December 3, 2020 • 12 mins
A federal vaccine advisory panel has recommended that health-care workers and residents of nursing homes be the first people to receive any vaccine that might soon be approved. About 40 million doses of vaccine should be available by the end of December, and since it is a two-shot protocol, only about 20 million people will be vaccinated until more can be manufactured. Betsy McKay, senior writer at the WSJ, joins us for this, and a new analysis of blood donations that shows coronavirus was infecting people in mid-December of 2019, a few weeks before it was officially identified in China and about a month earlier that the first U.S. case.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Thursday, December three. I'm Oscar Ramires from the Daily
Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is reopening America.
A federal vaccine advisory panel has recommended that healthcare workers
and residents of nursing homes be the first people to
receive any vaccine that might soon be approved. About forty
million doses of vaccines should be available by the end
(00:20):
of December, and since it's a two shot protocol, only
about twenty million people will be vaccinated until more it
can be manufactured. Betsy McKay, senior writer at The Wall
Street Journal, joins us for this and a new analysis
of blood donations that shows coronavirus was infecting people in
mid December of a few weeks before it was officially
(00:40):
identified in China and about a month earlier than the
first US case. Thanks for joining us, Betty, Thanks for
having me. We've been getting a lot of news out
of the CDC recently. One of the top things that
we heard is that the panel that was going to
be giving recommendations on who would get the COVID nineteen
vaccines first has come out with their determination. They're saying
(01:02):
that healthcare workers and people in nursing homes should be
the front of the line to get the newest vaccines
that should be approved pretty soon. So Betty tell us
a little bit about what this panel recommended. So there
is an expectation that the FDA will authorize the first vaccine,
first two vaccines this month, and so everyone was preparing
(01:23):
for that. There's a very limited number of doses, so
right now all of the discussion is who's going to
get those first doses, And about forty million doses will
be available, but that's enough for twenty million people because
people need to doses. So the whole question is now,
particularly with the surge, who do you vaccinate first and
how are you going to have the biggest impact? And
an advisory panel to the CDC has been discussing this
(01:46):
issue for months. They voted yesterday overwhelmingly to kiss those
first vaccines to about twenty one million healthcare workers and
three million residents of long's term care facilities. These are
the two groups that they have deemed to be most
in need of the vaccine and who will have the
(02:07):
greatest impact on sort of tamping down or starting to
tamp down the spread of the virus. Right and there's
a lot of other people in the conversation, other high
risk populations. There's essential workers, teachers, police, people with underlying
health conditions. So we had been hearing for a long
time it was going to be healthcare workers and nursing
home patients. But there's a lot of people in the mix. Obviously,
(02:28):
we need to vaccinate everybody. So there's there's there's a
lot of potential populations. There definitely is, and it's a
it's a very tough decision because there are a lot
of people in need. I mean people at high risk
buddle age six to five and over. I mean that
mortality rates as you go up in age group increases dramatically.
So who gets it for you know, this meeting that
(02:49):
they had this snake was just about who's going to
get those forty million doses. The next group down will
be another to be essential workers and people over sixty
five and people who are at higher risk both older
and younger. I mean, all of these people need urgent
access to the vaccine. One thing I will say is
that even within this top group, this is called Phase
(03:11):
one A, there's so many groups are prioritized. They're all
Group one. It's just like one A one so one
A you know, initially was just going to include healthcare
workers and nursing home residents were added, and that there
has really been a debated discussion between who is the
greater need of the vaccine first, If you're gonna decide
(03:31):
who of those two groups goes first, nascing on residents
or healthcare workers, opinions are divided even on that and
also even the rollout with that too. You know, we're
talking about healthcare workers and they're recommending to you should
probably stagger who gets them and when only because people
have said there are side effects with these two vaccines,
so you might feel pretty crummy for a couple of days.
(03:53):
So if they need to call out of work all that,
you know, you have to really approach it in the
right way. We did see that the UK approved the
Fighter vaccine. They also said that they're going to be
administering this to nursing homes and healthcare workers first as well,
and people over eight as well. Yeah, I mean, so
(04:13):
the reasons to give it to health care workers is, um,
these are people who are are protecting everybody else, So
there's they're kind of justice and ethical reasons for giving
them to them. And also practical reasons and justice. The
ethical reasons are obviously, these are people who put their
lives on the line to save others. UM. The practical
reasons are that, uh, you need to keep health workers
(04:36):
healthcare workers UH safe and protected so that they don't
get sick um and so that you have enough of them.
And right now, you know, hospitals across the country in
hotspots UM, and there are many of them. The viruses
like on the rise everywhere. UM. You know, hospitals are
having trouble keeping numbers of staff and many are actually
having to have employees to have tested positive for COVID
(05:01):
nineteens aren't sick. UM. If they've tested positive and aren't sick,
they're still asked to work because people are so short
of health care workers. So so that's you know, the
reasons to get them vaccinated so you can have a
steady stat steadying city, UM, well protected staff. You also
get UM by by vaccinating that group, you get a
(05:22):
broad section of the population, older people, of younger people, UM,
diverse population and you you you there are many healthcare
workers who are themselves at high risk. So UM, there's
a benefit to them. The reason for a nursing home
UM residents is UM, you know, very compelling of the
(05:43):
death are among residents of nursing homes, so they are
these are people at the highest risk. One concerned that
that some experts ahead about them is that UM data
haven't been made publicly available yet showing how well the
vaccine performed UM in old people whose immune systems aren't
as strong as UM as younger people. So UM, it's
(06:06):
not that the data doesn't exist, it's just it's not
widely available, so no one. People are a little bit
from People are a little bit concerned about giving me
new vaccines using a new technology to UM very vulnerable
people early on, but they're going ahead. A New York state,
for example, has said UM that it's going to put
nursing home residents first in line, ahead of healthcare workers.
(06:26):
The other interesting news that came out of the c
d C, and this might give a lot of people
relief who said, man, I was so sick in early December,
mid December that I swear I had coronavirus back then,
we're starting to learn more about basically that it was
around in mid December in the United States, weeks before
it was officially identified in China, maybe about a month
(06:47):
earlier than people first said here. It was in the
United States and the CDC analyzed blood donations and they
found out that some of that blood had antibodies for coronavirus.
So what did they do to find this? All that?
So blunt donations aren't normally kept this long um. But
this was a group of samples blood donations, samples from
(07:08):
the Red Cross that had been kept for analysis of
another virus, and they were repurposed and sent to the CDC.
The CDC to analyzed for evidence of how early on
in the in the pandemic there may have been cases
in the US. So those researchers actually found they looked
at December, and they looked at a period in January,
and they did find a few cases in December. There
(07:32):
is a caveat there is what's called cross reactivity sometimes
with coronaviruses, and you can't with viruses and um With
some of the samples, it's not a certain that they
were infected with this particular Stars Stars virus. It might
have been another coronavirus. But this group did do um
extensive testing and did find um UM. But there were
(07:57):
you know, some cases and so of this particular virus.
So you know, there's no indication from what they found
that it was spreading in the US that early on.
These would have been isolated cases, nothing big enough to
pick up, and the same in early January. So UM
(08:17):
and and you know, others have been looking at this.
It's interesting to know that, you know, through the blood supply,
you can go back in time and sort of try
to piece together what happened UM, you know, using this methodology.
And it does raise a lot of questions though about
the origins of the virus. Obviously, you know, if it
was circulating a lot earlier than we thought here in
(08:40):
the United States, especially where was that jump, Where did
it happen, What states, what locations were these blood samples
from where they found out out that the coronavirus was there.
There's nine states across the US, one of UM where uh,
there was some positive samples founded December. We're all West
coast California, Washington State, and Oregon. I believe, again very
(09:02):
very few and isolated cases. And so you know in
January the sample time to January were more widespread. There
was Connecticut, there was examples from Michigan, UM you know,
a few other states. So it really it does show,
um or suggest I should say that, um, that there
(09:24):
were what they would call importations or you know, separated introduction.
There's no indication from any of this, but there was
actual spread that early on. You know, I guess the
obvious question then writes as all, is virus really from China?
And you know, this is a coronavirus that very closely
resembles coronavirus is identified in the bat population in China,
(09:48):
So it doesn't you know, it doesn't really raise the
question that maybe that this virus came from somewhere else
besides China. What it does suggest is that as the
you know, the number of cases was starting to build
up in China, there's obviously a lot of global travel.
Big lesson here is we're global world, right, um, And
it's it's it's not too surprising that there were isolated
(10:11):
cases in the US. And there have been you know,
studies that have found cases here and there in Europe,
one in Germany in late December. Certainly by January, you know,
there were there were cases, more cases in the US
than we knew at the time. Yeah, and that's going
to be one of the next big phases of this
as we continue to learn about this virus. You know,
(10:34):
we're finally getting vaccines, were finally getting therapeutics for all
of this to treat this better and more effectively. And
then we're gonna have to circle back completely around two,
back to the origins. And I know there's a couple
of studies already under way that are going back to
look at that. UM. So we're going to continue learning
about this thing for some time. You know, hopefully we
(10:54):
get over it as as far as you know, vaccines
and all that are concerned, but this virus is going
to be with us for some time that we're going
to constantly be learning about it. Most public health experts
believe that, um, this is not something of virus that
we can eradicate or you know, drive back into nature.
At this point, we're going to have to live with it.
(11:16):
With treatments and vaccine, we can manage it, and you know,
will be like every other virus out there that's a
threat to us that we um that we just have
to um make sure we avoid. So the benefit of
knowing the origin, you know, if you find find the origin,
that's not only scientifically interesting, but it helps you figure
(11:37):
out how to prevent more viruses like it from from
spilling over from animals into the population and starting to spread.
Betsy McKay, Senior writer at The Wall Street Journal, thank
you very much for joining us. Thank you very much.
I'm Oscar Ramirez and this has been reopening America. Don't
(11:58):
forget that. For today's big news story, you can check
me out on the Daily Dive podcast every Monday through Fridays,
So follow us on I Heart Radio or wherever you
get your podcast.
It's Thursday, December three. I'm Oscar Ramires from the Daily
Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is reopening America.
A federal vaccine advisory panel has recommended that healthcare workers
and residents of nursing homes be the first people to
receive any vaccine that might soon be approved. About forty
million doses of vaccines should be available by the end
(00:20):
of December, and since it's a two shot protocol, only
about twenty million people will be vaccinated until more it
can be manufactured. Betsy McKay, senior writer at The Wall
Street Journal, joins us for this and a new analysis
of blood donations that shows coronavirus was infecting people in
mid December of a few weeks before it was officially
(00:40):
identified in China and about a month earlier than the
first US case. Thanks for joining us, Betty, Thanks for
having me. We've been getting a lot of news out
of the CDC recently. One of the top things that
we heard is that the panel that was going to
be giving recommendations on who would get the COVID nineteen
vaccines first has come out with their determination. They're saying
(01:02):
that healthcare workers and people in nursing homes should be
the front of the line to get the newest vaccines
that should be approved pretty soon. So Betty tell us
a little bit about what this panel recommended. So there
is an expectation that the FDA will authorize the first vaccine,
first two vaccines this month, and so everyone was preparing
(01:23):
for that. There's a very limited number of doses, so
right now all of the discussion is who's going to
get those first doses, And about forty million doses will
be available, but that's enough for twenty million people because
people need to doses. So the whole question is now,
particularly with the surge, who do you vaccinate first and
how are you going to have the biggest impact? And
an advisory panel to the CDC has been discussing this
(01:46):
issue for months. They voted yesterday overwhelmingly to kiss those
first vaccines to about twenty one million healthcare workers and
three million residents of long's term care facilities. These are
the two groups that they have deemed to be most
in need of the vaccine and who will have the
(02:07):
greatest impact on sort of tamping down or starting to
tamp down the spread of the virus. Right and there's
a lot of other people in the conversation, other high
risk populations. There's essential workers, teachers, police, people with underlying
health conditions. So we had been hearing for a long
time it was going to be healthcare workers and nursing
home patients. But there's a lot of people in the mix. Obviously,
(02:28):
we need to vaccinate everybody. So there's there's there's a
lot of potential populations. There definitely is, and it's a
it's a very tough decision because there are a lot
of people in need. I mean people at high risk
buddle age six to five and over. I mean that
mortality rates as you go up in age group increases dramatically.
So who gets it for you know, this meeting that
(02:49):
they had this snake was just about who's going to
get those forty million doses. The next group down will
be another to be essential workers and people over sixty
five and people who are at higher risk both older
and younger. I mean, all of these people need urgent
access to the vaccine. One thing I will say is
that even within this top group, this is called Phase
(03:11):
one A, there's so many groups are prioritized. They're all
Group one. It's just like one A one so one
A you know, initially was just going to include healthcare
workers and nursing home residents were added, and that there
has really been a debated discussion between who is the
greater need of the vaccine first, If you're gonna decide
(03:31):
who of those two groups goes first, nascing on residents
or healthcare workers, opinions are divided even on that and
also even the rollout with that too. You know, we're
talking about healthcare workers and they're recommending to you should
probably stagger who gets them and when only because people
have said there are side effects with these two vaccines,
so you might feel pretty crummy for a couple of days.
(03:53):
So if they need to call out of work all that,
you know, you have to really approach it in the
right way. We did see that the UK approved the
Fighter vaccine. They also said that they're going to be
administering this to nursing homes and healthcare workers first as well,
and people over eight as well. Yeah, I mean, so
(04:13):
the reasons to give it to health care workers is, um,
these are people who are are protecting everybody else, So
there's they're kind of justice and ethical reasons for giving
them to them. And also practical reasons and justice. The
ethical reasons are obviously, these are people who put their
lives on the line to save others. UM. The practical
reasons are that, uh, you need to keep health workers
(04:36):
healthcare workers UH safe and protected so that they don't
get sick um and so that you have enough of them.
And right now, you know, hospitals across the country in
hotspots UM, and there are many of them. The viruses
like on the rise everywhere. UM. You know, hospitals are
having trouble keeping numbers of staff and many are actually
having to have employees to have tested positive for COVID
(05:01):
nineteens aren't sick. UM. If they've tested positive and aren't sick,
they're still asked to work because people are so short
of health care workers. So so that's you know, the
reasons to get them vaccinated so you can have a
steady stat steadying city, UM, well protected staff. You also
get UM by by vaccinating that group, you get a
(05:22):
broad section of the population, older people, of younger people, UM,
diverse population and you you you there are many healthcare
workers who are themselves at high risk. So UM, there's
a benefit to them. The reason for a nursing home
UM residents is UM, you know, very compelling of the
(05:43):
death are among residents of nursing homes, so they are
these are people at the highest risk. One concerned that
that some experts ahead about them is that UM data
haven't been made publicly available yet showing how well the
vaccine performed UM in old people whose immune systems aren't
as strong as UM as younger people. So UM, it's
(06:06):
not that the data doesn't exist, it's just it's not
widely available, so no one. People are a little bit
from People are a little bit concerned about giving me
new vaccines using a new technology to UM very vulnerable
people early on, but they're going ahead. A New York state,
for example, has said UM that it's going to put
nursing home residents first in line, ahead of healthcare workers.
(06:26):
The other interesting news that came out of the c
d C, and this might give a lot of people
relief who said, man, I was so sick in early December,
mid December that I swear I had coronavirus back then,
we're starting to learn more about basically that it was
around in mid December in the United States, weeks before
it was officially identified in China, maybe about a month
(06:47):
earlier than people first said here. It was in the
United States and the CDC analyzed blood donations and they
found out that some of that blood had antibodies for coronavirus.
