This is an awesome question. (Incoming big thread!)
The vaccine studies looked for symptoms of COVID. So it was easy to say from the trials that the vaccines prevented symptoms & hospitalizations. They didn’t directly test for asymptomatic spread. So we couldn’t say for sure. 1/
Now, if you’re not getting sick, and your immune system is primed to attack the asshole protein & destroy the virus quickly, logically you’d expect to spread the virus ‘less’ or ‘not at all’. But until you have evidence of that, you can’t say for sure. 2/
The Moderna trials tested everyone at the time of their 2nd dose. People who got the vaccine were less likely to have asymptomatic COVID. So that’s some evidence the vaccines also prevent getting asymptomatic COVID, not just symptoms. 3/
Data from Israel, where there’s been more vaccination, is lending more evidence that the vaccines decrease the spread of the virus. So we’re gathering a growing body of evidence that says there’s less spread if you get the vaccine. That’s what we expected but couldn’t prove. 4/
BUT, less spread doesn’t necessarily mean no spread.
As an INDIVIDUAL, if you’re vaccinated, you ‘might’ still spread the virus, just much less than if you’re unvaccinated. Which is why masking is still helpful.
The real benefits of vaccination are at the POPULATION level. 5/
If everyone (or most people) are vaccinated, then EVERYONE is spreading the virus less. Less viral spread, means cases drop even among unvaccinated people. Fewer cases means things can open up.
It’s not about the individual. It’s about the population. 6/
Vaccinating individuals is not the exit strategy.
Vaccinating a society is the exit strategy for the pandemic.
It benefits me if my neighbours are vaccinated. If their neighbours are vaccinated. If the parents of my kids’ classmates are vaccinated.
This is a group project. 7/
Remember, the vaccines aren’t 100% effective (though seem to stop almost all serious illness, even among variants). Effectiveness is likely lower in elderly & immunocompromised. The vaccine is not approved for kids yet.
We protect them by reducing spread at a POPULATION level.8/
Variants rise with uncontrolled spread of the virus. Vaccination at a POPULATION level prevents that from happening, because there’s less virus floating around.
Even if you don’t get very sick, you could be the body that makes a variant that escapes the vaccine for everyone. 9/
In sum: vaccinating YOU will prevent you from getting sick & probably make it less likely you spread the virus.
Vaccinating EVERYONE should massively decrease viral spread, protect those the vaccines are less effective for, and stop variants from emerging. 10/
COVID-19 vaccination is not about what YOU can do when you’re vaccinated. It’s about what WE can ALL do once enough of us are.
It’s about making sure others don’t get sick. About preventing variants.
Vaccination is our exit strategy. And it only works as a team project. /fin
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I can tell you, in Saskatchewan, we’re gearing up for April 1st. At that point, the potential bottleneck is no longer anticipated to be production, it’ll be distribution and uptake.
It’ll be all hands on deck, getting HCWs to give shots and organize people to get them.
What this means is for the next six weeks, the most important thing is to hold the line. We can not let variants go uncontrolled. We can’t give grounds for new variants. We need to choke out virus expansion.
Then come April, it’s a mad dash for shots in arms. Go go go!
So far I’ve seen separate arguments that healthcare workers, urban First Nations, teachers, Uber drivers & retail workers should get priority vaccination.
So I don’t think we should be surprised when it’s revealed it’ll mostly be hockey players. :)
In all honesty, I don’t envy the people making these decisions. There’s a lot of groups with legit arguments for priority vaccination, but you add them up and it’s not really priority vaccination any more.
HCWs, police, fire fighters, teachers, marginalized populations, essential workers, immunocompromised, caregivers, low-income individuals without sick leave... arguments for all of them and more.
The first 20% & the last 20% are easier to figure out than the 60% in the middle.
I wrote a thread on this topic last week. I focused on anorexia, but @AyishaKurji is right: most eating disorders are not anorexia and we’re seeing a rise in many types.
Also, Dr. Hinz is right. I kind of talked a lot about a step-down unit in the article but a specialized inpatient unit, a step-down unit, and a outpatient treatment program would be a standard of care that allows you to progress patients through a course of treatment.
Also, yes, the Novavax vaccine works via the asshole protein. This time, instead of mRNA or viral vectors, they just made the asshole protein itself. But how they did that was kind of cool.
They took the gene code for the asshole protein and put it in a different virus. Then they made that virus infect a bunch of moth cells in a lab.
So now you’ve got a ton of infected moth cells that are producing asshole proteins.
Not all are approved yet but it looks like we’ll have at least a half dozen vaccines going around in various parts of the world soon enough.
As expected, each has their own pluses and minuses.
Pfizer & Moderna (mRNA): best efficacy results so far, but need 2 doses, transport at low temps. Won’t have enough for the world (like all the vaccines). Pfizer with 2 billion & Moderna with 1 billion doses or so by the end of 2021.
AstraZenica (viral vector): So far studies suggest not as effective as the mRNA ones but still very good. Two doses. Don’t need super low temps. Said they’d have 3 billion doses in 2021, not sure if that’s still true.