Fighting Back Against The Viral

Around the US and here in Kentucky, the first doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine are arriving in hospitals and in senior care facilities to help those on the front lines and those most vulnerable to the virus.

The first vaccines against COVID-19 arrived Sunday in Kentucky, and Gov. Andy Beshear said that some Kentuckians may be vaccinated as early as Monday morning.

A “significant” shipment of the two-dose Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine landed at the UPS Worldport in Louisville on Sunday. The vaccine was the first to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and is believed to be 95 percent effective.

“Kentucky is going to play a major role in getting this vaccine to people all over the eastern United States through UPS’ Worldport,” Beshear said in his announcement Sunday. “We in the commonwealth are excited to be a big part of defeating this virus all over this country. We now believe that the first individuals will be vaccinated here in the commonwealth tomorrow morning. We are less than 24 hours away from the beginning of the end of this virus.”

The fight against COVID-19 will continue for months, but in his release Beshear said this development was a historic milestone to be celebrated.

Shipments made to Kentucky are expected to include 12,675 vials of the vaccine that will be sent to 11 hospitals in Lexington, Louisville, Pikeville, Corbin, Bowling Green, Paducah and Edgewood, according to the announcement Sunday by Beshear’s office. An additional 25,350 vials will be sent to CVS and Walgreens, and those vaccines will go to long-term care facilities in the state.

With the expected approval of another effective vaccine from Moderna, Beshear’s office expects Kentucky could get as many as 150,000 doses of vaccine in December.

The initial rounds of vaccinations will include hospitals and long-term care facilities, and the specifics will be announced based on guidelines from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, according to Beshear’s office. Health care staff are being prioritized.

With 66 percent of COVID-19 deaths coming from long-term care facilities, vaccines to such facilities are expected to help reduce Kentucky’s COVID-19 death toll significantly, according to Beshear’s office.

The vaccination plan and phases are still being determined, but local health departments have been working with the state to prepare for the distribution of the vaccines, according to Beshear’s office.

“Our community doctors and nurses, as well as long-term care residents and staff, are preparing to do their part first,” Beshear said in Sunday’s release. “We will all get a turn. When it is your turn, I strongly encourage you to get vaccinated so you can do your part to protect yourself, your family and our entire state.”

 

It's been a long time coming, and it's important that the vaccine go to the people who need it the most. I don't foresee problems with that, I foresee problems with 35-40% of Americans still refusing the vaccine at this point. I hope they will change their minds, but frankly I expect the rest of the world is going to move quickly over the months ahead on "get vaccinated or else".

Among all the tools that health agencies have developed over the years to fight epidemics, at least one has remained a constant for more than a century: paper vaccination certificates.

In the 1880s, in response to smallpox outbreaks, some public schools began requiring students and teachers to show vaccination cards. In the 1960s, amid yellow fever epidemics, the World Health Organization introduced an international travel document, known informally as the yellow card. Even now, travelers from certain regions are required to show a version of the card at airports.

But now, just as the United States is preparing to distribute the first vaccines for the virus, the entry ticket to the nation’s reopening is set to come largely in the form of a digital health credential.

In the coming weeks, major airlines including United, JetBlue and Lufthansa plan to introduce a health passport app, called CommonPass, that aims to verify passengers’ virus test results — and soon, vaccinations. The app will then issue confirmation codes enabling passengers to board certain international flights. It is just the start of a push for digital Covid-19 credentials that could soon be embraced by employers, schools, summer camps and entertainment venues.

“This is likely to be a new normal need that we’re going to have to deal with to control and contain this pandemic,” said Dr. Brad Perkins, the chief medical officer at the Commons Project Foundation, a nonprofit in Geneva that developed the CommonPass app.

The advent of electronic vaccination credentials could have a profound effect on efforts to control the coronavirus and restore the economy. They could prompt more employers and college campuses to reopen. They may also give some consumers peace of mind, developers say, by creating an easy way for movie theaters, cruise ships and sports arenas to admit only those with documented coronavirus vaccinations.

But the digital passes also raise the specter of a society split into health pass haves and have-nots, particularly if venues begin requiring the apps as entry tickets. The apps could make it difficult for people with limited access to vaccines or online verification tools to work or visit popular destinations. Civil liberties experts also warn that the technology could create an invasive system of social control, akin to the heightened surveillance that China adopted during the pandemic — only instead of federal or state governments, private actors like employers and restaurants would determine who can and cannot access services.

“Protecting public health has historically been used as a proxy for discrimination,” said Professor Michele Goodwin, a law professor who directs the Center for Biotechnology and Global Health Policy at the University of California, Irvine. “That is the real concern — the potential to use these apps as proxies for keeping certain people away and out."

 

There are legitimate civil liberties and racial justice concerns here, and we're going to need to deal with them now. That's the next big fight in American society, and it will define 2021 as much as the virus defined 2020. 

We have a long road to travel here. As I've said constantly, electing Joe Biden, keeping the House and (hopefully) winning back the Senate are just the start of years of grueling work ahead of us as a country, as a people, and as a planet.