Comment on a recent study posted on the CDC's website:

PackMom said:

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Johnson & Johnson reporting its single-dose COVID-19 vaccine is 66% effective overall at preventing moderate to severe illness and 85% against the most serious symptoms.

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Thanks for the update. While an efficacy above 50% is supposed to be the target for approval (which J&J would meet), I am a little worried about how well the J&J vaccine will protect against the new, more aggressive mutations. Also, we will have to see the efficacy across all age groups that were tested and the side-effects. I believe the efficacy reported is on par with an effective flu shot, based on something I read today. If it can prevent severe illness, it should go a long way in reducing hospitalizations and deaths. It will not prevent people from becoming infected and having some symptoms.

Both Pfizer and Moderna appear to have enough of a margin to protect against the new variants (from an antibody production standpoint), since both vaccines have efficacies in the upper 90% range. It will be interesting to see how well the J&J vaccine does against these new variants. I read a couple of days ago that they expect the UK variant to be the dominant variant by March.

PackPA2015 said:

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Not trying to steal your thunder Davie, but saw on Bloomberg this morning that NC has now surpassed Tennessee in doses per 100 people and % of doses administered. Just behind SC in % of doses administered, but well ahead of them in doses per 100 people. NC has moved up to 20th in the nation in % of doses administered - that's right, top 25! We are getting shots in arms!

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Please go ahead and steal my thunder. I do not mind, especially when it is good news. NC has been making very good progress over the past week or so with the efforts to increase vaccinations. I will be providing an update later today to show how NC and the US as a whole are doing against a couple of key targets.

Not sure if you or others saw NBC News last night, but they had a very good report on West Virginia and how they have been able to become a national leader in vaccinations. A couple of highlights I remember from the report:

1. Months ago, WV began planning for vaccinations and put a healthcare professional (critical care physician) in charge of the state's response. This person was given full responsibility over the entire state and the actions each county would implement to get vaccines rolled out.
2. Early on, West Virginia decided they did not want to be part of the federal program of using Walgreens/CVS to vaccinate the LTC facilities. As a result, they project that they will have all LTC residents and staff fully vaccinated (both doses) by the end of this week. The story highlighted two pharmacists who work tirelessly in visiting LTC facilities everyday (mornings and late into the night) to get the LTC facilities vaccinated.
3. It was pointed out that West Virginia is a very rural and poor state, but it has not stopped them from leading the nation in vaccinations and the use of their available supply. West Virginia has administered 81.6% of their available vaccines.

I have been reading a little bit more about the J&J vaccine news today and there are some additional points to make:

1. J&J vaccine shows 85% efficacy at protecting against severe illness that causes hospitalizations. Reportedly, none of the people who received the vaccine ended up being hospitalized. While the efficacy is below the mRNA vaccines, it is still significant enough to receive approval and to make a positive impact on the pandemic. The key point - it was 100% effective against hospitalization and deaths.
2. There are no deaths reported from people receiving the vaccine, but there were deaths (not reported how many) among those receiving the placebo.
3. The J&J vaccine is refrigerator stable -meaning it does not require the cold storage the mRNA vaccines (Moderna and Pfizer) require. This is extremely good news and helps with distribution immensely.
4. It should be pointed out that while the efficacy for the J&J vaccine is below the two mRNA vaccines, the trial results for the J&J vaccine may have been effected by the new variants. So, it may have had higher efficacy if the trial had overlapped the mRNA trials.
5. Part of the J&J trial includes blood draws to determine if vaccinated people can asymptomatically spread the virus. It will take a few more months before there is enough data to determine if this is the case.
6. J&J has said they can manufacture 1 Billion vaccines a year. J&J has said there will not be a lot of supply for the US until April. The US will receive 100M doses and these should be fulfilled by the end of June. The US has the option to buy an additional 100M doses, but they have not exercised this option yet.
7. Based on the data, it appears the immune response improves over time. After 49 days of receiving the vaccine, there were no reported cases for people who received the vaccine.
8. J&J is expected to submit their EUA application next week. Based on this, I would expect approval would come in the second or third (more likely - based on timing of the mRNA approvals) week of February.

Mormad said:

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https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7004e3.htm?s_cid=mm7004e3_w

CDC article on school transmission among 17 rural wisconsin schools

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This was the study I referenced in an earlier post. One case from transmission in 10,270 person weeks of school. Good evidence schools can be opened safely and should be opened. I did see a report on the news yesterday about several of the teachers unions that are still sticking to their position of no school until the kids are vaccinated.

