Todjaeger
Potstirrer
I can see if I can dig up the approximate % which gets a flu vaccine annually. As for the cost in the US, the answer really depends. I have to go into EM for a bit so I will work on this later tonight.
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Todjaeger
Potstirrer
Okay, had a chance to look for answers to your questions. Per the CDC here, the estimates are that of the US adult population the national average vaccination coverage for the 2018-2019 flu season (most recent available data) was 45.3%, with a per state average ranging from 33.9% up to 56.3%
The average numbers are a bit higher for children although eight of the states with the lowest flu vaccination rates for children also have had among the lowest rates for adults as well.
As for the cost of flu vaccinations in the US, that is a simple question with a complex and multi-part answer. The shortest and easiest way to put would just be to state, "it depends."
Now to really explain that I need to cover what the answer depends on. The first variable is the who and why of the vaccination. Next up would probably who/what healthcare coverage or insurance the person being vaccinated has. The last variable that I can recall right now which could make a difference is what flu vaccination is being administered, since there can be multiple flu vaccines available in a given flu season.
Now that first variable, the who and why, could be something fairly normal like getting vaccinated during a routine visit to one's doctor or pharmacy (a chemist for you lot over in the British Isles or Oz). In these cases, assuming the person has medical insurance coverage then the cost of the vaccination might be either free (paid for by the insurance) of there might be what is known as a co-pay which is usually a nominal amount of only USD$5 to USD$10 for vaccinations. As a side note, this potential co-pay could also be in addition to the 'normal' co-pay associated with seeing a doctor during a routine exam or follow-up visit. The specific details would depend on what the specific state laws require the medical insurance carrier to provide/cover, as well as who the insurance carrier is and what plan or level of coverage the person has.
However, sometimes local health departments will offer free flu vaccination clinics, often in conjunction with a local healthcare/hospital system and/or medical response organization like a MRC (Medical Reserve Corps) or DMAT (Disaster Medical Assistance Team) unit. There are a few potential different reasons why this could be done. Sometimes it is an attempt to 'stay ahead of the curve' if there seems to be a particularly nasty looking flu season or strain coming, other times it is done as part of a response exercise. After all, why just simulate running a medical POD (Point of Dispensation) drill to volunteer 'role-players' when something like a vaccination can be actually dispensed to the public which could help to mitigate the impact of a seasonal flu for some people?
Now that least question, regarding the potential cost depending on which vaccine is administered is likely going to depend on and be somewhat determined by both one's healthcare coverage, as well as who has access to specific flu vaccines, with some vaccines being recommended for certain populations more than others. I would recommend reading the CDC page on flu vaccines as it provides a fairly concise but easy to understand explanation.
Here in NZ the flu jab is free if you are 65 or older, or that you have a medical condition that makes you susceptible to increased mortality from an influenza infection. Otherwise it costs a whole NZ$10, which is highly exorbitant - about the price of a jug of beer.
Mother has spoken and we are coming out of our timeout partially. From 2359 Monday 27/4/2021, we will go from level 4 lockdown to level 3 restrictions, COVID-19 Alert System. Still means we must self isolate, but more businesses like manufacturing, forestry etc., and some retail can open. However they must follow strict hygiene and social isolation rules. The retail businesses that open must only operate in a non face to face manner. They can do click and collect and / or home deliveries. Eateries can open, but only as takeaways, so Maccas and KFC will do a roaring trade. The likes of Hell Pizza will be able to do home delivery (yum yum). BTW, Burger King have gone into receivership here, Burger King failed to compete with McDonald's and KFC.
covid19.govt.nz
News and data
Find the latest news about COVID-19, locations of interest and COVID-19 data and statistics.
covid19.govt.nz
John Fedup
The Bunker Group
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #325
The driving force for free flu shots here were government bean counters. As provincial governments along with the federal government are funding hospitals, an analysis showed that reducing hospital visits due to flu saved enough money to more than cover the cost of vaccinations. I would think US health insurers would know this but I guess the costs of having doctors give the shots greatly increases the cost compared to Canadian doctors doing the same. Pharmacies here also provide shots for free (government covers their cost and probably their insurance exposure).
Todjaeger
Potstirrer
Local and/or state gov'ts, usually through whatever version of a health department they have, do from time to time distribute free flu shots. Also, most insurers see the value of mitigating the flu through the use of vaccines which is why those who are insured can usually get it for free or a nominal cost. Where it really starts to get complicated is for those without health or medical insurance, especially those who are working fully and therefore might not qualify for certain gov't insurance programmes. These people would likely need to pay the out of pocket costs to vaccinated and I have NFI what the cost for that might be.
Given the average level of flu vaccination annually for US adults though, I suspect a significant portion of those un-vaccinated remain so because they opted not to get vaccinated rather than due to an issue of access to or affordability of the vaccination. If this is correct, then ensuring community/herd immunity once vaccines are available for the SARS-CoV-2 virus might be difficult.
