How Many Shots Have You Taken For Covid-19? An Empirical Study of the Yale Center for Infectious Disease Modeling and Analysis

At the moment, Covid-19 has caused more than 100 million cases and over one million deaths in the US. Just in the past week, there were 2,981 new deaths and 30,253 new hospital admissions, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

To determine exactly how much the shots have helped, researchers from the Commonwealth Fund and Yale School of Public Health created a computer model of disease transmission that incorporated demographic information, people’s risk factors, the dynamics of infection and general information about vaccination.

If you factor in the cases of long Covid that vaccines likely prevented, the savings may be much higher, according to Alison Galvani, one of the study authors.

“Given the emergency of highly transmissible variants and immune-evading variants like Omicron, it is a remarkable success and an extraordinary achievement,” said Galvani, founding director of the Yale Center for Infectious Disease Modeling and Analysis.

Don’t wait. Fauci is the chief medical adviser to President Biden and also the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease. “We’re entering the colder months of the late fall and the early winter. We’re all going to congregate with our families and friends for the holidays. If you are up to date, great. If you are not, get vaccinated now.”

The Covid-19 epidemic isn’t coming from familiarity: An update from the National Center for Diseases and Vaccines in the United States

The number of people living in areas that meet the CDC’s criteria for a “high” Covid-19 community is up from less than 5% last week but still well below levels of prior spikes. And at this level, the CDC recommends wearing a mask indoors.

Pharmacies are becoming significantly more popular than doctors offices among adults as they choose where to get the flu shot, and CDC data shows that the number of flu vaccines given in pharmacies this season is actually outpacing last year. It suggests that there are more opportunities to reach people who are less likely to have a primary care provider, Tan said.

There is a lot of vaccine fatigue out there. Asking people this year to get not just one vaccine but to get the annual influenza vaccine, as well as the Covid booster, has really been what I have called a hard sell,” said Dr. William Schaffner, medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases and professor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

“There’s the old saying, ‘familiarity breeds contempt.’ Well, perhaps that’s a bit strong, but familiarity does seem to breed a certain nonchalance,” he said.

“The public health message – and I think we did it very effectively – was, you can’t protect yourself against Covid right now, but you can definitely take flu off the table,” said LJ Tan, chief strategy officer for the Immunization Action Coalition and co-chair of the National Adult and Influenza Immunization Summit, nonprofits dedicated to improving vaccination coverage in the US.

But that double threat didn’t materialize. The past two years have been mild in terms of flu seasons, and people have let their guard down.

The messaging about the triple threat of viruses is not hitting in the same way. Hospitals are stretching their capacity to record levels, but it isn’t driving people to action.

“If it were a vaccine like measles, where it is really effective and it’s not repeated, it might be different,” Hackell said. The efficacy is less than dramatic, so it needs to be compared to flu vaccines, where there are a lot of controversy going on.

“I think there’s fatigue, moral injury, call it burnout on the part of providers as well. We’re not pushing it as hard,” said Hackell, who is also chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Practice and Ambulatory Medicine. It’s difficult to keep the conversations productive. I don’t know if there is enough time to have these long discussions when your office is packed with sick kids.

Only 1/3 of eligible people have received the updated Covid-19 Booster since it was authorized in the fall, according to CDC data.

There is some evidence that linking the two isn’t the best way to increase coverage rates.

“We give multiple vaccines to our kids at the same time, but we haven’t typically done that for adults,” said Tan, former liaison to the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee for the American Medical Association.

“Vaccines are essential for the health of our whole society, including children and adolescents,” said Dr. Sean O’Leary, chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Infectious Diseases and a vaccine adviser to the CDC. We all have a responsibility to ensure everyone has access to vaccinations in order to be healthy and prevent the spread of illnesses. These schedules provide a roadmap parents and pediatricians can follow to help children get the vaccines they need so their immune systems will be ready to recognize and resist diseases.”

The message might finally be sticking. At Walgreens locations, co-administration of the flu and Covid-19 vaccine is 70% higher this year than it was last year, according to data shared with CNN.

A Roundtable on Vaccines in Florida: Where Do We Stand, Where Are We, and How Should We Go From Here? Or How Do We Need to Look?

Four weeks ago, we were seeing continuous decline, but at least we have the uptick now. Even though I am sounding positive, I want to remind us all that we need to be better.

The Florida Gov. asked the supreme court to approve an investigation into any and all wrongdoing in the state regarding the Covid-19 vaccines.

