Category Archives: @Coronavirus, @COVID-19

Focus and Mindset

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“Anything is possible if you have the mindset and the will and desire to do it and put the time in.” Roger Clemens

Financial mindset consists of a predetermined set of beliefs, thoughts, habits and behaviors an individual has about saving by paying yourself first, investing for the long-term and accumulating wealth for financial well-being.

Every person has a set of beliefs, thoughts, habits and behaviors about money and personal finance. Even if they can’t express what their thoughts and mindset are, they still exist subconsciously. By observing your own financial outcomes, you can begin to better understand your financial mindset, behaviors and habits.

Without a positive financial mindset, it is difficult to develop the good financial habits and behaviors that will be necessary to lead to an improved financial outcome and well-being.

A positive financial mindset means knowing that if you just hang in there long enough, things will work out financially with the correct financial habits and behaviors. Even if you partake in one positive action each day, your confidence and belief will grow, along with your wallet.

Focus and Thoughts

“If you’re trying to achieve, there will be roadblocks. I’ve had them; everybody has had them. But obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.” Michael Jordan

Mindset is basically about your thoughts and a harbinger of what you focus on in the short and long term.

When you focus a thing, be it positive or negative, your mind has a tendency to heighten your attention on that thought. As a result, by focusing on one thing, such as the fear and uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, you have a tendency to miss other things good and positive happening around you. Essentially, your focus becomes the filter in which you observe your world.

Focus on opportunities

“No matter how dark things seem to be or actually are, raise your sights and see the possibilities, always see them, for they’re always there.” Norman Vincent Peale

This too will pass is a common refrain worth remembering in trying times like these created by the pandemic. History and good old common sense tells us that crises always come to an end and this COVID-19 will be no different.

We can control our thoughts, mindset and where we focus our attention. Thus, it behooves us to focus our thoughts on those things we can control and to think about what we need to do now, in the short term, to survive the current storm and prepare our paths for future opportunities and better days.

It’s about doing things now, in the downtime, in order to be prepared and prime to operate in the uptime. It is about laying the groundwork for tomorrow’s long-term financial success during today’s challenging times.

By focusing on the negative and on things outside our control, we can miss the other things and opportunities happening around us.

Positive Attitude

“Our attitude toward life determines life’s attitude towards us.” John N. Mitchell

Nothing is going to change in your life unless you change a negative attitude and mindset. And, you can change your life almost immediately if you can change your attitude and mindset. Many have said that, “A bad attitude is like a flat tire. If you don’t change it, you’ll never go anywhere.”

Furthermore, John N. Mitchell said it best when he said that, “Our attitude toward life determines life’s attitude towards us.” We’ve all heard about the power of our attitude, and that it’s our attitude can determine the altitude of your success in life.

References:

  1. https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-mindset-2795025
  2. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/30/why-you-should-create-a-daily-money-mindfulness-practice.html
  3. https://graciousquotes.com/norman-vincent-peale/

Receiving the COVID-19 Vaccine

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As fatiguing as 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic have been, science has stepped up this year to provide humankind with a pair of truly hopeful gifts: the first two FDA approved COVID-19 vaccines.

Two weeks ago, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted emergency use authorization (EUA) to a COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer/BioNTech, enabling distribution to begin to certain high-risk groups just three days later.

More recently, the FDA granted an EUA to a COVID-19 vaccine from the biotechnology company Moderna, Cambridge, MA. This messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine, which is part of a new approach to vaccination, was co-developed by NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

The EUA of the Moderna vaccine is based on data showing the vaccine is safe and 94.5 percent effective at protecting people from infection with SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

Messenger-RNA vaccines are safe

The two vaccines currently authorized for EUA in the United States work in a unique way. Their centerpiece is a small, non-infectious snippet of mRNA. Our cells constantly produce thousands of mRNAs, which provide the instructions needed to make proteins. When someone receives an mRNA vaccine for COVID-19, it tells the person’s own cells to make the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, according to information provided by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). The person’s immune system then recognizes the viral spike protein as foreign and produces antibodies to eliminate it.

This vaccine-spurred encounter trains the human immune system to remember the spike protein. So, if an actual SARS-CoV-2 virus tries to infect a vaccinated person weeks or months later, his or her immune system will be ready to fend it off. To produce the most vigorous and durable immunity against the virus, people will need to get two shots of mRNA vaccine, which are spaced several weeks to a month apart, depending on the vaccine.

