Are vaccines the light at the end of the tunnel?

[phoenix_dream]

7 hours ago, Fouremco said:

US yes.  Not so sure about the rest of the world.

I certainly can't speak for the rest of the world, but hopefully reasonable alternatives to physician or nurse administration could be approved considering the situation.  I am from the US, and I remember when I was a kid back in the 50's lining up in our school gymnasium to get my polio vaccine, as well as several others.  I was too young to notice (and now too old to recall🙂) exactly who was administering the shots but I do know it was a part of a massive effort to get as many vaccinated in as short a time as possible, which leads me to believe it was trained volunteers.  I would hope this vaccine would be dealt with similarly.

[VitaminSea53]

2 hours ago, K.T.B. said:

 

I cannot get a flu vaccine because it makes me violently ill.  I've never had need for a pneumonia or shingles vaccine, at least not yet.

 

With that said, I am definitely getting the Covid vaccine when it becomes available. 

My DH had the same reaction to a Flu shot many years ago and swore “never again”.  But 2 years ago he got the Flu and was more than miserable. Last year he decided to get a flu shot..... and no reaction to the shot plus he didn’t suffer from another bout of flu. Just sayin..... never say never.

[cangelmd]

6 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

What's interesting is that our U-Pick opened up the first of June and about 40-50% were wearing masks, even though we had Social Distancing guidelines posted at the entrance and on our FB page which included a recommendation to wear a mask. By the first week in July about 80% were wearing masks. With the recent resurgence of new cases, I guess folks are starting to pay a little more attention and/or it's just becoming a habit. 

 

Now, once out in the field where we have about 500 blueberry plants and plenty of room to spread out, I'm sure most folks took off their masks for comfort sake as well as it's hard to "sample the fruit" with them on. But we were very appreciative that most folks were wearing masks at the entrance since we were the ones being behind the counter also wearing a mask.

 

The point being either you or me could be asymptomatic. So if both of us in close proximity are wearing a mask, then the chances of either of us spreading COVID to the other is much less. Trust me, we all know it's a pain, but what other options do we have until a viable vaccine is available?

Don’t know where you are in AL, if I knew I might come pick BB and talk cruises! But that’s similar to what I’ve seen. Ours coincided with the city passing a mask ordinance. Masks bottomed out at about 10% in mid-June here, the when the ordinance went into place it was like a switch was flipped, masks went to almost 90%, especially in places like grocery stores, Walmart, Lowe’s, etc. How long will it last? Who knows?

 I have nothing but sympathy for how hard it is to maintain distance. It has a finite life in the South, Covid takes all our fav things - going to church, going to bars, visit in’ with Mama and ‘em and sports. When they cancel football season this fall, we may collectively give up! ( I’m only half kidding)

[Ken the cruiser]

1 hour ago, cangelmd said:

Don’t know where you are in AL, if I knew I might come pick BB and talk cruises! But that’s similar to what I’ve seen. Ours coincided with the city passing a mask ordinance. Masks bottomed out at about 10% in mid-June here, the when the ordinance went into place it was like a switch was flipped, masks went to almost 90%, especially in places like grocery stores, Walmart, Lowe’s, etc. How long will it last? Who knows?

 I have nothing but sympathy for how hard it is to maintain distance. It has a finite life in the South, Covid takes all our fav things - going to church, going to bars, visit in’ with Mama and ‘em and sports. When they cancel football season this fall, we may collectively give up! ( I’m only half kidding)

LOL!! Our farm is up near Montgomery. Hopefully, by the time muscadine season is over, we'll be hearing about timetables for a variety of effective vaccines getting ready to be distributed in a multitude of countries so we can all start getting excited about going on that next cruise! One can hope anyway. 😁😁😁

[ldubs]

5 hours ago, phoenix_dream said:

I certainly can't speak for the rest of the world, but hopefully reasonable alternatives to physician or nurse administration could be approved considering the situation.  I am from the US, and I remember when I was a kid back in the 50's lining up in our school gymnasium to get my polio vaccine, as well as several others.  I was too young to notice (and now too old to recall🙂) exactly who was administering the shots but I do know it was a part of a massive effort to get as many vaccinated in as short a time as possible, which leads me to believe it was trained volunteers.  I would hope this vaccine would be dealt with similarly.

 

I remember she was wearing one of those white nurse hats.  Don't see them anymore (the hats).   

 

Just speculation but I would guess in addition to Docs and Nurses, every lab tech, phlebotomist, pharmacist, etc would get involved.   I think the real hang up will be the number of people who will not want the vaccine.  Too many people are relying on what they read on facebook instead of their health professionals.  

.    

[K.T.B.]

I just saw this:  https://www.indiatoday.in/diu/story/the-vaccine-candidates-that-come-as-a-ray-of-hope-during-the-covid-pandemic-1699506-2020-07-11

 

For those wondering the current states of the vaccines under development.

[Dylandude]

Here is a balanced view from the BBC website on vaccine development 
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51665497

 

Another useful website that I used while working in clinical trials is.

https://clinicaltrials.gov

 

It’s goal is to track every clinical trial around the world. It’s not the easiest website to use if you are from outside of the industry, start by typing Covid 19 into the search bar and good luck.

[TeeRick]

15 hours ago, phoenix_dream said:

I certainly can't speak for the rest of the world, but hopefully reasonable alternatives to physician or nurse administration could be approved considering the situation.  I am from the US, and I remember when I was a kid back in the 50's lining up in our school gymnasium to get my polio vaccine, as well as several others.  I was too young to notice (and now too old to recall🙂) exactly who was administering the shots but I do know it was a part of a massive effort to get as many vaccinated in as short a time as possible, which leads me to believe it was trained volunteers.  I would hope this vaccine would be dealt with similarly.

Yes I remember as a small kid in school actually getting the oral polio vaccine (as a drink) which was a live attenuated vaccine.  It had a number of side effects including a small number of cases of polio!  Then the inactivated vaccine (IPV) was developed and has been in use for a long time.  Anyway in the US and worldwide I really think that major (and probably free or low cost) vaccination events will be offered to citizens of many countries if a vaccine becomes available.  It is much more complicated if the vaccine requires a schedule of two or more shots over time.  Or yearly boosters.  Then compliance will be low.

[lucymorgan]

Are vaccines the light at the end of the tunnel?

I really hope so.  However, based on what we are hearing in Australia, there will be many people in the US who refuse vaccines and the virus is out of control. 

 

Perhaps that means that cruises out of Florida will be cheaper for locals who don't think there is a risk and want to cruise anyway.   I am glad I got a few US based cruises and a lot of trips in before this happened because it doesn't look like we will visit any time soon.   😪

 

International cruises though will be a different thing - I cannot see Australia and many other countries letting people from heavily impacted countries come in to cruise (without a substantial quarantine period or a proven vaccine).  There are already many bilateral and multilateral talks about "travel bubbles" but none that seem to include the US.  🤔  ☹️ We loved visiting but it seems no more.  

Edited July 13, 2020 by lucymorgan

[Ken the cruiser]

5 minutes ago, lucymorgan said:

Are vaccines the light at the end of the tunnel?

I really hope so.  However, based on what we are hearing in Australia, there will be many people in the US who refuse vaccines and the virus is out of control. 

 

Perhaps that means that cruises out of Florida will be cheaper for locals who don't think there is a risk and want to cruise anyway.   I am glad I got a few US based cruises and a lot of trips in before this happened because it doesn't look like we will visit any time soon.   

 

International cruises though will be a different thing - I cannot see Australia and many other countries letting people from heavily impacted countries come in to cruise (without a substantial quarantine period or a proven vaccine).  There are already many bilateral and multilateral talks about "travel bubbles" but none that seem to include the US.  🤔  ☹️ We loved visiting but it seems no more.  

We hear you and if we lived in one of those recovering countries, I would be leery of allowing folks from heavily impacted countries like ours in as well.
 

That’s why we can’t wait for an effective vaccine to come to a pharmacy near us. We have found since we have no control of what other people do, the best we can do is protect ourselves the best we can from this “invisible enemy” and hope a variety of effective vaccines will be made available ASAP. 

[WrittenOnYourHeart]

18 hours ago, phoenix_dream said:

I certainly can't speak for the rest of the world, but hopefully reasonable alternatives to physician or nurse administration could be approved considering the situation.  I am from the US, and I remember when I was a kid back in the 50's lining up in our school gymnasium to get my polio vaccine, as well as several others.  I was too young to notice (and now too old to recall🙂) exactly who was administering the shots but I do know it was a part of a massive effort to get as many vaccinated in as short a time as possible, which leads me to believe it was trained volunteers.  I would hope this vaccine would be dealt with similarly.

 

We can get at least flu shots at pharmacies here (I haven't needed any others as I'm caught up with everything, so I don't know if they offer others beyond flu) - hopefully this will be the same when/if. Also urgent care places can do vaccines. Neither of those require appointments.

[Ken the cruiser]

For those in the medical know, we have a general question about vaccines with regards to non-targeted benefits. If one has a variety of different vaccines administered over time, do they keep your immune system on general  “alert” status for unknown intruders whereas if you don’t, your immune system might get a little lax as it’s not coming into contact with any new viruses on a regular basis that it not already knows about from local contact?

 

For example over the past 8-10 years being in our late 60s and cruising to different parts of the world, we’ve had to get a variety of shots from the shingles and pneumonia shots to hepatitis a and b to Japanese Encephalitis, tetanus, the annual flu shot and most recently the MMR shot the other day. 
 

You would think our autoimmune system would be quite “alert” to sensing new visitors, from what we discovered from reading about the MMR shot we missed out on when we were kids, but was just curious if anyone had any further insights on this. 
 

 

Edited July 13, 2020 by Ken the cruiser

[Shadow9612]

On 7/11/2020 at 5:52 PM, Fouremco said:

Another factor to take into consideration when forecasting the time that will be required to vaccinate any significant number of people are the human resources required to actually administer the vaccine. If healthcare workers continue to be pushed to their limits dealing with infected patients,  even without a potential double whammy of a second wave during flu season, the problem may not be a lack of vaccine but a lack of qualified people to give the vaccinations. 

hopefully pharmacists will be able to give the vaccine, like the flu shot (in canada)... 

