The Vaccine Thread

[cny rider]

I had Moderna dose #2 Thursday at 0800.
When I had dose #1 I had a mild sore arm, just like after influenza vaccination.

On Thursday, I worked a regular day and felt fine.
During dinner I noticed that I was getting achy, my neck felt stiff, and I was getting a headache.
By 2100 I was in bed under every blanket and comforter I could find, with the heat cranked up. I was miserable.
I did not get up and take my temperature.

I slept poorly but I did not have a fever on Friday morning so I went in and dragged through a day of work.
I was sore and achy all over.

The good news is that I slept for 9 1/2 hours last night and woke up today good as new.
I was able to ski, and move snow around, and felt fine.

There was a group of 6 or 7 of us that got the shot on Thursday. Two called in sick on Friday.
Nobody enjoyed it. We are all ecstatic to be done and that there is no dose #3 .

[Too Tall]

I for one am stoked some V people are getting the jab.

[Matthew Strongin]

I’m in Florida at the moment and went to the local grocery store today, Publix. They are providing information about the vaccine and are apparently able to administer the vaccine, by appointment and presumably in their pharmacy. Currently all available appointments are booked up and contrary to what I had been told, one needs to be a Florida resident. Makes sense.

I’m not here for the vaccine FWIW. But I figured if it were available I’d consider getting it if it didn’t mean someone else wouldn’t get it. I am not a Florida resident.

Anyway, I’m glad to see that a high profile commerce crossroad like Publix is doing this. Many people may not have a doctor or health company they work with. But almost everyone goes to a grocery store and it’s not an intimidating place, which a medical facility can most definitely be. I’m hopeful this will be more common as it becomes more available - distribution in common places like grocery stores and pharmacies.

Except for the fact that DeSantis isn't sending those doses to Publixes in the hardest hit parts of the state (the ones that also happen to have a lower percentage of his supporters). The areas that last week saw 3 major hospitals cancel booked vaccination appointments as their resupply of doses were unexpectedly canceled. The timing of the supply to Miami Dade being shut down an the announcement of the deal with Publix, and the fact that Publix leadership has been a large DeSantis donor, must just be a coincidence.

But, yes, distribution in pharmacies, grocery stores and neighborhood health clinics will be key to getting as many people as possible vaccinated.

[davids]

I for one am stoked some V people are getting the jab.

Me too!

The national clusterfuck will, unfortunately, continue for a while. I just talked to friends in NC and DC and all of our stories are the same. Confusion and missed communication at every level.

[Bruce Day]

Here at the Lake of the Ozarks, the county has an internet sign up protocol for county residents. First Cat 1A med professionals, police and fire , 1B, those over 65. I signed in on as 1B on Jan 15 and on the 16th , got a call for an appointment on the 22nd . I went, got Pfizer 1, then on February 12, I have a time to go back for No. 2.

I am 74, retired USAF , still flying and instructing , active, exercise, good health . The first shot was like a flu vaccine, a little sore and fell asleep early on the couch watching television . No big deal, although I was warned in the mandatory video at the shot clinic that No. 2 often knocks people down for 24 hours.

So this is in a red heartland state in an ultra red rural county . Our state and county health department have been well managed by what I see. I see a few raising objections to the vaccine but hardly any are declining . We have restaurants open and people space themselves. I do not know of any closed businesses although a few bars seem to be closed for good . The small factories, governmental offices , construction people, all there, working and backlogged.

[mjbabcock]

I’m glad Florida has vaccines to give. We have some local spots with digital sign ups, so you go into the portal and there are absolutely zero dates open...even 6 month out. Word is there isn’t any knowledge of when the supply chain will get up and running. Fortunately last week Amazon and Starbucks offered to help out. I’m actually psyched on that one, cause those two businesses have figured out some incredible logistics infrastructures.

[ElvisMerckx]

Gotta admit I'm getting pretty frustrated at the vaccine distribution. I know all sorts of healthy types in their 30s-50s who've gotten jabbed. Meanwhile, both channels I've pursued for my 85 year old mother have provided nothing but robot voicemail messages about a lack of the vaccine.

My much younger and healthier wife is getting the vaccine through her job this week. She asked if she could give her spot in the queue to her mother in law. No dice. Where's the logic in all of this?

[j44ke]

Yeah, this is what I thought.

Although Dr. Walensky expressed confidence that the government will get an increasing amount of vaccine supply by the end of March, she said the Biden administration had inherited a vaccine distribution debacle from his predecessor, Donald Trump. "One of the biggest problems we have now is I can't tell you how much vaccine we have," Dr. Walensky said. "And if I can't tell it to you, then I can't tell it to the governors and the state health officials. If they don't know how much vaccine they're getting, not just this week but next week and the week after, they can't plan."

From - https://gothamist.com/news/coronavir...-currently-has

[mnoble485]

I’m glad Florida has vaccines to give. We have some local spots with digital sign ups, so you go into the portal and there are absolutely zero dates open...even 6 month out. Word is there isn’t any knowledge of when the supply chain will get up and running. Fortunately last week Amazon and Starbucks offered to help out. I’m actually psyched on that one, cause those two businesses have figured out some incredible logistics infrastructures.

Jason, if you know where a Floridian can get poked let me know. I have registered in 3 counties and with Publix. Every web site says they are not setting up appointments at this time as all doses have been taken.

Frustrating to say the least.

Mike

[sine]

The national clusterfuck will, unfortunately, continue for a while. I just talked to friends in NC and DC and all of our stories are the same. Confusion and missed communication at every level.

I think NC is doing a reasonable job keeping residents informed.

But really, despite failings, we in the US are relativly fortunate. Situation is worse in Canada (though covid cases are much lower than in the US) and in many countries in Europe.

[sine]

Currently all available appointments are booked up and contrary to what I had been told, one needs to be a Florida resident. Makes sense.

Fairly recent change. I think it was early last week.

[sine]

Re my post two above I'm referring to vaccination rates. My mom lives just north of GTA (Toronto) and she has no idea when she will get her Covid vaccine. My aunt in Austria is tentatively scheduled to get her first vaccine shot in May of this year. The are not young.......

[mnoble485]

I found another number to call and register this morning and signed up the wife and I. 2 hours later I got a call asking if we could come in tomorrow and again on the 25th of Feb. for 2nd shot. I also reached out to a VP at the local hospital where I worked for 20 years doing all of their construction. Not sure which came through but I’m not questioning.

Mike

[rwsaunders]

85 yo Mother is scheduled for 12 February as her whole Senior Living community is in on the deal, but my 95 yo Mother-in Law who lives at home continues to receive no answers from her PCP and the County Health Department. Time to step it up for these folks who have lived through the Great Depression, a slew of wars and tRump, never mind the taxes that they've paid. Ronnie, I hope that you've received the jab.

[zachateseverything]

my parents are 66 and 67 and live in eastern North Carolina. They're supposed to get their first shot on Friday.

My 88 year-old grandmother lives in PA and got her first shot last week.

I'm 37 and hopeful I'll be vaccinated in July or August

[echappist]

Oh boy, and now this. Per Wapo: "Philadelphia let ‘college kids’ distribute vaccines. The result was a ‘disaster,’ volunteers say."

Some really damning stuff, including:

Philadelphia is home to some of the most venerated medical institutions in the country. Yet when it came time to set up the city’s first and largest coronavirus mass vaccination site, officials turned to the start-up Philly Fighting COVID, a self-described “group of college kids” with minimal health-care experience.

Chaos ensued.

Seniors were left in tears after finding that appointments they’d made through a bungled sign-up form wouldn’t be honored. The group switched to a for-profit model without publicizing the change and added a privacy policy that would allow it to sell users’ personal data. One volunteer alleged that the 22-year-old CEO had pocketed vaccine doses. Another described a “free-for-all” where unsupervised 18- and 19-year-olds vaccinated one another and posed for photos.

Just a few weeks ago, Philly Fighting COVID was receiving glowing coverage from the likes of NBC’s “Today.” The group had a compelling story: Doroshin, a graduate student at Drexel University, helped orchestrate an effort to use 3-D printers to make free face shields for hospital workers at the start of the pandemic. By summer, he and his friends were running their own pop-up testing sites citywide.

But as Philadelphia magazine reported, the group’s “executive team” lacked anyone with a medical degree or advanced degree in public health. Doroshin himself listed a résumé that included stints teaching a high school film class, producing videos of people longboarding and practicing parkour, and founding a nonprofit that, according to Philadelphia magazine, “mostly consisted of a meme-heavy Twitter account, some minor community lobbying, and a fundraiser with a $50,000 goal that netted $684.”

Speaking to “Today,” Doroshin said that his lack of a traditional public health background allowed him to “think a little differently” and speed up the vaccination process. In another interview, he expressed hopes of setting up a McDonald’s-like franchise and suggested that best practices for administering vaccine doses “can go out the window.”

Philly Fighting COVID’s young, entrepreneurial leaders also openly talked about the potential for profit, one former volunteer told WHYY: “They were bragging about how rich they were going to get.” Another volunteer said the group’s executives “said they were gonna be millionaires” by billing insurance providers for administering vaccine doses that Philly Fighting COVID got free. (Doroshin has disputed these allegations.)

A registered nurse who volunteered with the group categorized it as a “disaster of an operation.” Katrina Lipinsky told the Philadelphia Inquirer and WHYY that she wasn’t asked for her medical credentials before she began administering vaccine doses, and that plenty of unused doses were left over after seniors were turned away on Saturday. She alleged that she saw Doroshin place between 10 and 15 of those doses in his bag and take them with him when he left.

The city is also home to the Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium, which pioneered one of the earliest efforts to conduct coronavirus testing in communities disproportionately affected by the virus.

“If there was anybody poised and ready to do this, it was us,” founder [ed. note, founder of Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium] Ala Stanford told the magazine, adding that the city had suggested she team up with Philly Fighting COVID to administer vaccine shots. “I happen to have been a doctor for 23 years, longer than some of these kids have been living, but I need these white kids to teach me how to do it?”

So much wrong with the following on so many levels, from the city official who sanctioned this hare-brained operation, to the hare-brained profiteers, to the fawning attention the hare-brained operation initially received (from "news" shows like NBC Today).

[Too Tall]

So they say public pillories were inhuman? Gosh seems reasonable to me.

[j44ke]

My dad got a call out of the blue - Feb 3 appointment. They'd already picked the time, figuring he'd rearrange his schedule accordingly. He would and did. Whew.

[rwsaunders]

Eff up, move up...so goes the old saying. Levine moves up to a position with the Biden administration and Beam has to explain that she's neither a medical professional, nor from the health department as she moves into a key leadership role...boy am I feeling reassured.

New pick for Pa. health secretary draws praise, hopes for ‘fresh perspective’ in tackling COVID-19

As Pennsylvania battles the coronavirus pandemic and is trying to ramp up the distribution of vaccines, the state Health Department is getting new leadership at a critical moment. Gov. Tom Wolf has chosen Alison Beam, his deputy chief of staff, to succeed outgoing Pennsylvania Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine. President Joe Biden has nominated Dr. Levine to be the U.S. assistant health secretary. Ms. Beam is not a doctor and she comes from outside the health department. Neither of those facts should be strikes against her, said Zachary Shamberg, president of the Pennsylvania Health Care Association, which represents long-term care facilities.

In fact, Mr. Shamberg said Ms. Beam should bring a much-needed “fresh perspective” to the challenge of fighting the coronavirus, especially for the seniors and staff of nursing homes and other long-term facilities. “We have fallen short on the response and prioritization of the staff and residents of long-term care providers,” Mr. Shamberg said. He added Ms. Beam will provide “a new perspective and most importantly bring stakeholders to the table.” More than half of Pennsylvania’s COVID-19 deaths have occurred in long-term care facilities, according to state data. Advocates say the seniors and staff in those facilities must be at the top of the priority list for getting COVID-19 vaccines.

[echappist]

Eff up, move up...so goes the old saying. Levine moves up to a position with the Biden administration and Beam has to explain that she's neither a medical professional, nor from the health department as she moves into a key leadership role...boy am I feeling reassured.

New pick for Pa. health secretary draws praise, hopes for ‘fresh perspective’ in tackling COVID-19

As Pennsylvania battles the coronavirus pandemic and is trying to ramp up the distribution of vaccines, the state Health Department is getting new leadership at a critical moment. Gov. Tom Wolf has chosen Alison Beam, his deputy chief of staff, to succeed outgoing Pennsylvania Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine. President Joe Biden has nominated Dr. Levine to be the U.S. assistant health secretary. Ms. Beam is not a doctor and she comes from outside the health department. Neither of those facts should be strikes against her, said Zachary Shamberg, president of the Pennsylvania Health Care Association, which represents long-term care facilities.

In fact, Mr. Shamberg said Ms. Beam should bring a much-needed “fresh perspective” to the challenge of fighting the coronavirus, especially for the seniors and staff of nursing homes and other long-term facilities. “We have fallen short on the response and prioritization of the staff and residents of long-term care providers,” Mr. Shamberg said. He added Ms. Beam will provide “a new perspective and most importantly bring stakeholders to the table.” More than half of Pennsylvania’s COVID-19 deaths have occurred in long-term care facilities, according to state data. Advocates say the seniors and staff in those facilities must be at the top of the priority list for getting COVID-19 vaccines.

That's just a load of BS. Might as well hire the hare-brained kids from Philly for a fresh perspective while they are at it.

Btw, what was the overall review of the work of Dr. Levine? Did she do an adequate job to deserve the appointment?