Yeah I suppose they do it however they do it. That seems odd to me. You can just write on a card? Well I guess you have to get the card first so maybe it isn't that strange.
They did have me fill in my own personal information which I found odd.
Everything in Moderation. Including Moderation.
Spent great summers there as a kid.
You will not see any masks or vaccinated people there, but enjoy the drive and the scenery.
So far so good. We under estimate our fellow man. Drug stores, rest stops, gas stations, hotel and restaurants all overwhelmingly people wearing masks. I think tomorrow and Saturday will tell the tale. Nice area, little chilly. Traffic sucked at times getting here.
They are opening things up in Illinois to get your shot. I think tomorrow you only have to be 16 years old. But I guess the rules are different if you live in Chicago which we do. Some of the government websites actually say rules can differ.
I'm trying to get my wife in somewhere and I've struck out. The site where I got both of mine had hardly any people there when I went but they won't take any more appointments.
I know several people that are way younger than my wife and I and they got one. I have friends that have gone to different states (Michigan & Indiana) and got theirs. They just have to go back for the second shot.
I know this is a work in progress but I would hope it could run smoother. Especially when The National Guard is involved. 🙄
Everything in Moderation. Including Moderation.
Strange you are having such a difficult time securing a vaccine Lee. Have you tried all the various providers such as drug stores, grocery stores, etc?
Back home yesterday from the Outer Banks. Was a really nice trip. We stayed on the northern area Duck/Corolla which was good. Didn't care for what I'd call the middle Kitty Hawk/Kill Devil/Nags Head. We drove all the way to where pavement ends on the southern portion to explore all of what was around.
As for covid protections? I have to say every single employee of a business except for an outdoor bartender wore a face covering. And at our hotel, the guests were so cautious to wear masks while walking in the parking lot, even when alone or with their own family members. Masks masks and more masks. In fact, I'm not an anti-masker by any means, but if an overhead spy camera was monitoring the area I was in, I might have been the one not masked up enough. I do not wear a mask when I am out in open space when not around people. I don't wear a mask when I am out in open space and even walk past a person. You pass a person in one second, and without talking or heavy breaking in outdoor air, the chances of spreading virus in that moment is very small. All-in-all plenty of people wore masks. Walking into and out of restaurants, masks. At some of the lighthouse sites and the Wright Brothers monument, probably less than 50% for people walking around outside, with full mask compliance inside the buildings and bathrooms. We did a horse finding tour, we wore our masks while in the open air Hummer the entire time. Some patrons choose to take theirs off. Our driver took his mask off while driving. He either wore a mask or talked behind a plastic barrier when not driving. Felt like it went pretty well. Places were busy and traffic was thick that is for sure.
What else is new? Almost 40% of US Marines are declining the vaccine. The Pfizer vaccine might not work vs the South African variant, or even increase possibility of infection (per Israel study). So much unknown, just got to figure out where you stand, act accordingly and get on with whatever you see fit to do. My second shot is next Tuesday. Have a wedding first weekend in May. I hate weddings anyway, like people think friends and family get excited to come to their wedding (recalling some funny Seinfeld standup jokes about that).
I work in healthcare. Covid doesn't care what your belief systems are when it destroys your lungs ... Stay safe out there people.
FDA and CDC recommending pause in use of Johnson and Johnson covid vaccine.
Strange you are having such a difficult time securing a vaccine Lee. Have you tried all the various providers such as drug stores, grocery stores, etc?
If I understand the process here, even given the options opening, people living in the city of Chicago can get vaccinated but they can't get the vaccine in the city. But, we can go to the suburbs and get a shot. Makes sense, right?
Well Scott, I tried for probably three hours Sunday evening trying to get her in. I was close a bunch of times and then when I tried to finalize it, the appointment were booked. So I guess persistence paid off as I was able to get her in to the site outside of Wrigley Field tomorrow at of all places (she's a White Sux fan 😉).
