(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Shoppers and commuters wear masks in downtown Salt Lake City, Monday, Nov. 30, 2020.
| Dec. 2, 2020, 8:17 p.m.
| Updated: Dec. 3, 2020, 2:51 a.m.
With 4,004 new coronavirus cases reported Wednesday, Utahs rate of new diagnoses was on the rise again after a brief decline around the Thanksgiving holiday.
The Utah Department of Health reported a seven-day average of 2,611 new positive test results per day, with Wednesdays increase the third-biggest single-day jump so far driving up the average after a few days of dropping numbers.
The states death toll from the coronavirus stood at 906, with one previous death removed from the list and 17 new fatalities reported since Tuesday:
A Box Elder County woman, age 45 to 64.
A Box Elder County man, age 65 to 84.
A Davis County man, age 65 to 84.
Four Salt Lake County men, one age 45 to 64; two ages 65 to 84, and one older than 85.
A Salt Lake County woman, age 45 to 64.
A Uintah County man older than 85.
A Utah County woman, age 65 to 84.
Three Utah County men, one age 65 to 84 and two who were older than 85.
A Washington County man older than 85.
A Weber County woman, age 25 to 44.
Two Weber County men, one age 45 to 64 and the other age 65 to 84.
Hospitalizations held steady Wednesday, with 571 Utah patients concurrently admitted, UDOH reported.
In total, 8,423 patients have been hospitalized in Utah for COVID-19, matching Tuesdays record single-day increase of 144.
For those who are sick but not hospitalized, Intermountain Healthcare announced Wednesday it was joining a study to investigate whether blood thinners could help prevent patients from deteriorating.
Doctors know that blood clots are a complication of COVID-19 infection, said Dr. Joseph Bledsoe, director of research in Intermountains emergency department.
Tiny blood clots that form in the brain, heart, lungs and legs are thought to be a cause of clinical deterioration or even death among coronavirus patients, Bledsoe said. Blood thinners like aspirin have been helpful in other conditions that cause blood clots, Bledsoe said.
But the risk of blood clots appears to be particularly high among coronavirus patients, and there hasnt been enough research for doctors to prescribe blood thinners for patients who arent sick enough to go to the hospital.
A lot of the research around COVID-19 looks at the sickest of the sick, said Dr. Sarah Majercik, trauma surgeon at Intermountain Healthcare and principal investigator of the Utah study. This study is unique because it focuses on patients who have never been admitted to a hospital. The information that we get may help doctors keep patients out of the hospital in the future. It may even prevent some of the long-term complications we are seeing from COVID-19.
For the study, Intermountain researchers are seeking patients between ages 40 and 80 who have tested positive for COVID-19 within the past 14 days and have symptoms but arent sick enough to need hospital care. Patients will take aspirin, apixaban or placebo pills for 45 days, and they wont know which type of pill they receive.
For the past week, 22.6% of all coronavirus tests have come back positive a rising rate, and one that indicates a large number of infected people are not being tested, state officials have said.
There were 9,434 new test results reported Wednesday, slightly below the weeklong average of about 10,000 new tests per day.
Infection rates were the highest by far in Wasatch County, followed by Sanpete, Utah, Cache and Washington counties. In all five of those counties, at least 1 in every 75 people had tested positive for the virus in the past two weeks meaning their cases are considered active.
Meanwhile, the northern part of Orem had the highest infection rate of any one community, with active cases diagnosed in 1 in every 50 residents.
Juan Williams, a veteran Fox News personality who co-hosts the popular afternoon talk show The Five, tested positive for the coronavirus on Thursday and is isolating himself, two people who were briefed on his condition said.
Mr. Williams taped a live episode of The Five on Wednesday afternoon at Fox Newss Midtown Manhattan headquarters, appearing on the set with several of his co-hosts, including the popular conservative commentators Jesse Watters and Greg Gutfeld. The hosts, like guests on some other cable talk shows during the pandemic, sat about seven feet apart.