John Fedup
The Bunker Group
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #327
I agree, many just can’t be bothered and despite being free here our numbers for under 65 aren’t much better. Perhaps COVID-19 might enlighten people that flu vaccination is worthwhile. If COVID-19 does mutate with similar or worse outcomes , we better hope they at least get vaccinated for it once a vaccine becomes available.
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Todjaeger
Potstirrer
I suspect some of the reason for a rate of only ~45% annual flu vaccine is people not bothering to get it. What does concern me is that there is a percentage of people who refuse to get the vaccine because they do not believe in getting it/them, as well as distrust of "Big Pharma" and similar beliefs. I have already been hearing internet chatter and conspiracy theories regarding the development of vaccines for SARS-CoV-2 which makes me suspect a part of the population will refuse to get such a vaccine when/if it gets developed. Depending on how large a percentage that is in the US, then could impact the overall effectiveness of mitigation efforts through vaccination and herd immunity.
After discussion between members of the Mod team, following a series of messages exchanged with members of the Mod team, Webmaster and Rangitoto regarding a complaint the consensus was that a Permanent Ban was in order, therefore a reply will not be possible.
-Preceptor
For a while social media was free of anti vaxxers, but in recent days one or two have started to show their heads again, usually to get them knocked off. Mostly it's been so called celebrities who seem to think that their crap don't stink, they're important, they've got brains, they're experts in micro biology and modern medicine, and that they know more than the scientific community. They're not and unfortunately they have a following of people who don't know any better. This and other forms of psuedo science, psuedo medicine and false information is just as harmful as the virus itself.
We had problems with the anti vaxxers and the MMR and flu vaccines, along with other vaccines here. Shame they can't be prosecuted for purveying snake oil and false information.
Projectman
New Member
India's central medical agency has stopped the usage of China supplied fast test kits due to variable results.
These kits are supposed to detect the antibodies generated in a infected person, 7 days after infection.
Some state governments have tested these kits on swab confirmed patients and are complaining that these kits show only 6 % accuracy.
www.google.com
My doubts are -
1. Can mutated strains in different countries lead to incorrect results or are the basic proteins to be detected remain the same ?
2. Is their a difference in the fast detection kits used by Germany and South Korea compared to the ones being supplied by China , as many other countries have also complained about the efficacy of these kits ?
3. Incase the kits in all 3 above countries is similar, does this put in doubt the 100s of thousands of test results in these countries ?
It's becoming a political football in India as the central government is not in power in half the 28 states and is getting flak for procuring defective kits.
These kits are supposed to detect the antibodies generated in a infected person, 7 days after infection.
Some state governments have tested these kits on swab confirmed patients and are complaining that these kits show only 6 % accuracy.
Coronavirus | India stops rapid antibody tests for two days
As many as 29,776 samples have been tested in 201 labs under the ICMR network, and 6,076 at 86 private laboratories.
My doubts are -
1. Can mutated strains in different countries lead to incorrect results or are the basic proteins to be detected remain the same ?
2. Is their a difference in the fast detection kits used by Germany and South Korea compared to the ones being supplied by China , as many other countries have also complained about the efficacy of these kits ?
3. Incase the kits in all 3 above countries is similar, does this put in doubt the 100s of thousands of test results in these countries ?
It's becoming a political football in India as the central government is not in power in half the 28 states and is getting flak for procuring defective kits.
John Fedup
The Bunker Group
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #333
There seems to be mounting concerns in many countries that antibody detection kits have been rushed to market with minimal validation. Also, a recent Chinese study suggests up to 30% of patients develop either no antibodies at all or at levels that can’t be detected. This would explain some of the kit problems. An even greater concern is recovered patients would have no immunity.
Up to 30% of coronavirus patients hardly develop ANY antibodies
Researchers from Fudan University in China found that nearly a third of the 175 recovered coronavirus patients they tested had undetectably low levels of antibodies, suggesting they may not be immune.
www.google.ca
Todjaeger
Potstirrer
Honestly it is hard to say. There have been a couple of studies done in California by Stanford in Santa Clara County and USC in LA which based off their sample test results suggested as high as 4% of the population could already have had the virus. To put things into perspective, that works out to between ~200k and ~400k people in LA already having had the coronavirus, based off statistical calculations from the sample results. If (big IF) that figure is accurate, that would mean the infection rate is far higher than even previous estimates have calculated, never mind the ~8k confirmed cases based off test results at the time the study was done.India's central medical agency has stopped the usage of China supplied fast test kits due to variable results.
These kits are supposed to detect the antibodies generated in a infected person, 7 days after infection.
Some state governments have tested these kits on swab confirmed patients and are complaining that these kits show only 6 % accuracy.
Coronavirus | India stops rapid antibody tests for two days
As many as 29,776 samples have been tested in 201 labs under the ICMR network, and 6,076 at 86 private laboratories.
My doubts are -
1. Can mutated strains in different countries lead to incorrect results or are the basic proteins to be detected remain the same ?
2. Is their a difference in the fast detection kits used by Germany and South Korea compared to the ones being supplied by China , as many other countries have also complained about the efficacy of these kits ?