The governor wants the empaneling of a grand jury to investigate a broad group of entities involved in the development, distribution and promotion of vaccines, including pharmaceutical manufacturers and their executives.

The public health integrity committee was launched on Tuesday by the congressman, who said it was a panel that would oppose the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The panel would evaluate guidance from federal agencies, including the US Food and Drug Administration.

DeSantis has made Covid-19 vaccine skepticism his calling card ahead of a potential run for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. The governor, who cruised to victory in his bid for a second term in November, is positioning himself to the right of former President Donald Trump, a potential rival who who was in office when the vaccine was developed.

There were announcements focused on vaccines led by the man. The Florida governor’s surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, during the roundtable pointed to examples of the vaccine causing myocarditis, inflammation of the heart, and said pharmaceutical companies need to provide more data to independent researchers so they can further study the side effects from vaccines.

We’ll tell this question. The CEOs of Pfizer and Moderna are up late at night, hoping no one will look at the question. But we’re going to look here in Florida,” Ladapo said during the roundtable.

Florida’s Biggest Budget Excesses in History of the State and the Birthplace of the Disease Control and Prevention: COVID-19 Vaccines

There are Covid-19 shots in the new vaccines schedule released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The immunization schedules summarize current vaccine recommendations for children, adolescents and adults, but do not set vaccine requirements for schools or workplaces.

“I kept this state open and I kept the state free, and we now have the biggest budget surplus in the history of Florida,” he said in an October debate against Democratic challenger Charlie Crist.

Cruise lines from Florida can’t require customers to be vaccine-free anymore, because of a block that was put in place by the congressman. In June, DeSantis touted Florida’s status as the only state not to preorder vaccines for children younger than 5.

At the same meeting, the vaccine advisory panel unanimously endorsed the agency’s proposal to adopt a single COVID-19 vaccination composition for primary and booster doses. Currently, people in the United States complete a primary COVID-19 vaccination series — at least two doses of the vaccines made by Pfizer–BioNTech, Moderna or Novavax, or a single jab of a Johnson & Johnson vaccine — all of which should then be followed by a booster two months later. For the booster, Pfizer–BioNTech and Moderna at first offered an extra dose of its original vaccine, but the companies now offer only ‘bivalent’ boosters, which include more than one strain of SARS-CoV-2.

But administering the jab before the winter surge could avert a rush of hospitalizations, noted Peter Marks, head of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research in Silver Spring, Maryland. In winter, clinics are swamped with people infected with influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), which led to some US hospitals nearing capacity this season.

Standardizing vaccine composition for the primary and booster series would probably mean that the bivalent vaccine would become the main formulation for people who haven’t yet had a primary series.

The United States, the United Kingdom, and other countries have been using bivalent boosters to target the strain of Omicron in the initial stages of the swine flu epidemic. The CDC data shows that people who got a single-strain booster were twice as likely to die from COVID-19 compared to people who got a bivalent booster. The chances of death from COVID-19 are still reduced by any booster.

The schedule recommends that people who are at an increased risk for exposure to the disease receive additional doses of the measles-mumps-rubel vaccine.

The CDC signed off on the recommended changes after they were recommended by vaccine advisers and the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

However, including Covid-19 vaccines on the routine schedule does not mean vaccination will be required by schools. The vaccine requirements for school entry are determined by the state.

There are new recommendations to use PCV15, a vaccine that was recently approved for use in children. Either PCV13 or the higher valent PCV15 may now be used based on the specific pediatric population.

If new cases occur in New York City, for example, the new recommendations give clear guidance on the use of an additional vaccine.

“There were lots of questions about whether an additional dose of polio vaccine was appropriate, and this just opens the door for the use of another dose of inactivated virus, that is injectable polio vaccine, in those circumstances where, for example, a local health department in concert with the CDC might recommend that,” said Schaffner, who is a member of CDC’s vaccine advisory committee.

Public health experts emphasize the importance of annual vaccinations as coverage among children has declined in recent years. The US Department of Health and Human Services in theHealthy People Project set a target of a 95 percent vaccination coverage for kindergarteners in the 2021- 2022, but it was not met.

The dip in vaccination coverage has been attributed to the health care disruptions caused by the Covid-19 Pandemic and healthcare providers are trying to return to pre-pandemic levels.

“Why is that a matter of concern? It means that there’s an opportunity for these infections and other germs to be reintroduced into the United States. The recently concluded measles outbreak in Ohio is an example, the introduction of the poliovirus into New York is an example, and we need to keep our guard up,” said Schaffner.