{"id":7698,"date":"2020-12-09T18:21:30","date_gmt":"2020-12-09T18:21:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adhc.lib.ua.edu\/pandemicbook\/?page_id=7698"},"modified":"2021-11-14T22:20:49","modified_gmt":"2021-11-14T22:20:49","slug":"12-09","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/adhc.lib.ua.edu\/pandemicbook\/12-09\/","title":{"rendered":"12-09"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Wednesday, December 9<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tUS Cases 15.56 million
US Deaths 293,180<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Dec 4: The U.S. hits<\/a> a daily death record. Judge Nicholas Garaufis\u00a0directs<\/a> the Trump administration to fully restore the Deferred Action for Child Arrivals (DACA) program. House Speaker Pelosi promises<\/a> Congress will not leave until another coronavirus relief bill has been passed. Trump suffers<\/a> election-related legal defeats in 6 states. The CDC urges<\/a> the use of masks universally indoors.<\/p>

Dec 5: Trump claims<\/a> election fraud at a Georgia rally. President Trump calls<\/a> Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) and requests that he call a special session of the state legislature to get lawmakers to override the presidential election results and appoint electors to vote for him instead of President-elect Joe Biden. Kemp declines.\u00a0<\/p>

Dec 6: Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) refuses<\/a> President Trump’s call for a special legislative session to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the state, saying it would amount to “nullifying the will of the people.” Studies show<\/a> that students are falling behind in their classes, which are online.\u00a0<\/p>

Dec 7: Britain starts<\/a> mass vaccinations. Fauci warns<\/a> that things are likely to get “really bad” after the holidays. Georgia recertifies<\/a> Biden’s victory. Florida state police raid<\/a> the Tallahassee home of the former Department of Health data scientist\u00a0Rebekah Jones, who says she was fired for refusing to manipulate COVID-19 data.<\/p>

Dec 8: The post-Thanksgiving COVID surge has begun<\/a>. Trump says<\/a> the Whitehouse Christmas parties will continue as planned. Arizona<\/a> and Pennsylvania<\/a> move towards accepting Biden’s victory.<\/p>

Dec 9: More than 3,000 deaths<\/a> today, another single day record. The House averts<\/a> a government shutdown. News breaks that 14 designated hate groups received<\/a> PPP employee relief funds last spring. Elon Musk’s private SpaceX Starship crashes<\/a> and burns.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tFrom the Cutting Room Floor ...\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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The first\u00a0<\/span>\u201cshot heard \u2018round the world\u201d\u00a0<\/span>occurred 245 years ago when American militia fired on British forces in Massachusetts. The second occurred today, when the British successfully won the vaccine race. They’ve begun to administer the Pfizer-BioNTech version of the coronavirus shot to elderly patients and healthcare workers. \u201cSuper-gran\u201d Margaret Keenan, age 90, was the first participant to receive an injection who was not involved in the original trials.<\/span>[1]<\/a> But the news has been especially abuzz because the following recipient\u2014the third \u201cshot heard \u2018round the world\u201d\u2014was an honest-to-goodness William Shakespeare, the Bard\u2019s 81-year-old namesake, also from Warwickshire. British journalists, corked up from fresh lockdown orders and completely unable to resist a good pun, had fun all day.<\/span>[2]<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>

So, the vaccine is coming! The vaccine is coming!<\/i><\/span><\/p>

…<\/span><\/p>

Notably, it has now become clear that the behavior of Americans this year does not match that the WHO predicted with its pandemic \u201cphases.\u201d[3]<\/a> Nor does the \u201cdramaturgical\u201d scripting of disease progression highlighted by historians like Charles Rosenberg seem to hold up. So many Americans seem not to believe that simple public health measures should apply to them, and, just as predicted by those who study cognitive dissonance (see March 6), rationalize to themselves why coronavirus doesn\u2019t matter\u2014until it does. It could be why Artificial Intelligence-assisted predictions from earlier in the year that calculated the pandemic would be over by now did not pan out.[4]<\/a> Instead of a rise and fall, with smaller \u201caftershocks,\u201d the US experienced a burst, a plateau, a second peak, a second plateau, and then this third surge. No single peak, no real decline; just plateaus of disease and death, soon topped.<\/span><\/p>