Some misinformed individuals (or trolls) have raised concerns on social media that mRNA vaccines might alter the DNA genome of someone being vaccinated. But that’s not possible, since this mRNA doesn’t enter the nucleus of the cell where DNA is located. Instead, the vaccine mRNAs stay in the outer part of the cell (the cytoplasm).

NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci received Moderna’s COVID19 vaccine, co-developed with NIH. It’s imperative that you roll up your sleeve and accept the potentially life-saving gift of a COVID-19 vaccine. Accepting this gift is your best chance to put this pandemic behind you and your family, as we look forward to a better new year.

Vaccines are the best hope for the nation to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic, public surveys indicate that some people are uneasy about accepting this disease-preventing vaccine. Some have even indicated they will refuse to take the vaccine. Healthy skepticism is a good thing, but decisions like this ought to be based on weighing the evidence of benefit versus risk.

The results of the Pfizer and Moderna trials, all released for complete public scrutiny, indicate the potential benefits are high and the risks, low. Despite the impressive speed at which the new COVID-19 vaccines were developed, they have undergone and continue to undergo a rigorous process to generate all the data needed by the FDA to determine their long-term safety and effectiveness.

Unfortunately, the gift of COVID-19 vaccines comes too late for the more than 313,000 Americans who have died from complications of COVID-19, and many others who’ve had their lives disrupted and may have to contend with long-term health consequences related to COVID-19. The vaccines did arrive in record time, but all of us wish they could somehow have arrived even sooner to avert such widespread suffering and heartbreak.

It will be many months before all Americans who are willing to get a vaccine can be immunized. We need 75-80 percent of Americans to receive vaccines in order to attain the so-called “herd immunity” needed to drive SARS-CoV-2 away and allow us all to get back to a semblance of normal personal and professional life.

References:

  1. https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2020/12/22/celebrating-the-gift-of-covid-19-vaccines/

African Americans Disproportionately Dying

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African Americans are dying from the coronavirus at almost 3 times the rate of their white counterparts.

Black and Hispanic Americans were disproportionately more likely to die of COVID-19 during the spring and summer months indicating that the coronavirus’s toll is falling most heavily on underserved and minority communities, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

When you consider that African Americans represent 12.5 percent of the population, but account for almost 23 percent of all coronavirus deaths, the COVID-19 pandemic is disproportionately decimating the black working class communities across the country.

Coronavirus has become the third leading cause of death of citizens in the United States in calendar year 2020. The virus has killed more than 300,000 since arriving on U.S. shores, making it a leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer.

In 2018, the 10 leading causes of death for all Americans (heart disease, cancer, unintentional injuries, chronic lower respiratory diseases, stroke, Alzheimer disease, diabetes, influenza and pneumonia, kidney disease, and suicide) remained the same as in 2017. The 10 leading causes accounted for 73.8% of all deaths in the United States in 2018.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) maintains a provisional death count related to COVID-19. The deaths counted in that data are well below those compiled from the state and county levels because the provisional count is based on death certificates that may take weeks to filter up to the federal agency.

With respect to controlling the pandemic, Martin Luther King Jr. once declared “Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” This is definitely true for epidemiology and controlling the pandemic. To protect the health of all us, we must insure the health of the most vulnerable among us.

How to control COVID-19 is not a mystery — it requires wearing masks, social physical distancing of 6 feet, frequent washing of hands, widespread contact tracing and COVID testing and widespread vaccination. However, these efforts to combat the pandemic require people to trust the science and those behind the public health measures.

In the nationwide fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, well founded mistrust has developed over decades by African Americans of the government, public health officials and ‘the science’ can and has killed a disproportionate share of working class Blacks and other people of color.

References:

  1. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/
  2. https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/09/09/covid-19-disproportionate-effect-african-americans-and-how-control-column/5679676002/
  3. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/tech_notes.htm

Masks Protect Those Around You

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Image

COVID-19 spreads mainly from person to person through respiratory droplets. Respiratory droplets travel into the air when you cough, sneeze, talk, shout, or sing. These droplets can then land in the mouths or noses of people who are near you or they may breathe these droplets in.

