How long does it take to get the vaccine? The Yale Center for Infectious Disease Modeling and Analysis explains why Covid-19 is so devastating in the US
As it stands now, Covid-19 has caused at least 99.2 million cases and more than 1.08 million deaths in the US. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported over 3000 new deaths and 30,000 new hospital admissions in the past week.
To determine exactly how much the shots have helped, researchers from the Commonwealth Fund and Yale School of Public Health created a computer model of disease transmission that incorporated demographic information, people’s risk factors, the dynamics of infection and general information about vaccination.
If you factor in the cases of long Covid that vaccines likely prevented, the savings may be much higher, according to Alison Galvani, one of the study authors.
The Yale Center for Infectious Disease Modeling and Analysis says that it is a remarkable success and an extraordinary achievement given the emergency of Omicron.
Don’t wait. If you wait, you put yourself at risk,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical adviser and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, said Friday at an AARP event. “We’re entering the colder months of the late fall and the early winter. We’re all going to congregate with our families and friends for the holidays. If you’re up to date, that’s great. Get your vaccine now if you are not.
Vaccination and vaccines for children and young people in the 21st century: New progress in vaccines and treatments for children’s cancers
The CDC recommends masking for anyone who’s on public transportation. It also suggests wearing one in other public settings in communities where there is a high level of transmission. People who are at high risk of severe illness should wear masks in areas with medium community levels.
A mother’s instinct is to protect her children from the illnesses that can disrupt them. In many respects, this is easier now than ever before, but there are still numerous challenges for researchers, physicians and policymakers to address to keep children happy and healthy.
Vaccination is crucial for ensuring children’s health, yet even before the COVID-19 pandemic threw childhood vaccination schedules into disarray, there was already a worrying downward trend in paediatric vaccination rates. Getting these campaigns back on track is a top priority now. Questions also surround the supply of vaccines to the world’s poorest children. The first shot against malaria is now being rolled out in Africa, but there is not enough to go round; for many children, protection could be years away.
Some childhood illnesses need treatments that are new. Often there is little financial incentive for pharmaceutical companies to perform the clinical trials necessary to get drugs approved for children, even when the treatments are already in use in adults. However, some positive strides are being made. CAR-T-cell therapy is an effective treatment for leukaemia, the most common childhood cancer. Solid tumours have so far proved to be a trickier foe, but fresh approaches to this problem are showing promise.
Getting Around Covid-19 with Vaccines: Children’s Mental Health Issues in the Light of Sanofi’s Contribution
Children’s mental health is also being taken seriously. Problems such as anxiety and depression have their roots in something as ubiquitous as social media or as traumatic as war. There are strategies to help children deal with these challenges. And physicians are developing more effective and compassionate ways of helping mothers and their babies in cases of opioid addiction, which can lead to babies being born with a substance dependency and battling symptoms of withdrawal (S56).
We are pleased to acknowledge the financial support of Sanofi in producing this Outlook. Nature is the one who has sole responsibility for all editorial content.
The burden of Covid-19 is best understood in the context of other deaths because it is rare for children to die for any reason.
“If we looked at all those other leading causes of death – whether you’re talking about motor vehicle accidents or childhood cancer – and we said, ‘Gosh, if we had some simple, safe thing we could do to get rid of one of those, wouldn’t we just jump at it?” And we have that with Covid with vaccines,” said O’Leary, who is also a professor of pediatric infectious disease at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and Children’s Hospital Colorado.
It is unclear what the risk will be, but the benefits of vaccine outweigh any potential risks.