Mr. Williams left for vacation on Nov. 18 and returned to the Fox News studios on Monday; he was tested for the coronavirus shortly thereafter. The people familiar with his condition, who requested anonymity to share private discussions, said he received a positive result on Thursday afternoon.
He was absent from Thursdays 5 p.m. episode of The Five, in which the other hosts appeared remotely.
Fox News declined to comment about Mr. Williamss condition, citing employee privacy. But the network said in a statement that the hosts of The Five would broadcast from home studios for the foreseeable future.
We will continue to take all necessary precautions to ensure the safety of our staff, the statement said. It noted that the network regularly tested its on-air personalities and had mask mandates and daily health checks for all employees who entered its headquarters.
On a talk show where the opinions skew Trumpward, Mr. Williams is the liberal-leaning outlier who has often criticized President Trumps handling of, among other matters, the coronavirus pandemic. On Wednesdays program, Mr. Williams called Mr. Watters shameful for advancing Mr. Trumps debunked theories about election fraud. (Juan sounds nervous, Mr. Watters riposted.)
In September, The Five was one of the most prominent television panel shows to return to in-studio broadcasts after an extended period when the hosts worked from home. (The shows usual large desk was replaced with separate stools for the hosts.) Several stars of The View on ABC, for instance, continue to work remotely. The Talk, a panel show on CBS, also returned to the studio in September.
Mr. Williams was among a group of Fox News stars and executives who were potentially exposed to the virus at the first presidential debate in September in Cleveland, where Mr. Trump appeared onstage days before announcing he had contracted the virus.
Mr. Williams was exposed again in October after traveling back from the second presidential debate, in Nashville, with a Fox News employee who later tested positive for the virus.
At the time, the chief executive of Fox News Media, Suzanne Scott, told employees in a memo that the network would limit the number of staff members working in its Manhattan office.
Since returning from his vacation on Monday, Mr. Williams had also appeared on-set with his regular Five co-host Dana Perino and several guest panelists, including the anchors Sandra Smith and Dagen McDowell and the conservative pundit Katie Pavlich.
Other television news personalities who have tested positive for the virus include Brooke Baldwin and Chris Cuomo of CNN, Lesley Stahl of CBS, and George Stephanopoulos of ABC News. They have since recovered.
Ben Smith contributed reporting.
Editors note: The Salt Lake Tribune is providing free access to critical stories about the coronavirus. Sign up for our Top Stories newsletter, sent to your inbox every weekday morning. To support journalism like this, please donate or become a subscriber.
Social gatherings were driving a new surge of coronavirus cases in Utah, Gov. Gary Herbert acknowledged but he said he was not considering any further restrictions on get-togethers, even as hospitalizations and deaths from the virus continued to rise to record levels.
Instead, he implored Utahns to continue wearing masks and social distancing, even while conceding those pleas had gone unheeded so far.
The next 45 to 60 days will be critical, he said. Were on the uptick now and we cant let our guard down.
The rate of new coronavirus cases in Utah had been declining during the Thanksgiving holiday, but rose sharply again this week. With the 3,945 new coronavirus cases reported Thursday, the state has averaged 2,627 new positive test results a day for the past week, the Utah Department of Health reported.
Unfortunately, as were starting to see now and were not surprised, the case numbers are starting to go back up, Herbert said at a Thursday news conference.
He attributed the decline in cases around Thanksgiving to a two-week emergency order that banned gatherings with people from outside ones own household.
It did work, he said. I think people did in fact become more cognizant, and I think more deliberative and cautious in their behavior.
But a few days before Thanksgiving, Herbert eliminated all limits on informal gatherings, even 10-person limits that had been in place since mid-October in counties where transmission levels were high. In Thursdays news conference, Herbert likened such measures to gestapo tactics.
With Thanksgiving coming, I didnt feel like it was appropriate for us to say were going to have the police looking though your windows and seeing what youre doing in your home, he said.