Masks are a simple barrier to help prevent your respiratory droplets from reaching others. Studies show that masks reduce the spray of droplets when worn over the nose and mouth.

woman wearing face covering, with a detail showing how the cloth barrier helps to contain respiratory droplets that she exhales

You should wear a mask, even if you do not feel sick. This is because several studies have found that people with COVID-19 who never develop symptoms (asymptomatic) and those who are not yet showing symptoms (pre-symptomatic) can still spread the virus to other people. The main function of wearing a mask is to protect those around you, in case you are infected but not showing symptoms.

It is especially important to wear a mask when you are unable to stay at least 6 feet apart from others since COVID-19 spreads mainly among people who are in close contact with one another (within about 6 feet).

Your mask offers some protection to you

A cloth mask also offers some protection to you too. How well it protects you from breathing in the virus likely depends on the fabrics used and how your mask is made (e.g. the type of fabric, the number of layers of fabric, how well the mask fits). CDC is currently studying these factors.

Who should or should not wear a mask

CDC guidance is that everyone 2 years of age and older should wear a mask in public settings and when they are around people who do not live in their household.  However, according to CDC, masks should not be worn by:

  • Children younger than 2 years old
  • Anyone who has trouble breathing
  • Anyone who is unconscious, incapacitated or otherwise unable to remove the mask without assistance
  • Wearing masks may be difficult for some people with sensory, cognitive, or behavioral issues. If they are unable to wear a mask properly or cannot tolerate a mask, they should not wear one,

https://youtu.be/dSvff0QljHQ

Key Takeaways:

  • People age 2 and older should wear masks in public settings and when around people who don’t live in their household.
  • Masks offer some protection to you and are also meant to protect those around you, in case you are unknowingly infected with the virus that causes COVID-19.
  • A mask is NOT a substitute for social distancing. Masks should still be worn in addition to staying at least 6 feet apart.
  • Wash your hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds or use hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol after touching or removing your mask.
  • Postponing holiday travel & staying home is the best way to protect yourself & others from COVID19. If you decide to travel internationally, check out CDC’s testing recommendations to help make travel safer. 
  • Masks may not be necessary when you are outside by yourself away from others, or with other people who live in your household. However, some localities may have mask mandates while out in public and these mandates should always be followed.

References:

  1. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/cloth-face-cover-guidance.html

Vaccination and Wearing Masks

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“Once enough people have some immunity, either because of previous infection or because of vaccination, the virus will have a hard time spreading through the community.” Consumer Reports

Researchers hope that Americans getting vaccination will be sufficient to end the pandemic once there is sufficient supply and enough pf the population gets vaccinated.

In trying to understand the readily available vaccine information and how it will affect the lives of Americans, Consumer Reports has reviewed government guidance and consulted with public health experts to provide insight to their readers about the vaccine candidates.

Vaccination equals two doses

Vaccines require two doses—an initial shot and a booster, taken several weeks later. Generally with a two-dose vaccine, it takes about two weeks from the second dose for a vaccine’s protection to fully kick in, according to Natalie Dean, PhD, an assistant professor of biostatistics specializing in infectious disease and vaccine development at the University of Florida.

Though two doses are necessary, the FDA’s analysis of the Pfizer vaccine indicates that people appear to be somewhat less likely to get COVID-19 within two weeks of receiving the first dose.

It’s unclear how long protection from that first dose may last. And the second dose is still required for full protection, to ensure a more durable immune response. 

Halting the virus transmission

It is not known definitely whether getting vaccinated will prevent you from spreading the coronavirus to others. Thus, preventive measures such as social distancing, washing hands, and wearing a mask will remain important even after you get vaccinated, according to the CDC.

More research is required before scientists can say exactly how many people need to be vaccinated to achieve “herd immunity “. It’s possible that with extremely effective vaccines showing 95 percent efficacy, we might hit the point where communities are protected by the time somewhere between 60 and 70 percent of people have been vaccinated, according to Kathleen Neuzil, MD, a professor of vaccinology and director of the Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health at the University of Maryland in Baltimore. 

It will be possible for vaccines, as long as Americans get vaccinated, to have a significant impact on ending this pandemic.

Severe allergic reactions

In the U.K., public health regulators have advised that anyone with a history of a severe, potentially life-threatening allergic reaction to a vaccine, medicine, or food should not receive the vaccine. Two healthcare workers were reported to have had severe allergic reactions after receiving the vaccine. Public health experts worry that the reports could frighten people with allergies and make them think they should avoid getting the vaccine.

From Pfizer’s vaccine trial results, there were no severe allergic reactions. Deliberately, the trials excluded people who had previously had severe allergic reactions to vaccines, a Pfizer scientist said during the advisory panel’s discussion.

