Coronavirus Newsletter -- Vaccine Update

General Update / Vaccine Update

Really good news coming out this past week. A new vaccine almost ready to be distributed, and more coming shortly. A possible nose spray to help protect us from daily exposure. A new antibody treatment that looks promising.

However, we still need to be vigilant ... I'll explain more after the break.

General Update

The numbers are still going up like crazy. The only good news is that deaths could be a lot higher, but give it another couple of weeks. Cases are through the roof, and that's bad -- deaths are lagging cases by about a month in Europe and other places, and now it's our turn.

Cases per capita over the past week:

• The worst five states are: North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Wyoming, Wisconsin.
• The best five states are: Hawaii, Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, and California.
• My state of North Carolina is at its highest case count right now, but other states are much worse. My county of Forsyth ranks 12th right now in the state in recent cases per capita, and is at its highest rate right now.

Deaths per capita over the past week:

• The worst five states are: North Dakota (whoa nellie -- stay away from there), South Dakota, Montana, Wisconsin, Kansas.
• The best five states are: Vermont, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Maine, California.
• Deaths in North Carolina are at their highest, and so are the deaths in Forsyth -- but still relatively low compared to the rest of the United States.
• Overall, the US has moved up to 7th place as of yesterday, but it looks like the UK is going to fly by us and push us back to 8th any day now. We've been going back and forth between 7th and 8th place for a month now.

Vaccine Update

And now back to the vaccine. Good news ... right? 90% effectiveness?

This vaccine comes from BioNTech (Germany) and Pfizer (USA). They say they can provide 30-40 million doses of the virus in the next couple of months, and possibly up to 1.3 billion doses over a year's time. But note that this vaccine comes in two doses. You get one shot, and then another one three weeks later. So, these doses would only help 15-20 million people in the next couple of months, and 650 million people by the end of next year.

You may notice that's noticeably lower than 7 billion people in the world ... but remember, we only need to get R(t) < 1.0. If we choke the virus, it will go away on its own. Can Pfizer and BioNTech make these doses fast enough to save lives?

The bad news is that it doesn't help those who have already caught the virus. All those who are currently infected are still in trouble. (Though the new antibody treatment might be able to help -- as long as hospitalization figures can be kept down.) I am somewhat saddened to think about the slew of deaths about to play out over the next month -- nothing can stop that now. It's really depressing me.

We're also not sure yet how effective this vaccine will be on older people. Younger folks in these studies have the advantage of healthier immune systems and more T-Cells, etc. It's very possible that older folks will have less of a response to this vaccine -- but hopefully it will be enough.

Also, the pool supporting the 90% figure is actually pretty small. It does have a lot of credibility because of the size of the trials, but there are most likely several factors that have yet to be considered. In practice, we could very well see lower efficacy.

Since the studies aren't completely finished, this and other vaccines coming up can only be distributed on an emergency basis -- as decided by the FDA. This means that anyone receiving the vaccine will have to be monitored, such that if any ill effects pop up, the vaccine can be halted as soon as possible. But at least so far, this vaccine seems to be free of major side effects -- which is usually determined early on in the trials.

This vaccine also needs to be kept at very cold temperatures, which could be a challenge to distribute.

Someone like me -- early 50s with only minor issues, is likely NOT to be eligible for the vaccine for another couple of months. So, dang. Older people will get it first, and other vulnerable folks -- the ones most likely to die if they catch the virus.

Trump is taking credit for the success of this vaccine, but does he deserve it. He's right in the area of this being a major undertaking in such a short amount of time. He's also right about other similar vaccines coming out that will most likely be very effective as well. More than one vaccine is more than welcome.

However, there is much debate over how much Trump actually helped. BioNTech and Pfizer have yet to receive any money at all from Operation Warp Speed. They do have an agreement, though, and can stand to earn as much as $2 billion from the government as they distribute the vaccine. One could argue that this was sufficient financial incentive to get their act together and produce the vaccine sooner.

Also, had this played out differently and if we had nipped this thing in the bud in February/March (like South Korea did), then we wouldn't be needing these vaccines. We didn't see any Ebola vaccines to come out of our 2014 outbreak in the US -- because we eradicated it before it could spread (what a concept!). Though -- I just learned that Ebola vaccines have been produced in the past year ... hooray!

Can we trust the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine? The data seems to show that it's safe, and it may even be effective. I would not be afraid to take this vaccine.

However, don't forget these items of bad news:

• We don't know how long this new Covid19 vaccine will be effective -- the antibodies could very well wear off anywhere from 6-12 months (or hopefully more) and allow us to be infected later on.
• We're not sure yet how effective this will be on any upcoming mutations -- though if we make one version of the vaccine, it can be tweaked as needed.
• We're not sure if the new mink mutation in Denmark will mess up the vaccine. Some experts think that specific mutation can render all vaccines useless. We could kill off one strain and allow this strain to take its place.
• Remember that the distribution of the vaccine will be slow at first. (And several people that you know are likely to die anyway in the next month -- and so close to having been able to receive the vaccine!)
• Relaxing now will only speed up the spread of the virus, leading to more deaths before the distribution of the vaccine can commence.

So, it's imperative to remember to behave in certain ways to get R(t) < 1.0. We need active cases to go down -- always -- no matter what develops. We can't wait to rely solely on the vaccine. We will need to employ several tactics in our arsenal against the virus. Maybe we'll quickly get that daily nose spray that we can use until we can get vaccinated. We can always wear masks -- it's still a very cheap and effective way to get R(t) down. We can continue washing our hands, and social distance as much as possible. And we can always cooperate with contact tracers, and if we get sick, make sure to alert all our friends to let them know they may be infected.

This is far from over, and we should not lose sight of the final goal. R(t) < 1.0. But soon, this and other vaccines will be able to help us in the fight.