While the COVID-19 pandemic continues to rage around the world, the question being asked in scientific journals, on TV talk shows, and across dining tables across America is this: When will we have a vaccine? The answer to that billion-dollar question is still in the air – as of this writing, dozens of faxes have been in human trials, though experts including Drs. Anthony Fauci have said that the most likely date for approval is early 2021. So, perhaps an even more important question is this: once we to have a fax, will enough people be ready to get it?
In an exclusive survey of nearly 3,000 women by Prevention, HealthyWomen, and GCI Health, 57% of respondents said they would receive a COVID-19 vaccine if available. Readers are not against vaccines in principle – 79% plan to get the flu this year. But there is a feeling of distrust about the COVID vaccine, which is being pushed through the development stages in record time: In the survey, 32% of respondents said, “There is not enough data in the long run.”
But there is a lot of encouragement to be found about these figures, says Wendy Lund, CEO of GCI Health. “An average of 64% of women over the age of 55 plan to get the vaccine, and a surprising 74% of women between the ages of 18 and 24 plan to get it,” she points out. “The younger women are early adapters,” she says. “They also want to get out of the house and move on with everything they are missing, and they know that a vaccine is our best hope to emerge from this crisis.”
While there is still a lot we do not know about when a vaccine will be approved and how the salt will be distributed, here is what we to do to know:
Yes, we need a COVID-19 vaccine.
Experts generally agree that in order to stop the spread of the virus – and for the country to return to “normal”, including schools, offices and businesses opening – a vaccine is needed. And while it would be great to have decades of studying long-term effects, we can not afford to wait that long to stop COVID-19, which already has more than 5 million Americans infected and caused more than 170,000 deaths. “When you release a vaccine, you do not know everything – you never know everything,” says Paul Offit, MD, director of the Center for Vaccine Research at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. ‘The question is always, When do you know enough?? ”
“Let’s say a vaccine has been tested on 20,000 people [with 10,000 additional people receiving a placebo] and the effectiveness was 75% in preventing moderate to severe illness without serious side effects, and it has been shown to be effective for six to eight months and probably longer, “says Dr. Offit.” With 1,000 people each “dying in this country and getting much sicker, would you get that vaccine? I think most people would.”
Dr. Offit also points out that although several phases are being done in some of the drug trials at the same time instead of over a longer period of years, that is because the government, through Operation Warp Speed, is taking the financial risk of manufacturing fax facilities which are ultimately not approved (typically it is the pharmaceutical companies that take this financial gamble, and that is why they make sure to encourage the results of each phase before spending tens or hundreds of millions on the next phase ). Mar Dr. Offit points out that the same safety protocols are still in place: “If the Phase III trials that have been done so far show that the vaccine has a safety problem, or it is less effective than one would hope, then they throw it away. faxes, ”he explains.
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Another point to keep in mind is that we are not starting from square one with many of the faxes and treatments, says Marsha B. Henderson, the former associate commissioner for women’s health at the FDA, who in the board of directors of HealthyWomen sits. “We have had other coronaviruses before COVID-19, and there are products that have been identified that can be re-adapted and can be very useful.” Henderson says consumers should also be encouraged to find that the FDA has already tested one drug treatment and removed it from the list for emergency use when it was revealed that it had no evidence of effectiveness, and that with new computer models data from drug trials could much faster and more efficiently are crunched than in the past. “You can do a lot with data from 30,000 people in a trial – they’ll check it and cut it in every possible way,” she says.
The decision to line up to get the vaccine still comes down to each person. “People want to make sure the vaccine has gone through all the bells and whistles that it has to go through, and that all the other approved faxes have gone through,” says Beth Battaglino, RN, CEO of HealthyWomen. “We see a lot of conflicting news from various sources, but I’m very confident in the research that is happening right now, and once the vaccine has been approved and gone through the appropriate channels, it will save so many lives. Battaglino urges those concerned about fax security to rely on science, not on Internet memes. “Go to reliable sources for your information, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Kaiser Health, instead of reading what you find on Google,” she says.
A majority of Americans will have to get it.
As the saying goes, vaccines do not stop disease, vaccinations to do. That it’s not enough to have an FDA-approved vaccine: To stop the spread of COVID-19, a large enough percentage of Americans must be vaccinated so that the virus cannot find new hosts to infect, a concept known as herd immunity. There is a complex formula for this based on the effectiveness of the vaccine and the number of people that each infected person normally transmits the virus. For COVID-19, that number is between 2 and 3. To put it in perspective, it is more contagious than a seasonal flu (1.3), but much less contagious than knives (12 to 18).
“If the vaccine is 75% effective in preventing spread [when an infected person releases the virus into the environment, infecting others], then you would have to vaccinate about two-thirds of the population to stop the spread, “explains Dr. Offit. And although a segment of the population is already exposed and developing antibodies, Dr. Offit explains that these numbers are probably not in the game comes when faxes are distributed. “So many people have had mild cases as if they were asymptomatic and were never tested, so I think it would be too difficult to screen people that way.” It is also unclear how long immunity lasts for those who are infected.
Who gets the COVID-19 vaccine first?
So let’s jump to the (hopefully near) future, when a vaccine went through all the test protocols, and was found safe and effective. Once approved, there will be a priority list of who gets it first. The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) is working with the National Academy of Medicine to develop this strategy at present, says Drs. Offit. “We can assume it will go to medical staff first,” he says. The first wave of immunizations is also likely to include essential workers such as those in mass transit and nursing homes, as well as the elderly and other high-risk populations. “That first group will include about 120 million people, and since the vaccine will probably need two doses [given one month apart], we will need about 240 million doses, ”he says. But even after the vaccine is approved and produced, it will be a big challenge to roll it out, says Dr. Offit. “At least the government has not made it clear today how they are doing it.”
One thing that convinces Henderson and other public health experts, however, is that no one has to pay for the COVID-19 vaccine once it is approved. “The public has already paid for the vaccine – our taxes have supported the development of these vaccines, and we have thrown billions into manufacturing as taxpayers. “There should be no reason for one U.S. taxpayer to pay for that fax,” Henderson said. The administration has so far only stated that the vaccine will be delivered free of charge to those who are “vulnerable and unable to afford it” – for others it will be up to insurance companies whether they need a copy.
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There will be a diverse group of participants – except one demographic.
Because Black, Latino, and Native American communities are dying from COVID-19 at higher rates than the general population, Drs. Please note that it is essential that the clinical subjects cover as diverse a group of topics as possible. “We need to ensure that the groups most at risk are adequately represented in these tears,” he says. “So then we can say, look, this vaccine works – if you are African-American, or over 65, or you have co-morbidities, the vaccine is effective this percentage.”
In the Prevention / HealthyWomen / GCI survey, only 34% of Black women said they would get the vaccine immediately, points out Lund, who speaks of a sense of distrust over whether there are enough safety measures. Dr. James Hildreth, an immunologist and president of the historic Black Medical School Meharry Medical College in Nashville, recently told reporter Soledad O’Brien that he volunteered to participate in vaccination trials so he could encourage other African Americans to get the vaccine. without Fear.
In what is likely to be disappointing news for parents, Drs. Please note that there is one group that is not currently included in vaccination tests: children. “The initial studies are all done on people over the age of 18,” he says, pointing out that studies on children are unlikely to come a few months or years after the adult studies.
But there is a fax you should get right now.
All the experts we spoke to are sure that once the COVID-19 vaccine is approved and Americans see frontline workers (and trusted experts like Dr. Fauci) vaccinated without significant side effects, doubts will disappear and enough people will be vaccinated to create herd immunity. But while we wait for the COVID-19 vaccine, there is another vaccine that everyone should get, says infection control expert Morgan Katz, MD, an assistant professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins Medicine. “We absolutely need everyone to be vaccinated for the flu,” she says. “This is the only protection we have now against something prepared for a very harsh winter and fall, and we must use the tools we already have.”
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