[Shadow9612]

On 7/12/2020 at 9:51 AM, TeeRick said:

Pharmacies.  Supermarkets with Pharmacies. Public vaccine events.  Trained volunteers.  Lots of opportunities.  Also at least right now, in most places in the world, and yes even most places in the US (outside several well known states), healthcare workers are currently not being pushed to their limits with COVID patients.  

hey, veterinarians should be able to give the vaccine!

[markeb]

11 minutes ago, Shadow9612 said:

hey, veterinarians should be able to give the vaccine!

I don’t think so. Hairless apes are kind of gross...

[TeeRick]

9 hours ago, Shadow9612 said:

hopefully pharmacists will be able to give the vaccine, like the flu shot (in canada)... 

Another factor in the US is what our individual health insurance ploicy will allow.  I have a well known BS/BS policy and I cannot get vaccinated in a pharmacy unless it has a "clinic" associated with it.  This rules out most supermarket pharmacies.  But perhaps for a COVID vaccine they would reconsider.

[Ken the cruiser]

45 minutes ago, TeeRick said:

Another factor in the US is what our individual health insurance policy will allow.  I have a well known BS/BS policy and I cannot get vaccinated in a pharmacy unless it has a "clinic" associated with it.  This rules out most supermarket pharmacies.  But perhaps for a COVID vaccine they would reconsider.

Wow! Really? Do you have to make an appointment with a doctor to get a flu vaccine, or do they accept walk-ins?

 

Update: I wonder if it's based on which state your BC/BS is registered in as we saw CVS has "minute clinics" in about 35 states, but in our case none in Alabama.

Edited July 14, 2020 by Ken the cruiser

[TeeRick]

17 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Wow! Really? Do you have to make an appointment with a doctor to get a flu vaccine, or do they accept walk-ins?

 

Update: I wonder if it's based on which state your BC/BS is registered in as we saw CVS has "minute clinics" in about 35 states, but in our case none in Alabama.

I do not need a doctor to get vaccinated.  Just a "clinic".  CVS Minute Clinics do qualify.  In the US, Walgreens just announced a deal to open 700 primary care clinics within its pharmacies with the company VillageMD.  In my area there are a number of Walgreens that have opened up LabCorp clinics too.  I was able to get a COVID antibody test there for $10.  (It was negative).

 

https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/walgreens-invests-1b-in-primary-care-clinics-with-villagemd-deal/581208/

[K.T.B.]

Where AZD1222 is concerned, the US and UK already have earmarked the first 400 million doses (out of 2 billion) being developed by AstraZeneca.  LINK

 

And I do recall there being a press release from them indicating that they were not going to charge for those initial doses.  (My Google-fu is failing me as I cannot find it right now.)

[NantahalaCruiser]

2 hours ago, K.T.B. said:

Where AZD1222 is concerned, the US and UK already have earmarked the first 400 million doses (out of 2 billion) being developed by AstraZeneca.  LINK

 

And I do recall there being a press release from them indicating that they were not going to charge for those initial doses.  (My Google-fu is failing me as I cannot find it right now.)

I would imagine that the doses allocated to the US will be "free" since they are receiving $1 billion from the US Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) for the development, production and delivery of the vaccine!

[PTC DAWG]

Bad info out of Florida...

 

https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/fox-35-investigates-florida-department-of-health-says-some-labs-have-not-reported-negative-covid-19-results

[Covepointcruiser]

We live in Maryland and have BC/BS.   We are able to get vaccines at any pharmacy and have gotten Shingles, Tetanus, Flu and MMR.    Luckily we were both able to be in a trial of one vaccine from the University of Penn.   Don’t know if we actually received the vaccine or if it will work but at least we have done our part.    We are both over 65 and they were looking for older adults.

[ABoatNerd]

The corono virus family has never had a successful vaccine. In this family are the 3 most common cold viruses.

 

I suspect that the political urgency to have a "vaccine" will result in a faulty "vaccine" being released.

 

Good luck!

[NutsAboutGolf]

Multiple Vloggers are reporting the CDC won't reopen US ports in 2020.

[npcl]

12 minutes ago, ABoatNerd said:

The corono virus family has never had a successful vaccine. In this family are the 3 most common cold viruses.

 

I suspect that the political urgency to have a "vaccine" will result in a faulty "vaccine" being released.

 

Good luck!

No Corona vaccines largely for two reasons  1. SARS - the outbreak vanished before the vaccine candidates could be tested.  No outbreak no way to test for efficacy  2. The other corona virus have been pretty minor.  Not worth the effort. Considering that several of those and some rhino viruses all cause symptoms referred to as the common cold it would take a number of different vaccines to prevent the common cold.  I doubt people would want to get several vaccine shots each year to prevent the common cold

 

Neither situation applies to COVID-19

 

This is only the second Corona virus with serious enough symptoms to make a vaccine worthwhile.  The first, SARS, for which there were several vaccine candidates, died out before it could be tested for efficacy.

Edited July 15, 2020 by npcl