Tag Archives: Social Distancing

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/

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

The 6 Feet Office | Cushman & Wakefield

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Helping Adjust to a New COVID-19 Normal

Cushman & Wakefield has begun visualizing life after the COVID-19 lockdowns and ‘stay at home’ orders come to an end. From their prospective, it is important for employers to think about the new normal and how they plan to adjust once people return to the workplace.

“The 6 feet rule” isn’t going away any time soon and it is critical to normalize this guideline into everyday life. Eventually, Americans will return to the workplace, but they must not forget the ‘six foot’ physical distancing rule.

The core premise is to ensure that six feet, the recommended measurement for safe social distancing, stays between people at all times. This behavior is encouraged through properly spaced desks, but also visual signals, such as a circle embedded in the carpeting around each desk to ensure people don’t get too close.

Cushman & Wakefield Introduces the 6 Feet Office. 

The 6 Feet Office is Cushman & Wakefield’s conceptual idea to help their clients prepare for their employees to return to the office. 

Cushman & Wakefield: 6 FEET OFFICE CONCEPT CONSISTS OF SIX ELEMENTS:

  1. 6 Feet Quick Scan: A concise but thorough analysis of the current working environment in the field of virus safety and any other opportunities for improvement.
  2. 6 Feet Rules: A set of simple and clear workable agreements and rules of conduct that put the safety of everyone first.
  3. 6 Feet Routing: A visually displayed and unique routing for each office, making traffic flows completely safe.
  4. 6 Feet Workstation: An adapted and fully equipped workplace at which the user can work safely.
  5. 6 Feet Facility: A trained employee who advises on and operationally ensures an optimally functioning and safe facility environment.
  6. 6 Feet Certificate: A certificate stating that measures have been taken to implement a virus-safe working environment.

References:

  1. https://www.cushmanwakefield.com/en/netherlands/six-feet-office
  2. https://www.fastcompany.com/90488060/our-offices-will-never-be-the-same-after-covid-19-heres-what-they-could-look-like