How Coloradans 70 and older can get a COVID-19 vaccine

Jan 07 2021

Colorado health systems and hospitals are beginning to allow people 70 and older — who are at the highest risk from COVID-19 — to sign up to receive vaccines, state officials announced Wednesday. Older residents, along with essential workers, were added to the next stage of vaccine distribution, Phase 1B, last week. But since then, there has been confusion over how and when those people will be inoculated. To help, the Colorado health department has divided up which providers will administer the shots to certain groups in the next phase of distribution.

Source: Denver Post

When It Comes To Separating Facts About Coronavirus From Fiction, Latinx And Black Community Leaders Play Key Roles

Jan 07 2021

Right before Christmas, in downtown Denver, families in cars pull up to a two-story brick building. The scene is festive, but in a 2020 kind of way. Outside, a group of women, wearing Santa hats and masks, bring out certificates and gift bags to the families. “This is completely new. Before what we were doing, it was a celebration. We’d have a party for each of the programs, so they’d bring food,” said Diana Pineda, executive director and founder of Vuela for Health.

Source: CPR

Guest commentary: Colorado should give incarcerated people higher priority for COVID vaccine

Jan 07 2021

As an infectious disease specialist and the only M.D. in the Colorado legislature, we felt a deep sense of relief and gratitude at the start of the COVID crisis believing that we lived in a state where its leadership would seek and follow the advice of public health experts to manage the pandemic. Gov. Jared Polis was one of the first to wear a mask and encourage others to do so, and he made some difficult political decisions, including a stay at home order, to save lives. Yet, as this crisis has unfolded, Polis has increasingly turned his back on public health guidance when it comes to incarcerated people. Nowhere is that more apparent and dangerous than in his reversal of public health guidance from his own CDPHE, which recommended priority vaccination for all people in congregate settings, including prisons and jails.

Source: Denver Post

Wisconsin pharmacist who ‘intentionally’ spoiled more than 500 vaccine doses is arrested, police say

Jan 07 2021

A pharmacist accused of deliberately spoiling more than 500 doses of coronavirus vaccine at a hospital outside Milwaukee was arrested Thursday afternoon, local authorities said. Police in Grafton, Wis., arrested the unnamed man on recommended charges of first-degree recklessly endangering safety, adulterating a prescription drug and criminal damage to property. He is being held in the county jail, according to a statement from the police department.

Source: WP

FDA Warns Health Officials Not To Mess With COVID-19 Vaccine Doses Schedule

Jan 07 2021

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is warning health care workers that any changes to the authorized dosing schedules of COVID-19 vaccines currently being administered will significantly place public health at risk and undermine "the historic vaccination effort to protect the population" from the coronavirus pandemic. The first and second doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine are approved to be delivered within a 21-day window, while the Moderna injections should be spread over 28 days. When given at those intervals, both vaccines are about 95% effective, according to the respective drugmakers.

Source: NPR

Vaccines Take a While to Kick In. Experts Say That Means the Body Is Doing Its Job.

Jan 07 2021

A flurry of headlines this week flooded social media, documenting a seemingly concerning case of Covid-19 in a San Diego nurse who fell ill about a week after receiving his first injection of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine. But experts said the sickness is nothing unexpected: The protective effects of vaccines are known to take at least a couple of weeks to kick in. And getting sick before completing a two-dose vaccine regimen, they said, should not undermine the potency of Pfizer’s product, which blazed through late-stage clinical trials with flying colors.

Source: NYT

The Best Evidence for How to Overcome COVID Vaccine Fears

Jan 07 2021

Operation Warp Speed has certainly lived up to its name. The arrival of the first coronavirus vaccines less than a year after the pandemic began blew away the previous development record of four years, which was held by the mumps vaccine. Now social scientists and public health communications pros must clear another hurdle: ensuring that enough people actually roll up their sleeves and give the shots a shot—two doses per person for the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines that won emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in mid-December. Somewhere between 60 and 90 percent of adults and children must be vaccinated or have antibodies resulting from infection in order to arrive at the safe harbor known as herd immunity, where the whole community is protected.

Source: Scientific American

Pfizer, BioNTech to offer vaccine to volunteers who took placebo

Jan 07 2021

Volunteers in the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine trials who received a placebo will be able to get a first dose of the vaccine by March 1, according to reports Saturday. The companies said that the trial’s Vaccine Transition Option means that all participants can find out if they were given the placebo. Participants who learn they received the placebo “have the option to receive the investigational vaccine while staying in the study,” according to a statement for trial participants.

Source: NYP

Coronavirus vaccine has arrived, but frustrated Americans are struggling to sign up

Jan 07 2021

Barbara Shlevin has kept a running tally of calls she made in search of the coronavirus vaccine. By Wednesday, she had tried the health department and a hospital system in Broward County, Fla., 184 times. Only once did the 71-year-old retired librarian get through. She said she waited more than 10 minutes, and finally heard a voice on the other end of the line. Then, the call cut off. So, she started trying online.

Source: WP

First Coronavirus Vaccines Bring Americans Hope in Small Doses

Dec 21 2020

PITTSBURGH — Some of the very medical centers that have endured the worst of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States found the gloom that has long filled their corridors replaced by elation and hope on Monday as health care workers became the first to take part in a mass vaccination campaign aimed at ending the pandemic. Hundreds of those who have been on the front lines of fighting Covid-19 — a nurse from an intensive care unit in New York, an emergency room doctor from Ohio, a hospital housekeeper in Iowa — received inoculations in emotional ceremonies watched by people around the country.

Source: NYT