COVID-19 vaccine discussion

From what I can gather, the Texas reported state vaccine doses administered is way behind actuals. I can see that reporting isn’t as important as distribution but it’s important for public health to have current info.  Perhaps delayed data won’t matter as much as the vaccine doses increase. 

5 hours ago, Surly Bevo said:

Another piss poor day in Texas (but better than recent vintage). Went from 147K doses in arms to 163.7K doses in arms.  We are now sitting on 612K doses received (so only 27% delivered)

How is “received” defined? Are those all sitting at actual medical facilities in the state or just what “Texas” has received 

5 minutes ago, UTexasFight said:

How is “received” defined? Are those all sitting at actual medical facilities in the state or just what “Texas” has received 

Doses received by a vaccine provider

https://tabexternal.dshs.texas.gov/t/THD/views/COVID-19VaccineinTexasDashboard/Summary?%3Aorigin=card_share_link&%3Aembed=y&%3AisGuestRedirectFromVizportal=y&%3Amobile=true&%3AdeepLinkingDisabled=y

27 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

From what I can gather, the Texas reported state vaccine doses administered is way behind actuals. I can see that reporting isn’t as important as distribution but it’s important for public health to have current info.  Perhaps delayed data won’t matter as much as the vaccine doses increase. 

I can believe it is lagging a few days.  I can't believe it's lagging more than 4-5 days.

Let's say the vax is in stock on a Saturday or Sunday.  Someone gets a shot on a Monday.  Data has to be entered within 24 hrs, so maybe it gets entered on a Tuesday.  The website updates on Wednesday with data from Tuesday.  So maybe an efficient org has a 4-5 day delay between shots received and shots recorded.  Longer than that, the vax is just sitting on a shelf somewhere.

1 hour ago, MoJames said:

On 12/26/2020 at 9:27 PM, GreenspointTexas said:

Weve had less than 10k people a day vaccinated in Texas
 
We currently have an excess of 340,000 vaccines right now. We’ll use em all, but I think yall underestimate the amount of healthcare providers that dont want the vaccine. MDs, a nurse manager, and a few surgeons I know are some of the people that are saying “im never going to get it.”

There are idiots in every profession.

Of the 15 people in my small office, based on the response to the group email, I'm guessing we only have 5.  It's ridiculous.

The worst words that I’ve heard mentioned about the vaccine is, “I’ll wait.” Unless you have specific reasons that you shouldn’t get the vaccine, when called go take the vaccine for your family, friends, neighbors and even people you will never know.

Edit: I know most are ready to go. The people that talk about wanting to wait, piss me off. 

Edited December 30, 2020 by Nice Guy Eddie

This looks to be a good Twitter thread (click to read more) of the vaccine status today in Houston. If you have elderly relatives or friends who do not live in a retirement facility, someone else might need to be actively checking to ensure they are not missing the invites. I would even be calling the hospital chains to understand what it takes to become a patient to be eligible. 
 

 

My parents’ primary care doc is telling them to “wait for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine”

Has anyone else heard this advice or know the basis for it?

Why are we just now using the Defense Production Act?  This virus was sent to us as a biological weapon by China.  This is no time to be playing Defense Games.  

8 minutes ago, Gale Snoats said:

My parents’ primary care doc is telling them to “wait for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine”

Has anyone else heard this advice or know the basis for it?

 

yes. wait for the 18th century technology vax instead of the scary micro chip one. 

That also has a lower effective rate.  I would tell your parents to start looking for a new doc.

I’ve tried calling the local H‑E‑Bs (they were open) to see if I could get put on a backup list. First one I called said they were still working through 1a health care workers, and their backup list is already 6 pages long. 
 

I weigh 202 and am 5’8”, so do I technically fall in the 1B category due to BMI?  Do I have to have some type of doctors note?

3 minutes ago, DaysOff said:

 

yes. wait for the 18th century technology vax instead of the scary micro chip one. 

 

2 minutes ago, kevwun said:

That also has a lower effective rate.  I would tell your parents to start looking for a new doc.

It is a different, arguably more tested, technology than the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.  I don't think we know enough about effectiveness, yet.

I got the vaccines effective rates from their trials mixed up.  AstraZeneca is the one that is significantly lower than the other vaccines.

Edited December 30, 2020 by kevwun

44 minutes ago, UT_OB1 said:

I’ve tried calling the local H‑E‑Bs (they were open) to see if I could get put on a backup list. First one I called said they were still working through 1a health care workers, and their backup list is already 6 pages long. 
 

I weigh 202 and am 5’8”, so do I technically fall in the 1B category due to BMI?  Do I have to have some type of doctors note?

Just send them a naked picture of yourself 

1 hour ago, Gale Snoats said:

My parents’ primary care doc is telling them to “wait for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine”

Has anyone else heard this advice or know the basis for it?

Some hot J&J salesgirl showed him her tits and let him play with her twat.

For what it's worth on the J&J vaccine, their website says they expect preliminary data by end of January. 

https://www.jnj.com/our-company/johnson-johnson-announces-its-first-phase-3-covid-19-vaccine-trial-ensemble-is-fully-enrolled

If I were eligible to go ahead and receive a mRNA vaccine, I'm not sure I would want to wait an extra 2 months on the chance that the J&J one is somehow better. I'm not even sure how one would think it would be better. 

We cannot afford to wait and see with this.  If you can get vaccinated, do it.  It's the only way this is going to end.  People waiting means more people are going to die when they didn't have to.

Has anyone heard this argument?  Got it at Christmas:  

"Well, they've been trying to cure cancer for 100 years and haven't pulled that off, so it just seems suspicious that there's a vaccine for this new disease."

JFC

14 minutes ago, Liquor and Poker said:

Has anyone heard this argument?  Got it at Christmas:  

"Well, they've been trying to cure cancer for 100 years and haven't pulled that off, so it just seems suspicious that there's a vaccine for this new disease."

JFC

Cancer isn’t a single disease. Many cancers have been cured.

I have seen clinics and hospitals offering the vax to established patients that meet the 1B criteria, but preventing the general public from scheduling appointments even if they meet the same criteria.  This seems wrong, IMHO, and I have yet to see anyone offer an explanation for this preference.

I agree with "if you are offered the vax then get it" approach because it looks like we are stockpiling, but once a place is serving a certain population then there should not be restrictions on who within that population can apply to get it.

 

18 hours ago, Surly Bevo said:

Another piss poor day in Texas (but better than recent vintage). Went from 147K doses in arms to 163.7K doses in arms.  We are now sitting on 612K doses received (so only 27% delivered)

Are you/we tracking this accurately in regards to the number of people we can vaccinate?  As every person vaccinated requires two doses, saying we have 612K doses does not mean we can vaccinate another 612K people unless the numbers are actually being counted by patient doses (ie two per person).  From what I have seen they call out doses but they are not dividing by two for tracking, so when they say Texas received X number of doses that really means X/2 is the number of people who we can get vaccinated.

Assuming this is correct, then based on these numbers we have vaccinated (first shot)163.7K people and we have the potential to approximately vaccinate 224K more. (612K - 163.7K = 448.3K/2 = 224K)

No evidence that there is a problem with the J&J vaccine but that seems like advice based on that J&J is an long term healthcare company so therefore their product will be better or safer. I’m not a doctor but that seems like horrible advice.  Basically that doctor might be risking some of his patients because he likes J&J better.

one downside to J&J is that their vaccine uses a virus delivery system. I believe the virus may be similar to some strains of the common cold. It’s known that some people may carry immunity to that cold vaccine, so your immune system may destroy the vaccine before it takes hold. On the positive side, these adenovirus vaccines are much more rugged than the mRNA vaccines in terms of storage requirements. 

4 minutes ago, ABSR said:

Are you/we tracking this accurately in regards to the number of people we can vaccinate?  As every person vaccinated requires two doses, saying we have 612K doses does not mean we can vaccinate another 612K people unless the numbers are actually being counted by patient doses (ie two per person).  From what I have seen they call out doses but they are not dividing by two for tracking, so when they say Texas received X number of doses that really means X/2 is the number of people who we can get vaccinated.

Assuming this is correct, then based on these numbers we have vaccinated (first shot)163.7K people and we have the potential to approximately vaccinate 224K more. (612K - 163.7K = 448.3K/2 = 224K)

We have over 1.5M vaccine doses allocated and 600K+ received in the last 2.5 weeks (so assume that pace continues we are fine with 21 and 28 day windows to needing the next dose).  This isn't a situation where we are remotely close to being in danger of "running out".  We are going way too slow

Edited December 30, 2020 by Surly Bevo

I was able to make an appt. for my mom this coming Monday to get the Moderna vaccine at the Giddings Brookshire Bros.  She is 76.  Very pleased!

Called doctors who supposedly received the vaccine.  They said they haven't received them.  What a mess. I'm 1B and trying to see if there's a place to go that has it in or around Austin.

1 minute ago, Dbeasy said:

Called doctors who supposedly received the vaccine.  They said they haven't received them.  What a mess. I'm 1B and trying to see if there's a place to go that has it in or around Austin.

What lead you to believe they had the vaccine?  At this point with the number of stories popping up like this somebody is fudging.  I wouldn't put it past doctors/pharmacies/stores to have kept most front facing folks in the dark about what they have/don't have to keep things under control....I also wouldn't put it pas the government to be full of shit.

Just now, Surly Bevo said:

What lead you to believe they had the vaccine?  At this point with the number of stories popping up like this somebody is fudging.  I wouldn't put it past doctors/pharmacies/stores to have kept most front facing folks in the dark about what they have/don't have to keep things under control....I also wouldn't put it pas the government to be full of shit.

The Texas web site on covvid lists all of the facilities that have received the vaccine.

Just now, Dbeasy said:

The Texas web site on covvid lists all of the facilities that have received the vaccine.

That's what I figured.  And yea I wouldn't be surprised if some of these places are playing defense....

11 minutes ago, ABSR said:

Are you/we tracking this accurately in regards to the number of people we can vaccinate?  As every person vaccinated requires two doses, saying we have 612K doses does not mean we can vaccinate another 612K people unless the numbers are actually being counted by patient doses (ie two per person).  From what I have seen they call out doses but they are not dividing by two for tracking, so when they say Texas received X number of doses that really means X/2 is the number of people who we can get vaccinated.

Assuming this is correct, then based on these numbers we have vaccinated (first shot)163.7K people and we have the potential to approximately vaccinate 224K more. (612K - 163.7K = 448.3K/2 = 224K)

The Operation Warp Speed distribution folks are supposed to be automatically correcting for this.  If they send 1000 doses to a location on one day they are supposed to be planning to send another 1000 doses to the same place at the correct time for the second shot later, along with the materials to give the second shot.

No one has their second shot yet, so we don't know if the logistics will work, but that is the way it is supposed to work.

Those places giving shots are about to have to deal with more complexity, as some people return for their second shot and others arrive for their first.

5 minutes ago, Texas Jeff said:

I have seen clinics and hospitals offering the vax to established patients that meet the 1B criteria, but preventing the general public from scheduling appointments even if they meet the same criteria.  This seems wrong, IMHO, and I have yet to see anyone offer an explanation for this preference.

I agree with "if you are offered the vax then get it" approach because it looks like we are stockpiling, but once a place is serving a certain population then there should not be restrictions on who within that population can apply to get it.

 

The hospital systems are not currently tasked with vaccinating the entire public. The state govt is.  Is it fair or ethical that they’re prioritizing their patients who meet whatever criteria like current patient? It’s an interesting question for a medical ethicist.

My assumption is that direct hospital system patients will go first, and then the patients of affiliated docs. Aren’t most doctors affiliated with a hospital(s)? Now if you’re 85 with COPD but you haven’t seen a doctor in 5 years, yeah you’re probably in trouble.  Maybe you should schedule an regular appointment ASAP and have the side benefit of immediately becoming a current patient.  Or call the hospital system and nicely ask how you can get an elderly relative on the list, or waiting list.

Tangent: many people wait until they’re sick to find a primary care doc. Then you struggle to find one who will see a new patient on short notice. Go find one when you’re healthy, establish that relationship, and they might be able to squeeze you in the day you feel sick. They won’t always do that with a new patient. 

29 minutes ago, Borachio said:

I was able to make an appt. for my mom this coming Monday to get the Moderna vaccine at the Giddings Brookshire Bros.  She is 76.  Very pleased!

Thanks, this is a good tip for anyone who is over 65 or has commodities.  Apparently every Brookshire Bros with a pharmacy is offering the vaccine now.

1 minute ago, kevwun said:

Thanks, this is a good tip for anyone who is over 65 or has commodities.  Apparently every Brookshire Bros with a pharmacy is offering the vaccine now.

Once the Moderna vaccine started shipping out to the rural areas I called every HEB and Brookshire Bros. in a 30 mile radius of her house and put her on the waiting list.

When the news broke yesterday about vaccinations opening up to group 1b.  I started calling those same pharmacies when they opened this morning and was able to get that appt in Giddings.

I think persistence is the key here.

Yeah, my mom is on couple of waiting lists as of this morning.  Thanks again.

