I really, truly don't get why they're doing this.
The sad part about this is that it was going to be approved by the FDA anyway. This just appears to be grandstanding by the White House to claim credit for pushing what was essentially a foregone conclusion. But a totally unnecessary move that will only further sow distrust in science, unfortunately.
I really, truly don't get why they're doing this.
From the article I posted earlier today:
"Early on in the pandemic, it looked like children might escape COVID-19 relatively unscathed, but now we’ve learned that kids can get infected with the coronavirus, spread the virus even without symptoms and, in more than a few cases, get seriously ill and even die.
"Now, a new study in the journal 'Blood Advances' finds that a high proportion of children infected with this coronavirus showed elevated levels of a blood marker tied to blood vessel damage — and not just kids who were sick with COVID."
This is really what you do if you want to erode confidence in a vaccine...I'm pretty confident that the reason so many people (40%+?) said they were hesitant about taking a vaccine was due to concerns that politics was Trumping (excuse me) science in the approval process. To be this close to genuine approval and pull a stunt like this is just plain stupid.
It's easy for me to say, but the FDA Commissioner should issue a written response saying that the FDA has been working hard on this and takes its responsibilities very seriously. That this process is ongoing and may be nearing a decision but the FDA can not bow to political pressure to expedite a decision that is already proceeding in an orderly and scientific manner.
He probably gets fired but it is the right thing to do. It won't be career suicide as he may get reappointed by Biden and will be viewed as a hero by most of the country.
Hahn denies it happened, and I tend to agree with him. Replacing the FDA director just slows things down. E.g., Trump fires the guy, -- and Hahn asks, "Effective when and who replaces me?" The person who replaces him says, "I need to look at the record, which will only take four or five days." Pretty hard to stampede the bureaucracy -- especially the FDA, which is always under pressure -- in the last 40 days of a lame-duck administration.
Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013
On the vaccine front, AstraZeneca is exploring a mix and match trial with other companies. In a dogs and cats living together moment, the British company will work with the Russians and their Sputnik V vaccine. (They will also work with Pfizer).
https://www.businessinsider.com/astr...d-shot-2020-12
I'm ready to predict that the AstraZenica vaccine will not be approved for widespread use in Western countries for at least another 6 months, likely even longer than that... which would still be a phenomenal timeline compared to pretty much every other vaccine in history.
So, it looks like if you are not one of the first 50 - 100 million folks in the US who will get the vaccine (health care, old, pre-existing conditions) your hope of getting the vaccine before the fall probably rest on Moderna -- a company that has never produced anything -- proving to be really, really great at producing a ton of vaccine.
Sigh... I was sorta hoping to come out of my house in the summer.
Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?
Kansas has started a new ad campaign called "Stop the Spread". The TV ad caught my attention but I can't find a link to it. The announcement from Governor Kelly says "the campaign is part of a bigger, all of the above strategy that will encourage Kansans to follow COVID-19 mitigation guidelines, encourage voluntary testing, avoid mass gatherings and use face coverings. She said the approach includes partnerships with the Kansas Hospital Association, Kansas Chamber of Commerce, Kansas Farm Bureau, the Kansas Leadership Center and more."
I understand the face coverings, avoid mass gatherings, hand washing, etc. but I'm not sure I understand the testing aspect of it. The TV ad seems to be encouraging people to get tested just to get tested. A teacher in Missouri that I know is talking about getting tested weekly - and they are back to remote learning. What is the purpose behind getting tested if you have no known exposure or symptoms? How does it mitigate the spread of Covid? I go to work every day but wear a mask unless I'm in my personal office, I put a mask on if someone stands in my doorway to talk to me for more than a minute or so, I wear a mask when I'm in a store (rarely in there more than 10-20 minutes), and have a set group of people (family that are also limiting their activities) that are in my "pod". Should I be getting random Covid tests? It seems like a waste of resources to me. What am I missing?
Maybe nothing. But at Duke all students are getting tested frequently, and Duke has been very, very successful in controlling COVID infections. Student tests total about 160,000 since August 2 with 152 positive (all but 31 cleared) and contact tracing. Tests group five samples together and then retest individuals if positive.
Positive tests are about one percent of student body of 16,000 -- and at these low rates, there are undoubtedly false positives.
Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013
Parenthetically, one of my best friends has been a skeptic on COVID19. Not an anti-masker, in your face guy but he has doubted the severity of COVID19 and thought the masking and social distancing issues were silly and unnecessary. He's a smart guy, math degree, Masters in Electrical Engineering, long time and successful career in the aerospace industry.
I talked with him today and he has reversed course. Two of his relatives are dying of Covid19 and the numbers have finally overwhelmed him.
I appreciated his humility in admitting he was wrong. He's one of these guys who is usually right and somehow got caught up in the flu v Covid19 argument.
Is there bad news about J&J's vaccine, of which the U.S. has ordered 100 million doses?
Per my understanding, they're expected to seek emergency authorization no later than early February.
Between that, the 100 million that would be vaccinated by the 200 million doses already ordered from Pfizer and Moderna--and the 50 million that would be vaccinated by the 100 million additional doses the U.S. just bought from Moderna--we'd be up to 250 million Americans with these three.
True but Moderna is not going at it alone. They've teamed up with Lonza, a Swiss pharma company. It's basically the reverse of the Pfizer vaccine where the small upstart biotech company (BioNTech) is a European company who was largely responsible for R&D but not manufacturing and distribution. Moderna will rely on Lonza Group for that. It's not the behemoth of Pfizer but they've been around for 120+ years so it's not their first rodeo.