I didn't get one of those black icon things that are scanned a lot these days so I hope she is in anyway. I did get a confirmation.
I think it will be Pfizer but I am not positive. This is rather confusing.
Everything in Moderation. Including Moderation.
Glad you had a good time in the northern OBX where I have fond memories & that protections were being honored.
I HATE what south of where you were has become - wall to wall (so close you can reach out & touch your neighbor's house) enormous rental homes on stilts that are filled with loud, partying, disrespectful, trash- the-furniture groups from May through October. & bumper to bumper traffic on Sats (check out/in day). My sister owns a couple of those & plans to sell ASAP. I think it's a great place if you're really, really, really into fishing & surfing!
I just got back from getting my second vaccine...so far no issues...in 2 weeks what really changes?....I'm still not going to go out to a restaurant, bar or crowded event and I'll be wearing a mask at the grocery store or other stores until I see the numbers drop all around the country. We aren't out of the water and I'm waiting a while to see how it all plays out.
Yep. I got vacc'd in December. I'm no longer having anxiety attacks when I go to work or go to the grocery store but I still won't eat inside a restaurant and still wear a mask everywhere I go. I know someone who got covid from her kid a few months after she got vaccinated. She didn't get sick but was somewhat symptomatic.
I read that only 22% of the US has been vaccinated. We have a way to go before herd immunity
This evening I am a little sore at the injection spot and even though I am a natural afternoon napper. Today I took an extra long nap and it took me quite a while to wake up and be able to focus afterwards. We'll see if that's the extent of my reaction...
Wife just got her first shot at Wrigley Field. Her next shot is in a few weeks when the Flubs have a 6:40 game and her appointment is at 3:30. Timing is interesting. She got Pfizer. Three weeks until the next dose. I thought it was two weeks. They carded her and they didn't even ask me. Strange how the rules are.
Everything in Moderation. Including Moderation.
About 5,800 people who have been vaccinated against coronavirus have become infected anyway, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tells CNN.
CDC -
77 million vaccinated of those 5,800 infections among vaccinated people with 396 hospitalizations (6.8%) and 74 deaths (1.27%).
Ohio -
1,045,945 total infections with 54,455 hospitalizations (5.2%) and 18,917 deaths (1.8%).
Using Ohio as a comparison, a HIGHER percentage of people who have been vaccinated have been hospitalized 6.8% according to CDC's data. Deaths lower by about .5 percentage point.
Ohio has had 8.9% of it's population infected. Of the CDC's total 77 million vaccinated people, only 5800 have been infected which is .0075%.
So, data says you are much less likely to get infected once vaccinated, but if you do get infected the outcome isn't going to be much better.
Interesting
I wonder if they know how many vaccinated people got the variant - which is more infectious and more dangerous. That could skew the data
Interesting
I wonder if they know how many vaccinated people got the variant - which is more infectious and more dangerous. That could skew the data
We can be sure they have loads of information and data that will eventually come out and put the whole picture together. I will also be curious as time goes on this year if that very very low infection rate of vaccinated people remains such. Hopefully it will and that will really be a huge benefit and reasoning to further promote the vaccines. It did surprise me that the hospitalization and death rates though were as high as they are, but like you say, we don't know all the supporting data behind those numbers. More time, more data will equate to more knowledge.
I'm not one to deny that this is real as some people are. I actually had a discussion yesterday with a young lady that says the whole thing is basically fake, government hoax, blah blah blah so she won't get the vaccine. And before anyone throws it out there, no she is not Republican. Very far from it.
However, regarding the few recent posts with stats, I'm not inferring that they are wrong per se but there is a saying that many may have heard before: "There are lies, damn lies and statistics". Point being if you want to spin something a certain way you probably can to try to prove your point. Working my whole career in finance this kind of thing presents itself quite often.
