Realistic vaccine date- end of 2021?

[AsherO]

You mean Mike Pence's 100m kits?
Yeah good point, but they said 3.2m people with 6.4m doses.

BTW Pfizer anticipates 40m by year end, but only 6.4m by FDA approval on Dec 10. The numbers don't really add up. There are 15 days until Dec 10 in which they expect to make 6.4m, and 20 days from Dec 10-30 in which they anticipate 33m. Granted, it is possible the production time is longer 6.4m started months ago, or production capacity will be ramped up progressively, but it's more likely a large chunk of the 40m will also be ready on Dec 10 but isn't going to the US.

It appears the US has 21m front line Health Care Workers.

Doesn’t that 21m figure appear high? Are 1 in 15 of ALL Americans (including the elderly/retirees, infants and children, homeless, disabled/unemployed etc) a front-line healthcare worker? They must be using some really loose definition and/or inflating this figure.

ETA: Even the publishes numbers for “Healthcare and social assistance” is below 21m, and that’s an inclusive category well beyond front-line healthcare workers.

https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/employment-by-major-industry-sector.htm

[PlatinumGuy]

Doesn’t that 21m figure appear high? Are 1 in 15 of ALL Americans (including the elderly/retirees, infants and children, homeless, disabled/unemployed etc) a front-line healthcare worker? They must be using some really loose definition and/or inflating this figure.

ETA: Even the publishes numbers for “Healthcare and social assistance” is below 21m, and that’s an inclusive category well beyond front-line healthcare workers.

https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/employment-by-major-industry-sector.htm

Frontline is obviously a strong word, but the WSJ proclaims 21m 'Health Care workers'. It's probably a broader category than your stat, since it will include hospital employees who are not directly engaged in providing healthcare, yet can theoretically be critical.

[avromie7]

Doesn’t that 21m figure appear high? Are 1 in 15 of ALL Americans (including the elderly/retirees, infants and children, homeless, disabled/unemployed etc) a front-line healthcare worker? They must be using some really loose definition and/or inflating this figure.

ETA: Even the publishes numbers for “Healthcare and social assistance” is below 21m, and that’s an inclusive category well beyond front-line healthcare workers.

https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/employment-by-major-industry-sector.htm

Healthcare and social assistance was 20.4m in 2019, that's really close to 21m and we're 1.5 years later.




https://www.epa.gov/regulatory-information-sector/healthcare-and-social-assistance-sector-naics-62

The Health Care and Social Assistance sector comprises establishments providing health care and social assistance for individuals. The industries in this sector include physician's offices, hospitals, medical laboratories, nursing homes, and youth and family service centers.

Sure sounds like the overwhelming majority are front-line workers.

[Euclid]

A frum woman who participated in the Moderna trial and received the vaccine and had confirmed antibodies in September has now reported a severe case of COVID that she caught from her husband 2 days after Moderna released preliminary results of 94.5% effectiveness - not good news!

https://www.imamother.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=399108

Predictably, that thread devolved into anti-vaxxer rhetoric.

[PlatinumGuy]

Hospitals in England have been told they could receive the first doses of the Pfizer shot as early as the week of Dec. 7 if it receives approval, the Guardian and Financial Times reported.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/29/coronavirus-britain-vaccine-441187

[S209]

Thread title should be bumped up by a year

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/30/first-mass-air-shipment-of-pfizers-covid-vaccine-arrives-as-airlines-prepare-for-more.html

[PlatinumGuy]

https://twitter.com/laoneill111/status/1333489934099996675?s=21

[PlatinumGuy]

https://twitter.com/jonathanvswan/status/1333623621915389952?s=21

[yuneeq]

https://twitter.com/jonathanvswan/status/1333623621915389952?s=21

"The amount of data submitted to the FDA includes thousands of pages of technical information that must be divided up and reviewed by experts from different disciplines. Once the reviews by the various experts are completed, they are then integrated into an overall review. Completion of these reviews involves such things as ensuring that the manufacturing process and the controls on manufacturing are appropriate, checking statistical analyses performed to ensure that they were done properly and doing additional analyses, as necessary, to look at the effect of the vaccine on subsets of individuals who might be at greater risk of adverse effects."

You previously asked why the FDA is waiting until December 10th to meet, and I was curious as well, but after reading this it kinda seems justified.

[S209]

"The amount of data submitted to the FDA includes thousands of pages of technical information that must be divided up and reviewed by experts from different disciplines. Once the reviews by the various experts are completed, they are then integrated into an overall review. Completion of these reviews involves such things as ensuring that the manufacturing process and the controls on manufacturing are appropriate, checking statistical analyses performed to ensure that they were done properly and doing additional analyses, as necessary, to look at the effect of the vaccine on subsets of individuals who might be at greater risk of adverse effects."

You previously asked why the FDA is waiting until December 10th to meet, and I was curious as well, but after reading this it kinda seems justified.