We have designed a system where to get a vax you have to make lots and lots of phone calls to the people giving the vax.

When this is over, a bunch of pharmacists are going to take their phones out back and beat the crap out of them with baseball bats.

Yeah, it's a mess, but you are going to have to be pro-active with this.  The State of Texas' distribution plan is severely lacking.  Fuck waiting around for them to get their shit together.  I'm tired of stupid people fucking with my life.

Edited December 30, 2020 by kevwun

Quote

Author: Pattrik Perez

Published: 7:44 AM CST December 30, 2020

Updated: 7:44 AM CST December 30, 2020

 

AUSTIN, Texas — On Monday, the Texas Department of State Health Services announcedpeople in Phase 1B could begin receiving doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.

But that announcement came with a lot of confusion and frustration from people trying to find a provider willing to vaccinate them.

On its website, the DSHS recommends people 65 and older or 16 and older with a chronic medical condition call vaccine providers in their area to find out whether they have any available doses. 

KVUE heard from multiple viewers who said they called multiple vaccine providers in the Austin area only to find out they still were only vaccinating people in Phase 1A, like health care workers.

The 38th Street Pharmacy in Central Austin was one of the vaccine providers people called Tuesday. Its owner, Jeffrey Warnken, said they had received between 300 to 400 calls from people asking about vaccine availability.

He said he's more than willing to begin vaccinating people in Phase 1B, but most of the allocation of Moderna vaccines his pharmacy received Monday morning was already reserved for health care workers. He plans to administer about 200 doses by Thursday. 

"We did our due diligence to get people scheduled, and they are showing up. I mean, they definitely want the vaccine. And, so, they're showing up all day [Monday], all day [Tuesday]," Warnken said. "I have people calling and they're saying, 'Oh, you have the vaccine.' Well, we do, but we only have so many doses, so I'm putting them on a waiting list."

Warnken estimates between 350 to 500 people were added to his pharmacy's waitlist Tuesday. He's not sure when he'll receive more doses, but he said he's ready for when he does.

"If I get more, if the state sends me 200 more or 500 more, I'll make sure people get [them] ... I'll start calling them. At least I have them on a list," he said.

To clear up some confusion between vaccine providers and people in Phase 1B, DSHS Commissioner Dr. John Hellerstedt released the following statement Tuesday afternoon:

“All providers that have received COVID-19 vaccine must immediately vaccinate healthcare workers, Texans over the age of 65, and people with medical conditions that put them at a greater risk of severe disease or death from COVID-19. No vaccine should be kept in reserve.”

KVUE spoke with several hospital groups in the Austin area, along with H-E-B, about their plans to administer the vaccine to people in Phase 1B. Below are some of their responses.

Ascension Seton:

"Ascension Seton has received allotments of both the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines, and as of December 28, Ascension Texas has vaccinated nearly 9,000 frontline caregivers, support staff, and providers. Ascension Seton continues administration for onsite staff who signed up for vaccinations and was recently able to begin offering the vaccine to independent frontline providers and first responders who are among the first group eligible to receive the vaccine. 

 Ascension Seton continues to receive additional allotments of the COVID-19 vaccine and will continue with the comprehensive vaccine administration plan consistent with federal and state guidance, including offering vaccines to those in group 1B. Ascension Seton continues to administer all COVID-19 vaccines provided."

H-E-B:

“H-E-B will follow the distribution schedule set by the government, and any updates will be communicated with customers via our Pharmacy page on heb.com and H-E-B Newsroom. During this first phase (1A) of Covid-19 vaccine rollout, some H-E-B pharmacies have received the Moderna vaccine to help vaccinate our community healthcare providers. Once the need is met within Phase 1A, vaccinations will be given to those who fall into Phase 1B. An appointment must be scheduled to receive the Covid-19 vaccine. Our pharmacies will not accept walk-ins.” 

https://www.kvue.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/texas-phase-1b-coronavirus-vaccine-confusion/269-5893a28e-2ec0-449b-8b66-020f73c3a792

I'm a healthy guy in my late 30's and just made a reservation to get the vaccine at Houston Methodist for early January, plenty of reservations available. I think Methodist and other hospitals that have a ton of doses and no direction from the state are saying fuck it, first come first serve. I think for a while it's going to be everybody for themselves. 

The Operation Warp Speed distribution folks are supposed to be automatically correcting for this.  If they send 1000 doses to a location on one day they are supposed to be planning to send another 1000 doses to the same place at the correct time for the second shot later, along with the materials to give the second shot.
No one has their second shot yet, so we don't know if the logistics will work, but that is the way it is supposed to work.
Those places giving shots are about to have to deal with more complexity, as some people return for their second shot and others arrive for their first.

Monkey effing a coconut (not you, to be clear)

In the Dallas area, I saw that several Tom Thumb and Kroger pharmacies are scheduled to receive the vaccine, but I do not see any way to sign up on a wait list. And when I called several of those pharmacies around me, they said they had not even received their freezer yet. I also haven’t seen local hospitals with sign up lists yet.

33 minutes ago, Lagunamadre said:

I'm a healthy guy in my late 30's and just made a reservation to get the vaccine at Houston Methodist for early January, plenty of reservations available. I think Methodist and other hospitals that have a ton of doses and no direction from the state are saying fuck it, first come first serve. I think for a while it's going to be everybody for themselves. 

Out of curiosity, were you invited by the hospital or did someone you know forward a link to you? To expedite the process, they appear to expect everyone to work on the honor system to not attempt to schedule until you’re invited.

NextLevel Urgent Care in Houston

Why the fuck aren’t we setting up mass vaccination centers for everyone at this point? Fuck this 1A 1B bullshit (and I’m 1A). Our goal is to get EVERYONE vaccinated as quickly as possible. Fuck I’m so ready for a real President to take over and get things moving. 

8 minutes ago, SubliminalHorn said:

Why the fuck aren’t we setting up mass vaccination centers for everyone at this point? Fuck this 1A 1B bullshit (and I’m 1A). Our goal is to get EVERYONE vaccinated as quickly as possible. Fuck I’m so ready for a real President to take over and get things moving. 

It's stupid...get it in arms.  Look all these priority levels would make sense if we knew that we were going to get only say 75 million doses in total of the thing in the next year.  What I have seen is that we have secured enough supply promise to vaccinate FULLY 169% of our population in 2021.   

So yea maybe spend a few weeks on healthcare and olds but then it needs to rip....every shot in an arm helps everybody, even those without the shot in the arm because it probably reduces/eliminates transmission (realize this isn't fully vetted yet) but it certainly will reduce load on healthcare system as even younger folks are using that at a healthy clip so that if you do get Covid (or cancer, heart attack, whatever) they are not run through the wall when you arrive.

Edited December 30, 2020 by Surly Bevo

32 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Out of curiosity, were you invited by the hospital or did someone you know forward a link to you? To expedite the process, they appear to expect everyone to work on the honor system to not attempt to schedule until you’re invited.

I was sent a link think morning that didn't ask anything besides allergies and health insurance/personal info and was able to make an appt about a week from now. I think that link has gone viral and now they are asking that a doctor sent you the link before you can proceed. Looks like they had it open to everybody this morning. 

16 minutes ago, Lagunamadre said:

I was sent a link think morning that didn't ask anything besides allergies and health insurance/personal info and was able to make an appt about a week from now. I think that link has gone viral and now they are asking that a doctor sent you the link before you can proceed. Looks like they had it open to everybody this morning. 

My concern is that if enough people jump the line, word will eventually get to the media/governor, forcing the vaccine locations to add more bureaucracy around the process which slows it down more.

but let’s face it, following the rules and waiting for your time usually pushes you back further in life. We all know that driving to the front of the traffic jam is the fastest method to get through the traffic jam. 

Edited December 30, 2020 by Nice Guy Eddie

Or it could force them to do something crazy like come up with an actual distribution plan.  I'm letting everyone I know who is eligible to get the shot at Brookshire Bros to get signed up now. 

Edited December 30, 2020 by kevwun

42K into arms in Texas yesterday....that's better, that's much better.

Hopefully can build on that momentum, be good by February to be at 150-200K a day, maybe a pipe dream but that would be a solid pace to put this down by end of spring.

Edited December 30, 2020 by Surly Bevo

4 hours ago, Gale Snoats said:

My parents’ primary care doc is telling them to “wait for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine”

Has anyone else heard this advice or know the basis for it?

Do either of your parent's have a history of allergic reactions to vax, drugs, or foods?  If not, they should take whatever is first available imo, esp if they are at high risk. 

2 hours ago, Dbeasy said:

Called doctors who supposedly received the vaccine.  They said they haven't received them.  What a mess. I'm 1B and trying to see if there's a place to go that has it in or around Austin.

sign up on the tarrytown and 38th st pharmacy waitlists.