How many doses of the several available vaccines against SARS-CoV-2, the cause of covid, are available?
You would think that when people call for sending vaccines to India or to make them more available generally around the world, they would check that number. You would be wrong.
Searching brings up a number of references to “doses expected to be available,” but actual numbers from the production plants (and how many of those are there?) are not easy to find.
You would think that journalists would want to check these numbers before making statements like “America is awash in vaccines.” You would be wrong. I have not seen a single one quote numbers. Journalists are supposed to get facts like this to us.
Yesterday Dr. Tom Frieden, now President and CEO of Resolve To Save Lives and a former director of the CDC, wrote a Twitter thread with a link to those numbers and other important facts.
The Global Commission for Post-Pandemic Policy provides production numbers.
Total monthly production (April 1 – April 26) was 415,769,587 doses. The first billion doses have been given. The world population is 7.8 billion, requiring roughly 15 billion doses. (I’m using round numbers, don’t pick at them.) That’s fourteen billion more needed, which will require 34 months to manufacture at the present rate.
In that light, let’s look at what Frieden has to say. I am pulling tweets selectively. The whole thread is worth reading.
Vaccines will not crush the pandemic in the short term if there were enough of them, which there aren’t. Time delays are built into all aspects of the pandemic – time from infection to symptoms, more time to hospitalization and death; time to build or refit vaccine factories, time to get the vaccines to people, time for the vaccines to build immunity. If the entire population of India were vaccinated tomorrow, sickness and death would continue for months.
The most immediate action, for all of us, yes even privileged white American men who have been vaccinated, is to wear masks and continue social distancing.
I’m leaving out most of what he says about variants. It looks like the m-RNA vaccines are protective against them, and if not, can be made to be. The media love to scream THE MUTANTS ARE COMING, and that is one more of their disservices.
Cross-posted to Nuclear Diner
Barbara
Yes, I read whatever article used the term “awash” and gave up on trying to comment. It’s still hard to schedule a vaccine appointment within an hour of your home inside the beltway. I want the US to help the rest of the world but I want these blowhards pointing fingers to explain which American residents should be expected to wait longer or forgo vaccination. Three months ago we were the global epicenter of Covid, and looking at states like Michigan we could easily regress.
smith
I keep seeing a lot of rather simplistic thinking about how the vaccines will get us from here to there. It seems that a lot of people look at the steps this way:
1. Get vaccinated
2. Throw mask away
3. Party!
And when public health officials tell them to keep masking and distancing they act as if some important promise has been broken. They’ve been told clearly that there are more steps, but they persist in leaving some out.
This is what it really looks like:
1. Get vaccinated
2. Wait while another 200M+ people here get vaccinated. And also make much more progress in getting another 6B+ people elsewhere vaccinated.
3. Wait for the community level of virus to go down to the point that the chance of encountering an infected person is very low
4. Put mask away for now
5. Party!
Americans seem to have completely lost the ability to think in terms of collective action, and nothing but collective action will pull us out of the pandemic.
Cheryl Rofer
Okay, you two have written the followon post that I intended.
My work here is done. (On this subject, anyway)
ETA: One very important addition:
If you text your Zip Code to GETVAX (438829) or VACUNA (822862), you will get a close-by vaccination site. GETVAX for English, VACUNA for Spanish.
Another Scott
Thanks for this. I hope people pay attention.
I’m 15 days after Pfizer #1, still hoping that my county is correct that I will be getting a second appointment at 3 weeks. Not a sound from them since the first shot…
We’re not safe until everyone is safe. We’ve know this for ages, but too much of the press and the politicians and the money-is-god business people keep trying to drive a feel-good narrative that is going to continue to extend and worsen the pandemic. It’s infuriating.
And it looks like my gut telling me that getting the US to 50% vaccinated would be “easy” while the next 50% would be much harder is coming true. Vaccinations-per-day are dropping in the US and that’s a very bad thing. :-(
Cheers,
Scott.
Cheryl Rofer
@Another Scott: We are getting past the people who desperately or urgently want a vaccination and are able to spend significant amounts of time setting up appointments.
The next step is to get vaccinations out to where people are. Santa Fe is getting vaccinations to people who are homebound. Or how about the essential workers in supermarkets who have no time to stay on the internet or phone and then go to a site an hour away?
I think Biden’s pandemic team understands this and is working to get vaccines to where people are. We’ll get there.
sab
@Barbara: Ohio I know several young women of color (including my oldest grand-daughter) who have scheduled their appointments in rural counties more than an hour away because urban vaccinations are all booked up. Second shot Tuesday!
Baud
It’s commonplace for people to indulge in the fallacy that all delays in accomplishing goals are the result of leadership failures.
sab
Is any state doing a damn thing about prison vaccinations?
SiubhanDuinne
I think the last point (#6) in Dr. Frieden’s last tweet (#18) is possibly the single most important piece of advice he gives: Learn and adapt.
LEARN AND ADAPT.
So many people glom on to one isolated statement and refuse to let go — to adapt — no matter how much or what kind of new information shows up. They make me tired.
Danielx
@Another Scott:
sort of surprised – got card at my first shot with date and time for second.
Non-maskers are getting more and more hostile as time goes on. If it wasn’t for their spreading COVID to other people, I’d say great, hurry up, catch it and die, thereby contributing to the long term betterment of the human race. And ridding us of some TFG fanatics in the process, the groups pretty much overlap.
neldob
Off hand I see almoast nothing about South America or Mexico. One would never know what our actual neighbors are up to health-wise, though the NYT mentioned them and the Covid 19 pandemic in the same sentence today, finally. Strange that these countries hardly exist in our media except as drug runners, immigrants and interminable, grinding poverty and guerilla wars. Not entertaining enough probably. It just seems like we would want to help our neighbors, and Reagan passed up a great opportunity when he refused to help Russia democratize a bit. Goodwill is important. So much for the old brain fart.
Baud
@Danielx:
That mostly means they’re feeling more isolated. Among other things, they don’t have anyone in the White House telling them they’re the best thing since sliced bread.
Ken
Because as we’ve seen, the virus will adapt.
