Tag Archives: Healthcare

First, I want to discuss the evidence on effectiveness of the first dose of the BioNTech Pfizer Covid 19 vaccine. The data from few person – weeks of the phase III trial suggested that one dose was highly effective after 10 days. This is based on 4 of roughly 40 cases in vaccinated participants. Much larger samples from the not randomized controlled just by the general population experience in Israel suggest lower effectiveness. I think the...

First, I want to discuss the evidence on effectiveness of the first dose of the BioNTech Pfizer Covid 19 vaccine. The data from few person – weeks of the phase III trial suggested that one dose was highly effective after 10 days. This is based on 4 of roughly 40 cases in vaccinated participants. Much larger samples from the not randomized controlled just by the general population experience in Israel suggest lower effectiveness. I think the...

Coronavirus dashboard for January 25: a vaccination race against time vs. the new mutations  All of the significant economic data is backloaded this week, onto Thursday and Friday. So don’t be surprised if I take a day off between now and then.In the meantime, here is a Coronavirus update. First things first: the most ominous thing I’ve read about the new coronavirus mutations comes from Dr. Eric Fiegl-Ding, who says, quite bluntly, “We need to...

Coronavirus dashboard for January 25: a vaccination race against time vs. the new mutations  All of the significant economic data is backloaded this week, onto Thursday and Friday. So don’t be surprised if I take a day off between now and then.In the meantime, here is a Coronavirus update. First things first: the most ominous thing I’ve read about the new coronavirus mutations comes from Dr. Eric Fiegl-Ding, who says, quite bluntly, “We need to...

There is evidence from Israel that one dose of the Pfizer vaccine is less effective than was suggested by the few person-days of evidence in the phase III trials. In Israel  “over 12,400 have people tested positive for coronavirus after receiving vaccine shots” Israeli health officials estimate that one shot is about 50% effective after 14 days . The control group is not matched, it’s not a randomized trial, but it is evidence that the second dose...

“Restoring Medicaid,” What happens when states switch to Block Grants? I came across a NYT article citing Seema Verma’s approval of the Tennessee’s Block Grant recently. The Tennessee Block Grant is mentioned in section ” Revoke The Block Grant Initiative” of my post Restoring Medicaid. What Are Block Grants? Government funded normal Medicaid has established rules for coverage and benefits. In an exchange for greater freedom offered to...

I asked if, given the data collected in Phase III trials, it might be wise to delay second doses of the Pfizer and Moderna Covid 19 vaccines until supplies are ample. Since then the UK government has decided to give second doses three months after the first dose. The reason is explicitly to get first doses in more people quickly. This is highly controversial. I’m just going to name drop (actually link drop) to show I am not the only person...

Me – Talk: Recent article on Health Affairs I tapped into and decided to present here at AB. The topic? As expressed in the title, return Medicaid to its former self and improved upon by the new Biden Administration. I also have been working on additional posts touching upon the history of the opioid epidemic by the numbers, single payer, and a comparison to the a European healthcare model. “In Its First 100 Days, The Biden Administration Must...

Coronavirus dashboard for January 6, 2021: new infections vastly outpacing vaccinations Total confirmed COVID-19 infections: 21,046,195* Infections last 7 days average: 219,253 Total deaths: 357,258 Deaths last 7 days average: 2,670 Total vaccinations: 4,836,489 *A study just released, based on random blood samples, suggests that as many as 50,000,000 Americans may have already been infected. Because some of the positive tests...

Here is a simple thought experiment on the use of scarce vaccine supplies.Suppose that we had tested the Pfizer/Moderna vaccines with one dose per person and discovered that they were 85% effective at preventing covid-19. However, due to an administrative error, we gave some people two doses, and when we analyzed the data it turned out that a two-dose regimen was 95% effective at preventing covid-19. Only 200 million doses of vaccine will be...