Still, he noted, in the absence of the order, social gathering practices in Utah are not working well. While he said national research has shown Utah ranks in the middle of the 50 states for masking compliance, the state ranks 46th or 47th for social distancing.
And there appears to be immediate fallout from the apparent rise in contact after the emergency order was dismantled last week. The percentage of test results that come back positive has risen sharply in recent days, to 24.2% for the past week again approaching the record high after a two-week decline. State officials have said the higher the percentage of positive results, the likelier it is that a large number of infected people arent being tested and may be spreading the virus unwittingly.
Transmission is still definitely widespread throughout the state, state epidemiologist Dr. Angela Dunn said at the news conference. We likely dont understand the full impact yet of Thanksgiving on Utah.
The holidays impact on hospitalizations is even further away, with rising hospital admissions typically lagging behind rising diagnoses by seven to 10 days.
But hospitalizations already were rising sharply Thursday, with 597 Utah patients concurrently admitted, UDOH reported well above the previous record high of 575 patients.
In total, 8,548 patients have been hospitalized in Utah for COVID-19, 1,170 of those in the past two weeks.
The state has contracted with four long-term care facilities, at a cost of $700,000 per month, to care for some hospital patients, Herbert said.
Its a pressure release valve, he said, ... even though it may not be as good as what they might find in a hospital.
Dunn said Utah also has adopted new recommendations to align with quarantine guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention those exposed to COVID-19 can now quarantine for 10 days, instead of 14, and those who remain asymptomatic can test out of quarantine on the seventh day.
Thursday marked the end of the viruss deadliest 30-day stretch since the pandemic began in Utah, with nearly 300 deaths in the past month. Utahs death toll from the coronavirus stood at 917 Thursday, with 11 fatalities reported since Wednesday:
A Carbon County man, age 65 to 84.
Five Salt Lake County men, one older than 85 and four ages 65 to 84.
Two Utah County men, one age 45 to 64 and another age 65 to 84.
A Weber County man, older than 85.
A Weber County woman, age 45 to 64.
A Washington County woman, age 65 to 84.
There were 13,185 new test results reported Thursday, above the weeklong average of about 12,300 new tests per day.
Tell us about Utahs COVID-19 victims
The Salt Lake Tribune knows the identities of only a fraction of the Utahns who have died from the coronavirus. The rest are known only by those close to them.
We are asking families and friends to help us identify every Utahn who has died from the virus. Please email names and photos to coronavirus@sltrib.com.
Infection rates were the worst by far in Wasatch County, where one in every 54 residents had tested positive for the virus in the past two weeks the highest rate of any county in Utah at any time since the pandemic began. Wasatch County was followed by Sanpete, Utah, Washington, Cache and Morgan counties, where at least 1 in every 75 people had tested positive for the virus in the past two weeks meaning their cases are considered active.
Of the 98 small areas studied by health officials in Utah, only northern Orem had a higher infection rate than Wasatch County. The northern neighborhoods of Orem have had the states highest case rates since mid-October; as of Thursday, at least 1 in every 50 residents was diagnosed with an active case.
PIERRE, S.D. (KELO) South Dakota surpassed 1,000 deaths due to the coronavirus as 38 new COVID-19 deaths were reported in Thursdays update from the South Dakota Department of Health.
The death toll is now at 1,033. There have been 87 deaths reported in December. The new deaths were 19 men and 19 women with one listed in the 20-29 age range, one in the 40-49 age range, five in the 60-69 age range, six in the 70-79 age range and 25 people listed in the 80+ age range.
New deaths were reported in the following counties: Beadle (2), Brown (2), Bon Homme (1), Brookings (2), Buffalo (1), Butte (1), Codington (2), Douglas (1), Gregory (1), Hamlin (8), Hutchinson (1), Kingsbury (1), Lake (1), Meade (1), Minnehaha (4), Oglala Lakota (1), Potter (1), Sanborn (1), Spink (1), Todd (1), Tripp (1), Turner (2) and Yankton (1).
On Thursday, 1,145 new coronavirus cases were announced bringing the states total case count to 83,348, up from Wednesday (82,203). Total recovered cases are now at 66,841, up from Wednesday (66,351).
Active cases went up to 15,474 from Wednesday (14,857).
Current hospitalizations are at 538, up from Wednesday (531). Total hospitalizations are at 4,696, up from Wednesday (4,626).
Total persons tested negative is now at 251,349, up from Wednesday (250,337).
There were 2,157 new persons tested reported on Thursday. Thursdays new person tested positivity rate is 53%.
The latest 7-day all test positivity rate, reported by the DOH, is 13.8%. The DOH calculates that based on the results of the PCR test results but doesnt release total numbers for how many PCR tests are done daily.
Only six of South Dakotas 66 counties are not listed as having substantial community spread.
Coronavirus vaccines are just around the corner, but most people probably won't be able to get them until well into 2021.
Huge developments in the effort to create a COVID-19 vaccine mean the first group of people is on track to receive vaccinations against the coronavirus before the end of the year. On Wednesday, the UK approved Pfizer's vaccination for use, and the US is expected to follow suit. Modernahas also sought emergency FDA approval for its first doses of a similar type of vaccine.
The question is, who will get those first doses of vaccines and how long will you yourself have to wait to get vaccinated? Despitegovernment efforts to beef up the supplyof vaccine doses, simple math shows the size of the challenge. There areover 330 million peoplein the US, butPfizersays it expects to send the US 25 million doses, or enough to vaccinate about 12.5 million Americans, by the end of 2020 (two per person because you'll need a booster shot). That's roughly the populations of New York City and Los Angeles combined.
Keep track of the coronavirus pandemic.
Moderna says it will be able to make about 15 million vaccine doses at first, which can treat 7.5 million people (again, a series of two shots per person). The unfortunate reality is that most people in the USwill have to wait several monthsat least before they might have access to a coronavirus vaccine. Worse still, it could be a matter of years before everyone in the world can get vaccinated against COVID-19.
The answers as to who gets a priority immunization are becoming a little less hazy, but they're far from definitive. Here's what we know of the coronavirus vaccine rollout so far, as well as where you might fall in the priority list. And here's how much you might expect to pay for your COVID-19 vaccine.
This article was updated recently with new information, and is intended to be a general overview and not a source of medical advice.
Even after coronavirus vaccines are authorized, people will have to continue wearing masks and taking other preventative measures for months to come.
Frontline health care workers who are particularly at risk of being exposed to coronavirus -- likeroughly 20 millionUS doctors, nurses, lab technicians, EMT and hospital staff -- have long been at the top of the US priority list. Now that's nearly official.
An independent advisory panel that reports to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officially recommended on Dec. 1 that medical and emergency workers who are at the highest extended daily risk of acquiring COVID-19 should be first in line for a vaccine.
The panel also recommended that employees and residents of long-term care facilities -- more or less, nursing homes -- should also be part of the first batch of inoculations.
The director of the CDC, Dr. Robert Redfield, could decide as soon as this week whether to adopt the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices' decision as the agency's formal guidance. Ultimately, the decision on who gets first dibs on a COVID-19 vaccine belongs to state governors in consultation with their own public health experts, but states typically follow CDC guidelines, the New York Times reported.
Life probably won't be back to normal until late 2021 or 2022 at the earliest, which could mean regular temperature checks until the coronavirus is no longer a threat.
When the CDC advisory panel, ACIP, met last month in preparation for this week's vote, it identified a handful of other groups that committee members believed should get priority access to coronavirus vaccines while supplies remain limited.
Essential workers:Approximately87 million US workersprovide the basic goods and services we need to survive. Most can't work from home and many jobs require interacting with the public, so guarding against COVID-19 among this population would have a ripple effect across the whole country while also reducing critical service interruptions.