3. Incase the kits in all 3 above countries is similar, does this put in doubt the 100s of thousands of test results in these countries ?
It's becoming a political football in India as the central government is not in power in half the 28 states and is getting flak for procuring defective kits.
An important detail regarding those studies is that both studies used the same lab and anti-body test and IIRC the false positive rate for the antibody test used had sufficiently high to have skewed the estimates. Which is something that statisticians have criticized the studies for.
What that suggests to me is that while anti-body and virus diagnostic tests are available, they still seem to be a bit of a work in progress and I would really need to do a bit of digging to see if I could determine which country/test is the most reliable.
As a side note, Abbott Laboratories are working on a fast coronavirus test to provide answers within 15 minutes. An unfortunate detail which came out is that at present ~15% the test provides a false negative result. From my POV that high a failure rate, especially with a false negative, makes the test worthless.
If this is the news you're referring to, it might not be as bad as it sounds.
It's not great though, because going by the full article, using the "viral transport media" solution allows samples to be stored and/or transported, and having to put the swabs directly in the machine means that the test can only be performed in situ and immediately. E.g., it can't be used to test samples from a rural area that's sent to the regional medical center and you can't store swabs from the day to be run during the night shift. But apparently if the swab sample is tested directly, the machine works as expected.
Still, not being able to process samples from rural areas is a big disadvantage. Testing centers already using the Abbot Labs ID NOW test may want to mitigate that by using repeat testing. The relatively high percentage of false negative can be reduced by repeat testing, which is a good idea anyway. If you have a 15% failure rate but you can run two tests (obviously using two samples from the same person) and we treat a positive on either as positive overall (this is the safer bet), the overall failure rate is 15% x 15% = 2.25%.
Todjaeger
Potstirrer
This would impact more than just rural areas, as centralized test processing is certainly being done. From my POV, the Abbot Laboratories device would need to be prevalent enough so that there were enough on hand at each test swab site to process the swabs as they are being done. In the state where I now live, a third of all the tests are processed in the Public Health Lab after they have been collected regionally.
The current belief is that the virus hasn't mutated at all unlike the influenza virus which mutates quite quickly. From memory I believe that the R factor (infection capability) is about 20% that of influenza. Covid-19 R=2.5; Influenza R=16. So one person with COVID-19 will infect 2 - 3 people, whereas the same person with influenza will infect 16 people.
However the effects of COVID-19 can be more devastating. There are reports coming out of the US that COVID-19 is causing problems with patients blood: A mysterious blood-clotting complication is killing coronavirus patients. This is a frightening development because it means that the virus is attacking multiple vital organs simultaneously and even if the patient recovers from the disease, vital organs suffer serious damage and take significant time to recover. In the Washington Post story one patient had a leg amputated because of the virus. So it's attacking more than just the lungs.
However the effects of COVID-19 can be more devastating. There are reports coming out of the US that COVID-19 is causing problems with patients blood: A mysterious blood-clotting complication is killing coronavirus patients. This is a frightening development because it means that the virus is attacking multiple vital organs simultaneously and even if the patient recovers from the disease, vital organs suffer serious damage and take significant time to recover. In the Washington Post story one patient had a leg amputated because of the virus. So it's attacking more than just the lungs.
John Fedup
The Bunker Group
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #338
That Post article is depressing to say the least. Ironic if some kind of Ebola derivative ended up being a treatment possibility for these clots.
Jeez I hope not. I wouldn't want that mongrel anywhere near me. Knowing my luck I'd end up with a full blown Ebola dose.
They're using blood thinners and they're having to be pretty careful about that too.
Projectman
New Member
The Washington post article is really informative and for a change not like other media just repeating the common knowledge floating around. And hits a bit close to home as 3 persons in my home take blood thinners everyday,including me.
Hope WHO is fully involved in these findings and is dismenting them all around the world. Personally I don't find the WHO team at all confidence giving seeing their live interviews.
This is a time for action, the world has never been this locked down ever in its history, not even during the world wars. It's a time without precedent.
The bureaucratic machinery of WHO is not adequate to deal with this crisis , as doctors are now discussing a 2nd wave of infections, which could be worse. The article is giving very high figures for the dead who had clots , not good news at all. And this information is after more than 3 months of the infections. Everyone seems to ne in the dark till now.
Time for the actual medical experts to take over in WHO and the bureaucrats to step aside. These are purely technical requirements.
Not a time for niceties.
Hope WHO is fully involved in these findings and is dismenting them all around the world. Personally I don't find the WHO team at all confidence giving seeing their live interviews.
This is a time for action, the world has never been this locked down ever in its history, not even during the world wars. It's a time without precedent.
The bureaucratic machinery of WHO is not adequate to deal with this crisis , as doctors are now discussing a 2nd wave of infections, which could be worse. The article is giving very high figures for the dead who had clots , not good news at all. And this information is after more than 3 months of the infections. Everyone seems to ne in the dark till now.
Time for the actual medical experts to take over in WHO and the bureaucrats to step aside. These are purely technical requirements.
Not a time for niceties.