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m_d_hHere in Montgomery County, MD, you still have to be 75+ to schedule a COVID shot. Just a few miles away, in DC, you can get a shot if you're 65+.
According to the CDC, the 65-74 age group has 90x the death rate from COVID as young adults have. I was complaining to my Public Health Friend about this disparity between DC and MD. Public Health Friend blamed the Trump administration for not setting up a national vaccine distribution system, instead leaving distribution efforts and priorities to each state.
I was trying to figure out -- why the difference between DC and MoCo -- and it looks like MoCo is focusing on more groups simultaneously. In DC, you have to be either 65+ or working in health care to sign up for a shot. In MoCo: 75+, health care, and first responders, and correctional officers, and judicial staff, and teachers, and school support staff, and child care workers, and public-facing government staff, and people with intellectual or developmental disabilities.
So here in Maryland we're allowing a lot more people who are NOT SENIORS to get shots than in DC, therefore we have to restrict the age group to 75+. This is why I already personally know three 65+ seniors in DC who got shots, whereas I personally know zero 75+ seniors in MD who got shots.
I know several young fellas (in their 20s) from Twitter who work in health care who got both their shots already.
Why aren't we focusing on the people who are most likely to die from COVID first?
Sure, teachers want to be vaccinated before they go back into the classroom, I get that, so would I. But I would rather the people older than me get their shots first, they have the greater chance of dying. Sure, anybody who has to work with the public wants to get their shots ASAP, but older people have a much greater chance of dying than they do.
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Also, I think we made a huge mistake by testing these first-out-the-gate new vaccines as two-shot regimens. We should've tested them as one-shot regimens, and if we found one shot worked, go with that. We'd be vaccinating twice as many people already.
The limited data we have so far on one-shot effectiveness shows that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are effective 14 days after only one shot. It's going to have cost us thousands of lives that we tested these as two-shot regimens. Of the many lessons we should learn from this pandemic, we should learn this one: test the vaccines as one-shot regimens to speed up approval and distribution and save more lives.
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For many months now, the CDC has listed people with asthma -- people like me -- among their high risk individuals. So far, I've seen no data showing that people with asthma are actually at higher risk for developing serious COVID. And, I've looked for this data, and there have been studies that could've/should've found such data. There's simply no indication that people with asthma are actually at higher risk. This comforts me somewhat, although my age group is still 30x more likely to die than young adults.
For most of us, the most important indicator of our risk is our age. The risk of death shoots up incredibly as we get older. People 75-84 are 220x more likely to die. People 85+ are 630x more likely to die. Nearly half of the deaths are from the 85+ age group.
I wish our vaccination distribution plans took this stark reality into account. I wish we were focusing like hawks on getting one dose of vaccine into the arms of every 85+ American, then every 75+ American, then every 65+ American. Searching for these people, seeking them out, rather than setting up complicated Internet sign-up procedures. Going to their homes! The Social Security Administration knows who they are and where they live.
But the folks in charge of setting up these systems -- they're literally all over the map, operating on their own, facing their own personal and political pressures. Does the Governor of Maryland want the police and teachers unions pissed off at him because they have to wait for their vaccines? And it's difficult to say "no" to the health care workers who are coming in contact with COVID patients every day, it seems the least we could do is give them their shots first. Even if they're in their 20s.
-----
Yet, we're all interconnected. A lot of those 20-something young adults come into contact with older folks, either by living with them or serving them via their jobs, and vaccinating youngsters will still help to protect others as we build up our herd immunity. There's not really any wasted jabs. It's just frustrating that it's taking so long. We should never have tested two-dose regimens during a global emergency, it was the wrong choice, and next time we should know better.
And maybe next time we won't have an incompetent lying asshole of a President. But 74 million people voted for his re-election anyway, so I'm not sure we'll learn a damn thing from all this. Too many residents of the US appear unwilling to learn from experience.
According to the CDC, the 65-74 age group has 90x the death rate from COVID as young adults have. I was complaining to my Public Health Friend about this disparity between DC and MD. Public Health Friend blamed the Trump administration for not setting up a national vaccine distribution system, instead leaving distribution efforts and priorities to each state.
I was trying to figure out -- why the difference between DC and MoCo -- and it looks like MoCo is focusing on more groups simultaneously. In DC, you have to be either 65+ or working in health care to sign up for a shot. In MoCo: 75+, health care, and first responders, and correctional officers, and judicial staff, and teachers, and school support staff, and child care workers, and public-facing government staff, and people with intellectual or developmental disabilities.
So here in Maryland we're allowing a lot more people who are NOT SENIORS to get shots than in DC, therefore we have to restrict the age group to 75+. This is why I already personally know three 65+ seniors in DC who got shots, whereas I personally know zero 75+ seniors in MD who got shots.
I know several young fellas (in their 20s) from Twitter who work in health care who got both their shots already.
Why aren't we focusing on the people who are most likely to die from COVID first?
Sure, teachers want to be vaccinated before they go back into the classroom, I get that, so would I. But I would rather the people older than me get their shots first, they have the greater chance of dying. Sure, anybody who has to work with the public wants to get their shots ASAP, but older people have a much greater chance of dying than they do.
-----
Also, I think we made a huge mistake by testing these first-out-the-gate new vaccines as two-shot regimens. We should've tested them as one-shot regimens, and if we found one shot worked, go with that. We'd be vaccinating twice as many people already.
The limited data we have so far on one-shot effectiveness shows that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are effective 14 days after only one shot. It's going to have cost us thousands of lives that we tested these as two-shot regimens. Of the many lessons we should learn from this pandemic, we should learn this one: test the vaccines as one-shot regimens to speed up approval and distribution and save more lives.
-----
For many months now, the CDC has listed people with asthma -- people like me -- among their high risk individuals. So far, I've seen no data showing that people with asthma are actually at higher risk for developing serious COVID. And, I've looked for this data, and there have been studies that could've/should've found such data. There's simply no indication that people with asthma are actually at higher risk. This comforts me somewhat, although my age group is still 30x more likely to die than young adults.
For most of us, the most important indicator of our risk is our age. The risk of death shoots up incredibly as we get older. People 75-84 are 220x more likely to die. People 85+ are 630x more likely to die. Nearly half of the deaths are from the 85+ age group.
I wish our vaccination distribution plans took this stark reality into account. I wish we were focusing like hawks on getting one dose of vaccine into the arms of every 85+ American, then every 75+ American, then every 65+ American. Searching for these people, seeking them out, rather than setting up complicated Internet sign-up procedures. Going to their homes! The Social Security Administration knows who they are and where they live.
But the folks in charge of setting up these systems -- they're literally all over the map, operating on their own, facing their own personal and political pressures. Does the Governor of Maryland want the police and teachers unions pissed off at him because they have to wait for their vaccines? And it's difficult to say "no" to the health care workers who are coming in contact with COVID patients every day, it seems the least we could do is give them their shots first. Even if they're in their 20s.
-----
Yet, we're all interconnected. A lot of those 20-something young adults come into contact with older folks, either by living with them or serving them via their jobs, and vaccinating youngsters will still help to protect others as we build up our herd immunity. There's not really any wasted jabs. It's just frustrating that it's taking so long. We should never have tested two-dose regimens during a global emergency, it was the wrong choice, and next time we should know better.
And maybe next time we won't have an incompetent lying asshole of a President. But 74 million people voted for his re-election anyway, so I'm not sure we'll learn a damn thing from all this. Too many residents of the US appear unwilling to learn from experience.