PackPA2015 said:
More follow-up on England's new surge. Emerging data shows an increase in mortality with this variant. Europe really, really needs to improve vaccination rates especially in their long-term care facilities.
Rapid Spread of Variant in England
AstraZeneca vaccine was not found to be very effective against the South African variant. I don't think this one will get approved in the U.S. anyways due to increased incidence of blood clots found in Europe.
AstraZeneca Vaccine against South African Variant
Thanks for posting. I agree with you on the AstraZeneca vaccine. I did see a couple of reports yesterday that downplayed the blood clot issue, but I still believe the AZ vaccine has a long way to go to get to approval in the US. At this point, I believe the vaccine supply in the US will be sufficient without needing the AZ vaccine.
With regards to LTC facilities and the new strains, in NC here are the current vaccination statistics:
LTC Facility 1st Dose = 127,506
LTC Facility 2nd Dose = 102,168
LTC Facility % of Allocated Vaccine Used = 79% (229,674 total doses/291,800 doses allocated)
Based on this, I believe NC has to get approximately 30,000 more people their second dose for LTC facilities to be fully vaccinated. This is based on an estimate I read a few months ago of 130,000 people needing to be vaccinated in LTC facilities in NC.