That may be the trouble, or they may be just looking at vaccines likely to be distributed in the US. Would have definitely preferred the same article from Ars Technica…
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State officials have not provided any reasons for the cuts to Pima’s vaccine allotment.
This is just what Republicans are.
“This is disturbing,” Bronson said. “We’re hoping we can get some answers about the metrics that the state uses, and get help from our federal partners, as to why we’re getting reduced dosages.”
Part of the “dump it in the states” strategy is precisely knowing that red states will use their power to hurt and even kill people in blue cities, while blue states will not do the same to red rural areas.
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From personal experience, I know that it is taken for long terms as prophylaxis against malaria.
I would never recommend this without thinking about interactions and side effects, though. I’ve seen multiple side-effects, and have dealt with gross incompetence of medical professionals prescribing doxy. Which did great harm to one of my interns, on a three-months field trip in the remotest parts of West Africa.
One thing I did not know and learned from your post is that it has anti-inflammatory properties. Interesting.
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To add something I did not mention above, which is really, really, really important: the vaccines do not guarantee 100 % immunity, as I hope everyone is aware. So, to stop the spread of the virus and to end this fucking nightmare of a pandemic, vaccinated people must still wear masks, avoid all social gatherings, keep about 2 m distance, properly ventilate indoor spaces, and wash their hands often and properly.
If you can, please inject this information in any IRL and online discussion you have with anyone who got their jab already. It is critically important to get this virus under control.
ETA: that goes for everyone, and was not specifically addressed towards @smulder. 
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None of this should come as a surprise, but just to be clear and blunt, in the best of situations white people have easier access to medical care than all other groups, and that applies to covid vaccines as well. Add on to this some places (looking at you Arizona) seem to be intentionally shorting supplies meant for areas with higher minority, and hence more democratic, populations. Racist or political motivation doesn’t much matter, but of course, probably both.
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Grim, and a reminder of why “First World” nations need to support vaccination in less wealthy nations.
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This phenomenon extends beyond public health personnel. I have a number of colleagues who are strongly considering or have already moved to nonclinical positions or retirement. Being confronted by belligerent and “(mis)informed” patients and families wears on you over time. It has been a year and no end in sight, this will be really hard to recover from afterward.
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Even without that it’s been a dreadful year. Out health system was criminally underfunded and understaffed and overwork is rampant. This last year has been horrific. And even if you weren’t anywhere near Covid.
I’ve been listening to podcasts particularly from women in health care (and already women get burnt out and leave/get off promotion track in their 30s to have children and that’s an absolute scandal and a waste) and it’s hard out there.
I had cause to be on to a totally overwhelmed Covid ward and that was hell on earth.
A doctor was saying to me the other day that it was hard giving bad news with masks on. And that the testicular cancer referrals last year in his hospital were about half what they should have been and instead people are presenting much later than they normally would which is very worrying.
Look I could rent all day about this (one newspaper ran a headline about how much overtime pay junior doctors were getting. I responded with a complaint that the real headline was JDs were dangerously, unhealthily overworked), but we need to change some stuff when we come out of this.
Value our nurses, and doctors, resource our public health professionals, have enough consultants. Make healthcare survivable and not something that leaves a significant proportion of burnt out husks in its wake. Don’t make our highly skilled and expensively trained professionals have to emigrate for terms and conditions.
Also childcare needs a radical overhaul and to be taken as a municipal concern.
Quit fucking whining about teachers. It’s a real job unlike financial services.
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New Zealand isn’t in a rush for vaccines. What must that be like?
From frequent chats with immediate family, it’s very nice. It seems that “crushing the virus into non-existence”, whilst a painful shock to the economy for the first two months, has left them pretty much able to return to normal promptly. Except, of course, for the closed borders thing.
The tourism industry is being helped immensely by an internal tourism promotion campaign. The “quarantine hotel” is a de facto lifeline to the hotel and restaurant industry, as travellers who do arrive are being distributed throughout the country for a two week internment.
Had a Jacinda Ardern been elected by our Southern Cousins or even the 
as their leader, then in 
we’d likely have had our leaders in the stocks in September for their mismanagement of the whole situation. Instead, our pathetic response and general failure look like success.
I’ll except the Atlantic Provinces, which locked down and put up a border travel ban early on, and really did have success.
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Yes, four months max for malaria, three for acne. I was using “long-term” to mean indefinitely.
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My take on this disease is that it messes up the vasculature for life, and in addition, about 5% of people also have dramatically bad short-term outcomes. And, frankly, it’s the 95% part that I find much scarier.
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The BBC piece mentions sterilising immunity. It is apparently quite unlikely that sterilising immunity can be developed against Corona viruses, as Christian Drosten recently mentioned in the still ongoing german-language Coronavirus Update podcast. He’s one of the world’s experts on this family of viruses, so I take his word for this.
That, combined with the still continuing WDKS state of affairs in regard to long-term effects of SARS-CoV-2 is really, really important to grasp. If we want to avoid extremely high costs, we need to keep wearing masks, etc.
I’m writing “costs” there because, usually, everyone who is opposed to non-pharmaceutical interventions, i.e. everything which intrudes into your personal behaviour and probably into your rights, is open to the “but the costs” type of arguments. Sorry for being cynical about that, but it’s the economy, gone stupid.
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No vaccine “completely eliminates” the possibility of infection. None. The efficacy varies, from 95+% for measles to 78% or so for mumps to <50% for the flu vaccine some years, but all have the effect of decreasing carriage and transmission. Considering that we are dealing with humans and their weird-as-hell immune responses, there is unlikely that there will ever be anything that will be 100% effective for anything, so we settle for effective enough. This is why you hear about 75% or 90% or whatever of a population needing to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity. it’s a calculation that is actually pretty complicated, factoring immune response to vaccine, degree of transmissibility of the virus and other factors, but it has told the tale with many other vaccines and illnesses, and I will trust it to do the same here. For now, that X% that will get vaccinated and still transmit the disease accounts for needing to get the vaccine and continue wearing a mask, social distancing and etc. It kinda sucks, but it is what needs to happen.
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Agreed. Shaking hands, hugging, and face-kissing strangers and acquaintances needs to be over, permanently. Which sucks; I’m a hugger. But if we’re going to stay clear of this thing long term, it’s a fundamental change that has to happen.
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Best of luck: the hugs > deaths crowd have already declared “vaccine = par-TAY!”
For me the hard part is going to be taking a year of major sacrifices (don’t get me wrong, I’m lucky to be able to make them) and then having to choose which roll of the dice to stake them on. Worst is that my son, who turns five in the summer, will most likely see the highest exposure, while probably being the only one of us not vaccinated when kindergarten begins.
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