[read_more id=”1″ more=”Read more” less=”Read less”]<\/p>

The vaccine is coming<\/i>. It might be a long time until most of us have our turn to receive it, but it is<\/em> coming. In the meantime, the CDC has drawn up a plan to distribute the vaccine that requires vaccine administrators to sign a data use agreement that shares the names, birthdates, and addresses of vaccine recipients. Some places are skeptical. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, for instance, balked at the request: \u201cIt\u2019s another example of them trying to extort the State of New York to get information that they can use at the Department of Homeland Security and ICE that they\u2019ll use to deport people.\u201d It might make people afraid to get the vaccine in the first place.[5]<\/a> Moreover, just like we saw earlier in the pandemic over PPE, state governments fear that they will end up competing against each other and other countries for vaccines.[6]<\/a> Still, shipping companies, including airlines, are getting ready to distribute quickly, even changing rules on how much dry ice can be in the plane.[7]<\/a> Of course, we know there are likely to be distribution problems. Julie Swann, head of the industrial and systems engineering department at North Carolina State University and a health care supply chain expert, stresses that the goal will be to \u201cdistribute some 510 million doses.\u201d By comparison, during the H1N1 pandemic in 2009-20, the US moved around 10 million doses per week, maximum, and ultimately injected 80 million doses.[8]<\/a> This time is unprecedented. The bottlenecks we will see are in glass, syringes, and the enormous amounts of dry ice we will need. And that\u2019s before we get to the challenges of having enough healthcare workers to distribute the vaccines fairly and broadly.[9]<\/a><\/span><\/p>

So, the vaccine is coming<\/em>. But first we have to get through the winter.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Notes<\/p>

[1]<\/a> Martin Bagot and Martin Fricker, \u201c\u2018Super-Gran\u2019 Margaret Keenan\u2019s Coronavirus Jab Sets UK on Road to Normality,\u201d Mirror<\/em>, December 8, 2020, https:\/\/www.mirror.co.uk\/news\/uk-news\/uk-super-gran-first-receive-23137329<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>

[2]<\/a> \u201cShakespeare Gets Covid Vaccine: All\u2019s Well That Ends Well,\u201d BBC News<\/em>, December 8, 2020, sec. UK, https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/uk-55233021<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>

[3]<\/a> World Health Organization, THE WHO PANDEMIC PHASES<\/em>, Pandemic Influenza Preparedness and Response: A WHO Guidance Document<\/em> (Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization, 2009), https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/books\/NBK143061\/<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>

[4]<\/a> Thomas Macaulay, \u201cAI Model Predicts the Coronavirus Pandemic Will End in December,\u201d Neural, April 29, 2020, https:\/\/www.thenextweb.com\/neural\/2020\/04\/29\/ai-model-predicts-the-coronavirus-pandemic-will-end-in-december\/<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>

[5]<\/a> Centers for Disease Control, \u201cData Use and Sharing Agreement to Support the United States Government\u2019s COVID-19 Emergency Response, Jurisdiction Immunization and Vaccine Administration Data Agreement,\u201d December 2020, https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/vaccines\/covid-19\/reporting\/downloads\/vaccine-administration-data-agreement.pdf<\/a>; Sheryl Gay Stolberg, \u201cSome States Balk After C.D.C. Asks for Personal Data of Those Vaccinated,\u201d The New York Times<\/em>, December 8, 2020, https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/12\/08\/us\/politics\/cdc-vaccine-data-privacy.html<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>

[6]<\/a> Sarah Owermohle, \u201cU.S. Could Face Months of Vaccine Shortages amid Global Competition,\u201d Politico<\/em>, December 8, 2020, https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2020\/12\/08\/coronavirus-vaccine-shortage-443839<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>

[7]<\/a> Jessica Wehrman, \u201cShipping Networks Prep for COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution,\u201d Roll Call<\/i>, December 9, 2020, https:\/\/www.rollcall.com\/2020\/12\/09\/shipping-networks-prep-for-covid-19-vaccine-distribution\/<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>

[8]<\/a> CDC, \u201cCDC Novel H1N1 Flu — The 2009 H1N1 Pandemic: Summary Highlights, April 2009-April 2010,\u201d June 16, 2010, https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/h1n1flu\/cdcresponse.htm<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>

[9]<\/a> Rebecca Heilweil, \u201cHow Quickly Can the US Distribute a Covid-19 Vaccine? Here Are the Four Biggest Logistical Challenges.,\u201d Vox<\/i>, December 7, 2020, https:\/\/www.vox.com\/recode\/22151473\/vaccine-covid-19-pfizer-glass-syringes-needles-freezers<\/a>.<\/span> [\/read_more]<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Catherine Burns, “Woman, 90, first to receive Covid vaccine in UK rollout,” BBC News<\/em>, December 8, 2020, https:\/\/youtu.be\/U9IZfFHQ7oY<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Extra History, “History of Vaccines – Killing Smallpox,” Extra Credit, December 19, 2019, https:\/\/youtu.be\/Ke6tT3_QTuM<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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“To jab or not to jab? William Shakespeare gets vaccine,” Reuters<\/em>, December 8, 2020, https:\/\/youtu.be\/Suhgw6LJp8g<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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