StrangeSox

The top 10 are 1 New Zealand 2 Vietnam 3 Taiwan 4 Thailand 5 Cyprus 6 Rwanda 7 Iceland 8 Australia 9 Latvia 10 Sri Lanka The US is ranked 94th and the UK 66th

This guy with Shaw media does a good thread every day on the IDPH's press conference/data releases. Daily state number updates, then vaccine numbers, and then region-by-region info.

Mostly good Moderna news too. I'm running under the assumption that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are basically interchangeable given they're the same platform targeting the same spike protein in the same way, just with slightly different wrappers. https://investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/news-release-details/moderna-covid-19-vaccine-retains-neutralizing-activity-against posted:

What about nurses, CNA's, reception, security, and other frontline people exposed to COVID patients in medical settings?

Schools are using school nurses to deliver shots to staff. But the states are just dumping a handful of doses on districts and telling them "hey, figure it out yourself." It all started with the complete and utter failure of the federal government, but just about every state is compeltely failing and abdicating responsibility as well. Why the hell is it up to school superintendents, who have zero public health background, to determine if/when their schools should be open and the vaccine priority and distribution for their schools? Why is Linconl-Way having to develop vaccination plans and submit them to the local health departments? https://patch.com/illinois/newlenox/lincoln-way-districts-submit-vaccination-plans-health-dept Anyway, wonder what you'd see if you overlaying these maps with demographic and poverty heat maps ?

That FG by the Packers was such a baffling play call. You either: try for a TD on 4th down in the red zone and need the 2pt conversion to tie. if you fail the 2pt, you need a stop and a FG. if you fail to get the TD, you need a stop and a TD. or you kick the FG, need a stop and a TD anyway

Dr. Murphy on WGN this morning was pretty livid about how much of a shitshow this all is. Zero planning, zero coordination, nobody knows where/how/when to get shots. Nobody in charge at any level taking responsibility. Absolutely pathetic rollout from the US federal government on down. e: segment, if anyone wants to watch https://wgntv.com/morning-news/i-would-go-to-any-possible-place-you-can-go-to-get-the-vaccine-dr-murphy-answers-viewer-covid-19-questions-1-25/

We have done this before, though: https://magazine.uc.edu/issues/0408/on_campus.html But unfortunately most of our public institutions have been increasingly hollowed out since at least the 80's. A slight majority of vaccines are still sitting on shelves in freezers right now. Check the "% supply used" map. Things do seem to be picking up slowly, though. https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-global-distribution/

My wife's district started this week with the custodial staff. Otherwise, hell, random lottery if it means the line moves fast rather than slow/not at all.

Problem is we have an action-movie like race to see how many people we can get vaccinated before the superspreading variant(s) take hold by March. The situation in LA county right now is pretty dire. If the UK, SA, and Brazil/Japan variants really do kick up R0 by .4-.7, we're all going to be in bad shape again well before we make a significant dent with vaccinations. Indoor dining and drinking reopened in Region 7 today, though.

Concerning signs of antibody evasion in lab conditions, but it remains to be seen what the impact is in actual bodies with t-cells and other immune system components.

CVS and Walgreens are sitting on millions of doses across the country and can't be bothered to speed things up, which holds the line up for everyone. My father-in-law runs a level of local government in Illinois and offered up his building to the county health department as a vaccination clinic site in December. Today's the first day they started. West Virginia is the only state that didn't partner with CVS/Walgreens because there aren't many there. Instead, they relied on existing partnerships with local pharmacies, and they're leading the country. They have 0.9 long-term care/nursing homes per every pharmacy that's vaccinating. Walgreens and CVS have 25.

Public health policy is inherently a political decision, though. It's the balancing of a variety of public interests. The determination of what's important and how important it is is political. The decisions are made by politicians or their appointees. You can say it shouldn't be partisan, and I'd agree with that. But public policy will always include a degree of politics within it. I know this is a little pedantic but I think it's important to recognize when there's an element of political decision-making to something that can't ever really be removed.\ edit: this is a big part of it, too. You can't address a public health crisis with individual-focused efforts.

Tear up the contracts with cvs and walgreens Only 25% in Texas https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/around-25-of-cvs-walgreens-vaccines-for-texas-long-term-care-facilities-have-been-administered/amp/?__twitter_impression=true 5% in Mississippi https://khn.org/news/article/cvs-and-walgreens-under-fire-for-slow-pace-of-vaccination-in-nursing-homes/amp/?__twitter_impression=true I'd sure hate to be under the government of one of those shithole "third world" countries and their incompetent management of this pandemic!

Public health is inherently political and requires strong political action from our government.

Countries like Vietnam with significantly less wealth and resources are far outpacing the US, in fact!

Minor anecdotal, but the CVS near me had about a dozen cargo containers in the parking lot that weren't there last week. Seems to be some sort of prep for wider distribution.

Don't forget when the states were having to run diversion missions and source their own PPE clandestinely because the feds kept seizing their shipments and then doing who the hell knows what with it. Countries with far fewer resources have done much better than the US. The US has been one of the worst responses to this anywhere on the planet, doubly so when you consider it's also the richest country to have ever existed.