In Phase 1b, how do you prove that you are a defined essential worker in the defined categories?

Earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced he will sign an Executive Order increasing penalties on health care providers who intentionally disregard the state’s vaccine prioritization protocols. Under the new Executive Order, providers who knowingly administer the vaccine to individuals outside of the state’s prioritization protocols may face penalties up to $1 million, as well as revocation of all state licenses. Additionally, certification of vaccine recipients will now be mandatory as part of the State’s vaccination process. This action comes following reports of a provider, ParCare Community Health Network, apparently obtaining and administering the COVID-19 vaccine by flouting state guidelines. The Governor has already directed the Department of Health and State Police to investigate the matter and the case has been referred to the office of Attorney General Letitia James.

Source: Video, Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo Issues Executive Order Increasing Penalties on Health Care Providers That Intentionally Disregard Vaccine Prioritization Protocols | Governor Andrew M. Cuomo

For example, how do you prove you are a prioritized agriculture worker for phase 1b?

Think about that for a moment. Who is an agriculture worker?

Separately, California’s Governor Newsom says that health care providers will lose their license if they “skip the line” – and says it is developing a “vaccine distribution enforcement plan”.

Continue reading In New York, vaccine recipients must provide “certification” proof of eligibility to receive vaccination →

I’m so old, I remember posting this a week ago:

• 15 days to flatten the curve!
• Oh, may be a month
• Two months
• Okay, at least 3 months
• Well, until a vaccine is available
• Wait, we do not trust vaccines – need to evaluate it ourselves, says Oregon
• It is a mystery why people say they will not get vaccinated…

And then a week later, the Governor of Pennsylvania issued this on Twitter – note lower right box:

This information comes from the CDC ACIP recommendations updated on December 20, 2020. The suggested dates, in parenthesis, are my estimates based on best available information. See here for my original analysis and expectations on vaccine availability.

These are CDC recommendations – each state may set its own priorities and schedules so this could be different depending on where you live. In addition, vaccines are allocated to states by their percentage of the U.S. population. Because the “prioritized groups” in 1a, b and c are not distributed randomly across the states, some states will end up with more vaccine than is necessary to meet their 1a, 1b and 1c goals – while others will end up with too little. Thus, the date you become eligible can vary considerably based on the state you live in. 

See CDC ACIP PPT slide 10.

Vaccine Allocation Planning Model.

Phase 1a (24M) (Dec to Feb/Mar)

• Health care workers and the institutionalized elderly.

Phase 1b (49M) (Feb/Mar to Spring)

• 30 M “front line workers” in specific occupations – meat plants, food and agricultural jobs, grocery stores, prisons, transit/transport, manufacturing, teachers, USPS workers, police/fire/EMS.
• 19M adults age 75 and older

Phase 1c (129M) (Spring to Summer)

• Adults 65 and older
• Adults 16 to 64 with high risk conditions
• “Essential workers” including media, construction, non-teaching education staff, daycare, finance, IT, public safety engineers (assume this means government employed engineers only), “legal” sector, food service, energy and logistics (shipping). Oddly does not include general “retail” front line workers.

Total: Up to 202 million people

No recommendation yet for Phase 2 categories to reach the remaining 126 million people in the U.S. Additionally, no vaccine has yet been approved for children under age 16 (this is expected in the summer of 2021). 

As of December 20th, the U.S. had publicly disclosed contracts for delivery of vaccines to 150 M by June 30th. The news reports say the estimated numbers in each group have removed overlap between groups. 

Update December 23, 2020

The US announced it has reached an agreement with suppliers for doses for an additional 35 M by June 30th and 15M more by July 31st. This brings the total to 200M by end of July, enough doses for 2/3ds of the U.S. population. This tends to confirm the estimated times lines above – mid to late summer before we start giving vaccinations to the general public.

The US Secretary of Health and Human Services assumes that a very large percentage of the U.S. population does not want to get a vaccine

“This new federal purchase can give Americans even more confidence that we will have enough supply to vaccinate every American who wants it by June 2021,” Azar said in a statement Wednesday.

By June 30th, we now have doses available for 185 M for the 202 M in the Phase 1a, 1b and 1c groups.  Obviously, HHS is now hoping that fewer people want the vaccine while Fauci is simultaneously saying 75 to 85% need to take the vaccine. More inconsistencies in public health.

How Will You Know When it is Your Turn?

Or conversely, how can you “prove” to a provider that you fall into one of the groups 1a, 1b or 1c? This is not obvious.

The NY Times notes that Belgium will mail an “invitation” letter to residents when it is their turn. This of course assumes that the government can know your personal situation.

At this point, I doubt I will be vaccinated until the Fall of 2021. There are far too many inconsistencies in the statements and numbers for public health to meet their publicly stated delivery goals – and many of us will be among the last persons in the nation eligible to receive a vaccination.

Continue reading CDC announces priorities for vaccinations in Phase 1a, 1b and 1c →

It looks like first availability of vaccinations is not until summer of 2021.

What does that mean for when life returns to normal?

First availability means the start of vaccinating several tens of millions of people, which will take time.

