Hard agree, and not just because I'm a spreadsheet nerd. Why are we all here? Isn't it in the service…
Morning Headlines 11/30/20
Health systems are using AI to assign COVID-19 risk scores despite lack of proof that they correlate to real-world outcomes or whether their training was broad enough to be generalizable.
Federal system for tracking hospital beds and COVID-19 patients provides questionable data
A CDC analysis finds that HHS Protect’s COVID-19 data do not line up with other hospital data sources used by many states, potentially giving government health officials and hospital personnel inaccurate estimates of disease burden and resource availability.
Full implementation of P.E.I.’s electronic record system not planned until March 2022
In Canada, Prince Edward Island health officials postpone the implementation of an enterprise EHR due to COVID-19-related vendor delays, pushing the project to 2021-2022.
Why is COVID-19 vaccine going public after ONLY 30k trial ?
In the 30,000-person trial, 196 subjects developed Covid-19 with symptoms after receiving either the vaccine or a placebo, Moderna said. Of those, 185 had taken a placebo, while only 11 had gotten the vaccine, indicating it protects against the disease.
(link:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/moderna-to-ask-health-regulators-to-authorize-its-covid-19-vaccine-11606737602?mod=hp_lead_pos1)
Just for comparison, the polio vaccine:
In 1954, the inactivated vaccine was tested in a placebo-controlled trial, which enrolled 1.6 million children in Canada, Finland and the United States.
(link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3782271/#:~:text=The%20first%20inactivated%20polio%20vaccine,the%20United%20States%5B13%5D.)
Rushing a new vaccine technology, thru the current weak FDA, without publishing in a peer-reviewed journal and with orders of magnitude less patients than other previous vaccines – looks like the perfect disaster recipe to me.
I would hope that we have better medicine and science than we did 67 years ago. Our understanding of virus mechanisms are light years beyond what we ‘knew’ in the 50s. Hell, we didn’t even have an electronic AE reporting system in ’54.
There are significant concerns that in my mind have not been addressed but I don’t believe they rise to the level of stopping the train.
The AZ data debacle isn’t very helpful in establishing trust and frankly they should have been very up front about it much earlier than they were. The Pfizer stock sell the day after the efficacy announcement has a particularly discordant smell to it. The flailing of scientists in agencies that should be free from influence and political whitewashing is disturbing at the least. And of course, there are leaders who seem to be divorced from the truth in any space.
That all having been said, we have grownups in other countries who are looking hard at the problem space and the numbers. This isn’t just about one administration or its spewing of alternative facts, anymore than it is about how a CEO doesn’t appear to have ethics. The people doing the ground work appear to be dedicated and diligent — if something were to come up they will certainly call it out.
I am hoping those on the front line are provided a viable immunization that proves effective in preventing impacts of the disease as well as preventing the carrying and transmission of the disease. Especially given the expected redoubling of cases in the next few weeks and the settling in of winter.
Do you have specific efficacy issues that would challenge the numbers provided to date?