Though well-intentioned, the schemes were too complex to operationalize. The schemes were not identical, but both emphasized that people with serious health conditions and essential workers - people whose lives were at risk because they were doing jobs that kept society functioning - should have early access to vaccine doses.īut who were essential workers? Does everyone who works in a hospital qualify as a health care worker? Could we realistically expect people administering the jabs to check whether the person before them actually had diabetes? Or that they taught elementary school, not spin classes ? (In a word: No.) The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, an independent group that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccine policy, devised its own.īoth groups prioritized health care workers and the elderly, who were at the highest risk of dying if they contracted the new virus. The National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine established an expert panel that created a priority list. In the summer and early autumn of 2020, when Phase 3 clinical trials of Covid vaccines were still underway, two groups in the United States set out to determine who should have first access when vaccine doses became available. The World Health Organization was pilloried by the European Parliament after the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic ultimately proved not to be particularly deadly.īut with fast-developing disease outbreaks, if you wait until you’re sure that something is going to be a disaster before seizing every opportunity to alter its trajectory, you’ve made the outbreak much, much worse. It is true that public health authorities can get hammered if they sound the alarm for something that turns out not to merit it. We’re seeing it even now with responses to the surging wave of Omicron cases. It has felt too often in this pandemic that people are forgetting about the second part of that maxim. The guiding principle of outbreak response is hope for the best but prepare for the worst. Mindstrong’s demise and the future of mental health care Here are 10 lessons I’ve learned in the past two years. But already, some things have become abundantly clear. (Yes, sadly, there will be a next time.) More commissions and panels are likely to follow. ![]() Multiple commissions and panels have been set up to learn the lessons of this pandemic so that we don’t repeat the same mistakes next time. But far more things have gone horribly wrong. Some things have gone surprisingly well, notably the rapid development of Covid vaccines and some therapeutics. So much has happened in the intervening months. We’re entering the third year of the Covid-19 pandemic. Better keep an eye on this, I thought to myself.įast-forward two years. Over the past couple of decades, China has been a wellspring of dangerous zoonotic diseases - SARS, H5N1 bird flu, and H7N9 bird flu. On the afternoon of New Year’s Eve, just hours from when 2019 was going to segue into 2020, I read an email about some unusual pneumonia cases in China’s Hubei province. ![]() Exclusive analysis of biotech, pharma, and the life sciences Learn More
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |