Octopus Overlords

So apparently a nurse I know got the vaccine and another healthcare professional is getting it in a few days.

It *finally* feels like we're turning a corner (but not in a going-round-in-circles way).

Although I don't have my actual appointment yet, I'm scheduled to receive the vaccine next week. All the docs and CRNAs in my anesthesia group (close to 200 providers) are set to be vaccinated before the end of the year, and I have yet to hear of anyone planning to decline the opportunity. In fact, quite a few close coworkers have already received it earlier in the week with no issues. Most are proudly posting photos of receiving the vaccine on social media and encouraging others to take advantage of the opportunity when it comes.

While I'm a little bummed that my turn looks to be coming right before Christmas, I'll be there as soon as allowed...with fingers crossed that I don't have any unpleasant side effects on it holiday. I haven't heard of anyone close to me experience in anything worse than mild arm soreness.

Some early news on the J&J vaccine (which a friend of mine is in the trial for):

Johnson & Johnson said Thursday that late-stage clinical trials for its coronavirus vaccine are now fully enrolled, and expects to release initial data on the shot’s effectiveness by the end of January.

Initial trials of the vaccine showed that 98 per cent of participants had developed antibodies against COVID-19 nearly a month after receiving the shot.

https://globalnews.ca/news/7530256/john ... pdate/amp/

Should people take more than one type of COVID-19 vaccine?

“This isn’t a ridiculous question at all,” says Florian Krammer, professor of vaccinology at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. “We do this all the time in research. We use different vaccine platforms because, sometimes, we get interesting results.”

Carlson is out there telling his horde of morons that since the CDC recommends that non-essential employees (I.e. service industry) folks should get the vaccine, and since that group has a higher minority population, that the vaccine is ”eugenics against white people”

TUCKER CARLSON: According to the CDC's panel, another group -- those officially classified as "non-healthcare essential workers" -- should get the vaccine first. Why is that? "Racial and ethnic minority groups are disproportionately represented in many essential industries." In other words it's entirely racial. They're making the decision based on race.

Kathleen Dooling's presentation concluded that doling out life-saving medicine on the basis of skin color would "mitigate health inequities." Of course, it would kill people and she effectively concedes that. But the people it would kill come from a disfavored race so it's not a big deal. It's been a very long time since anyone close to what we consider the mainstream has endorsed eugenics and that is exactly what that is. It's eugenics.

There is not a “fuck you” large enough in the entire world for this guy.

Oh Nate...

https://twitter.com/emilyakopp/status/1 ... 3875993602

https://twitter.com/emilyakopp/status/1 ... 3705559041

...and that's exactly why Nate Silver can STFU from now on. He's the A+ example of someone that thinks because he knows how to make a graph he's a SME in public health now. After getting his clock cleaned by legitimate experts earlier this year, I'm genuinely embarrassed for him right now.

https://twitter.com/Ryan_Mac_Phd/status ... 5647955969

Nate Silver using data from public health professionals to state that public health professionals aren't doing as good as him is [chef's kiss]

I don't know if Nate has any close friends, but they need to stage an intervention.

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/statu ... 1638355968

I know a fair bit about COVID. I spent a fairly large part of my life reading research about COVID. And I'm a good reader—it's part of my job. I'm not doing any epidemiology on my own. The problem is that ACIP's recommendations on vaccine prioritization don't match the research.

"I'm a good reader."

How, exactly, has he been able to spend a "large part of his life" reading research about a disease that has only existed for a year? Is he much younger than any of us knew?

Smoove_B wrote: Sun Dec 20, 2020 11:41 am I don't know if Nate has any close friends, but they need to stage an intervention.

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/statu ... 1638355968

I know a fair bit about COVID. I spent a fairly large part of my life reading research about COVID. And I'm a good reader—it's part of my job. I'm not doing any epidemiology on my own. The problem is that ACIP's recommendations on vaccine prioritization don't match the research.

"I'm a good reader."

Now I haven’t served in the military but I’ve read a lot of books about it and have taken down quite a few tangos in my time on the screen...

It was bad enough in the spring when he magically understood epidemiology, but now he apparently also understands vaccination policy and how committees of infectious disease doctors use science to figure out how to rank vaccination risk categories.

I guess we should just throw everything out the window and listen to Nate.