Felanius Kootea
What would it take to get the mRNA vaccines manufactured on every continent? Is that something the WHO can take charge of? Are there IP issues that would bog things down? Is it possible to get an mRNA vaccine that can survive at closer to room temperatures or does the very nature of mRNA make that impossible? I have so many questions.
Biden got Merck to agree to manufacture J&J vaccines. Would Moderna agree to a similar arrangement with a competitor, since the NIH (and therefore US taxpayers) had a hand in making that vaccine possible?
Another Scott
@Danielx: My county, Fairfax, in Virginia, is one of the wealthiest in the country. It, for some reason, insisted on having its own separate signup system for appointments and has lagged the rest of the state in actually getting injections in people’s arms. Things aren’t especially bad here, but they seem determined to make it less transparent than it could be.
My card says they’ll contact me at “~ 3 weeks” and not to call them. (The Injector said I might get the 2nd shot at a different location because they might not be giving Pfizer at that time.) All the appointment sites say not to sign up if I’ve already had the first shot. I trust them, but have nagging doubts because the system changed once they opened vaccinations up to everyone over 16. It’s just something I have to put up with… [sigh]
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Sure Lurkalot
The governor of Colorado ended statewide guidance and turned over mitigations to local control. Despite the fact that the metrics for some counties would have prescribed continued or greater restriction under the old statewide system, they declared the pandemic over and ended all restrictions. We are now number 2 in the nation and on our way to surpass Michigan. Be wary of politicians who have a “libertarian streak”. Because this result could be seen a mile away.
smith
@Ken: Because as we’ve seen, the virus will adapt
When I hear about people saying they won’t get vaxxed because they don’t want to be a guinea pig for the drug companies, I think they should be asked why they’d prefer to be a guinea pig for the virus.
Gvg
@sab:
yes. Some articles say a handful, others say 36 states. I googled Florida prisons vaccinate and it said we started the week of April 6th and expected to have all who wanted it within 2 weeks. They would need a second dose, because it was Moderna at least at the start.
DeSantis originally said no he wouldn’t vaccinate drug addicts before seniors but I guess now it’s everyone and appointments aren’t filling anymore so he is allowing it. Vicious jerk.
debbie
@sab:
There are tons of empty slots and doses in Columbus. They’re practically begging people to get vaccinated.
debbie
@neldob:
NPR gives pretty good coverage on Mexico and South America, along with Europe, Russia, india, and China. Same with the BBC.
debbie
@Another Scott:
They’ll fall even further behind when boosters come out.
Baud
My hunch is that we’ll get a treatment for Covid before we ever get true worldwide vaccination for Covid.
Ken B
@sab: Some states are doing more than others; some are doing much more.
Nice summary in the table here, both for inmates and staff.
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/12/08/covid-vaccination-plans/
sab
@debbie: Col’s gets favored treatment. Akron things aren’t frantic, but many have appointments a week or two away. County health department was counting on J&J so now scrambling.
Walking around all fully vaxxed, I keep having to remind myself that the frontline retail kids are not.
ETA So I still always mask. Courtesy for sure and health thing possibly.
Anoniminous
Vaccines aren’t magic. Get enough of the virus in your system and you will develop the disease; with any luck a “kinder, gentler” form which only opens the door to life-long brain, lung, heart, and/or other major organ damage. What vaccines will do is YUGELY lower the odds of getting the disease by protecting against mild exposure and lowering the chances of being exposed but vaccines aren’t magic.
You really don’t want this thing. At the moment only palliative care is available. The Illinois Institute of Technology has applied for a patent for a treatment. But even if it is proven safe and effective we’re still looking at around six months at best until it hits the market.
Villago Delenda Est
Another problem is millions of MAGAt fuckheads who won’t get the vaccine because “owning the libs” is more important than the lives of their friends and families.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ken:
Yup.
different-church-lady
When I read news nowadays — even reputable, trustworthy sources — I increasingly think to myself, “They’ve all adopted the slimy values of social media to some degree: the main point of every presentation is to hook you keep you hooked.”
The pandemic has been a goldmine of hooks. Some orgs have done better resisting the temptation than others. But the temptation is a corrupting influence for all of them.
So we have to keep this in mind when “we would think” journalists would want to present factual information in a responsible way. We can hope for it, but we probably shouldn’t expect it anymore.
Villago Delenda Est
@Another Scott: The VA had none of this shit. Four weeks after Moderna #1, it was time for Moderna#2, and I had the appointment in hand as I left the VA after the first jab. This is not fucking rocket surgery, but gosh, to my military mind this is the only way to do things in this situation.
realbtl
I’m 5 weeks out from my second dose and noticed something odd. Without the underlying paranoia that “I might die” I occasionally find myself leaving my car w/o my mask. I always retrieve it but it is a bit worrisome.
Kent
Honestly, the FASTEST way that the US could ramp up the vaccination rate right now would be to open the floodgates for kids. Let any child over say age 8 or age 10 get the vaccine. I know I would have my 15 year old daughter in line the next day if they did that. Instead of spending inordinate effort trying to root out the last MAGA vaccine resisters in rural America, just open it up to kids and you will get a flood of new shots in the arms from all the non-crazy parents.
And honestly, in terms of curtailing the pandemic, I expect vaccinating kids will have greater effect in terms of cutting transmission than rooting out the last of the MAGA folks huddled away in their rural double-wides stroking their guns.
raven
@Villago Delenda Est: I can’t believe the military is letting troopers choose whether or not to get it! Plague, typhus, gammagobulin, smallpox, I never had a fucking choice.
sab
I have had severe issues with almost every policy difference Gov DeWine and I have had since I was in high school, but he certainly knocked it out of the park on Covid prep.
Biden came in, and all the intangible infrastructure was already in place.
Conservative government did not used to be grifter/organized crime. For GOP youngsters that is the point.
Redshift
@Another Scott:
I was antsy, too (also Fairfax), but my second registration invitation came in right on time a week ago. I am going to a different site (main government center), but it looks like the different sites just operate in different days of the week, and if I’d been willing to wait a day or two I could have gone the same place. (For example, the nearby health department office had appointments available today, but I’m not due until Monday.)
Brachiator
@Felanius Kootea:
I think the WHO is more advisory than anything else. But the WHO and developed nations know that dealing effectively with the global nature of the pandemic is an ongoing challenge. We will have to see how this plays out. The one good thing, I guess, is that you don’t have many leaders pretending that they can just close borders and make everything OK. Or build a wall.
I think that there may be some IP issues. At least one of the drug companies involved promised not to go hard on protecting patents. But maybe other commentators know much more about this.
mrmoshpotato
@Villago Delenda Est:
And more important than their own lives too. Idiots.
sab
@raven: CDC has it approved on a weird short-cutting limited approval process. I have no problem with that. There were problems with anthrax vaccine. Problems with earlier malaria shots. Troops habe been given problematic shots before. Do that often and troops become wary.
I have no problems with troops being able to say no before wholehearted FDA approval. I do have problems with what troops are mostly watching on media so that they think their choices are sensible
ETA Why are Australian billionaires running our media?
Mallard Filmore
@realbtl:
I put a mask into the door pocket for exactly this reason. Right after turning off the engine with one hand, reach for the mask with the other.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Interesting article on what the Trump years did to our psyches
JMG
@raven: The covid vaccines are under an Emergency Use Authorization from the FDA, meaning no one can be compelled to take it in the military. Once they get full authorization, orders will be given.
neldob
@debbie: Good to know. thanks
Barbara
@Another Scott: I gave up waiting for the state because they continue to prioritize the first groups and it’s clear they won’t be getting to me anytime soon. I found appointments for everyone in my family, two at a Wal-Mart more than an hour away and the other at a local clinic. We all have appointments for a second shot. I’m not clear what’s going on with Fairfax.
Redshift
@Barbara:
Where? Fairfax has had same-day signups for a week, and has now started walk-in vaccinations at Tysons.
Mallard Filmore
@Brachiator:
Some days ago, over at Empty Wheel, there was a post wondering why our National Security people were involved in sending supplies to India. Of course the true reason will never be shared with us, but there was speculation that some part of the ingredients or manufacturing process can be weaponized.
Villago Delenda Est
@raven:
I think that’s due to the lack of FDA final approval for the COVID vaccines that makes it a voluntary thing, not mandatory. The other stuff you mentioned is all kosher for mandatory.
JPL
@realbtl: Twice I have entered places without my mask. It’s horrifying, because now I’m one of them.
JPL
If they want trump supporters vaccinated, tell them the blue states are stealing their vaccine. Maybe add that they are paying for the libs vaccine.
Barbara
@Redshift: It’s changing daily but appointments fill up really fast and the walk-ins just started. My neighborhood chat board is still full of people seeking information.
zhena gogolia
@JPL:
I have recurring dreams about doing that but haven’t done it yet.
Ken
I know a number of seniors who don’t count as drug addicts only because they’re on prescription painkillers.
MagdaInBlack
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Yes. We experienced a form of verbally and emotionally abusive relationship for 4 years. Walking on eggshells and dreading every tweet was bound to mess with our heads
Eta: having briefly experienced such a relationship, I can imagine what hell it is to be around him every day.
raven
@Villago Delenda Est: Ah, of all things. I mean if they can order you to take a damn hill!
germy
debbie
@sab:
They now have both appointments (mornings) and walk-ins (afternoons) at the same sites.
debbie
@realbtl:
I still do that too. WTF?
Wag
@Kent:
Well stated. Agree 100%
Cheryl Rofer
@neldob: I agree. Living in a border state keeps Central and South America sufficiently in my mind that I find it bizarre that the news doesn’t cover more about our neighbors.
IIRC from my news-scanning, Chile and Uruguay are doing a good job of controlling the virus and getting the vaccines out. Brazil, of course, is a mess.
I’ll try to keep alert for covid news in our southern neighbors and post when I’ve got something.
Barbara
@sab: This is something DC and VA did right. The employees in my local coffee shop were all able to get vaccinated before I did.
germy
Ken
@Kent: It really has to be tested in children first. It does seem unlikely that there will be problems, but historically, there have been side effects that never showed up in adult testing. The under-16 cohort have genes being expressed that are shut down in adults.
(Which reminds me of a commercial that I acutely hate. Some spokesperson, I think billed as a “lifestyle consultant”, is pushing human growth hormone supplements because the body’s production of the hormone drastically drops at age 16. Gee, you think that might be because we’re done growing?)
Villago Delenda Est
@Cheryl Rofer: Brazil is a mess because they have a Portuguese speaking TFG in charge.
Ken
Personally I would have gone with doublethink. Gaslighting (must watch that movie again) is meant to make people question their memories or sanity. Doublethink is more appropriate when the goal is that they will accept the lie and deny reality was ever any different.
Cheryl Rofer
@Felanius Kootea: Good questions. I’m answering off the top of my head, with a bit of help from the Google machine.
There is an international initiative called COVAX, which I think is overseen by WHO. But it is mainly oriented toward distribution of vaccines, rather than production.
This claim is made, but I am somewhat dubious. I never see specifics, just “open up the patents.” Moderna will not enforce its patent rights for the duration of the pandemic.
I read this week of an innovation that will allow storage at closer to room temperature but can’t recall specifics.
Villago Delenda Est
@sab:
Because Ronald Reagan thought it was a good idea?
Wag
@Cheryl Rofer:
Uruguay is now on of the hardest hit countries in the world, with an average daily rate of 84 cases per 100,000.
and the NYT has been doing a good job of describing what is happening in South America
Cheryl Rofer
@Kent: They can’t open vaccinations to kids until the Phase III trials are approved. I think I’ve seen estimates of another couple of months.
sab
@Villago Delenda Est: He died, with dementia while in office, decades ago. Why is he still running our media?
Cheryl Rofer
@raven: Members of the military have a choice because the vaccines are not approved fully, only on an emergency use basis.
raven
@Cheryl Rofer: Yea, that’s what VDE said. It still puzzles me with all the stupid shit the military makes you do.
Cheryl Rofer
@germy: Eric Feigl-Ding gets some stuff right and other stuff wrong. I don’t know about those three tweets. I save time by ignoring him so I don’t have to check his stuff.
Wag
@Cheryl Rofer:
Another excellent article from the NYT about COVID, this time in Peru
Cheryl Rofer
@Wag: Thanks. I think that Uruguay started out well, and maybe has fallen by the wayside.
Wag
@Cheryl Rofer:
Studies I’ve seen for ages 12-15 look really promising. I would guess weeks for that age group, but I agree that it’ll be months for younger kids.
Kent
Yes, I’m aware of that. But I’d really like to see it accelerated as fast as possible. All the preliminary results indicate that the vaccine is even more effective and safe on kids than adults. And honestly, kids are really the biggest remaining easy target for mass vaccination left in this country. And the population for whom social distancing is the most difficult and problematic.
Redshift
@germy:
Yay!
sab
I am not contemptuous of fashion models. I think it is a hard field for much too young girls to make a living. Some thrive. Most don’t.
Some of the thrivers are amazing and talented and go on to further careers in acting or in business or in charity work. Others become happy wives and mothers.
Then there is Jerry Hall, rattling around pointless, until she landed ancient Rupert Murdoch.
Why does MSM even care what that worthless twit ever thought about anything?
Redshift
@Cheryl Rofer:
There was an article earlier that there are patents on some of the inputs for Moderna, so that policy by itself doesn’t open it up for production. I’ll see if I can find it.
realbtl
@JPL: Amazing what a lack of existential dread of death will do. I keep my mask in the visor and a small pkg in the glove box.
Gloomyjim
Lurker living in a small college town in western Oregon. Am a cook, so not special catagoried (though we really should have been). Just 5 minutes ago ended about 10ish minutes of effort to get scheduled for 1st shot on campus monday 11am. If it was that easy for me then I feel confident that we are at a point that sharing with our neighbors is acceptable burden.
Uncle Cosmo
I saw the VAERS reports – there were no more problems with it than with any other vaccine.
The problem (back in the late 90s) was the risk/benefit analysis: Many servicepersons were unwilling to risk the (overblown) adverse reactions for protection against a threat that at the time seemed purely hypothetical. Hard to blame them – at the time no one had been exposed to pulmonary anthrax with malice aforethought.
Once the anthrax letters started circulating right after 9/11 and people started dying, the hue & cry from the midlevel officers died right off – because the risk side of the equation had changed drastically.
germy
Robert Sneddon
@Cheryl Rofer: There is a common belief that vaccine production facilities can be built and brought into production at the drop of a hat. This isn’t true, sadly. A lot of the current non-mRNA vaccines are being churned out in existing vaccine production facilities which are suited to being repurposed for the not-very-exacting specifications of, say, the AstraZenaca or the J&J vaccine. The Sputnik V vaccine was, IIRC, derived from two separate existing Russian vaccine lines, the same for at at least one of the Chinese vaccines (SinoPharm?). Even then stuff can go wrong — the US lost 15 million doses of J&J vaccines to production failures and the Sputnik V vaccine is being rejected by some countries on quality control issues as the recipients are finding live unattenuated virus (not coronavirus) in the vaccines being delivered. The phrase “monkey model” springs to mind here…
The new Shiny! mRNA vaccines are a very different creature since the vaccination particles have to be hand-assembled sort-of and this requires very different equipment, raw materials, processes, production lines, quality control etc. Building the facilities and (crucially) debugging them will take months if not years before they can produce large quantities of safe workable vaccine.
The upside is that the mRNA mechanism for vaccination is proven to work and work well and it has a lot of advantages over the older vaccines based on existing viruses like AstraZeneca. The future is going to be mRNA and any mRNA vaccine production plant built now will be kept busy for years to come, long after COVID-19 is beaten to death like a cornered rat.
patrick II
In a vaccine related note:
From Science magazine
VOR
Here’s the reason: COVID-19 is an existential threat to the safety of the citizens of the United States. It IS a National Security issue. We have over 574k dead Americans, more American dead than Vietnam, Korea, Gulf War 1, Gulf War 2, 9/11, or Afghanistan. It’s a higher body count than US dead in WW!.
That’s why the Bush and Obama administrations had a group in the NSC for pandemic alertness. TFG shut it down.
COVID is not going to just burn itself out in a few months. It is in the best interests of the United States to fight COVID-19 in other countries, including India, so COVID does not mutate into variants which can kill more Americans. This is not altruism, it is naked self-interest.
Redshift
@Cheryl Rofer: From reading about the updates that were submitted for FDA approval back in February, it looks like Pfizer can be stored in a normal pharmacy freezer, but still needs to be shipped in dry ice. Moderna could always be shipped and stored at pharmacy freezer temps, but they requested approval for it to be stored in a regular freezer for up to two weeks.
Redshift
@Gloomyjim:
Seriously. I read restaurant cook was (and probably still is) the most dangerous occupation for covid.
Brachiator
@sab:
She seemed to have had a long and well regarded career as a model. And she partnered with Bryan Ferry and Mick Jagger before she ended up with old Rupert.
raven
They have Kornacki doing a chart for the Derby!!!
Cheryl Rofer
@Robert Sneddon: The fact that several m-RNA facilities have been activated as quickly as they have been suggests that similar actions can take place elsewhere.
The equipment needed is indeed very different from that for other vaccines, so I suspect that existing facilities were largely renovated for m-RNA production. Building from scratch will take longer. And, as you point out, getting them running properly.
sab
@Brachiator: Long long time before she ended up with old Rupert. Living on alimony? Other models did stuff. Where was she? Until I know she was doing something, anything useful I will dismiss her as a cunning groper. Successful cunning groper. I hope Lachlan lives up to his own evil reputation.
TKH
@Felanius Kootea: So Merkel asked the Biontech guys how much money they needed to make more vaccine. They said money was not the issue, raw material supply was and that this bottleneck could not be overcome with money. There are only so many companies with the expertise to do certain chemistry at scale. The big international ones need months to get the processes running.
Note also that outfit in Baltimore that ruined 15M (!) doses of one of the vaccines. Look how many of the big companies with vaccine expertise came up with duds (Merck, Sanofi) or those with promising vaccines that have production problems. This is not easy!
I am a chemist and I have done scale-up on lab scale many times and it is often befuddlingly difficult to go up by Factor greater than five in scale.
or what Robert said at 81
debbie
@sab:
Once you get roaches inside your house, they’ll never leave.
Brachiator
@patrick II:
Any other time, this might be one of the major science stories of the year.
Ksmiami
@SiubhanDuinne: learn and adapt or die off Darwinian style…
Ksmiami
@Redshift: completely Thats why I haven’t gone back yet – too many conspiracy theories run rampant in kitchens- too many people in tight quarters with some loud communication etc
sab
We have a lovely inherited cocker spaniel. I urgently strongly do not like dogs that need to be groomed. I love shepherds and labs. Just hose them off.
Our guy is really old. My uncle should have not adopted this guy when his second wife died. Our guy is amazing. and sweet and kind. But he is also very old.
He poops in his sleep. Every elderly lab and shepherd does that.
So do cockers, but they have long fuzzy fur.
Shepherds and labs just clean the bed. Cockers smelly stuck to the fur. Neither he nor I want me to be cleaning (hosing him) daily but the only alternative is drastic.
Any advise short of euthanasia would be helpful. We won’t kill him, but he would love to avoid the daily hosing.
Felanius Kootea
@TKH: Seems to me like there should be a world-wide collaboration on how to scale up over the next few years, because mRNA vaccines will be with us for the foreseeable future.
I’ve already heard talk of the flu vaccine being made using mRNA within two years.
It’s hard to get companies and politicians to invest in things that may produce a number of well-publicized failures (that can be demagogued) before things go right.
As Cheryl is pointing out, educating the public repeatedly on what it will take to really defeat COVID should also be a priority. People with your expertise who know how difficult it is to scale up could help explain things to the rest of us.
It’s like many of us are hoping for magic, because we’ve become accustomed to instant gratification, but it’s just going to take deliberate, focused, painstaking work over the next few months and years.
Robert Sneddon
@TKH: The Serum Institute of India is, I believe, the world’s biggest single producer of vaccines and it can produce billions of vaccine doses a year, but it can’t (yet) make mRNA vaccines. It has long-established supply lines for materials and equipment and its vaccine production involves basically growing viruses and then treating them chemically to make them behave, a process similar to brewing beer.
The mRNA vaccines are manufactured, each virus-like particle glued together one by one basically out of specialised biological precursors that no-one wanted in tonne-lots until recently. The equipment suppliers have similarly been caught on the hop whereas bioreactors to breed viruses for vaccine production are off-the-shelf components, pretty much. This will change and soon but there is no magic wand or money fountain to make it happen overnight.
Brachiator
@sab:
I understand and probably share any antipathy you might have for Murdoch. But it seems unfair to use it to back fill hostility for Jerry Hall.
She worked and earned a living as a model. I don’t know why she had to life a “useful” life.
I see from the Wiki that at her peak she was earning $1,000 a day. I don’t know that she was depending on alimony from anyone. I don’t know much about what else she may have done, but I recall that she had a minor role in Tim Burton’s “Batman.”
It may be unfortunate that she ended up with Murdoch, but not much can be said or done about this.
trollhattan
Rite Aid says all stores now have vaccine appointments and some have walk-in availability.
Meanwhile
SWMBO
@sab:
Have his butt shaved. You can do it with scissors but be careful around the rectum because you can nick it and cause infection.
You can use diapers. After you shave him of course.
Use a comb to work out the big chunks. Use a dry shampoo or baking soda to comb through to get rid of the middle/small pieces. Then a damp rag should clean up the rest.
It isn’t easy caring for an elderly dog but it is possible to get through this. You can ask your vet for help/suggestions too. They will know your dog better than my generic advice.
West of the Rockies
@Gloomyjim:
My 19-year-old daughter in OR (Lane County) just got her first shot a few days ago. They signed her up then for her second. I’m hoping OR gets out of the red zone quickly. Lots of mask compliance to my eyes up there.
Lurk less, Jim.
JoyceH
@SWMBO:
You beat me to it – I was going to suggest taking cocker to a groomer for a ‘sanitary trim’ – that gives the dog a close trim around the poop area, for this very reason.
trollhattan
@Brachiator:
I subcontract this topic out to Tracy Ullman.
realbtl
@sab: This is the cat butt shaving site among others. Add the the entertainment.
Yutsano
@West of the Rockies: When I got my first shot the second shhot appointment was officially the 20th. I was told by the nurse it could be “any time between the 17th and the 24th”.
When I got the e-mail for my second shot it could only be on the 17th. No other day was given. But the deed was done. I wonder how state specific this is.
Oh and OT: Rest well dear Olympia.
sab
@SWMBO: I got clippers. He and I are off into a new world next week. He will be pissed. Such a sweety so he will get over it. Better than trusting him to the terrifying groomers he hates. Owner negligence is why he hates groomers, but the hate is real and visceral and my sweet cocker is stressed beyond belief.
However well intenioned they were (a very very big if) my dog is horrified by grooming. It hurts and they ( and thinks and is probavly right that they hate him.)
WaterGirl
@sab: I would suggest a short summer cut to your cocker – all over, legs, tail and all. My cockers all loved it.
I know your guy doesn’t like the groomer (if I recall correctly) but I think you were going to look for a new groomer, possibly a smaller place that would be calmer and less intimidating for him.
Maybe new groomer plus a short all-over cut would do the trick.
edit: ah, i see that you have decided to do the grooming yourself. I believe my cockers always got the #10 cut, in case that is useful for you in figuring out what setting to use on the new clippers.
West of the Rockies
@Yutsano:
Oh, I loved her as Anna Madrigal in Tales of the City!
Steeplejack (phone)
Interesting thread:
mrmoshpotato
@realbtl:
Nominated.
mrmoshpotato
Can a mod fix up trollhattan’s link at 99?
Gloomyjim
@West of the Rockies: I will see what I can do, but rarely get to a thread that isn’t already dead.
Brachiator
@trollhattan:
Thank you! That was so goddam funny! And it nailed the rest of the family as much as it lampooned Jerry Hall.
I can imagine that den of vipers waiting for Rupert to kick the bucket.
And it threw some shade on Wendi Deng. Wow.
sab
@WaterGirl: I wil, let you know. He is so stressed by groomer that we wil maybe allow bad haircuts forever. He shakes and vomits before groomer visits. These are not mild or innocuous. He is terrifiecd.
Have to cut into the bad haircuts. Don’t want him to have those bad haircuts. They are actualy painful, and he is just a silly kind cocker
Dog grooming is weird.Only for tough dogs. Our guy is not up to it.
J R in WV
@Another Scott:
Our experience was that 3 weeks+ a few days was when we got a phone call from the Primary Care Clinic where our rural county is conducting their vaccination program. First shots were mid February during the ice storm, the whole county was without power at the time. The clinic was running on their emergency generators, as they had been for a long week.
Second shots were mid-March, one day less than four weeks on a beautiful spring day, with the shot clinic converted to a drive-thru in a side parking lot driveway around a storage building.
Anyway, all I’m saying is it’s way early to worry about your second shot.
Also, in our rural county, more vaccine (Moderna) is now available than takers. Now there are highway signs [ like the ones that would say “ROAD CLOSED 8 PM TO 6 AM BEGINNING APRIL 6TH”] on the roads into the county. They’re flashing “Call county health dept nnn-nnnn for COVID shots” to be precise. So pretty much on demand here at this point. Uptake is poor here so far.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Another Scott:
Good luck! You’ve already heard my story.
J R in WV
@sab:
While our Governor Big Jim Justice is a total ass in many ways, he has done OK with the plague. I’m pretty sure the high-security prison has had a vaccination program, not sure about the regional jails.
Ken
That was one of the lesser observations of this XKCD. We’re the only species on this planet that can adapt to a virus without Darwinian processes.
WaterGirl
@mrmoshpotato: done!
trollhattan
(Rubs eyes, checks watch, checks calendar, rubs eyes)
Weather Service has issued a red flag warning (fire weather watch) for Sunday through Tuesday in our little bit of northern California. Yup, it’s May 1. IDK if it’s the earliest ever but must be close.
Another Scott
@Gloomyjim: You and J R in WV can have a cage match to be crowned Ultimate Thread Killer on B-J. I’d watch!!
:-)
(That’s another vote for post more often.)
Cheers,
Scott.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ksmiami:
Exactly.
sab
@debbie: Borax behind the fridge fixes a lot. Borax fixes everything, but keep it away from the cat and chihuahuas.
Uncle Cosmo
When I got Antiqua #1 on 6 March the card they gave me specified Jab The Second precisely 4 weeks later on 3 April. I asked to move the date so the worst of the side effects wouldn’t hit the next day at Easter supper with my family. Denied. Four weeks practically to the minute, or not at all. Buncha inoculation nazis…
Ivan X
I’m the problem. I believe in the social good. But I also believe that having a double dose mRNA vaccine not only severely limits disease, but infection and spread. I know there isn’t a hard study yet that says that, but early data seems to, and there’s no countervailing evidence that I’ve yet seen.
So, being told I have to act, maskwise, as though I’m not vaccinated an indefinite period of time, for a theoretical social benefit, is hard for my id to wrap itself around. Of course I’ll follow the CDC’s guidelines. I also don’t plan to go to other countries for quite some time. (We’ve got a plenty big one here.)
But there’s something deeply counterintuitive about “You’re cured and you very probably can’t even spread disease! But, just in case, keep wearing your mask for another six to eighteen months even though you hate it.” The social good doesn’t feel concrete or real enough to warrant the discomfort. I know it’s been explained to me a thousand times, and Dr. Tom has been one of the sanest, smartest, most important voices through all of this, but I just can’t seem to absorb it. And I’m a pretty smart, reasonable (or so I like to think) person in a land of liberals. If the “keep wearing your mask even after you’re vaccinated” message isn’t reaching me, I certainly don’t know how it’s supposed to reach people who aren’t paying as much attention.
Had the CDC not made their recent announcement, I was prepared to wear masks outdoors for a few more months as a social norm and courtesy, but at some point, enough would have been enough. I don’t mind discomforting myself (is that a word) if there’s a good reason to do it, and I was all for flattening the curve, and I consistently observed social isolation policies throughout this whole time, because there was a good reason to do it.
But the idea has just not penetrated me that if I’m double-vaxxed, that my wearing a mask has any meaningful effect on limiting the spread of coronavirus. Maybe I’m dense or more selfish than I like to think I am. I don’t know. And I totally get that, socially, we have to ease out of this, not snap our fingers. So I’m not going to prove some stubborn point by refusing to wear it where it’s recommended or when it’s going to put others around me most at ease. But I don’t actually see the need.
surfk9
@trollhattan: I saw a fire at Comanche Lake on Thursday while I was driving to Jackson. I thought it was a harbinger of a rough year. Then I saw the red flag warnings this morning.
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: Technically speaking, I’m not sure it counts as a being a thread killer if the thread is already dead before you get there. :-)
But yeah, there might be competition for last comment on a thread, and J.R. would definitely be in the running for that one.
Catherine D.
@sab: In the very hairy Keeshond world, we clip a generous poop chute. I’ve never had a problem with dogs sleep-pooping, but it really helped with the runs.
prostratedragon
@surfk9: We’re under one in Chicago right now, at least the second this year. Also unusual.
smith
@Ivan X: You are NOT cured! None of the vaccines is 100% effective. You have a non-negligible chance of getting covid if the background level of the virus is high enough so that you frequently encounter infected people. This has already happened to thousands of people in this country.
The good news is that if you do get it the chances are you will have a mild case, or no symptoms at all. The bad news is that you might spread it to other people while you’re infected.
Pay attention to the current level of infection where you live. When it gets sufficiently low (yes, we need much more guidance on how low that is) then it will be safe for you to unmask.
Ruckus
@sab:
I had a senior cocker who not only hated groomers, every one of them I found told me never to bring him back. Once was too much. But this guy could grow hair at about an inch or easily more a month. Which meant he had to be groomed. I had to muzzle him, and hold him, his back to my chest with one arm while sitting on the floor and then just cut away with the trimer. Then switch arms and cut the other side. He ended up with an overall crew cut but that was a lot better than way, way too much hair.
J R in WV
@Felanius Kootea:
I can’t recall specifics, but I recall that Moderna has said they expect to be able to provide a vaccine that can be distributed in regular commercial freezers rather than the dry-ice level temps now necessary. That would be a big improvement over current mRNA vaccine requirements.
On another topic, I’m dreading the next growing pandemic issue, because the facts regarding a new and different pandemic will be all different from Sars-COVID-19 facts.
There will be new attempts to treat the new disease, which will spread differently and have different symptoms and time constraints. We will need new vaccine development programs at high-level scientific institutions, and the development and testing programs will be all different too.
And the MAGAts will all go ballistic, calling every new fact a “deep state conspiracy” carefully crafted to kill/render insane/convert them into librul slaves, instead of RWNJ automatons. It will be a horrible cluster-fuq and they won’t go to a doctor if they get symptoms of the new pandemic, nor accept vaccinations nor treatments.
raven
@Ruckus: I did Lil Bit and Raven before her. They didn’t like it but I was able to muscle them and get it done.
Suzanne
@Kent:
Concur with everything you’ve said: once kids can get it, it’s on for me. Spawn the Elder got his first shot 18 hours after he landed here. Once the younger Spawns are eligible, I will be on it like white on rice.
Also, we are still curtailing activities because of this. Gotta get this figured out for the kids, pronto.
Felanius Kootea
@Ivan X: Part of the problem is that there is no definitive proof that vaccinated people can’t unwittingly spread the virus. There’s a large trial of about 30,000 college students underway to answer just that question. Results will be out later in 2021. I’m not sure why the CDC says to stop masking in the absence of high quality trials on COVID spread from vaccinated people.
Another Scott
@Ivan X: A few things as counterpoints:
Wearing a mask is objectively not a big deal. We can do it.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
zhena gogolia
Going out for first indoor dinner party in over a year. Wish us luck! We’d rather stay home for another month, but our friends (all vaccinated) think otherwise . . . .
raven
Aw,
“Olympia Dukakis, Oscar-winning ‘Moonstruck’ star, dies at 89”
Ken
@zhena gogolia: “And if your friends all decided to jump off a bridge, would you?”
Thanks for the reminder, I should order some flowers for Mothers’ Day.
Brachiator
@Ivan X:
The idea of wearing a mask a while longer is, for me, trivial. I never felt any particular discomfort. But I totally understand the different feelings that people have about this.
I guess I am more focused on when, if ever, we have this thing contained.
sab
@Ruckus: So what do I do with a cocker like yours? My guy isn’t fierce . He is sweet. His fur is a mess. I want to go to bed, but cannot because of sweet cocker. I actually know this cocker, and he is such an idiot snow guy. Sweetest cocker ever on four legs.
Ken
@J R in WV: We’ll have to hope the next pandemic is Ebola, then, because that’s the only one the RWNJs ever took seriously.
I do think we’d get some pretty rapid buy-in if COVID evolves a strain that can infect hogs, cattle, or poultry. My experience (admittedly limited to a few county fairs) is that they take animal vaccination damn seriously.
J R in WV
@sab:
Here’s my suggestion: Take him to a groomer every N weeks to have his rear end shaved very close. Cole does this with Steve every spring for different purposes.
Then you can clean him up with wipes. Which may work better than “hosing him off” anyway. Don’t flush them, dispose in your trash stream, no wipe product is “septic safe” no matter what the package says…
Else talk to your vet about the issue, see if they think clipping closely and using wipes will work, or if they have a more professionally informed technique.
Anyway
@sab:
ETA Why are Australian billionaires running our media?
Murdoch (Rupert) is a US citizen. Don’t know about Lachlan (is he the wingnut?)
prn
@sab: We had an elderly mastiff who lost use of his back legs for almost 2 years before he died, and keeping him clean was a major effort. Poop wasn’t a big issue for us, but it happened occasionally. We used rewashable incontinence pads as his bedding, which made cleanup easier. Disposable pads were useful too, but he would toss too much at night and they would get balled up underneath him. The washable pads absorbed liquid better anyway.
We also used a lot of liquid waterless bath – towards the end I was using so much that I started using just water with a teeny amount of dog shampoo (about 1/10-1/20 the usual dilution). That worked really well, and didn’t cause his skin to break out (he had sensitive skin)
Jay
@Ivan X:
Even double vaxxed, you can still contract Covid, you can still spread Covid, you can still get sick from Covid, you can still wind up in the ICU, you can still die of Covid.
Being double vaxxed just means that chances of any of that happening drops below roughly 8% or less.
And there is still a crapload of Covid out there, so the odds of encountering Covid are still fairly high.
J R in WV
@sab:
Your groomers are incompetent. Groomers are supposed to be able to reassure their clients, to work so carefully that the puppers calm down and are reassured that they won’t be hurt. Trimming hair shouldn’t hurt at all, if it does, they’re doing it all wrong.
I used to be taken with my dad to his barber, who was a prick to me. Dad tipped him, so he never pulled dad’s hair with his scissors, but every snip of my hair pulled HARD. I hated it, and at this point go to a barber never.
Look for another groomer, and get a mild sedative from your vet. Xanax type meds are available for pets. Hopefully after a few visits to a groomer who isn’t a sadistic incompetent will cure the whole thing.
Or learn to do it yourself. As you indicate you will. Best of luck, I would still get a pill from the Vet for the first attempts. The device may scare him even in your hands.
Amir Khalid
@raven:
I maintain that in winning the Oscar that year, Olympia Dukakis took all the good luck for her family, and prevented her cousin Michael from defeating George Herbert Walker Bush in the presidential election
prn
@sab: Also, I made my own wipes by folding paper towels, putting them into an empty wipe container, and soaking them in waterless bath or the highly diluted shampoo. Saved a lot of money
prn
@sab: And you probably know this, but when you’re clipping him, break out the really GOOD treats, cheese, chicken, maybe a Kong with peanut butter. He’ll figure out that grooming means wonderful stuff appears!
J R in WV
I went to town to shop this afternoon, normal list of foodstuff shops, Lowe’s for some hardware stuff.
At General Steak and Seafood, a shop I’ve patronized for decades now, there was a wealthy old bastard who barged in. Multiple signs “Masks Are NOT Optional” etc. He held a rag in front of his face, so he could claim he was masked, but a wadded up rag is not a mask. I know he was wealthy, he was driving a new Mercedes-Benz convertible with a bi-turbo V-8, registered in South Carolina. Probably about $185,000 from a quick google.
I wish I had had the anger to confront him when he came out of the shop. The signs limit the number of customers to 6, it’s a very small shop. He didn’t look around, and was the 7th person inside, no mask whatsoever. Pissed me off, but not enough to make a scene. Grrr!!
I’m always happy to comment on an old dying thread if I have something to say about someone else’s comment towards the bottom. Why not, the bits are free.
Last again? OK ;~)
WaterGirl
@Ken: I love this comment so much. Both parts, taken together, are perfection!
James E Powell
@Another Scott:
I’m 15 days after Pfizer #1, still hoping that my county is correct that I will be getting a second appointment at 3 weeks. Not a sound from them since the first shot…
The second shot doesn’t need to be on Day 21. It needs to at least 21 days after the first. It is recommended the second be as close to 21 days as possible, but it can be as much as 42 days later.
Ruckus
@sab:
Sorry, I misunderstood.
I called my guy Ornery Bastard although his name was Bud, short for Buddy. For all his faults, and like all of us he had them, he was one of the best dogs I’ve ever lived with. He just hated getting clipped. Once he was done he was fine. There was a pet store nearby with a washing area and he was fine being washed and dried but trimming him was asking to lose body parts. He was an elderly rescue and had far more learned irregularities than I do, and I’m about the same age range for a human as he was for a dog. I don’t know if he was just ornery, mental or if his life had been a bit tough, but he was defensive to a larger than normal degree. I’m so glad I met him and got to feed and care for him.
J R in WV
@Ruckus:
Yeah, rescue pets, even dogs adopted from a friend’s farm can be a total mystery about oddities. We love them anyways.
sralloway
@Mallard Filmore: Hang mine on the turn signal. Can’t miss it.
Ruckus
@raven:
Yep, that’s what I had to do, show him who is boss and just give him that crew cut. It never changed our relationship, he was still my dog and was as protective as all get out. I’ve had dogs with personality, smart as can be, dumb as a box of rocks (mother and son for those two) have known great dogs and not so great. Bud was a step above those, which is how he got the name Buddy. He just was one.
sdhays
@Another Scott: My wife and drove out near WV to get our first shot at CVS. We were able to schedule a second dose closer to home.
Another Scott
@sdhays: A young guy I work with drove to NC to get his first shot. I think he got his 2nd near Richmond. It’s crazy, but there were ways to get vaccinated if one was really motivated (and had the means)…
Honestly, I’m not complaining too much. We all knew it was going to take months to get most everyone in the US vaccinated. The pace has actually been much faster than I expected.
So far…
Cheers,
Scott.
Gvg
@Ken: I was demonstrating what an asshole he is. Those were his actual words. He doesn’t see them as people, just stereotypes. I suspect that would also apply to a significant part of the GOP voters and it might have been used against him in a primary.
evodevo
@Uncle Cosmo:
It’s just as well they started requiring anthrax shots…it’s really endemic and widespread in the desert countries where the military has spent the last 20 years…
km
Possibly you’ve already seen some of these information sources on US vaccine production, Cheryl, but just in case.
The CDC has a nice tracking site for doses delivered & administered in the US. You can also expand the “Vaccinations” menu on the left to get more ways to look at information, such as the demographic trends. https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations Down the page there’s an indication of how many of each of the vaccines under EUA in the US.
In the CDC’s data catalog, you can find the allocations for each vaccines – for Pfizer for example:
https://data.cdc.gov/Vaccinations/National-Weekly-Pfizer-Allocations/sxbq-3sid
The other companies are also in the data catalog, as well as other things that might be of interest.
My recollection is that actual production time for the mRNA vaccines is non-negligible. I’m remembering 60 days batch time. (Ok, found this: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2021/02/07/pfizer-expects-cut-covid-19-vaccine-production-time-almost-50/4423251001/ )
evodevo
@trollhattan: YES…her version of Murdoch family life is my favorite laugh…..
Uncle Cosmo
True, but for the most part, spores kicked up from the soil aren’t going to be in the proper size range to lodge in the deep lung and cause pulmonary anthrax, which is the really dangerous form.** Cutaneous version (“wool-sorter’s disease”) is much more probable and much less severe. Wild Bacillus anthracis can be readily knocked out with antibiotics (“cipro”) – the problem with the pulmonary form is by the time the stuff has multiplied enough for the victim to show symptoms, the dying B. anthracis colony releases toxin in large enough quantity to be fatal.
** NB IIUC it’s easy to grow anthrax and turn it into very hardy spores – I’m told it can be done in your bathtub – but it is very, very hard to bundle the spores in particles of the proper size to lodge in the deep lung, which is what biowarfare expert mean by “weaponizing” the stuff. The 2001 anthrax letters scared the crap out of the authorities precisely because the particles were of the proper size – which meant whoever sent the letters knew how to do it and might easily do it again.
Soprano2
Our community is having more open clinics where you can drop in. There’s one at each large library today and one at the big outdoor Artfest today and tomorrow. I hope they do more of this to get people who don’t have time to make an appointment but want the shot. One of them has the J&J shot, which think is great.
Matt McIrvin
@sab: Massachusetts made prisoners eligible early and gave them a few days time off for good behavior as an incentive for vaccination. I don’t know how many actually took them up on it. I do know that a large fraction of prison guards declined the vaccine; there were a bunch of stories about it back in February.
Matt McIrvin
@Another Scott:
Fauci initially said that anyone who wanted the vaccine would be able to get it in April, and I was extremely skeptical and figured that if I got it around September I’d be happy. I got my first dose on April 21 (which was later than a lot of people here), will get my second in late May and will be officially fully vaccinated early in June. So, pretty good.
sdhays
@Another Scott: I was telling my wife that if you had told me last December that we’d get our first shots in April 2021, I wouldn’t have believed you. April 2022 would have been disappointing, but I’d have found it more plausible. Even with Biden coming in, I figured younger, healthy people who can work from home like us wouldn’t be able to get a shot until at least September.
My already vaccinated parents were visiting (after a long time without being able to see their grandson) so they could watch the baby, so we decided to just go get it done. 20 days and I get my second shot.
Matt McIrvin
All that said, my daughter probably isn’t going to be able to get vaccinated until the fall, and given our collective level of risk tolerance that inhibits a lot of stuff we might have been able to do as a family.