• Dr. Fauci says, as an illustration, that large sporting events may not be possible (or permitted) until the end of the summer. Or longer, as he suggests we must vaccinate up to 85% of the population before we hold large events suggesting most large, outdoor events would be postponed or canceled through the summer of 2021.
• When you have an epidemic, the first person to call is a software developer: Bill Gates says the next six months to be the worst. He says “summer” will be “way closer to normal” – but big public gatherings will be restricted – and restrictions may continue for up to 9 more months in to 2022.
• The U.S. has apparently contracted for delivery of enough vaccine to vaccinate up to about 200 million people, to be delivered by end of June or July of 2021. This, combined with Dr. Fauci’s comments, implies life does not return to normal until late 2021. (Have done more research and it seems that enough vaccine for 175 to 225 M people might be delivered to the U.S. by early summer of 2021.)
• The music industry thinks outdoor performances will return at some point in the summer of 2021.
• The Portland entertainment venue industry thinks they may not be able to re-open until fall of 2021.
• Pennsylvania suggests not resuming normal life until late 2021 and masks will remain mandatory until the end of 2021.
• In a large survey of epidemiologists, many, maybe most, think life returns to mostly normal during the summer of 2021, but several say we will need to wear face masks for “years” and some even say “forever”.
• The pandemic may end on its own before the widespread availability of public vaccinations.
• Another wild card is the possibility of effective treatments for Covid-19; if available, that would change much.

Based on the above, these are the possible scenarios:

1. Life returns to mostly normal at the end of summer of 2021
2. The pandemic ends on its own by mid-2021
3. Effective treatments become available, bringing most restrictions to an end
4. The public says to hell with it and gets on with life.
5. Some public health and political officials have implied we must reach for zero new cases and zero new deaths but that is a feat we have not achieved with influenza – and life goes on anyway. Once public health pushes this, we end up at #4.

I have canceled all travel plans through June of 2021 and am 50:50 on an outdoor event in late July. My guess is the organizers of the event may choose, by early spring, to postpone the event to end of August or end of September, based on better information by early spring of 2021.

Idiotic virtue signaling to the max:

Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi and Jon Stewart have a pandemic-year message for fellow New Jerseyans: “Wear a friggin’ mask!” The famous trio — faces covered — appear on a New Jersey Turnpike billboard as part of the state’s #MaskUpNJ campaign, according to a tweet from New Jersey First Lady Tammy Murphy. “Teamed up with

Source: Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi and Jon Stewart to fellow New Jerseyans: ‘Wear a friggin’ mask!’ – KTVZ

According to COVIDcast, 97% of New Jersey residents are already wearing a mask. This is nothing more than virtue signaling devoid of reality. Idiots. There’s no one left to “Wear a friggin mask!”

It also contributes to the false belief that cases are rising because – must be so! – people are not covering their faces. As long as we pursue this false problem, we will not identify the real cause and address that.

Continue reading 97% already are: “Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi and Jon Stewart to fellow New Jerseyans: ‘Wear a friggin’ mask!’ “ →

Does this mean the CDC is saying that face masks did not work to prevent the spread of Covid-19 as cases exploded since then?

Despite President Trump’s very public resistance to mask-wearing for much of this year, a newly released survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that a vast majority of Americans of all ages have been wearing face coverings since April.

….

For example, Pew Research reported in August that 85 percent of 13,200 adults they surveyed said they wore masks in stores, up from 65 percent in June.

Source: Most Americans have been wearing masks since spring, the C.D.C. says. – The New York Times

COVIDcast from CMU estimates 90% in my state since September, reaching 95% in November.

I’m so old, I remember last August when the CDC Director said if just 95% of Americans wore face masks, this pandemic would over with in weeks.

We’ve now done the experiment – and cases exploded in number, an order of magnitude greater in some cases.

FYI I am heretic for asking why face masks are not working. As best I can tell, it is apparently against local, state and Federal law to note this discrepancy, will get me suspended on Twitter and Facebook, and canceled everywhere else.

Heh – this “fact check” about whether face masks work or not seems to prove the opposite of the headline … read the whole thing.

Advice to all children – you have a Fifth Amendment right to remain silent and not answer their questions:

Next week, when children return to school, their regular daily health checks will include questions about whether they attended gatherings outside their households, Gov. Phil Scott said Tuesday.

Any students who attend events with more than just their immediate household will be required to take online classes for a two-week quarantine period, or to quarantine for a week and then have a negative COVID-19 test, Scott said.

Source: Vermont schools will ask students if they celebrated at home

Asking children to snitch on their families is appalling – and then punishing the children for issues outside their control. Gov. Phil Scott is being a jerk.

Continue reading Appalling: Vermont demands school children snitch on their parents and will punish children for actions the child cannot control →

https://twitter.com/OHAOregon/status/1329872327622889473

Over the past few weeks, the number of tests given has increased by 60%.

As best I can tell, Oregon previously calculated the percentage positive value as:.

• Positive test results / number of people tested.

Because many people are tested more than once and receive multiple positive test results, this had the effect of dramatically increasing the state’s positive test percentage by about a factor of 2!

Now, OHA will calculate the percentage using:

• Positive test results / number of tests given.

Of course, this produces a lower result. Oregon will now calculate percentage positive in the same way that the CDC and other states have done this.

Based on population per state, the number of new Covid-19 cases occurring in the past week is about the same in states with mask mandates and those without mask mandates.

Source: Memo To Joe: COVID Is Skyrocketing In States That Already Have Mask Mandates – Issues & Insights

A problem with this analysis is that it ignores the time dimension, as remarked on this blog, many times. States that did poorly in the past seem to do better in the present and states that did “everything right” in the past are now doing poorly. Because the virus spreads unequally in time – not all places have the same outcomes at the same time. The above analysis only looks at the past 7 days.

Their point is that face masks appear to have a minor affect and Biden’s claim that a national face mask mandate would change things is not supported by evidence.

Continue reading Covid cases rising almost equally in states with and without mask mandates →