As it relates to COVID I have wondered if these things like positivity rates for instance are accurate. If someone isn't tested, then how does that skew the numbers? Doctors aren't showing up at peoples' homes testing the entire population. I'm more curious about how many people were tested to arrive at the findings you see on the news, papers, etc. I have a hard time believing the sample size is large enough to make the determinations being presented. I'm actually interested in knowing what percentage of the population has been tested. You can't make people do it of course but I bet the infection numbers are actually higher than what we see.
Everything in Moderation. Including Moderation.
I believe I did see a government or one of those covid tracking sights that had tests administered, I'm not able to go look for that at the moment.
True, some people had the virus that never got tested...some think they had it based off of symptoms and didn't get tested (don't know why)...two of my neighbors, an older husband and wife, told me they had it (she is a long hauler with symptoms/side effects still months and months later) - they say they got it from a family member who did get a test, this couple both got sick but never got tested so the system will never know they had it.
Then on the other hand, there are also false positives. Some high profile false positives with athletes or politicians we found out later after retesting that they were in fact false positives. But the general public? How many false positives might have not got verified with follow up testing. So the possibility exists that some number of the postive test results are not accurate.
There is both sides of that one.
Another variable which may have a simple answer, we do know that a case is per person. Some had inferred that if you test the same person twice it will show up as two cases. That is not true. But how do they handle tests as it relates to total tests? Test the same person, 2 or 3 times...does that go down as 2 or 3 tests into the total or are "they" counting that as one person and those 2 or 3 tests get counted just once.
Also, how many thousands of places across the country were conducting tests? Hospitals, drive-throughs, clinics, government labs, private labs, etc - did they all follow the same documentation procedures?
It's the kind of thing that an average person like me kinda wants to know, but doesn't have the time to really dig into finding all of those things out and getting to the bottom of the numbers and what they all mean. So I don't know about anyone else, I assume most people just pick up bits and pieces of information here and there and it goes towards formulating some kind of opinion on this or that. Assumption being, the people at the CDC or the like really know what is going on, or atleast I said that is the assumption. Can't know that for sure either. Can't know anything for sure it seems anymore.
One more note, ever notice if you go to any number of sites that track covid or deaths or hospitalizations - you see different numbers. Even here in Ohio, in my county, there are two different statistics - one from the county board of health and one from the state. I've seen that in other states as well, say like the way they count cases that show up in their county, but those people don't live there. So many nuanced things on how they count what. Ohio has changed how they deaths a couple times. With the county and states not counting everything the same, so pretty sure then if you expand that out to all the counties and all the states and all the various agencies that report different numbers they aren't all going to match.
It would seem they should be able to get an accurate count on breakthrough cases, but then again, you could have a fully vaccinated person be asymptomatic and there you go, they got it after being vaccinated and nobody will ever know.
One more note, ever notice if you go to any number of sites that track covid or deaths or hospitalizations - you see different numbers. Even here in Ohio, in my county, there are two different statistics - one from the county board of health and one from the state. I've seen that in other states as well, say like the way they count cases that show up in their county, but those people don't live there. So many nuanced things on how they count what. Ohio has changed how they deaths a couple times. With the county and states not counting everything the same, so pretty sure then if you expand that out to all the counties and all the states and all the various agencies that report different numbers they aren't all going to match.
It would seem they should be able to get an accurate count on breakthrough cases, but then again, you could have a fully vaccinated person be asymptomatic and there you go, they got it after being vaccinated and nobody will ever know.
Yeah, kinda my point. I take stats with a grain of salt. Kinda like when you see numbers put out regarding polls or during election seasons. There could be, say a +/- rate of perhaps 3% or so. Well, given this topic I think that would be significant. If you claim a positivity rate of 3% or 4% but with a 3% potential variance, I would consider that significant.
Everything in Moderation. Including Moderation.