I’m not sure. Sounds like a lot of words to excuse bureaucratic delays. Surely they should have access to as many experts around the clock as necessary to get this done ASAP?

[Euclid]

I’m not sure. Sounds like a lot of words to excuse bureaucratic delays. Surely they should have access to as many experts around the clock as necessary to get this done ASAP?

Even if they do - they need the full confidence and trust of the People. And to the layperson, due diligence == time.

[yuneeq]

I’m not sure. Sounds like a lot of words to excuse bureaucratic delays. Surely they should have access to as many experts around the clock as necessary to get this done ASAP?

Take the following paragraphs for example. Imagine you had 10,000 experts poring over each word, do you think they will read it and understand it faster than 2-3 people? How about if you split it up and give each expert one character to review, surely that will make things go faster?

Never mind the hiring, training, and onboarding of new experts including how to use internal tools and learn FDA protocols, etc. You also need some method of handling all the inter communication between these experts. To me it seems far simpler to throw the full weight of the FDA at the vaccine with existing expert employees and protocols, hopefully their decision will be ready as soon as possible. I can imagine some incompetence and inefficiencies but that’s natural.

[S209]

Take the following paragraphs for example. Imagine you had 10,000 experts poring over each word, do you think they will read it and understand it faster than 2-3 people? How about if you split it up and give each expert one character to review, surely that will make things go faster?

Never mind the hiring, training, and onboarding of new experts including how to use internal tools and learn FDA protocols, etc. You also need some method of handling all the inter communication between these experts. To me it seems far simpler to throw the full weight of the FDA at the vaccine with existing expert employees and protocols, hopefully their decision will be ready as soon as possible. I can imagine some incompetence and inefficiencies but that’s natural.

Don’t forget each day will cost ~1,500 lives.

Pfizer did it to make money. The FDA should be able to as well.

[Euclid]

Take the following paragraphs for example. Imagine you had 10,000 experts poring over each word, do you think they will read it and understand it faster than 2-3 people? How about if you split it up and give each expert one character to review, surely that will make things go faster?

Never mind the hiring, training, and onboarding of new experts including how to use internal tools and learn FDA protocols, etc. You also need some method of handling all the inter communication between these experts. To me it seems far simpler to throw the full weight of the FDA at the vaccine with existing expert employees and protocols, hopefully their decision will be ready as soon as possible. I can imagine some incompetence and inefficiencies but that’s natural.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks%27s_law

[S209]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks%27s_law

The first point is to note that Brooks's law only applies to projects that are already late. Projects can be brought back into (or kept in) control if people are added earlier in the process. It is also important to determine if the project is really late, or if the schedule was originally overly optimistic. Scheduling mistakes account for a large number of late projects. Correcting the schedule is the best way to have a meaningful and reliable time frame for the project's completion.

The quantity, quality and role of the people added to the project also must be taken into consideration. One simple way to circumvent the law on an overrun project is to add more people than needed, in such a way that the extra capacity compensates the training and communication overhead. Good programmers or specialists can be added with less overhead for training. People can be added to do other tasks related with the project, for example, quality assurance or documentation; given that the task is clear, ramp up time is minimized.

Good segmentation helps by minimizing the communication overhead between team members. Smaller sub-problems are solved by a smaller team, and a top-level team is responsible for systems integration. For this method to work, the segmentation of the problem must be done correctly in the first place; if done incorrectly, this can make the problem worse, not better, by impeding communication between programmers working on parts of the problem which are actually closely coupled, even when the project plan has decreed that they are not.

An example of segmentation are design patterns that simplify the distribution of work, because the entire team can do its part within the framework provided by that pattern. The design pattern defines the rules that the programmers follow, simplifies communication through the use of a standard language, and provides consistency and scalability.

[yzj]

Since Covid began we all became experts in so many different fields. Let’s add workplace and workflow efficiency to the list.

[S209]

Since Covid began we all became experts in so many different fields. Let’s add workplace and workflow efficiency to the list.

I’m no expert- I just can’t believe it takes 2 weeks to read through some research when Pfizer can produce and distribute 100 million vaccines in that time frame.

[avromie7]

Don’t forget each day will cost ~1,500 lives.

Pfizer did it to make money. The FDA should be able to as well.

I don't think this is really accurate, IINM at this point manufacturing is ramping up as quickly as possible, at most a couple of weeks after the vaccine starts being distributed they'll catch up to manufacturing at which point it will make no difference when they actually started distributing the vaccine.

[PlatinumGuy]

IINM at this point manufacturing is ramping up as quickly as possible

Who said?

[S209]

I don't think this is really accurate, IINM at this point manufacturing is ramping up as quickly as possible, at most a couple of weeks after the vaccine starts being distributed they'll catch up to manufacturing at which point it will make no difference when they actually started distributing the vaccine.

No matter what, every day that the first doses are not administered those higher risk people remain vulnerable during this (massive) wave. Each day that those initial people are vulnerable will probably cost lives.

So you’re right, it’s probably not 1,500, but it’s significant.