Iâm so used to sorting out our own positions on risk and exposure that Iâm neither waiting for this nor feeling particularly constrained or liberated by it, especially as all of our family here are already in a pod.
Vaccination of our elders is going to set of a flurry of travel, though. Pretty much all the grandparents, here and in CA will be finished with their vaccine regimens by mid April, and there will be travel back and forth. My brother and sister in law will also be vaccinated (got lucky on some extra doses, apparently), and also already had it anyway.
The concern factors are the ability of vaccinated people to transmit the disease (which is small) and the remaining risks (me, probably not inconsequential in my late 40s with asthma), and the very small but frightening possibility of one of the kids developing permanent damage.
Our plan right now is that weâll be easing up gently on our lockdown (the elders going back to shopping with masks, masks and care when travelling), but otherwise vaccinated people making trips back and forth.
The big âhold your breathâ moment will come when itâs time for the Ratel kit to enter kindergarten. Iâll be vaccinated by then, many, hopefully most adults will, but he wonât be.
Yep. My ASD boy is doing much better without the distractions of school which cause behavioral issues. My dyslexic but quite social daughter is suffering from having everything mediated by a screen and lack of social interaction.
Citation needed. Seniors in my family have been the absolute worst in terms of exposure, while the rest of us have been bending over backwards to minimize contact with others. Once these guidelines hit the news, weâll had a hard time convincing them not to run around even more, visiting everyone. If the risk is truly low, great. If not, yikes.
Just to give you another perspective: the Oxford vaccine is an âacademicâ vaccine, and one reason why we see many preliminary findings (and partly oversold ones) is due to the fact that many groups are involved, with every scientist working on it having an interest in getting their findings out ASAP, e.g. to secure more funding in the near future. As opposed to the tighter controlled press releases and studies published by the vaccine companies centralising their findings (like Pfizer/BioNtech) who have a central financial interest, and a more cautious approach on publishing because of this.
No, I am not. On the contrary. But I think your âcritiqueâ of the scientific output of Oxford is a broad overstatement. That you feel unfairly treated by me, when I point out that your statements are contributing to reservations against one specific vaccine, and may do so against vaccines in general, is unfortunate. I, too, stand by my statement. I asked quite kindly, and did not tell you to
I still would appreciate you take your general âcriticismâ of a âfiducary interestâ in research and tone it down, or take it to another topic. I would also appreciate if you reassess the possible reception of your verbiage and phrasing.
Sorry if you think I would be uncivil. I try not to be, especially on pandemic-related stuff.
I will not further engage you on this topic as I perceive you are quite aggressive about this. Have a good day.
Played clicking games for an hour yesterday and got an appointment tomorrow at a Rite-Aid crosstown. It seems like the national drugstore chains have new pages from last week; you can specify locations up to 100 miles away, and then click on a location to see available slots. Of course, there are no slots when you click, so you go back and try the next location, same, the next, same, then -oh! a calendar page! click, and all slots are filled, go back again.
So after I registered on the county page and called our family practice to leave a message on their COVID line, I played for a while on the different pages, and was on the last drugstore and getting bored when I hit the jackpot & got an open slot.
Iâll be masking and super-hygienic for a long time after getting my doses. I didnât get any colds or respiratory bugs this year, and I thank the masks for 50% of that (the other 50% is because I didnât spend time around other peopleâs children or people at the bar for karaoke.)
I consider that a problem. Maybe not a huge problem, but I trust research more when the researcherâs career is not contingent on the outcomes. Thatâs what state-funded academics, as opposed to industrial research, is supposed to provide.
(like Pfizer/BioNtech) who have a central financial interest
The point here though is that Oxford also has a central financial interest, including a 50% stake in the patent rights. And the embrasure of this kind of thing, especially in the UK where faculty have fewer tenure rights, is leading to issues, for example this current case at Liverpool where productive, funded faculty are facing redundancies because their funding is not large enough.
I think it is important, for the future of independent research at universities, to point out when this corporatization can lead to conflicts of interest. So when someone (not me!) first posted in this thread about the Oxford deal, I was concerned; and when someone (not me!) posted a link to a not-peer-reviewed science-by-press-release announcement of some results I responded. Maybe another thread would be more appropriate, but discussions of announcements about Covid seem appropriate to this thread. Meanwhile, I donât think a thread on BB is going to have much impact one way or the other on penetration of the vaccine.
Apropos of my last post, Science Vs. this week had a nice survey of recent studies on things that purport to boost the immune system and help fight Covid. (This includes the Vitamin D that we were discussing here last year.) (The short answer is that it is mainly rubbish. But the podcast is worth a listen.)
That doesnât exist. The term âpublish or perishâ exists for a reason. Feel free to rail against it, but that is the reality for most academic researchers and thus for most research. And that is a discussion for a different topic (as @LutherBlisset said) because thatâs not specific to COVID or itâs vaccines.
I find it surprising that you claim an expertise above regarding academic publishing but also seem unaware that FDA functionally requires the manufacturer of drugs and devices to sponsor the clinical studies that back up their approval. If you question Oxfordâs involvement in this study, then that applies to every single approved drug and medical device where the regulatory body required a study, not just this vaccine. Again, if your issue is with that process then you should create a thread to discuss it rather than clog up this one with those general concerns. If your issue is with this specific vaccine and study, I would expect you to bring very specific evidence to raise a concern about it rather than just a general concern about financial incentives in clinical research.
This isnât about the FDA-approved studies for vaccine approval, but about a different paper, which someone (else) linked in this thread, with different claims. If it is not thematic in BB threads to point out that a linked study about X is sponsored by the company producing X, thatâs good to know. If that belongs in its own thread, then thatâs also good to know.
We will have to see the details when that paper is published, but given the timeframe I sincerely doubt it is a separate study but rather a sub analysis of the ongoing clinical study used for the approval. Unless it is truly a prospectively separate study from the large-scale clinical, my point remains that it is the only study that is being currently done on that vaccine.
And disparaging it beforehand by association is particularly egregious.
If youâre a liberal who lives in a rural community in a deep red state and you qualify for a covid shot, now is the time to get it
South Carolina health officials said they noticed demand was waning at some vaccine sites â and, as a result, lowered the age eligibility for the shots from 65 to 55 starting Monday.
âReports here and there from around the state, not everywhere, indicate vaccine appointments have not been filling, so this was the time to do this," said Nick Davidson, senior deputy for public health at the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control.
As of 4 p.m. Friday, all 33 Louisiana CVS stores that are offering vaccines had dozens of open Saturday appointments for covid vaccines.
Two-thirds of the 80 participating CVS stores in South Carolina had openings. About half of the 56 CVS stores in Alabama administering vaccines still had availability.
The plants are fighting back
