India vaccine procurement compared to other countries

Prasanta Kumar Dutta and Manas Mishra reporting for Reuters on the slow rollout of Covid-19 vaccinations in India:

Compared to many Western countries, India was late in procuring vaccines. Modi’s government placed the first advance order for an unapproved vaccine only this month, after being criticised for being slow. Countries including the United States and Britain signed orders last year.

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Visualizing risk of Johnson & Johnson vaccine side effect

As the Johnson & Johnson vaccine pauses in the United States, Philip Bump for The Washington Post offers a quick visualization that shows 100 vaccinations per second. A red one appears if there’s a side effect. But because the side effect is rare, currently at 1 in 1.1 million, the red dot on the visualization likely never appears as you watch. The blue dots are potential lives saved if the J&J vaccine continues.

I’m reminded of David Spiegelhalter’s video on understanding risk from over a decade ago. So many everyday activities carry risk. The only way we get through the day is not to avoid all risk, which is impossible, but to figure out what risk we’re willing to take.

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Vaccine efficacy rates explained

Vox explains efficacy rates and why the best vaccine is the one you get now:

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Vaccine efficacy rates explained

Vox explains efficacy rates and why the best vaccine is the one you get now:

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When the U.S. could be vaccinated

For Reuters, Feilding Cage, Chris Canipe and Prasanta Dutta made an interactive that lets you adjust dose rate and state in a simulation to get an estimate for when we might reach herd immunity.

As with any simulation, there are assumptions and simplifications. In this case, the dose rate stays uniform and total population is used, even though there are no vaccines available to children yet. But it’s something.

My main takeaway is that we’re gonna have to be patient (still).

Just speaking to the chart, I like the sketch-ish dashed lines and gradient to show herd immunity ranges. They communicate that things are still uncertain.

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Even with vaccine, probably shouldn’t rush into easing up on restrictions

With vaccines, we might be tempted to jump back into “normal” life before it’s really safe. The New York Times reports on why waiting until March instead of February might be the way to. This is based on estimates from Columbia University researchers, and you can read the preprint here (pdf) by Jeffrey Shaman et al.

We’ve come this far already…

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Defining “essential worker” to distribute vaccine

Matthew Conlen, in an article by Abby Goodnough and Jan Hoffman for NYT, charted essential and frontline workers by industry.

With limited doses, states have to decide who gets the vaccine after healthcare workers and the most vulnerable elderly. You’ve probably heard mentions of essential workers to be next in line, but under the CDC’s definition, 70 percent of workers are essential.

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Vaccine contracts

Bloomberg is tracking nine coronavirus vaccines around the world. In addition to the approval process, they’re also tracking the procurement and distribution from companies to countries. Billions.

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Your place in the vaccine line

Using estimates from the Surgo Foundation and Ariadne Labs, Stuart A. Thompson for NYT Opinion shows how many people are in front of you to get the coronavirus vaccine. Just enter your age, if you’re an essential worker, and the county you live in for an idea of where you are.

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Vaccine tracker

As we know, it typically takes years to develop a vaccine that is approved for wide scale use. For the coronavirus, researchers are trying to speed up that timeline. Jonathan Corum and Carl Zimmer for The New York Times have started a vaccine tracker to keep watch.

They’ve categorized the vaccines by phase and those that are part of Operation Warp Speed. (Earmarked for later: a closer look at government program names.)

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