So what did they do to find this? All that?
So blunt donations aren't normally kept this long um. But
this was a group of samples blood donations, samples from
(07:08):
the Red Cross that had been kept for analysis of
another virus, and they were repurposed and sent to the CDC.
The CDC to analyzed for evidence of how early on
in the in the pandemic there may have been cases
in the US. So those researchers actually found they looked
at December, and they looked at a period in January,
and they did find a few cases in December. There
(07:32):
is a caveat there is what's called cross reactivity sometimes
with coronaviruses, and you can't with viruses and um With
some of the samples, it's not a certain that they
were infected with this particular Stars Stars virus. It might
have been another coronavirus. But this group did do um
extensive testing and did find um UM. But there were
(07:57):
you know, some cases and so of this particular virus.
So you know, there's no indication from what they found
that it was spreading in the US that early on.
These would have been isolated cases, nothing big enough to
pick up, and the same in early January. So UM
(08:17):
and and you know, others have been looking at this.
It's interesting to know that, you know, through the blood supply,
you can go back in time and sort of try
to piece together what happened UM, you know, using this methodology.
And it does raise a lot of questions though about
the origins of the virus. Obviously, you know, if it
was circulating a lot earlier than we thought here in
(08:40):
the United States, especially where was that jump, Where did
it happen, What states, what locations were these blood samples
from where they found out out that the coronavirus was there.
There's nine states across the US, one of UM where uh,
there was some positive samples founded December. We're all West
coast California, Washington State, and Oregon. I believe, again very
(09:02):
very few and isolated cases. And so you know in
January the sample time to January were more widespread. There
was Connecticut, there was examples from Michigan, UM you know,
a few other states. So it really it does show,
um or suggest I should say that, um, that there
(09:24):
were what they would call importations or you know, separated introduction.
There's no indication from any of this, but there was
actual spread that early on. You know, I guess the
obvious question then writes as all, is virus really from China?
And you know, this is a coronavirus that very closely
resembles coronavirus is identified in the bat population in China,
(09:48):
So it doesn't you know, it doesn't really raise the
question that maybe that this virus came from somewhere else
besides China. What it does suggest is that as the
you know, the number of cases was starting to build
up in China, there's obviously a lot of global travel.
Big lesson here is we're global world, right, um, And
it's it's it's not too surprising that there were isolated
(10:11):
cases in the US. And there have been you know,
studies that have found cases here and there in Europe,
one in Germany in late December. Certainly by January, you know,
there were there were cases, more cases in the US
than we knew at the time. Yeah, and that's going
to be one of the next big phases of this
as we continue to learn about this virus. You know,
(10:34):
we're finally getting vaccines, were finally getting therapeutics for all
of this to treat this better and more effectively. And
then we're gonna have to circle back completely around two,
back to the origins. And I know there's a couple
of studies already under way that are going back to
look at that. UM. So we're going to continue learning
about this thing for some time. You know, hopefully we
(10:54):
get over it as as far as you know, vaccines
and all that are concerned, but this virus is going
to be with us for some time that we're going
to constantly be learning about it. Most public health experts
believe that, um, this is not something of virus that
we can eradicate or you know, drive back into nature.
At this point, we're going to have to live with it.
(11:16):
With treatments and vaccine, we can manage it, and you know,
will be like every other virus out there that's a
threat to us that we um that we just have
to um make sure we avoid. So the benefit of
knowing the origin, you know, if you find find the origin,
that's not only scientifically interesting, but it helps you figure
(11:37):
out how to prevent more viruses like it from from
spilling over from animals into the population and starting to spread.
Betsy McKay, Senior writer at The Wall Street Journal, thank
you very much for joining us. Thank you very much.
I'm Oscar Ramirez and this has been reopening America. Don't
(11:58):
forget that. For today's big news story, you can check
me out on the Daily Dive podcast every Monday through Fridays,
So follow us on I Heart Radio or wherever you
get your podcast.
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