The proposal divides US scientists

The impact of vaccines, vaccines and demographics on the spread of flu and Covid-19: The Yale Center for Infectious Disease Modelling and Analysis

Numerous studies have found that flu and Covid-19 vaccines significantly reduce the risk of severe outcomes for those who become infected, including hospitalization and death – thus reducing the burden on the health care work force.

Researchers from the Commonwealth Fund and the Yale School of Public Health created a computer model of disease transmission, incorporating demographic information and people’s risk factors to figure out how much shots have helped.

One of the study authors says that the savings may be much higher if you factor in the cases of long Covid.

According to the founding director of the Yale Center for Infectious Disease Modelling and Analysis, it was a remarkable success given the emergency of highly transmissible and immune-evading variants.

“Don’t wait. If you wait, you endanger yourself according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Chief Medical Adviser and Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease. The early winter and late fall months are where we are entering the cold. We will be spending the holidays with our families and friends. If you are up to date, great. If you are not, you need to get a vaccine.

Influence of Flu Vaccines on the Epidemiology of Pediatric Emergency Services: What Do People Really Want to Know About Flu, Covid, and RSV?

The CDC recommends masking for anyone who’s on public transportation. It states that one should be worn in other public settings in communities that have a high level of transmission. It’s important for people at high risk of severe illness to wear masks in areas with only medium community levels.

Flu vaccine sales are hard to sell in the US. The United States Department of Health and Human Services has a target vaccine rate of 70%. Less than half of the population has gotten their yearly flu shot over the past decade.

The hesitancy that has become so pervasive is made them less likely to come in when trying to get people to do something new. People seem to be more willing to accept a flu vaccine at an appointment they scheduled to get the Covid-19 vaccine booster instead of the other way around.

“There’s the old saying, ‘familiarity breeds contempt.’ He said that familiarity seemed to breed some nonchalance, but perhaps that was a bit strong.

“We were coming out of lockdowns, and people wanted to be active as opposed to passive. When we told people that they didn’t have to have a Covid Vaccine, they said that they were doing that. “

But that double threat didn’t materialize. Flu seasons have been uncharacteristically mild for the past two years, and people have let their guard down, experts say.

Now, continued messaging about a triple threat of viruses – flu, Covid and RSV – isn’t hitting in quite the same way. The urgency is real, as hospitals across the country stretch their capacity to record levels, but it’s not driving people to action.

“If it were a vaccine like measles, where it is really effective and it’s not repeated, it might be different,” Hackell said. “But we have to compare it to Covid and flu vaccines, where the efficacy is less than dramatic, and when there’s a lot of controversy going on, I think that spills over.”

I believe there is fatigue, moral injury, and also burnout on the part of providers. Hackell, the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Practice and Ambulatory Medicine chair, said that they are not pushing it as hard. It gets very hard to keep having this conversation over and over. I am not sure when the time is right to have these long discussions when your office is filled with sick kids.

The Roadmap to Vaccines for Children and Families: An Empirical Study of Co-administration of Flu and Covid-19

In the United States, about 15% of people eligible have received a two-strain jab. Many people have received a mixture of vaccines, leading to confusion about which type of booster to get and when.

But despite the convenience of getting both shots at once, there’s evidence that linking the two isn’t the best way to boost coverage rates for either.

“We give multiple vaccines to our kids at the same time, but we haven’t typically done that for adults,” said Tan, former liaison to the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee for the American Medical Association.

Dr. Sean O’Brien, chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Infectious Diseases and a vaccine adviser to the CDC, said that children and adolescents need a vaccine for their health. “We all have a responsibility to ensure everyone can access vaccinations, both for their individual health as well as to prevent the spread of illnesses. These schedules provide a roadmap parents and pediatricians can follow to help children get the vaccines they need so their immune systems will be ready to recognize and resist diseases.”

The message might be holding up. At Walgreens locations, co-administration of the flu and Covid-19 vaccine is 70% higher this year than it was last year, according to data shared with CNN.

There was a continuous decline over the course of four weeks, but now we have the increase as opposed to this. “But while I’m sounding positive, I want to remind us all that we need to be better than we currently are.”

The Florida gov. John DeSantis asked that a grand jury be appointed to investigate wrongdoing in the state regarding the Covid-19 vaccine

The Florida governor asked the state Supreme Court to allow an investigation of any and all wrongdoing in the state regarding the Covid-19 vaccine, in order to cast doubt on its effectiveness and amplify fears about side effects.

