Biden Transition Team inclined to liberate all vaccines at once: wrong move

Discussion in 'Coronavirus Pandemic Discussions' started by CenterField, Jan 9, 2021.

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  1. CenterField

    CenterField Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    So, apparently governors are pressuring Alex Azar into changing how the vaccine rollout is being done, by sending out immediately all the stock, without holding back in order to guarantee that people who got the first dose, will get the second dose with the recommended interval. The argument is that if more people get just one dose, we will decrease mortality faster.

    This is a GRAVE mistake. The FDA has strongly positioned against it, quoting that there is no guarantee whatsoever that there will be sufficient or lasting immunity without the booster shot, and people would be falsely convinced that they were immune and expose themselves to riskier behaviors, resulting in the pandemic getting worse, not better.

    Now it seems like Biden is saying that immediately after he takes office on the 20th, he will liberate the second dose stock, to be used to give more people a first dose (well, then, there would be no guarantee of a second dose; only some hope that the makers will expedite production to get those second doses in - which is doubtful; expediting this part will take months).

    I am sick and tired of politicians getting in the business of Medicine and Medical Sciences without an ounce of professional knowledge, and of politicians acting against Science and against the advice of experienced medical scientists. I thought that this crap was going away with the end of the Trump administration, and now Biden also wants to ignore Science???

    The second dose is essential. Actions to expedite the rollout (where is the National Guard???) and to beef up production (including, using the Defense Production Act to ensure that Pfizer and Moderna have enough raw materials and ingredients to get more vaccines made and shipped) are fine and necessary.

    Bypassing the second dose? No! That's a grave and unscientific mistake.

    Biden, don't make me regret so fast that I voted for you!!! My MAIN reason to pick Biden for my vote was to kick out people like Scott Atlas who kept counseling Trump with junk science and kept pressuring the CDC and the FDA to do the wrong things... I thought that Biden would be more likely to listen to the scientists and he said he would...

    And now the scientists are saying that this move is risky and unwarranted, but Biden wants to plow ahead with it, anyway? Oh my...
     
    Last edited: Jan 9, 2021
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  2. 557

    557 Well-Known Member

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    Thanks for the information, I hadn’t heard this yet. I’m not happy to say I’m in no way shocked or dismayed.
     
  3. joesnagg

    joesnagg Banned

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    Well welcome to the world of politized EVERYTHING. And you REALLY thought morons are somehow better than idiots?
     
  4. CenterField

    CenterField Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I understand that you are not shocked, but aren't you dismayed? I was hoping for BETTER management of the pandemic, not worse. Isn't it dismaying to see another boneheaded decision regarding Covid-19, in the making? We have had enough of these already, making the outbreak worse in the USA than in many other places. We don't need more boneheaded decisions.

    By now, Trump has justified in plenty of other ways my vote against him... (given his reaction to his loss and the events on Wednesday) but at the time when I decided to vote against Trump, the botched management of the pandemic was my MAIN reason for it, given that I agree with Trump in some other areas...

    I wasn't expecting this from Biden. I hope Fauci talks some sense into him. Biden respects Fauci, apparently, and Fauci has just strongly positioned against not guaranteeing the second dose, which he calls essential (and it is).
     
  5. CenterField

    CenterField Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I thought that when a team is losing, you fire the coach, and hopefully the new coach drafts and signs some better players and all. I was hoping that the new Task Force would do a better job than the last one, given that the last one set the bar so low.

    If even before they take over, they start giving the president-elect some boneheaded unscientific advice, it definitely doesn't bode well. Only science can conquer this thing, not politics. We just breached the 4,000 daily deaths. We urgently need good management, and management based on science.

    When all the scientists are strongly against something, it would be reasonable for a politician to listen... but I guess, it's a luxury we no longer have, regardless of who is in power. Sad.
     
  6. 557

    557 Well-Known Member

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    No I’m not dismayed. Biden has the same propensities to play to his base as any other politician. If he perceives a political benefit to giving one person’s second dose to someone else he will push for that. It’s possible he’d be motivated to take this approach just to appear different from the Trump administration policy in place now. As you already pointed out, that’s what politics does to science. And that horse left the barn long ago.
    Yes, he’s certainly made an a** of himself more than usual this last week. What’s worse is he’s precipitated an acceptance of authoritarianism that will destroy this nation. And I’m not talking about authoritarian Trump supporters.
    I stated somewhere earlier I would give Biden a chance to prove his claim of adherence to science and evidence. I’ll stand by that. This doesn’t bode well though.

    I’ve bashed Fauci for his failings unmercifully. As you know I’ve admired his good traits. If he advises Biden against this he gets a gold star from me.
     
  7. CenterField

    CenterField Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I'm not appalled at this out of self-interest. My wife's and my second doses are scheduled to be given in the morning of 1/21/2020... in the nick of time; I doubt that if Biden takes action against second doses, it will be fast enough to prevent my wife and I from getting ours... as it would pertain to the stocks still retained in warehouses for this, while our second doses would have been delivered to our hospital around Monday the 18th, still out of Biden's reach, and it would take VERY fast action from the Biden administration to reverse everything in less than 24hrs. He'd have to install someone else to head the FDA and the CDC, memos and policies would have to be drawn and diffused, etc. By sheer inertia, I think that my 2nd dose and my wife's, scheduled to be given 19 hours after the inauguration, are secure. My daughter-in-law's, though, is less guaranteed. She had her first dose yesterday, and her second one is scheduled for 1/29 so I worry about hers.

    She is probably secure too, because of a simple fact: she is priority tier 1a from the fact that she is a medical student doing clinical rotations, in a (prestigious) private medical school. From being in the faculty of another (equally prestigious) private medical school and knowing about what we do regarding the risks our students face, we are all terrified of lawsuits from families of students who get hurt. Students are paying costumers... While an employee signs up for the job and gets to work through accepting the risks and hardships of the job, a paying customer, a student, has a much bigger case to sue the school if he/she gets hurt through negligence from the school in protecting him/her. I remember deans telling us "don't ever send a student to a rotation in a sector or building of the affiliated healthcare system if there isn't a contract ensuring that all precautions are in place for the student's safety and all the insurances are in place. If a student even slips and falls on a stretch of wet floor, breaks a bone and these agreements are not in place, we're in trouble." Not the same concern for employees. They'd go through employee health, apply for workman's compensation, etc., business as usual. But a student? Those are VIPs.

    So, in virtue of the FDA's strong position against this, the school would be in trouble if they don't provide the second dose to a student, who then gets sick and develops complications from Covid-19. Plaintiffs would use the FDA memo to make a case of negligence against the school. Therefore I'm very hopeful that my daughter-in-law will get her second dose with no issues.

    But I worry for the masses of 21 million healthcare workers who belong to 1a. Many of us got our first doses and many more haven't even received their first doses yet. Given our strong exposure to the virus, we all need our two doses. And other segments of the population deserve their two doses too. The Biden administration shouldn't mess with this. Hopefully once Biden is inaugurated and Fauci gets integrated into the Covid-19 Task Force, he will talk some sense into these people.
     
    Last edited: Jan 9, 2021

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