The mainstream news about Covid-19 has been bleak for so long. But the facts have changed – perhaps faster than the major news stories.
The vaccines show “spectacular” results, according to a recent statement by Dr. Anthony Fauci. Hospital admissions are declining. The variants are a curveball, but it “just doubles the idea that we should get people vaccinated as soon as possible,” said CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
The new government is activating what it calls a “whole government response.” Government experts speak freely with the press and the public. Conspiracy theories are no longer retweeted by the president. Prudent optimism is warranted at this point – with an emphasis on caution, of course, but without losing the optimism.
Some observers have pointed to a gap between the data and the public discussion about the pandemic.
“For most of us, it’s best to stop doom scrolling through detailed discussions about what drops in neutralizing antibody titers etc. Mean from Twitter threads,” Zeynep Tufekci
wrote last week. “We have to get through the grim winter – beware – but the news about the future has been very good for months.”
The news about the future is mainly about the effectiveness of the vaccines.
David Leonhardt of The New York Times wrote Monday, “The news about the vaccines remains excellent – and the public debate about them continues to be more negative than the facts justify. Here’s the main fact: All five vaccines with public results have eliminated covid-19 deaths. They have also drastically reduced the number of hospital admissions. ”
Sometimes the detailed data from clinical trials obscures the big point, and that’s that the vaccines are largely effective in preventing symptomatic illnesses – ‘meaning fewer hospitalizations and then fewer deaths,’ says CNN Health executive producer Ben Tinker told me Wednesday night. . Additional preliminary data on the AstraZeneca vaccine – co-developed with the University of Oxford – suggests it may also be effective in preventing the transmission of the virus. That would be even more welcome news in the urgent effort to turn the tide of the virus. new cases. ” Each update just underscores the need to get more doses for more people ASAP …
WH briefings three times a week
Technical issues plagued the first briefing by the WH Covid-19 response team on Jan. 27, but video conferencing has been working well ever since. Covid-19 Chief Jeff Zients, Fauci, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky and other officials held briefings last Friday and all three weekdays so far this week.
Zients said Wednesday, “I hope that after five briefings we will begin to establish a pattern to provide the American people with the facts they need about the crisis and our response, driven by our experts and scientists.”
Lockhart’s opinion
To quote from the new Clinton-era WH Press Secretary Joe Lockhart column for CNN.com: “Something unusual is happening in Washington, DC: media briefings, and a lot of them. Real live briefings where the press can ask questions of the administration and spokespersons and senior officials even answer them. “Read more …
Bias leads to hesitation about vaccines
The scale of the crisis is, of course, mind-boggling. As Zients said, “Vaccinating everyone in America is one of the greatest operational challenges we have ever faced, and we will not stop working until this mission is completed.”
At the moment, the demand for the shot is much greater than the supply. But at some point there will be a gap between supply and demand. New polls from Monmouth University show that 50% of Americans plan to “get the Covid vaccine as soon as they are authorized,” and 6% have already done so. (The latter figure is already outdated as more than a million doses are administered each day.) Monmouth found that “another 19% say they would rather show other people how it goes,” and “24% say it. is likely they will never get the vaccine if they can avoid it. “
>> “The reluctance to get the vaccine is driven more by bias than by any demographic factor,” noted Patrick Murray, director of the polling station. “It says a lot about the depth of our partisan divide that it could affect public health in this way.”
>> Media Matters senior fellow Matt Gertz: “Steve Doocy should get the COVID vaccine live on the air.” He has other suggestions for Fox …
One death every minute?
As any “Rent” fan knows, there are 525,600 minutes in a year. There may also have been so many deaths from Covid-19 in the United States in March. Newsletter reader H. Steven Moffic, MD made this to me on Wednesday. His latest contribution to Psychiatric Times is about the measurement of deaths per minute and the “long-term grief of Covid-19.”
>> According to CNN’s Ben Tinker, “An ensemble published Wednesday by the CDC now predicts that there will be 496,000 to 534,000 deaths from coronavirus in the United States on Feb. 27.”
>> On Wednesday, the US death toll surpassed 450,000, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins. The US went from 400,000 to 450,000 deaths in the space of just 15 days. Since deaths are a lagging indicator, “the recent drop in hospital admissions gives us hope that deaths will begin to decline in the coming weeks,” Walensky said Wednesday.
