Vaccine Progress in Florida and the USA

The good news is that there are now 3 approved COVID-19 vaccines in the USA with more than enough doses to allow all American adults to be vaccine eligible by May 1st.  Two of the vaccines, Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, have already proven to be very effective in the field.  These are two-dose vaccines that can take 6 weeks to achieve full protection.  One way to track real-life efficacy is through Florida’s Seniors First program to vaccinate everyone over 65 first.  As of March 13th, 2.93M seniors or 65% have been vaccinated with 1.75M (39%) completing the two-dose regime.  If the vaccine is effective, the number of daily cases, hospitalizations, and deaths should all come down. 

The graph below tracks the relative susceptibility of Floridians by age to SARS-CoV-2 infections.  Seniors have always been more careful to mask-up and social distance since the first COVID-19 cases appeared in Florida and killed hundreds of seniors last spring.  Moreover, the oldest seniors (85+) have been the least mobile and thus least likely to spread the virus.  After rising slightly post year-end holiday gatherings that increased community transmission, relative infection rate (i.e. number of cases per capital for the age group divided by the number of cases per capita for the whole population) has steadily declined over the last 4 weeks from mid-February to mid-March for all seniors.  We are forecasting that these relative infection rates will continue to decline steadily for another 4 weeks as the number of fully vaccinated seniors approach 3.2M or 70% of the group population. After that, we believe that the rate of decline will slow and will run up against a stubborn core group of people refusing vaccines (estimated to be 27%). 

This steady decline in senior susceptibility to COVID-19 will positively impact the overall case fatality rate (CFR = deaths/cases).  CFR has decreased from 2.5% in the first wave to 2.0% for the second wave to 1.5% for the third wave in FL.  We believe this will decrease below 1% soon as the median age of new cases falls further below the current value of 37 years old. 

This however does not mean that the virus will no longer be a threat.  The bad news is that the relative susceptibility of kids to SARS-CoV-2 has been increasing since school reopened in FL last year.  The trend appears to have worsened with the spread of the new and more contagious variants this year.  It could be several months before any vaccine is approved for kids under 16.  In the meantime, schools can reopen but it is important that teachers and staff get vaccinated, facilities get upgraded (e.g. ventilation), and masking and social distancing be enforced to mitigate the spread of the disease in schools. 




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Could Florida be the Next Epicenter in the COVID-19 Pandemic?

Image
Florida Governor DeSantis has failed to recognize the seriousness of the exploding Covid-19 Pandemic in Florida.   His slow response and poor judgment have already cost many Floridians their lives and may cost many thousands more if he fails to act now.   State Infections/M Infections Deaths Mortality Mortality Coincident Lagged5 NY            2,361 45934 604 1.3% 3.6% NJ               994 8825 108 1.2% 5.1% LA               591 2746 119 4.3% 12.7% WA               486 3700 175 4.7% 8.8% MA               466 3240 35 1.1% 5.1% MI               366 3657 92 2.5% 8.4% CT               362 1291 27 2.1% 8.2% CO                  301 1734 31 1.8% 5.3% IL       
Read more

NYC is now Worse than China 2 days after Wuhan Quarantine

Image
China announced plans to quarantine Wuhan on January 22 when the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases was near 500 and threatened to go exponential or out of control.   The number of confirmed cases in NY state has now passed that threshold by 3 days and it is growing exponentially. Most of the confirmed cases in NY, NJ, and CT are located in the metro-NYC area.   If the US wants to adopt China’s successful, albeit painful, quarantine program they must do so NOW.   Many people with the benefit of hindsight criticized China for such draconic measures while others criticized them for doing it too late.   WHO seemed to be the only major organization that had praised China for its decisive action at that time.   Now is the time for Governor Cuomo, or really President Trump to adopt a strategy similar to China’s before the virus escapes the hot zones such as metro-NYC, Seattle, and San Franciso and the pandemic gets out of con
Read more

Pre-Thanksgiving Dip in COVID-19 Cases

Image
COVID-19 cases in the USA have shown a sharp decrease over the last 8 days causing the 7-day rolling average to peak and rollover (see figure below – red squares).   The question is whether this is measuring a real lasting phenomenon – perhaps attributable to local COVID-19 fires burning out, or to mitigation factors taking hold, or to some temporary factor associated with the Thanksgiving holiday.   The answer is probably a combination of all three that will ultimately be overwhelmed by an increase in Thanksgiving transmission. Some COVID-19 outbreaks have burned so strongly and for so long (3-4 months) that local “herd immunity” may be acting as a retardant to the fire.   For example, in North Dakota (ND) 10.3% of the population has now been confirmed infected (see table below).   State Confirmed Testing Est. Pop Deaths Death per Fatality   Infection % Positive % Infection %
Read more