It is amazing to me that large numbers of private schools have been open to in-person learning for the entire school year and they have kept kids safe and staff safe, but the vast number of public schools are still not open and teachers and staff are controlling the polices and parents have no voice in the matter. These private schools did not get billions of dollars from the state and federal governments to open. These private schools did not demand students be vaccinated before opening.

Additionally, some in the news media have been and continue to be complicit in helping to perpetuate a message that schools are not safe. Case in point, WRAL news in Raleigh ran a story last week about a staff member from a school in Wake County who died after contracting Covid-19. It was mentioned repeatedly in the story that this person was a school staff member and it was in WRAL's lead to the story. What WRAL did not tell you until the very end of the story is this - the staff member had NOT been in the school where she worked since last March. Her Covid-19 case was NOT contracted in a school setting, but the fact she was a school staff member was made part of the lead-up to the story.

Mormad said:

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https://www.vox.com/22248738/test-covid-flying-mandatory-safe-flights?fbclid=IwAR3dfUgrJCYVLHLft-3yB_dJLjAFSwtO1n82k7eddRuUCdqIO4eG58qUauE

Good easy read. Harvard doc gives his thoughts on flying. Good read if you travel.

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Thanks for posting. It was interesting and did a good job of pointing out the risks, but also highlighting it can be done safely if the systems all work. As the article pointed out - keeping passengers safe is a tiered approach and is not dependent on just one or two measures.

Hopefully, when we get to the Fall the conditions will be much better. With the release of football schedules this week, I now know my wife and I will be flying to three games in the Fall - all to the Northeast (Syracuse, NY for Army game, and Boston on Thanksgiving weekend).

wilmwolf80 said:

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Daviewolf83 said:

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I saw some speculation several months ago that NY was undercounting deaths from LTC facilities. At the time, it was reported that they were not counting a death as a nursing home death if the nursing home patient did not die in the nursing home. The NY Times has followed up on this and says the undercounting could be as much as 50% higher than what Governor Cuomo has been saying.

You can read the full story from the NY Times at the following link:

NY Severely Undercounted Virus Deaths in Nursing Homes, Report Says

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This got overlooked a little bit, but I saw an article yesterday somewhere that was expressing shock that this was going on, like it hasn't been open knowledge all along. We've talked about it multiple times in this thread. I guess since certain segments of the media weren't reporting on it, there maybe actually are people that hadn't heard about it and are shocked. It's sad to me that there were some that wanted so desperately to use Cuomo as a foil to the president that they were willing to ignore his blatantly irresistible handling of nursing home patients. Saddest of all for the families of those people.

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Correct. My understanding is CNN has yet to report this story. If true, it is not a surprise. I personally would not know, since I have not watched CNN in years. I chose to balance my news between the following - local television and newspaper, NY Times (not Washington Post - too biased like CNN), NPR radio, national networks of NBC and CBS, and Fox (their news broadcasts and NOT their opinion shows). I try to get a balance and use the following method to decide what to believe:

- Where they all agree is news and fact
- Where they disagree is opinion and should be considered as such

If I get my news from just one source, I believe I will not get the most accurate information.

Updated vaccination news for the US and NC and it is good news for both (Bloomberg Vaccine Tracker):

US Vaccinations:
Total Vaccination Doses Available: 49,233116
Total Vaccination Dose Administered: 28,949,072
Percentage of Available Doses Administered: 58.8%

NC Vaccinations:
Total Vaccination Doses Available: 1,400,038
Total Vaccination Dose Administered: 851,223
Percentage of Available Doses Administered: 60.8% <== huge improvement - now rank 21st in nation


I said in an earlier post that I am tracking the daily/cumulative vaccinations administered for the US and NC, to show how both are doing against the goal of 100M doses in 100 days. We did hear earlier this week that the Biden administration may change the goal to 150M doses in 100 days, so I am tracking this as well. In the case of NC, this translates to 3.2M doses or 4.8M doses in 100 days. For both the US and NC, they are tracking to achieve the 100M doses target, but have some ground to make up to reach the 150M in 100 days goal. It does look appear the 150M in 100 days goal is attainable.

US Vaccination Tracking:




NC Vaccination Tracking: