[This is Part IV of a four-part series about COVID vaccines, starting with Part I].
We have three vaccines that appear to be effective and safe. To date, the public discourse has been about getting to a vaccine. The results are impressive, brilliant, even Olympic.
The remaining work is not glamorous. The people involved aren’t inventing new science or commanding nature to obey their orders. They have more in common with your neighbors, teacher Debra Smith and carpenter Tony Jones, than with esteemed personalities such as Dr. Debra Birx and Dr. Tony Fauci. There won’t be daily televised briefings about delivering 27 doses to your doctor and 113 to your pharmacy. Success will not be reported; any stumble will be the subject of nightly news for months. But the job will get done in the Western World.
There are people who will refuse to be vaccinated. That won’t matter much until we’ve sorted through those who want to be vaccinated. Different people will have different ideas about who should get the first vaccines. PharmDs will follow a practitioner’s orders, or health department edicts. Practitioners are likely to make their own decisions based on individual patients.
There’s great news. The scientists have finally decided to follow the science. Data have always shown that young children aren’t immune to COVID19, they just experience much milder symptoms, rarely need hospitalizations and almost never die. And, children under eight are rarely contagious. Dr. Fauci announced that there was no reason to keep elementary schools closed, and little reason to close middle schools and high schools. Teachers will be at risk from one another, but largely not at all from students. Masks, social distancing and frequent hand-washing should suffice.
This will free up parents to get a sanity break, otherwise known as going to work. Data appear to show that children of elementary school age are being deprived of socializing and developing interpersonal skills, and that all K-12 students are on average falling significantly behind in mathematics and reading. According to a JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) Pediatrics study of 135,000 patients, seven percent of K-12 students were infected, and hospitalization rates were about 1.9%, concentrated in children with compromised immune systems. Case fatality rate is near zero.
Yes, a few children get sick and some actually die. That is tragic. So is using those statistics to justify closing down schools, increasing childhood suicidal ideation and driving more people into poverty.
Other good news: The US Army, the world’s best logistics organization, has been planning, building capability and testing distribution throughout the U.S. Several other militaries are likely to be doing the same, including Australia, Japan, the UK, Germany, Netherlands, Denmark and a few others.
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