Covid-19 vaccine thread

[Free]

Related.

This student scientist wanted to explain vaccines to his mom. Then he went viral.

Rob Swanda's whiteboard was a break-out hit for science communication.

www.motherjones.com

 

[Free]

 

[Arkady Arkright]

An interesting article on vaccine priorities (in the UK) - Sean Dyche believes the lives of his footballers are worth more than yours and your family – but we all need to wait our turn for the vaccine.

 

[bubblesort]

I'm looking at the infected and death numbers rise, and thinking the risk is getting high enough to gamble on this untested vaccine. I mean, OK, it's been tested for a few months. Thats not good enough for me to consider it properly tested. It's the only option at the moment, though, so fuck it, I'll take it.

So I looked into it, and it's not really available to me yet, but it will he soon.

Then out if curiosity I checked to make sure it will be free. It won't be! Here is just one article about how much they plan to charge for it...

Will Medicare Cover a Coronavirus Vaccine?

Discover when a coronavirus vaccine might be available. Also learn whether Medicare will cover a vaccine, tests, treatments, and more.

www.healthline.com

I'm uninsured, so they expect me to pay $60 a shot or something stupid, to gamble on their bullshit, untested vaccine, after they sucked up billions in tax money for development and distribution? Fuck everything about that. I'd rather get corona and have a medical bankruptcy than give those bastards another red cent. That way, if I die from it, at least they will lose money treating me. We already paid for this, many times over. To put another price tag in it is a ghoulish attempt to kill poor people.

So no, I'm not getting it, because I refuse to pay for it.

The vaccine probably won't work, anyway.

Keep wearing your masks, because when people see the price tag, this vaccine rollout will fail miserably. With all the lockdowns, there are too many uninsured people with tight budgets for this to work right now. $600 isn't gonna cut it. $2000 won't happen, because we are too distracted by the Trump show to make it happen. Even if it did, that $2k will go to bills for a lot of people, not vaccines.

We are not going back to normal any time soon.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

I'm looking at the infected and death numbers rise, and thinking the risk is getting high enough to gamble on this untested vaccine. I mean, OK, it's been tested for a few months. Thats not good enough for me to consider it properly tested. It's the only option at the moment, though, so fuck it, I'll take it.

So I looked into it, and it's not really available to me yet, but it will he soon.

Then out if curiosity I checked to make sure it will be free. It won't be! Here is just one article about how much they plan to charge for it...

Will Medicare Cover a Coronavirus Vaccine?

Discover when a coronavirus vaccine might be available. Also learn whether Medicare will cover a vaccine, tests, treatments, and more.

www.healthline.com

I'm uninsured, so they expect me to pay $60 a shot or something stupid, to gamble on their bullshit, untested vaccine, after they sucked up billions in tax money for development and distribution? Fuck everything about that. I'd rather get corona and have a medical bankruptcy than give those bastards another red cent. That way, if I die from it, at least they will lose money treating me. We already paid for this, many times over. To put another price tag in it is a ghoulish attempt to kill poor people.

So no, I'm not getting it, because I refuse to pay for it.

The vaccine probably won't work, anyway.

Keep wearing your masks, because when people see the price tag, this vaccine rollout will fail miserably. With all the lockdowns, there are too many uninsured people with tight budgets for this to work right now. $600 isn't gonna cut it. $2000 won't happen, because we are too distracted by the Trump show to make it happen. Even if it did, that $2k will go to bills for a lot of people, not vaccines.

We are not going back to normal any time soon.

Your article was published in August last year, and the information it contains seems to be outdated.

I thought Biden had said that he'd make the vaccine free to everyone and the New York Times seem to think that, in practice, that's how it's working in most (but not all) cases.

The Vaccines Are Supposed to Be Free. Surprise Bills Could Happen Anyway. (Published 2020)

“It is the American health care system, so there are bound to be loopholes.”

www.nytimes.com

Evernote link because paywall

Since it's not yet available to you anyway, why not wait and see until it is how much they actually do want to charge you for it where you live before reaching any hard and fast decisions about whether you can afford it or not? No use worrying about something that shouldn't be a problem anyway.

As to whether it works, the people who've actually studied the figures and understand statistics and epidemiology and who work for the WHO and relevant public health and medical licencing authorities seem sufficiently convinced it does to spend vast amounts of money on vaccinating the whole world population with it.

My understanding is that all the vaccines licenced so far greatly reduce, rather than eliminate, the risk of becoming infected and symptomatic with the virus, and certainly I'm not going to turn down anything that reduces my chances of catching a virus that stands a very good chance of killing me in what sounds a pretty unpleasant way.

 

[bubblesort]

Your article was published in August last year, and the information it contains seems to be outdated.

I thought Biden had said that he'd make the vaccine free to everyone and the New York Times seem to think that, in practice, that's how it's working in most (but not all) cases.

The Vaccines Are Supposed to Be Free. Surprise Bills Could Happen Anyway. (Published 2020)

“It is the American health care system, so there are bound to be loopholes.”

www.nytimes.com

Evernote link because paywall

Politicians say a lot of stuff. I don't trust him.

Since it's not yet available to you anyway, why not wait and see until it is how much they actually do want to charge you for it where you live before reaching any hard and fast decisions about whether you can afford it or not? No use worrying about something that shouldn't be a problem anyway.

It's not about affordability for me personally, it's the principle of the matter. The fact is, I already paid for it. Period. End of conversation. They owe me a vaccine. They owe every single American a vaccine. We went into national debt for that stupid, poorly tested vaccine. I won't even pay the nurse or pharmacist who injects it. They can get their money from Pfizer and Moderna.

On a more practical level... there's too many people deciding between paying rent, utilities, and groceries, for any charge to make sense, especially with rent protections starting to evaporate, which means mass evictions will start, because everybody's gonna have a year of back rent due at the same time. How many of those uninsured families are going to afford extra money for vaccines?

As to whether it works, the people who've actually studied the figures and understand statistics and epidemiology and who work for the WHO and relevant public health and medical licencing authorities seem sufficiently convinced it does to spend vast amounts of money on vaccinating the whole world population with it.

My understanding is that all the vaccines licenced so far greatly reduce, rather than eliminate, the risk of becoming infected and symptomatic with the virus, and certainly I'm not going to turn down anything that reduces my chances of catching a virus that stands a very good chance of killing me in what sounds a pretty unpleasant way.

Yeah, maybe it will work, maybe it won't... time will tell. If the numbers don't go down a month or two after the general public start receiving vaccines, then we'll know it's snake oil.

I can tell you for certain it won't work if they can't scare enough people into purchasing it, though. They need ads made by the team behind American Horror Story if they are going to scare people into buying a vaccine over buying groceries.

 

[Free]

Good to know bubblesort hasn't changed due to the pandemic.

 

[Casey Pelous]

Politicians say a lot of stuff. I don't trust him.

Your article from last August says a lot of stuff. I don't trust it.

 

[Khamon]

The Alabama Public Health Department is distributing the vaccine(s) through their county offices free of charge. Our county is already in stage 1b and using local hospital administration to collect vetted lists of school teachers to call for appointments. They are sending doses to a couple of local clinics each day, and those operations charge an administration fee; but any eligible resident can schedule the absolutely free shots at the health office. Our college's list will be submitted tomorrow so we'll be expecting a call next week.

I've known a few people who've chosen the clinical appointment for convenience even though they charge a processing fee to give the shots. I imagine private physicians will do the same during wider distribution. But the fee is plainly stated up front so the choice is clear when the appointment is made.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

This can't be right. Surely someone's misunderstood data protection law rather badly

German Covid vaccine officials play name game to comply with data privacy laws

Authorities in Lower Saxony accused of overzealous interpretation of data privacy laws

www.theguardian.com

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

Related.

This student scientist wanted to explain vaccines to his mom. Then he went viral.

Rob Swanda's whiteboard was a break-out hit for science communication.

www.motherjones.com

He's kind of cute! ...and it's hilarious to hear how conspiracy nut jobs respond to real research when they always tell people to "do your research!"

 

[Free]

Same as it ever was (with the Trump administration).

Officials: Vaccine reserve was exhausted when Trump admin. vowed to release it

WASHINGTON — When Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar announced this week that the federal government would begin releasing coronavirus vaccine doses held in reserve for second shots, no suc

www.newsday.com

When Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar announced this week that the federal government would begin releasing coronavirus vaccine doses held in reserve for second shots, no such reserve existed, according to state and federal officials briefed on distribution plans. The Trump administration had already begun shipping out what was available beginning at the end of December, taking second doses directly off the manufacturing line.

Now, health officials across the country who had anticipated their extremely limited vaccine supply as much as doubling beginning next week are confronting the reality that their allocations will not immediately increase, dashing hopes of dramatically expanding eligibility for millions of elderly people and those with high-risk medical conditions. Health officials in some cities and states were informed in recent days about the reality of the situation, while others are still in the dark.

 

[Khamon]

Yeah my county has now scheduled all of the currently available doses and has been informed that more will be available mid-February, and, those will need to be used as second shots for people receiving them now, so, those of us on the call list will be scheduled for first shots, at best, in late-February or early-March. Our lockdown began March 18th last year. We may be at least partially vaccinated one year later.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

 

[Free]

*sigh* This is why we can't have nice things that keep us healthy and alive.

Hackers alter stolen regulatory data to sow mistrust in COVID-19 vaccine

Post titled “Astonishing fraud! Evil Pfffizer! Fake vaccines!” found on the Dark Web.

arstechnica.com

Last month, the makers of one of the most promising coronavirus vaccines reported that hackers stole confidential documents they had submitted to a European Union regulatory body. On Friday, word emerged that the hackers have falsified some of the submissions’ contents and published them on the Internet.

Studies of the BNT162b2 vaccine jointly developed by pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and BioNTech found it’s 95 percent effective at preventing COVID-19 and is consistently effective across age, gender, race, and ethnicity demographics. Despite near-universal consensus among scientists that the vaccine is safe, some critics have worried it isn’t. The hackers appear to be trying to stoke those unsupported worries.

 

[Free]

A leader focused on doing a good job. Well. Almost forgot what that was like.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

All adults in UK to be offered Covid vaccine by September, says Raab

Foreign secretary sets timescale and says ministers hope to ease England lockdown in March

www.theguardian.com

Speaking to the BBC’s Andrew Marr, the foreign secretary was asked about reports that all other adults could be vaccinated by the end of June.

“The plan is to get the first 15 million most vulnerable people vaccinated with the first dose by the middle of February,” he said. “We then want to get, by early spring, another 17 million. At that point we’ll have 99% of those most at risk of dying of coronavirus administered their first jab, and then the entire adult population we want being offered a first jab by September. That’s the roadmap.”

He added: “Obviously if it can be done more swiftly than that, then that’s a bonus.”

 

[Arkady Arkright]

Raab left out a word there - "All surviving adults in UK to be offered Covid vaccine by September, says Raab".

 

[Innula Zenovka]

‘The Idiocy Continues’: Nurses Refuse to Give COVID Shots

Kansas is in the middle of a coronavirus emergency, but some health-care workers are spreading misinformation instead of healing.

www.thedailybeast.com

Evernote link because paywall

 

[Innula Zenovka]

For Britain's vaccination success, we must thank our universal healthcare system | Gaby Hinsliff

After months of government misjudgments on Covid, the NHS has come to the rescue and given us a new sense of pride, says Guardian columnist Gaby Hinsliff

www.theguardian.com

above all, this is a story about never taking the miraculous gift of free universal healthcare for granted; both the ready-made infrastructure that allows something like this to be rolled out at short notice, and the ethos that comes with it. Sharp elbows won’t get you a vaccine in Britain, and nor will a fat chequebook. Instead we have a system allowing the medically vulnerable to be swiftly identified, sorted by clinical priority, and coaxed if necessary out of homes they’re scared to leave by a family doctor they trust.