The FDA plans to advise that people who are allergic to components of the vaccine should not get it, an agency scientist explained. The FDA’s earlier review of Pfizer’s trial data found slightly more potential minor allergic reactions in the group that received the vaccine than in the placebo group, but none of these were severe, and none occurred immediately after people received their doses of vaccine.

References:

  1. https://www.consumerreports.org/vaccines/your-questions-about-a-coronavirus-vaccine-answered/?EXKEY=YSOCIAL_FB&fbclid=IwAR2LW6PC_JSykJwyG-Kv9ozQkNvxH-1VnYmAby-MJIr8kSJfHm7UwtyH3k8

Coaches Voice Stopping College Basketball Season

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Stop the season. Stop the games, men’s and women’s college basketball, right now, according to several prominent college basketball coaches.

The college basketball season officially began in late November — yet, 33 men’s teams still have not played one game because of COVID-19 interruptions. A number of prominent voices in the college basketball game are wondering if the season should be stopped or postponed with the COVID-19 crisis anything but under control, especially with the physical, emotional and mental toll it has on college student athletes.

Many states has declared the coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency and have implemented restrictions on travel, business and public gatherings. Additionally, there are approximately 2,000 deaths a day and nearly 300,000 new COVID-19 infection cases daily across the country. Nationally and locally, communities have experienced a spike in positive COVID-19 cases since late November. Local and state governments and public health officials are now predicting COVID-19 cases will continue to spike even higher in January following the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.

The most vocal advocate for stopping (or pausing) the men’s and women’s college basketball season is Duke’s basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski. Coach Krzyzewski wants the NCAA “…for the mental health and safety of our players and staff, to assess where we’re at” with with regards to the college basketball season and in light of more COVID-19 game cancellations.

The Duke men’s basketball program will forgo its remaining nonconference regular-season basketball games. The decision was made out of an abundance of caution due to the COVID-19 pandemic and to allow the Blue Devils’ players time over the holidays to spend with their families, according to a release from the university.

References:

  1. https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaab/acc/2020/12/09/mike-krzyzewski-wants-ncaa-re-evaluate-playing-during-covid-19/3864481001/
  2. https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaab/acc/2020/12/10/duke-cancels-remainder-nonconference-basketball-schedule/3889557001/
  3. https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/christinebrennan/2020/12/09/college-basketball-while-covid-19-raging-makes-no-sense-coaches/3867975001/

Stopping the Exponential Rise in Cases

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“Cases are rising. Hospitalizations are increasing, Deaths are increasing. We need to try to bend the curve, stop this exponential increase,” says Dr. Henry Walke, the CDC’s COVID-19 Incident Manager.

As COVID-19 cases continue to soar, it took the U.S. more than eight-and-a-half months to reach 8 million cases but less than two months to double that number.

As a result, hospitals across the U.S. are facing dire shortages of beds for critically ill coronavirus patients as the post-Thanksgiving holiday surge shows no sign of relenting, new data shows from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

About 1 in 8 U.S. hospitals had little or no intensive care unit space available last week the data showed. And for the sixth consecutive day, the US reported a record high number of COVOD-19 patients in US hospitals: more than 108,000 nationwide, according to the Covid Tracking Project.

Public health experts say the number of hospitals struggling with intensive care unit capacity to accommodate the nation’s sickest patients likely will increase following another week of record COVID-19 cases.

As cases continue to soar, it took the U.S. more than eight-and-a-half months to reach 8 million cases but less than two months to double that number.

CDC and many states advise not to travel

As Americans contemplate whether to proceed with their holiday season or New Year’s travel plans, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is urging citizens not to travel or to get tested before or is urging Americans who go against its advice to get tested for COVID-19 twice in a bid to make travel safer.

The agency says travelers should get a COVID-19 test one to three days before travel and three to five days after travel, regardless of their destination.

Additionally, some states are reimposing stay-at-home orders for their residents and travel restrictions ahead of the winter holidays.

While other states, such as Hawaii for example, require inbound travelers to show proof of a negative COVID-19 test upon arrival or require those without results before their arrival to quarantine for 14 days.

What to do

This is one time Americans should heed CDC urging to not to travel and stay home as the best way to protect yourself and others this year; or to get tested for COVID-19 twice in a bid to make travel safer.

References:

  1. https://www.jacksonville.com/story/travel/news/2020/12/11/holiday-travel-check-covid-19-travel-restrictions-by-state/3878341001/?
  2. https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/coronavirus/2020/12/12/coronavirus-florida-what-you-need-know-saturday-dec-12/6511426002/?
  3. https://www.jacksonville.com/story/travel/airline-news/2020/12/09/covid-travel-test-things-to-know-coronavirus-testing-pcr-antigen/3800400001/?

Dr. Fauci Advises Staying Home for the Holidays

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Traveling and congregating together is unsafe this holiday season according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

It’s clear that “even modest size gatherings of family and friends in a home” are contributing to spread, Fauci said. “We’re starting to see infections that are emerging from what otherwise seemed like benign settings, namely a typical gathering of 10 or so people in a social setting,” he said.

But in addition to the number of guests, it’s important to consider where people are traveling from, and the infection rates in their areas, Fauci said. Travel increases your chances of spreading or getting Covid, according to the CDC.

Expected COVID-19 infection spikes due to Christmas and Hanukkah will likely be more severe than the levels experienced following Thanksgiving, because people are typically together for longer, often indoors and sharing food and drinks, Fauci said.

Fauci has warned that the U.S. could see a “surge upon a surge” of Covid-19 cases following Thanksgiving and heading into Christmas. The month of December could be a time of “precarious risk” as people begin shopping for Christmas gifts in stores and host parties for New Year’s Eve, he said.

Staying home during the holidays, wearing a mask whenever you’re around people from outside your household and maintaining proper hand hygiene are the best ways to protect yourself and reduce the community spread of COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

References:

  1. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/09/dr-fauci-skipping-christmas-gathering-with-family-amid-covid-pandemic.html?__source=twitter%7Cmakeit+
  2. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/08/us-hasnt-seen-full-covid-brunt-from-thanksgiving-fauci-warns-.html

mRNA Vaccine Safe and Its Side Effects

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Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine trials show that side effects are common in participants and it appears that the more significant symptoms develop following the second dose.

The Pfizer-BioNTech’s mRNA coronavirus vaccine (BNT162b2) is both safe and effective, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). FDA said results from Pfizer’s large, ongoing study showed the vaccine, which was co-developed with Germany’s BioNTech, demonstrated more than 95% efficacy across people of different ages, races and underlying health conditions, including diabetes and obesity. And partial protection from coronavirus appears to begin 12 days after the first dose, according to Pfizer. Consequently, Pfizer requested and the vaccines are expected to be approved for emergency use authorization (EUA) by the FDA as early as this week.

And this week, a committee of leading U.S. vaccine scientists recommended that the Food and Drug Administration authorize the first COVID-19 vaccine for Americans.

FDA approval of a drug means that the agency will have determined, based on substantial evidence, that the drug is effective for its intended use, and that the benefits of the drug outweigh its risks when used according to the product’s approved labeling. Approval of the he vaccine will help reduce the risk of disease. The vaccine works with the body’s natural defenses to safely develop protection (immunity) to disease, according to the FDA’s website.

How an mRNA vaccine works

Messenger RNA vaccines, called mRNA for short, is a new kind of vaccine technology that has never before been licensed in the U.S. mRNA vaccines contain material from the virus that causes COVID-19 that gives our cells instructions for how to make a harmless protein that is unique to the virus. The objective of a vaccine is to teach your immune systems how to recognize and fight the virus that causes COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Messenger RNA vaccines aren’t like past seasonal influenza vaccines. An mRNA vaccine is essentially just a piece of genetic code that contains instructions for our body. The mRNA tells our cells to make a protein — the same protein that is the spike on top of the actual coronavirus. This is what triggers the immune response in these types of vaccines.

In contrast, past seasonal influenza vaccine puts a weakened or inactivated virus into your body to trigger an immune response, which then produces antibodies. Those antibodies are what ultimately protects you from getting infected if you ever encounter the real virus.

It typically takes a few weeks for the body to build immunity against COVID-19 infection after vaccination. And after vaccination, the process of building immunity can cause symptoms or “side effects”. These symptoms are normal and are a sign that the body is building immunity.

Side effects

Sometimes the vaccine process of teaching your immune system how to react to the virus can cause symptoms. These symptoms are normal and are a sign that the body is building immunity. Moreover, no major safety issues were uncovered and common vaccine-related side effects like fever, fatigue and injection site pain were tolerable, according to the FDA.