It gets worse. He has boosters defending him for this bad behavior because the finalized version happens to be closer to his criticism. No. The point of calling out Nate was that he came in half-cocked and was trashing the experts who were in the middle of a discussion. There is even an idiotic but possibly accidental implication that they might have listened to him.

https://twitter.com/Yair_Rosenberg/stat ... 2271754241

Max Peck wrote: Sun Dec 20, 2020 12:22 pm How, exactly, has he been able to spend a "large part of his life" reading research about a disease that has only existed for a year? Is he much younger than any of us knew?

Ya I had to read that a few times and asked the same thing.

Smoove_B wrote: Sun Dec 20, 2020 1:08 pm It was bad enough in the spring when he magically understood epidemiology, but now he apparently also understands vaccination policy and how committees of infectious disease doctors use science to figure out how to rank vaccination risk categories.

I guess we should just throw everything out the window and listen to Nate.

Totally. I just pinged him for his thoughts on analytics algorithms that we need to develop imminently to help my clients detect APT-29 intrusions subsequent to the SolarWinds Orion supply chain attack. I need the opinion of someone who has read a lot and I hear he does that.

naednek wrote: Sun Dec 20, 2020 1:11 pm

Max Peck wrote: Sun Dec 20, 2020 12:22 pm How, exactly, has he been able to spend a "large part of his life" reading research about a disease that has only existed for a year? Is he much younger than any of us knew?

Ya I had to read that a few times and asked the same thing.

I can't tell if this is cynicism or disbelief. I instinctually read the "during the past 10 months" as implied in a statement that is defined by its need to be twitter brief.

Max Peck wrote: Sun Dec 20, 2020 12:22 pm How, exactly, has he been able to spend a "large part of his life" reading research about a disease that has only existed for a year? Is he much younger than any of us knew?

Umm... there have been 18 other COVIDS, duh.

Health officials are administering the first doses of a coronavirus vaccine in Indigenous communities across the U.S., one of the populations most vulnerable in the pandemic.

About 68,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses will initially be distributed among the population, the Indian Health Service said last week. Doses began to arrive this week and will first be given to the elderly and health care workers.

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronaviru ... ommunities

I'm just starting to see the details for one of the six "mega vaccination sites" here in the Jerz and it's really disheartening. I share only because I'd imagine similar plans are being formulated elsewhere. Basically for my region they are going to be set up in a former anchor store that's currently vacant at a regional mall. The plan is to run a vaccination operation for 12 hours a day, 7 days a week - indefinitely. This sounds great (I guess) but it also assumes vaccine delivery to start in early January and then consistent delivery to occur thereafter. Hospital staff will be administering the vaccinations, but a call for volunteers through the medical reserve corps has been made to assist various elements of delivery, with training to occur right before the site opens. I'm having a hard time believing we''re going to have (1) product and (2)demand to run 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, but I guess we'll see. Overall, I think it's going to be a mess, but hopefully sorted out with the quickness. Trying to get volunteer staff to supplement this will likely turn out to be a bigger problem than they're considering, imho. It's a big ask.

Thanks for the links and info... we're about 15 minutes from the RCSJ site so yay?

With all this talk about priority lists and who should get it first, what's the plan for these super sites? Will you have to show age, proof of working in an essential job, or just show up and get your shot?

The sites are going to follow the state's plan for phased vaccinations and they said an online portal is being launched to allow people to pre-register. What that involves (and what proof is needed) hasn't been shared yet. I'd imagine some type of government ID (like a driver's license) will likely be needed at some point along with a confirmation code or QR code that's generated as part of using that portal. Though even for all that, I'm not entirely sure. The need to keep some info on file to be able to schedule a follow-up. The fact that the state is doing "just in time" training before this launches suggests to me that someone is currently cobbling together the registration portal right now (that will likely crash on Day 1).

There will allegedly be walk-in capacity for some of the sites, but I don't know how that will work and what you'd need to do in order to get in. If it's anything like going to the MVC to get a driver's license, I'm sure it'll be great.

The scale is really daunting to me. According to this the target is to vaccinate 4.7M people. At 2 does each that is like 10M doses delivered. The back of envelope math makes this feel insane to me. Just pulling a random number of doses per hour that seems really high takes a long time:

(7 days * 12 hours / 1 week) * (6 sites) * (500 doses / hour) <- totally made up = 252K doses / week.

The target is 9.4M doses / (252K doses / week) = 37 weeks. And that assumes that the entire time they are fully staffed and supplied. Eek.

It doesn't look like it will only be six sites:

In addition, the state is working to stand up more than 200 smaller immunization stations at hospitals, community clinics, urgent care centers and chain drug stores, officials said Friday.

My hope would be that, once there's sufficient supply of the vaccines, that you could go to your corner pharmacy to get the shot, the way you can for a flu shot. At least, for those vaccines where it isn't as hard to store them.

Help me Smooveywankanoovey,

How will we know when it's our turn to get in line? Will someone reach out to us or are we supposed to watch the Internet looking for clues for when they call out our seating order and then call our PCP and say "Now? how about now? how about now? how about now?"

Defiant wrote: Tue Dec 22, 2020 2:41 pm It doesn't look like it will only be six sites:

In addition, the state is working to stand up more than 200 smaller immunization stations at hospitals, community clinics, urgent care centers and chain drug stores, officials said Friday.

My hope would be that, once there's sufficient supply of the vaccines, that you could go to your corner pharmacy to get the shot, the way you can for a flu shot. At least, for those vaccines where it isn't as hard to store them.

Right, there's the 6 MEGA FUN SITES and then any number of smaller satellite offerings and the potential ability to (eventually) get the shot from a PCP or a place like CVS or Walgreens (add your state's equivalent here). That being said, smart money is putting a significant amount into those mega sites first (85%? 90%) and then using the smaller sites to address logistical gaps and areas where the population is hesitant or unable to travel. It's an obscene number of vaccines to provide and I want to reiterate nothing to this scale has been done in our collective lifetimes.

LordMortis wrote: Tue Dec 22, 2020 2:48 pm Help me Smooveywankanoovey,

How will we know when it's our turn to get in line? Will someone reach out to us or are we supposed to watch the Internet looking for clues for when they call out our seating order and then call our PCP and say "Now? how about now? how about now? how about now?"

Good question. I'm hoping it's two things. (1) Media providing education and awareness at key milestones (changing phases) and (2) people being urged to pre-register on a site run by your state ASAP to receive notification when they're eligible and to then schedule a convenient time. That's how I'd do it, anyway but no one asked me here in the Jerz.

Smoove_B wrote: Tue Dec 22, 2020 2:59 pm Good question. I'm hoping it's two things. (1) Media providing education and awareness at key milestones (changing phases) and (2) people being urged to pre-register on a site run by your state ASAP to receive notification when they're eligible and to then schedule a convenient time. That's how I'd do it, anyway but no one asked me here in the Jerz.

So you got nuthin? Well, if you got nuthin' I guess I can't feel bad for my ignorance. It is strange to me that a plan wasn't out there within 48 hours after then first doses were shipped. If the fed abdicated, then I'd think the states would have stepped up but I see nothing.

No matter, I guess. At the earliest, I'd be phase 1c behind essential manufacturing and retail workers, according to the media sites discussing federal plans I can't find, I think, with pre-existing conditions and performing essential IT functions. Though, quite frankly, I would like to know for when I need to start checking in with when my parents should get in line and how they are supposed to know when/how.

LordMortis wrote: Tue Dec 22, 2020 3:19 pm So you got nuthin? Well, if you got nuthin' I guess I can't feel bad for my ignorance. It is strange to me that a plan wasn't out there within 48 hours after then first doses were shipped. If the fed abdicated, then I'd think the states would have stepped up but I see nothing.

Public health is and has always been a state-level issue. So I can only relate what's happening in my state with the hopes that other states are doing similar things. I'd be following the social media pages (Twitter especially) of your state health department (assuming they're active) to try and stay on top of whatever is happening. My state has an pretty solid presence on Twitter, but that might not be normal.

We've discussed it to death but it's really like 50 different countries right now, all trying to recreate the wheel, all at the same time and with limited guidance for exactly what and how much they need the wheeled device to carry. "Unfortunate" is the only word I can use to try and describe it.

I get the feeling it's going to be up to employers to get their employees taken care of, be it getting them on lists or bringing in clinics or whatever.

Don't count on any level of government right now

For the over 65s or 55s or wherever the number is, I expect insurance/Medicare to manage it.


That doesn't mean that's how it's going to be, just they way I see things going. That's how testing has been.

LawBeefaroni wrote: Tue Dec 22, 2020 3:52 pm I get the feeling it's going to be up to employers to get their employees taken care of, be it getting them on lists or bringing in clinics or whatever.

Don't count on any level of government right now

For the over 65s or 55s or wherever the number is, I expect insurance/Medicare to manage it.


That doesn't mean that's how it's going to be, just they way I see things going. That's how testing has been.

Still can't find anything but I did find WaPo bit on current distribution (I wasn't looking for a timeline, so much as a how will I know (if he really loves me) when I'm up?

But one thing is clear to me NY and Illinois are getting screwed. Most states are about 25% of health care and highest vulnerability in vaccine shipment. Illinois is shy of 1 in 6 and NY is 1 in 7.5.

Not sure if paywalled. I know when I see like four or six bits in a month I get locked out.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics ... ion-doses/

I actually just got word that I'm on deck. We get "tickets" to use for scheduling. Looks like I can schedule as early as tomorrow but will probably get my jab on the 24th or 25th.

"Now I have a vaccine. Ho ho ho."

Is there any paperwork or other signifier that one has received their vaccine dose(s)?

The Meal wrote: Tue Dec 22, 2020 6:03 pm Is there any paperwork or other signifier that one has received their vaccine dose(s)?

You looking for flair?

I'm not exactly sure what's being offered here either. I'd imagine there's going to be both a certificate and possibly a way for someone (employer? airline?) to be able verify vaccination status with appropriate Clarence.

Also, someone apparently made a clandestine posting of this up on the CDC site early last month (scroll down). I had no idea.

Smoove_B wrote: Tue Dec 22, 2020 6:12 pm

The Meal wrote: Tue Dec 22, 2020 6:03 pm Is there any paperwork or other signifier that one has received their vaccine dose(s)?

You looking for flair?

I'm not exactly sure what's being offered here either. I'd imagine there's going to be both a certificate and possibly a way for someone (employer? airline?) to be able verify vaccination status with appropriate Clarence.

Someone gets vaccinated and he gets his wings?

The Meal wrote: Tue Dec 22, 2020 6:03 pm Is there any paperwork or other signifier that one has received their vaccine dose(s)?

Not that I've heard of but I haven't been chit chating with clinical this week. If there is, it probably won't be issued until the second dose anyway.

Smoove_B wrote: Tue Dec 22, 2020 3:39 pm

LordMortis wrote: Tue Dec 22, 2020 3:19 pm So you got nuthin? Well, if you got nuthin' I guess I can't feel bad for my ignorance. It is strange to me that a plan wasn't out there within 48 hours after then first doses were shipped. If the fed abdicated, then I'd think the states would have stepped up but I see nothing.

Public health is and has always been a state-level issue. So I can only relate what's happening in my state with the hopes that other states are doing similar things. I'd be following the social media pages (Twitter especially) of your state health department (assuming they're active) to try and stay on top of whatever is happening. My state has an pretty solid presence on Twitter, but that might not be normal.

I got a strange text tonight, that at first I thought was a scam (due to the strange line-breaks in a text message and my own general mistrust of messages out-of-the blue), but it did in fact reference me by my full name so maybe it's legit. There really is a group called the "Union County Freeholders COVID Response Team" and they apparently did a door-to-door survey back in August about free testing.

Text Message wrote:Hi {Hrdina}! My name is Valentina, and I'm with the Union County Freeholders
COVID Response Team. As you may know two Coronavirus vaccines have been
approved and are being distributed in phases with front line workers being the first
wave.
QUESTION 1: Once you are eligible for the vaccine will you be going to get a free
Covid-19 vaccination?

I was also confused by "QUESTION 1", since there so far has been no QUESTION 2.

Union County Freeholders COVID Response Team

This offends me to my core. Not the Union County Health Department. Not the name (if different) of your local health department. But The *freeholders* COVID response team.

Potential thread derail, but you can read about it here.

county commissioners

What is China doing differently then the the rest of the world? They only have 95K cases for over 1 billion people. India has over 10 million to date.

UsulofDoom wrote: Wed Dec 23, 2020 1:08 pm What is China doing differently then the the rest of the world? They only have 95K cases for over 1 billion people. India has over 10 million to date.

Not being open and honest with their test results?