People with underlying medical conditions:Specifically, the100 million or so peoplewith conditions putting them at high risk for illness or death from COVID-19. Any disease affecting the lungs, but also anything that could compromise a person's immune system, like cancer or HIV, would be included.
Older adults: It's widely accepted that risk of severe complications from COVID-19 increases with age. The ACIP recommends theapproximately 53 millionUS adults age 65 and over be among the first to get vaccinated.
Some vaccines will require more than one dose to be effective.
The reality is that you should expect to wait. The top US infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci,told Good Morning Americain November that he expects "the ordinary citizen" should be able to get a vaccine by April, May or June 2021.
In the interim, you're still expected to adhere to pandemic safety practices like universal masking, avoiding crowds, maintaining social distancing and washing our hands even more than usual. That includes everyone; vaccinated and nonvaccinated alike (keep reading for more on what to expect).
Short answer: The first vaccine is expected soon and it looks like there will be more than one safe, effective type. Pfizer, which says its vaccine candidate is 95% effective at preventing coronavirus infections, is expected to produce the first COVID-19 vaccine to receive Food and Drug Administration authorization in the coming weeks. The company has already started shipping doses across the US.
Moderna isn't far behind with its reportedly 94% effective vaccine. Moderna is expected to receive FDA authorization sometime in December as well. Other vaccines from AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson are wrapping up late-stage trials, as well, while a fifth manufacturer, Novavax, is set to begin the final trial for its vaccine sometime this year.
Thegeneral consensus has been -- andcontinues to be -- that although the first COVID-19 vaccines will probably be approved in the US in a matter of days and weeks, they won't reach widespread distribution untilsometime in 2021. Until then, supplies are expected to be limited, which is partially why we will need multiple vaccines so that as many people can be treated as possible.
Normal life probably won't resume for a while, which could mean no sitting in waiting rooms until the coronavirus is no longer a threat.
"[The government] has plans to distribute vaccines within 24 hours after the ACIP gives its final approval," Paul Mango, a US Department of Health and Human Services official,told reporters in October, referring to the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which is the group that officially sets national guidelines for who should get vaccines once they've been authorized by the FDA.
Infection rates in the US are skyrocketing, with the seven-day rolling average nowover 150,000 new infections per day. Much of Europe has been locked down since early November. One of the key advisors on President-elect Joe Biden's COVID-19 task force, Dr. Michael Osterholm, has recommended a nationwide lockdown in the US for four to six weeks to help contain the rapidly spreading virus, although President Donald Trump said in November there would be no lockdown under his administration.
In other words, we're not out of the woods yet, especially as we get closer to winter, when coronavirus-related deaths are expected to continue surging. Experts agree that people who leave their households will need to continue to wear masks, avoid crowds, maintain social distancing and practice regular hand-washing until further notice.
Unfortunately, coronavirus vaccines aren't as simple as just taking a few pills.
Prior to 2009, older adults and patients with underlying health conditions typically topped lists of those who should get first dibs on a new vaccine because, for them, getting sick was more likely to be fatal. However, that line of reasoning began to shift after a2009 paper published in the journal Science suggested that health officials dealing with a limited vaccine supply could prevent far more people from getting sick and dying by vaccinating those who were most likely to transmit a given disease, rather than those at risk of getting the sickest.
That paper specifically addressed H1N1 -- aka the swine flu -- and generally dealt with seasonal influenza. In it, researchers identified the biggest demographic of flu spreaders as children aged 5 through 19. That'swhy the CDC now advises everyone aged 6 months and older to get a yearly flu vaccine. In the case of COVID-19, experts have identified health care workers on the front lines as the group most likely to catch and therefore spread the disease, which is why they will be among the first to receive vaccinations.
Whether or not COVID-19 vaccines are effective at stopping the spread of the coronavirus will depend a lot on how our bodies build immunity to the disease. Here's what we know so far about whether you can get COVID-19 more than once. Testing is also key to slowing the coronavirus' spread -- learn about a device that can produce COVID-19 test results in under 90 minutes. And read up on how all of these issues and more affectBiden's plan to fight COVID-19.