The most common vaccine side effects were injection site reactions (84.1%), fatigue (62.9%), headache (55.1%), muscle pain (38.3%), chills (31.9%), joint pain (23.6%), and fever (14.2%), acc riding to the report submitted to the FDA.

Severe adverse reactions occurred in 0.0% to 4.6% of participants and appeared were more frequent after the second dose than after the first. The frequency of serious adverse events was low (<0.5%), without meaningful imbalances between study arms.

Although some COVID-19 trial participants reported COVID-like symptoms, it is impossible to contract the coronavirus from the vaccine, because the mRNA vaccines develop by Pfizer and Moderna don’t use the live virus. 

Bottomline

Getting vaccinated is one of many steps you can take to protect yourself and others from COVID-19.  Vaccines work with your immune system so your body will be ready to fight the virus if you are exposed.

References:

  1. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/08/pfizer-moderna-covid-vaccine-side-effects-trials.html?__source=iosappshare%7Ccom.microsoft.msedge.EMMXShareExtension
  2. https://www.fda.gov/media/144245/download
  3. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different-vaccines/how-they-work.html?CDC_AA_refVal=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cdc.gov%2Fcoronavirus%2F2019-ncov%2Fvaccines%2Fabout-vaccines%2Fhow-they-work.html
  4. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/vaccine-benefits/facts.html?CDC_AA_refVal=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cdc.gov%2Fcoronavirus%2F2019-ncov%2Fvaccines%2Fabout-vaccines%2Fvaccine-myths.html

Vaccines Show Greater than Ninety Percent Efficacy

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“It’s not vaccines that save people; it’s vaccinations that will actually save people.” Edward Kelly, director of the WHO’s work on service delivery and safety

Biotechnology firm Moderna announced this week that preliminary results from large scale trials indicated that its coronavirus vaccine candidate demonstrated nearly 95 percent efficacy at preventing the illness.  This news comes on the heals of Pfizer’s announcement last week of it coronavirus vaccine candidate showed 95 percent efficacy (94 percent for adults over 65 years).

Efficacy refers to the performance of a treatment under ideal and controlled circumstances, and effectiveness is performance under real-world conditions. Clinical trials take place in a controlled environment to test if a vaccine is safe and if it works.

The efficacy rate means that COVID-19 symptoms were prevented for more than 90 percent for Pfizer’s coronavirus candidate and near 95 percent for Moderna’s candidate of participants who received the vaccine.

Pfizer plans to seek emergency use authorization for the vaccine, the company said.  This leave Pfizer’s vaccine on track to go into distribution by the end of the year if health regulators at the FDA permit.

Public health officials warn that the development of an effective COVID-19 vaccine represents the beginning of the challenge to vaccinate the world. “It’s not vaccines that save people; it’s vaccinations that will actually save people,” Edward Kelly, director of the WHO’s work on service delivery and safety, said.

A few of the significant challenges to vaccinate the world relate to vaccine supply, storage and distribution.  For example, Pfizer’s experimental vaccine requires ultracold storage conditions of about minus-70 degrees Celsius to ensure it remains effective.  While, Moderna’s vaccine can be kept at refrigerator temperatures for a month and frozen at minus-20 degrees Celsius for up to six months.

Additionally, there appears to be a steady reluctance among Americans and people across the globe to take the vaccine.  Convincing Americans that coronavirus vaccines are safe and effective will be another challenge thanks to the politicization of the vaccine development process by both sides of the aisle.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will ultimately decide whether to authorize vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna and other candidates currently in large scale trials based on safety and effectiveness results that have been carefully reviewed by both government and independent health experts.

Health care workers should be given the highest priority to receive the vaccine and given to workers in essential industries, people with certain medical conditions, and people age 65 and older.

Bottom line, no vaccine is 100% effective, and whatever protection vaccines may provide, people should continue to wear masks, maintain social distancing, wash hands frequently, not touch their face and avoid crowded indoor gatherings until public health officials determine and the infection numbers demonstrate that the virus is under control.

References:

  1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/11/16/who-vaccine-moderna-pfizer/
  2. https://www.wsj.com/articles/pfizers-covid-19-vaccine-95-effective-in-final-results-company-to-seek-approval-within-days-11605699996
  3. https://time.com/5907908/biden-administration-covid-19/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=editorial&utm_term=health_covid-19&linkId=104044772