I had it but did not get tested. My wife got tested and was positive, and they said to assume everyone in the house is positive. My only symptoms were the loss of taste and smell, which still persists 5.5 months later. I think the numbers are under reported because of that. Same for deaths - some people died at home early on and there wasn't testing capability at the time to know they had it.
Total Tests administered:
OurWorldInData - 395.08 million as of 4/13/21
CDC - 396,532,948 as of 4/14/21 (8.41 positivity rate)
covidtrackingproject - 363,825,123 as of 3/7/21, no longer tracking data
statista - 410,979,696 as of 4/6/21
Something about the testing data from John Hopkins who tracks testing results and trends by state:
In the U.S., there are no federal standards for reporting COVID-19 testing data. This makes it impossible to offer a fully apples-to-apples view of testing data at the national level. Without federal standards, states have been left to forge their own paths, and as a result, they report testing data differently.
Under the current conditions, inputs into the same data categories differ between states. For example, in one state, the data for the number of tests administered might include both antigen tests and PCR tests. In another state, the testing data might only include PCR tests. This means that while the data category (“number of tests”) is the same, the inputs and resulting calculation are different.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, states have changed the amount and the type of testing data they report, and have been inconsistent in how they report antigen tests.
Some states also periodically pause or fully stop sharing key data that are used in making positivity calculations, or change the cadence with which they report data. Both of these actions can create abnormal spikes in positivity rates in tracking efforts such as ours.
These inconsistencies may result in a test positivity calculation on our site that is different from what states report.
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/testing/differences-in-positivity-rates
It would seem they should be able to get an accurate count on breakthrough cases, but then again, you could have a fully vaccinated person be asymptomatic and there you go, they got it after being vaccinated and nobody will ever know.
That's what's so mystifying about this virus - there are all kinds of variables & no single way to track them. Johns Hopkins is the one I followed in the early days & they always carried a disclaimer that their methodology was different than other trackers.
I know you are a stats man, but I'm happy to leave it up to some expert agency to pick the target numbers that allows an action. Rep. Jim Jordan made an ass of himself (not unusual) badgering Fauci to "give him the number" that will allow "people to go to funerals again." Fauci was calmly explaining the formulas & factors & until data was in, there couldn't be a prediction of an exact number/percentage (if ever). Jordan was clearly grandstanding, but seems like there's too many variables - cases, hospitalizations, deaths, vaccinations, breakthrough cases, & new strains - to have a single "safe" number. It might vary w/age & geography for the foreseeable future.
I do like stats for various reasons. While I'm fine leaving policy makers to do their policy making process using all the data and expertise they have available to them, I have to do something on my own to form my own opinion on a matter. Take travel for instance, I'm not going to rely on the CDC to tell me if I should travel or not - voluntary travel has been discouraged for a year. Instead in 2020, the two times I did travel and the two times I did not travel I justified doing so in dips of cases/hospitalizations and restrained from doing so in surges of cases/hospitalizations. And I'm not going to allow Joe Biden to tell me what kind of gathering I can or can not have or who I can hug or not on the 4th of July. I read and I listen and I come up with my own judgements for what I think fits my situation. If two people accept the risks of hugging on July 4th, then they hug. If they do not accept the risks of doing so, they don't. Evaluate the situation and take the action they seem appropriate. Stats help me do that and I'm just doing it for me, even though I post some things here, it's just me. People at the CDC or any other public agency, they have the burden and responsibility of making judgements of what is good policy recommendations for everyone. I see that as just a starting point, then everyone has to see how their own situations fit with that.
Here is a good example. The FDA and CDC recommended pausing the Johnson and Johnson vaccine. But I listened to the press conference and in one of the Q & A's one of the agency representatives said that the vaccine could still be administered and that people could still choose to take it after weighing all the relative risks and benefits of getting it. And that is exactly the right course. Not sure who that was who said it, but I agree. Now, saying that is one thing, in reality I'm not sure any provider is going to still offer the J&J vaccine for liability risk if nothing else (even though we sign the EUA forms, if a provider gives J&J doses after the FDA and CDC recommend pausing and a bad outcome befalls a patient that seems very risky for the provider). With Pfizer and Moderna, not sure why anyone would still really really want to try and get the J&J vaccine, but the FDA/CDC said if they wanted to they could. And that is a position I agree with.