Now playing: Watch this: Will a COVID-19 vaccine be a triumph of science or soul-searching?
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The information contained in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as health or medical advice. Always consult a physician or other qualified health provider regarding any questions you may have about a medical condition or health objectives.
Bill Lang didnt get much of a break over Thanksgiving. Almost every day last week, the medical director at a high-end concierge medical practice, WorldClinic, heard from clients asking when a Covid-19 vaccine would be available.
Two patients even texted on Thanksgiving day. Since then, Ive had at least three texts or calls every day just asking, When do you think I can get a vaccine? said Lang, who is based in Washington, but also speaks with patients across the U.S. and internationally.
Athletes, politicians, and other wealthy or well-connected people have managed to get special treatment throughout the pandemic, including preferential access to testing and unapproved therapies. Early access to coronavirus vaccines is likely to be no different, medical experts and ethicists told STAT. It could happen in any number of ways, they said: fudging the definition of essential workers or high-risk conditions, lobbying by influential industries, physicians caving to pressure to keep their patients happy, and even through outright bribery or theft.
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The worst attempts to nefariously procure a vaccine may come a few months into distribution, once vaccines are available that dont require ultra-cold storage and local pharmacies and physician practices get allotments. There absolutely will be a black market, said bioethicist Arthur Caplan of New York University. Anything thats seen as lifesaving, life-preserving, and thats in short supply creates black markets.
At WorldClinic, which charges members $10,000 to $250,000 a year for 24/7 care, no patients have asked for special treatment and the clinic would not undermine its integrity by trying to secure vaccines unethically, said Lang, who was a White House physician during both the Bush and Clinton administrations. The optics of trying to jump the line would be so bad, they dont want to do that. But within the broader system, he added, some people will inevitably cut in line.
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Essential workers are expected to receive early access to the vaccine, and the definition of this category is open to interpretation by state health departments, creating a means for influential industries to lobby for priority. The devils going to be in the details of how the state runs their program, Lang said he tells his patients.
Members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), the federal panel recommending how to distribute the vaccines, want to prioritize essential workers to help ensure people of color, who are often the hardest hit by the virus, get early access. But the predominantly white workers in the financial services industry are also considered essential, according to guidance from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which was referenced by ACIP, as well as executive orders from several states including New York, Illinois, Colorado, and California. Public-facing bank tellers face contagion risks in their work, but arent the only financial services employees included.
It was left a little bit nebulous but basically covered people who oil the movement of money, so exchanges, trading floors, trading operations, and people who keep money moving at the retail [banking] level, said Lang. Theyre defined very broadly in New York and Illinois, because thats where so many of our financial services industries are based.
The concept of essential workers has already been tested during the pandemic, when Florida declared that World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) met the definition and could remain open during lockdown. The chairman of WWE, Vince McMahon, is friends with President Trump, while his wife, Linda McMahon, served in the administration and is chair of a pro-Trump super PAC. Neither WWE nor Floridas health department responded to requests for comment about whether WWE would be considered essential for the vaccine rollout.
Other powerful industries might be tempted to follow this example. The potential of industry lobbyists redefining what an essential worker is is a very strong possibility, said Glenn Ellis, a visiting scholar at the National Center for Bioethics in Research and Health care at Tuskegee University and a narrative bioethics fellow at Harvard Medical School.
Prioritizing essential workers is intended to give early vaccine access to those who provide a critical societal function and cannot socially distance easily, the Colorado health department said in a statement that acknowledged it can be difficult to write airtight rules. Given the thousands of different job descriptions in the state, it is impossible to come up with a complete list for every occupation for a specific vaccine phase. Vaccine providers will need to use their best judgment about which patients may qualify for vaccination during this phase.
The California health department confirmed financial services employees, including those needed to maintain orderly market operations, will have early access to the vaccine as essential workers, as will people in the news media, such as reporters. State health departments in New York and Illinois did not respond to requests for comment about whether those in financial services would receive a vaccine early.
Another opening that could be exploited to skip the line involves high-risk medical conditions that warrant early access to the vaccine. Smokers are within this group, according to ACIP, and people with conditions such as moderate-to-severe asthma and high blood pressure could also be included.
This leaves room for a doctor to, for example, portray a patients mild asthma as severe enough to justify early access to a vaccine, said Jonathan Cushing, head of major projects of the health initiative at Transparency International, a nonprofit focused on global corruption. The profit motives within U.S. health care make it particularly susceptible to such distortions, he said: Its a market-based economy. You as a doctor want to keep your clients coming back.
Given the need to protect patient privacy, Lang said he doesnt expect immunization sites to demand documentation of health risk factors. Instead, they will likely either ask patients to state that they have one of the relevant conditions, without disclosing details, or require physician certification, he said: A lot of that is left to a doctors judgment.
Exaggerating sickness is not a new phenomenon in the U.S. medical system. Insurance companies have portrayed Medicare patients as sicker than they really are, so as to receive higher government payouts. Similarly, physicians to wealthy patients could make sure theyre among the first to get the vaccines by fudging it in a way that would enable their clients to cut in line said Wendell Potter, former head of corporate communications at Cigna and current head of the nonprofit Center for Health and Democracy.
The U.S. health care system is generally designed to give preferential treatment to those with wealth and connections, ethicists said. When we talk about the concept of individuals being able to get to the front of the line, thats not difficult, because our system is designed to advantage those people with means like that, said Tuskegees Ellis. They dont have to really do anything sinister. All they have to do is access the system that they are a part of.
Powerful companies can leverage their connections with insurance companies to get access to shots quickly, for example. Some of the richest investment firms have their own mini health systems, so they can run vaccines through those doctors that give the physicals and maintain the health of the executives in the company, said NYUs Caplan.
GPS tracking on vaccine shipments will make it harder to pilfer shots en route, though not impossible. I have a lot of respect for the creativity of criminals, said Alison Bateman-House, a bioethicist at New York University Grossman School of Medicine. If someone can see a way to make good money off of driving a pallet of vaccines off in a forklift, Im sure somebody will figure out how to do it.
But bioethicists believe pharmacies, urgent care clinics, and doctors offices are among the most vulnerable points along the distribution chain. The state-line divides within the health care system make it especially vulnerable to abuse. Theres far less scrutiny of state legislative and regulatory bodies than at the federal level, said Potter. The fragmentation makes gaming the system easier and more likely.
Vaccine administration sites are subject to less scrutiny than vaccine shipments, agreed Hani Mahmassani, the director of the Northwestern University Transportation Center. Once this product is in the hands of the entities that are responsible for vaccination, and thats going to be your, sort of, your local entities, really, anything could happen. Vaccine administrators who accept bribes could face serious deterrents potentially including prosecution, he said, but the possibility cant be ruled out.
The supply of a high-demand, life-altering vaccine will never be completely protected from abuse.
Will there be people who do break the line? Yes, said Lang. Will family members of Congress somehow get immunized a little bit early? Who knows.
At a certain point, though, vigilance brings its own risks. If you add too many inefficiencies of checking and double-checking everyone, then you put so much bureaucracy into the program, you slow things down, he added.
The public shame of being caught should act as a deterrent, especially if the backlash is akin to what several Hollywood celebrities and wealthy parents faced following the 2019 college admissions bribing and cheating scandal, said Bateman-House.
I can promise you, no CEO wants to be on the front page of the newspaper for giving preferential access to his college roommate, she said. I think a few public naming and shamings would probably tamp down some activity.
Instilling a sense of public responsibility and solidarity is another way to deter malfeasance, said Cushing, though this is easier in theory than practice. Otherwise, he said, vaccine delivery should be clearly and transparently tracked, and there should be reporting mechanisms to flag abuse, ideally with state hotlines specifically focused on vaccine line-cutting.
Several bioethicists warned that the number of high-profile politicians, including President Trump, Chris Christie, and Ben Carson, who received early access to experimental Covid-19 treatments set a dangerous precedent. When that occurred, the general consensus, Caplan said, was a wink and a blink and a, Well, thats the way it is.
Following the vaccine rollout, the response to the wealthy and powerful cutting the line needs to be different and fierce, he said. Everybody has to condemn them: the media, your neighbor, your boss, everybody.
As Covid-19 vaccines start rolling out this month, Facebook has toughened its stance on vaccine misinformation about the coronavirus and will start to remove false claims from its platforms.
In a blog post Thursday, the social media giant said it will remove claims about the coronavirus vaccine that have been debunked by public health experts when they appear on Facebook and Instagram. Thats a change from the companys previous approach to posts about vaccines in general, which saw technological methods used to try to suppress dubious information in users feeds rather than completely removing the material.
Misinformation about the vaccines could lead to imminent physical harm, Facebook health chief Kang-Xing Jin explained in a blog post. This could include false claims about the safety, efficacy, ingredients or side effects of the vaccines. For example, we will remove false claims that COVID-19 vaccines contain microchips, or anything else that isnt on the official vaccine ingredient list. We will also remove conspiracy theories about COVID-19 vaccines that we know today are false: like specific populations are being used without their consent to test the vaccines safety.
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The stakes are high given Facebooks mammoth user base of more than 2 billion people. Covid-19 infection rates are soaring, with another record set in the U.S. on Wednesday and about one death being recorded each minute of the day. Infectious disease experts have warned that at least two-thirds of the population will need to be vaccinated in order for it to be effective.
Three vaccines have thus far reported high success rates in clinical trials, but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not yet granted approval. FDA backing, which is expected, should see the first doses being administered by the end of this month. Dr. Anthony Fauci, a leading U.S. health official, has estimated that average Americans will start to be able to get the vaccine by next April.
Jin warned that Facebook will not be able to start enforcing these policies overnight. As new research and results related to the vaccines emerges, he said, it will be factored into Facebooks policy of assessing posts on its platforms.
In Britain, the first shots will go to nursing home patients and those who care for them, followed by everyone over 80 and health care workers. From there, the program will be expanded as the supply increases, with the vaccine offered roughly on the basis of age groups, starting with the oldest people.
As America gears up for winter and an unconventional holiday season, the country is also ushering in a new chapter of the pandemic. Health experts are warning of a dark, difficult winter ahead, but vaccine developments have offered a sliver of hope. With COVID-19 vaccines making their way toward market approval, a number of difficult questions loom. Who should have access to the first available doses? What could potential distribution models looklike?
Guest:
Julie Rovner, Kaiser Health News chief Washington correspondent, says that part of the population could be vaccinated by the end of the year. Theres universal consensus that healthcare workers should be first in line to get the vaccine, says Rovner. She adds that teachers and the elderly could also receive vaccinations before the generalpublic.
The FDA is under pressure from the federal government to accelerate an emergency use authorization for the vaccines, but the agency is maintaining a cautious approach. There is considerable tension at the FDA between speed and safety scientists need time to go through data, says Rovner. After authorization is secured, officials will have to tackle the distribution and storage of the vaccine. Rovner says public health officials will also have to deploy a massive communications effort to combat vaccine hesitancy. Elvis Presley famously took the Polio vaccine when it first came out to try to convince the American public that it was safe the COVID vaccine got tangled up in politics so (officials) will have to overcome that, saysRovner.
This post was written by ClareBrennan
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There is still a lot of work to get the vaccines from the manufacturers to our healthcare providers, like hospitals and health departments, and then ultimately to each of us, Cooper said. We are a big state though, with rural areas that stretch for hundreds of miles. Every person is important and we will work hard to overcome the challenges that our geography presents.
