% is pretty good compared to the rest of the EU right? I'm still not sure why a lot of countries started so late or so slowly. Still, like a lot of things, the last 20% is magnitudes harder then the first 20%. Finishing vaccination programs will come down to how well each government can educate their populist. I fear this is where America will fall down.
- anovikov 6y ago
  I believe in the end of the day, it will be directly or indirectly forced. Like, people who were not vaccinated will be fined, or later, detained if they are caught leaving their homes. I just see no other way around it, or pandemic never stops in most countries.
  - WA 6y ago
    Not sure where you're from, but most Western countries have no legal basis to detain people leaving their homes just because they're not vaccinated. There might be some restrictions like air travel though.
    - pelasaco 6y ago
      even though I agree with you, The government has no business in saying who and how many people I invite to my home, or either who i meet in the Park. And here we are.
      - mbg721 6y ago

kikowi 6y ago

Any advice on how to help close friends/family members with strong beliefs in vaccine hoaxes (e.g. government will inject chips into our bodies)? It got so far that they might lose their job, because they believe in the hoax and refuse to get vaccinated.

RickJWagner 6y ago

I like the trajectory Jan 11 - Jan 12. More of that would be good.

thoughtstheseus 6y ago

Are we prepared for a much worse pandemic? Are we building a healthy population? Vaccines are only one part of the long-term solution here.

stuckindider 6y ago
I agree. We need to start instituting temperature checks at all businesses and mandatory mobile phone contact tracing. This would help reduce crime as well.
- thoughtstheseus 6y ago
  So you’re advocating for persistent surveillance of people? This approach doesn’t seem effective. Reducing existing underlying health conditions (obesity), improving surge capacity for hospitals, and domestic production for critical supplies all seem like better places to start.

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