Viewpoints: CDC Says Vaccines Shield Against Infection And Transmission; Will ADA Cover ‘Long Covid’?
Opinion writers weigh in on vaccines, long haulers, covid-19 and vaccine passports.
Bloomberg:
Pfizer And Moderna Research Shows Vaccines Will Save Us
Following pandemic news too closely can be an emotional roller coaster, with dire public health warnings immediately followed by hopeful new studies. The latest soaring discovery: a new CDC study showing vaccines sharply cut all Covid-19 infections — not just symptoms. That news puts to rest one worst-case-scenario: that vaccines might protect the vaccinated against hospitalization, but allow millions of silent infections to continue circulating. (Faye Flam, 3/30)
NBC News:
For Covid Long-Haulers, Is Getting Reasonable Accommodation Under The ADA The Next Issue?
The wide range and unquestionable severity of long-term effects for a subset of Covid-19 patients is already well-supported by a number of studies. They experience often unpredictable combinations of symptoms, including chest pain, intermittent fevers, gastrointestinal problems, high blood pressure, depression, anxiety, memory and attention problems, low energy and more. It's still unclear exactly how many people who have been infected by the coronavirus will develop long-lasting symptoms, but the number appears substantial. An immunologist at London’s Imperial College told Scientific American in December that his “guesstimate is that we probably have way more than 5 million people on the planet with long Covid. ”And as daily global cases remain well over 500,000, even with massive vaccination drives underway, it's likely that a nontrivial fraction of total patients — some have estimated 2 percent — will develop long-term symptoms. (Vincent White, 3/31)
Modern Healthcare:
Racial Inequities In COVID Vaccines Demand Federal Action
As the woman at the helm of the New York City Health Department when the city became the epicenter for COVID-19 in the U.S., I'm excited and relieved that more than a year into this deadly pandemic we have three vaccines approved that hold great promise for bringing this global nightmare to an end.
It was inevitable that launching a nationwide mass vaccination effort would have serious challenges from supply issues to getting shots in arms, so it's encouraging to see the speed at which people are being vaccinated is accelerating, as Americans step up to help one another navigate clumsy online vaccination portals and more vaccination sites are opened. The number of people wanting to be vaccinated is still outpacing vaccine supply, but all indications show manufacturers are on pace to accelerate production to meet that demand. However, we are destined to reinforce inequities in rates of vaccination among Blacks and Latinos if the imbalance between the momentum of COVID and the inertia of structural racism isn't met with leadership that leans into equity. (Dr. Oxiris Barbot, 3/30)
USA Today:
My Patient Got COVID And Died. He Thought Life Was Back To Normal, But We Aren't There Yet.
I was out on the streets of San Francisco last weekend when I noticed something I hadn’t seen in over a year: The hustle and bustle of city life was coming back. People were gathered outside bars and restaurants, crowded and unmasked. There were handshakes and hugs as they moved from one group of friends to the next. It seemed so… normal. The difference was stark when I returned to work as a hospital physician the next day and witnessed my elderly patient with COVID-19 pass away after days of gasping. A grandfather, he had traveled from the Midwest to visit his family right after receiving his first vaccine shot. But within a week, he developed difficulty breathing. (Dr. Thomas K. Lew, 3/31)
Los Angeles Times:
What Should The U.S. Do With Its Surplus Vaccines? Follow The Playbook It Used During WWII
The United States is making and distributing COVID-19 vaccines so fast that production will soon outstrip demand, leading officials to ask: What should we do with the extra doses? Most answers have focused on the home front: Dozens of states, including California, are rapidly opening vaccination eligibility to all adults, and President Biden has doubled the speed of his initial rollout calendar, now calling for 200 million Americans to be vaccinated by the end of April.While these responses are heartening, there is another way to handle America’s growing stockpile of vaccines, and it draws from a playbook the country used during World War II — give them away. (Michael Falcone, 3/31)
The Washington Post:
My Osage Tribe Is Swimming In Vaccines — But The People Won’t Take Them
Downtown Pawhuska, Okla., is busy these days with filmmakers working on preproduction of the upcoming Martin Scorsese film “Killers of the Flower Moon.” You can tell who is in the film crew by the N95 face masks they wear. The locals don’t wear face masks. Pawhuska is the home of the Osage Nation tribal government and the county seat in Osage County, an area conterminous with the Osage reservation in northeastern Oklahoma. I’m one of about 4,000 Osages who live on the reservation, according to data from the Osage Nation membership office; about 43,000 non-Osages, including members of other Native tribes and White people, live here, too. Hesitancy about getting vaccinated for covid-19 is a potent force in both communities, and it’s troubling. We have to live together safely. I hope we can do it. (Shannon Shaw Duty, 3/30)
Also —
Stat:
Vaccination Certificates Won't End Lockdown
Covid-19 immunity and vaccination certificates are being held up as golden tickets to the new normal. Israel, the country leading the way on vaccination rates, has a green pass program to help its citizens return to public spaces such as gyms and theaters. The European Union and China have announced similar passports to revive travel. In the United States, the Biden administration is assessing the viability of vaccine certificates. These efforts raise serious red flags. Vaccination certificates will likely deepen existing inequalities in health care, education, and employment. And the rush to a new normal via certificates sets the stage for function creep — a way of short-cutting public debates and considerations around surveillance and the use of personal data. (Brian Spisak, 3/31)
The Washington Post:
Vaccine Passports Are The Next Front In The Pandemic Culture Wars
The first thing to know about vaccine passports is that they’re not passports. They’re more like certificates, likely emerging in the form of scannable smartphone codes, that declare one thing and only one thing about their bearer: that they have gotten stuck in the arm the requisite number of times. The second thing to know about vaccine passports is that they don’t even exist yet, at least not at any appreciable scale. The White House is working with private companies to develop standards for whatever products emerge, but the government isn’t crafting a little blue book with an N95-clad eagle embossed in gold that all civilians must carry wherever they go. (Molly Roberts, 3/30)