There are experts and expert agencies with lifetimes of knowledge, but I think people should still evaluate it, not just follow it "because", follow it because you can affirm it and believe it is right. Believe it is misguided and wrong, then don't.
So when I saw the 5800 breakthrough cases out of 74 or 77 million vaccinated people and the 396 hospitalizations and the 74 deaths, my very first reaction is I had to put it in my own context and compare it to something to better help me understand it. My take away was, the vaccine does a terrific job at preventing virus in vaccinated people, but on the surface, not much better, if any better at keeping people out of a hospital and a little better at keeping people from dying. The article didn't make that judgement, but I was able to do that with statistics. This is what works for me and what I'm comfortable with. Just one guy trying to make sense of things.
Completely agree that educating oneself before making decisions is the reasonable approach. I personally don't have that many decisions to make having been vaccinated w/moderna & the countries I'd normally travel to aren't allowing Americans yet w/o restrictions (even Prince Harry is quarantined away from the rest of his family in England except for the funeral service today for his grandfather & will have to have a negative test before boarding a return flight to the US). I expect to social distance & wear a mask for quite a while.
Not sure why I haven't gone to bed. Does anyone else do that, instead skim through various articles about this or that?
“People have forgotten that COVID-19 is the clear and present danger,” infectious disease expert Dr. Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, tells Yahoo Life. “COVID-19 can cause blood clots and kill you. The world needs to get a lot better at risk-benefit calculation.”
From a yahoo article comparing blood clotting risks in other medications to that of Johnson and Johnson covid vaccine.
I thought initially as well, that 6, or maybe it is 7 now, clots including 1 death out of nearly 7 million vaccines administered was a curious reason to pause. So some have said, including Fauci, that this pause and evaluation should give people more comfort that they are doing everything possible to study it all and make sure it is safe. But is anything ever 100% safe? One out of a million, or less than one out of a million - and compared to other medications, this risk is so small, I think the pause does more harm to public confidence than it does good. After all, as Dr Amesh Adalja says, the risk calculation on this compared to what one is trying to avoid is out of whack. Thankfully we have Moderna and Pfizer, I wonder if we didn't, if we only had the J&J vaccine, think the CDC and FDA would've made the same recommendation on a 1 in a million issue?
Where I live...a very red state...we moved here last May due to the fact as a musician, music teacher, piano tuner and my wife was a school aid. All of our income was gone and I didn't see a way we were going to survive. I was old enough to apply for social security so I did. We moved from a place that we lived for 27 years and I miss everything about to here. One of the reasons we did move here is our grandsons are here. One being physically disabled and in a wheel chair. But both needing to have their grandmother near. Plus we were able to purchase 2 homes with our equity and we rent one out. Here it's a very mixed bag on how people have responded. There are the complete deniers that drive around with flags of ignorance flying out the back of their pick-me-up trucks...then there are people who do wear their mask and it can depend on what store you go to. Ace hardware...no-one had a mask on today except me and my wife....home depot...most people. The grocery stores most people. Costco everyone. The numbers here are dropping but it doesn't take much for it to turn around. I won't feel comfortable for quite a while yet.
My second dose was last Tuesday and I got a sore shoulder for a day. What I did notice is Friday I did some back squats and weights that should give me no issue felt heavy. As they did again today when I tried some again not even able to think I could squat what I usually do. So maybe my body is reacting to the vaccine in that way where it's taken a little away from my overall strength while it's building antibodies.
@goldtop - did you get Pfizer or Moderna? Such a wide range of reactions, or none for most. I get Moderna#2 tomorrow morning