In his petition to the Florida Supreme Court, the Republican governor requested the empaneling of a grand jury to investigate pharmaceutical manufacturers and other entities that are associated with the development and marketing of vaccines.

The public health integrity committee, which would counter the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is something the Republican will create, DeSantis said Tuesday. The panel would look at guidance from federal agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health.

The need for vaccines was advocated by DeSantis early on. His message has changed in the past few months, but still coincides with skepticism among conservatives who have booed or chided Trump for promoting vaccines.

There are few cases of myocarditis and pericarditis after the vaccine, but they are more likely to occur in young men. The risk of heart inflammation is far greater from Covid-19 than from vaccination.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/13/politics/desantis-covid-vaccine-manufacturers/index.html

A question that will keep the CEOs up late at night: When is Florida going to look in the future? Comment on a COVID-19 vaccine advisory panel

“We will answer this question. It is a question that I am sure keeps the CEOs of Pfizer and Moderna up late at night, hoping no one ever looks. Ladapo said during the roundtable that they were going to look in Florida.

This means COVID-19 vaccine is no longer presented in the same manner as previous years, but it is still presented as a recommended vaccine and no longer displayed in a special box. This is a way to normalize the vaccine, sending a powerful message that everyone ages 6 months and older should always be up to date with recommended vaccines, just as they would with any other vaccine.

In the debate against Charlie Crist, he said that the state’s budget surplus was the largest in Florida’s history.

A year ago, he moved to block cruise lines from requiring customers to be vaccines, and to prevent municipalities from imposing vaccine mandates. In June, DeSantis touted Florida’s status as the only state not to preorder vaccines for children younger than 5.

Scientists are split on a US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) proposal to update COVID-19 vaccines once a year, similar to the agency’s approach to updating influenza vaccines. Some researchers argued that at a meeting of FDA’s vaccine advisory panel on 26 January that the plan would help to simplify the country’s complex COVID-19 immunization schedule, and that it could boost the percentage of people who use it.

Peter Marks, the head of the FDA’s Center for biologics evaluation and research, said that a jab before winter surge could prevent a rash of hospitalizations. Hospitals are near capacity this season because of the high volume of people with respiratory syncytial virus and flu in the winter.

Some meeting panellists had concerns about the decision to use a bivalent formulation, rather than an updated single-strain one, in future vaccines. Scientists noted that there are few data on the effectiveness of bivalent vaccines when given as a primary series — particularly in young children, who make up a large proportion of the people now receiving a primary series in the United States. Some studies suggest that including the ancestral strain might make the vaccine less effective than it would be without it.

The United States, Britain and other countries have adopted the bivalent boosters, which target both the ancestral and Omicron strains of the coronaviruses, at the start of the pandemic. According to data shared at the advisory meeting, those who got just a single-strain booster were twice as likely to die from COVID-19 as their counterparts who got a bivalent booster. However, any booster still reduces overall chances of death from COVID-19.

Dr. William Schaffner, a professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at University Medical Center said that the vaccine for the disease does not need a booster. The vaccine does not last in its protection. If there is a vaccine outbreak, we would use it.

The proposed changes were recommended by the CDC’s vaccine advisers, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices or ACIP, and signed off on by the CDC, which worked with physicians, nurses and pharmacists on the recommendation.

The Covid-19 vaccine is part of the routine schedule, so it doesn’t mean that schools will be required to have it. School-entry vaccination requirements are determined by state or local jurisdictions, and not by CDC.

The new recommendations also add the use of PCV15, a pneumococcal conjugate vaccine used to treat bacterial infection recently approved for use in children. The higher valent PCV15 may or may not be used based on the kids’ population.

Similarly, the new recommendations provide clear guidance on the use of an additional poliovirus vaccine if new cases emerge, such as in New York City last year.

There were many questions about how much of a vaccine should be used in order to give a better immunity against the disease, and this opens the door to use of an additional dose of inactivatedvirus in order to give better protection against the disease.

The importance of yearly vaccinations is emphasized by public health experts. The target for vaccine coverage for kindergarteners in the US was reduced to less than 98% in the second half of the school year due to a variety of factors.

Health care disruptions related to the Covid19 Pandemic have caused a dip in vaccine coverage.

Why is it a matter of concern? These viruses and other germs could be reintroduced into the US and cause disease. The recent end of the measles epidemic in Ohio is illustrative of the need to keep our guard up.