The prevailing news about Covid-19 has been so bleak for so long. But the facts have changed – perhaps faster, perhaps, than the major news narratives have changed.
Vaccines show “spectacular” results, borrowing a recent phrase from Dr. Anthony Fauci. Hospitalizations are declining. The options are a curve, but “it just doubles the idea that we need to vaccinate people as soon as possible,” says CNJ Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
The new administration is activating what it calls a “government-wide response.” Government experts speak freely to the press and the public. Conspiracy theories are no longer retweeted by the president. Prudent optimism is justified at this time – with an emphasis on caution, certainly, but without losing optimism.
Some observers have pointed to a disconnect between data and public discussions about the pandemic.
“For most of us, the best thing is to stop the detailed speeches about what it means to decrease the neutralizing titers of antibodies, etc. from Twitter threads, ”said Zeynep Tufekci
wrote last week. “We have to go through a bleak winter – expect it – but the news about the future has been very good for months.”
The news about the future is primarily about the effectiveness of vaccines.
David Leonhardt of the New York Times wrote on Monday: “Vaccine news continues to be excellent – and public discussions about it continue to be more negative than the facts warrant. Here’s the key fact: All five public vaccines have eliminated Covid-19 deaths. They also drastically reduced hospitalizations. “
Sometimes detailed data from clinical trials hide the main point, which is that vaccines are largely effective in preventing symptomatic disease – “which means fewer hospitalizations and later fewer deaths,” as the manufacturer told me Wednesday night. CNN Health executive Ben Tinker. . “Additional preliminary data on the AstraZeneca vaccine – developed in conjunction with Oxford University – suggest that it may also be effective in preventing the transmission of the virus. This would be even more welcome in the urgent effort to stop the tide of new cases. “Each update only emphasizes the need to get more doses for as many people as possible …
WH information three times a week
Technical difficulties affected the first briefing of the WH Covid-19 response team on January 27, but since then video conferencing has worked well. Covid-19 chief Jeff Zients, Fauci, CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, and other officials held briefings last Friday and all three days a week so far this week.
Zients said Wednesday: “I hope that in five briefings, we will begin to establish a model for providing the American people with the facts they need about the crisis and our response, led by experts and scientists.”
Lockhart’s opinion
Quoting from the new column of Clinton-era press secretary Joe Lockhart for CNN.com: “Something unusual is happening in Washington, DC: media briefings, and many of them. senior officials actually answer them. “Read more …
Partisanship causes the vaccine to hesitate
Of course, the scale of the crisis is staggering. As Zients said, “vaccinating everyone in America is one of the biggest operational challenges we have ever faced, and we will not stop working until this mission is completed.”
Currently, the demand for photography far exceeds the supply. But at some point there will be a gap between supply and demand. A new survey from Monmouth University finds that 50% of Americans intend to “receive the Covid vaccine as soon as they are allowed” and that 6% already have it. (The latest figure is already outdated, with more than a million doses taken each day.) Monmouth found that “another 19% say they’d rather let other people get it first to see how it goes” and “24 % say they will probably never get the vaccine if they can avoid it. “
>> “The reluctance to receive the vaccine is determined more by partisanship than any single demographic factor,” commented polling station director Patrick Murray. “It says a lot about the depth of our partisan division that it could have an impact on public health in this way.”
>> Media Matters, senior colleague Matt Gertz: “Steve Doocy should receive the COVID vaccine live.” Has other suggestions for Fox …
One death per minute?
As every “Rent” fan knows, there are 525,600 minutes in a year. There may also be many deaths due to Covid-19 in the United States by March. Reader H. Steven Moffic, MD, pointed this out to me on Wednesday. His latest contribution to the Psychiatric Times refers to measuring death per minute and “prolonged Covid-19 pain.”
>> For CNN’s Ben Tinker, “an overall forecast released Wednesday by the CDC now projects that there will be 496,000 to 534,000 deaths from coronavirus in the United States by Feb. 27.”
>> On Wednesday, the number of deaths in the US exceeded 450,000, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins. The United States went from 400,000 to 450,000 deaths in just 15 days. As deaths are an indicator of delays, “the recent decline in hospitalizations gives us hope that the number of deaths should begin to decline in the coming weeks,” Walensky said on Wednesday.
