I wonder what took so long. Well, better late than never!
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has added several new medical conditions to its list of those that predispose adults to more severe COVID-19 illness.
Conditions that had previously been categorized as “might be” placing individuals at increased risk — but now are listed as high risk — include type 1 diabetes (in addition to type 2), moderate-to-severe asthma, liver disease, dementia or other neurological conditions, stroke/cerebrovascular disease, HIV infection, cystic fibrosis, and overweight (in addition to obesity).
Its because we were a ‘rare condition.’ There were not enough of us to get a large enough data sample. Although, we could read thru the lines and this started to get reported right away, the statistics for the FDA were a little hard to come by.
It is indeed a bit late. My state has been lowering the eligibility age until I finally qualified that way. Meanwhile single high risk conditions still do not qualify, and won’t until two weeks before they open the floodgates and make everyone over the age of 16 eligible. I’m glad they finally included T1 in the list, but it will have little impact on when diabetics in my state will be vaccinated.
If this is true, and I think it’s likely, then the committee of human beings chose to rely exclusively on a statistical measure and avoid making a value judgment. The committee that was tasked with this job perhaps chose not to gain more information about the nature of T1D since that level of analysis might bog them down and prevent them from getting a big job done expeditiously.
My real hope here is that these decisions will be reviewed, not with an interest in assigning blame, but in learning how it could have been done better. Publishing the findings of such a thoughtful review can help us next time. Unfortunately, there will be a next time.
We must also accept that there are only about 1.5 million T1Ds in the US population of about 335 million. Our personal stake in this does bias our perspective.
The saving grace here is that an accelerating vaccine supply will soon overtake demand. This administrative decision did impact some T1Ds but that impact was likely limited to a delay of weeks, not months.
I’m so confused, Terry, about where we are at and how the rules are different. I’ve been looking at what @Marie20 has been writing and I don’t feel like I’m up to date on my covid planning. It helped me to listen to the MN briefing today. But, I still don’t have a plan. I need to spend some time thinking about it all.
Like, I’m not sure how I ought to behave. If I get sick, what is the action plan? What is the action plan if someone in my family (who is not vaccinated) gets sick? Can I be around that person and provide care? I feel uncertain about what the risks are and how to mitigate risks. I feel like the landscape is unclear and getting more complicated. The plan was simple before - stay home. I guess that’s where I’m at.
I feel uncertain about what the risks are and thus how to mitigate and how to not ‘take on too many commitments’ in the face of unknown risk. I feel very confused.
Ok. Things and protocols are changing now that the vaccination programs are gaining traction. Plus, we are transitioning from a period of poor and missing leadership from the highest levels. The contrast does jar the senses.
If I were to come down with symptoms of Covid-19, I would telephone my doctor to seek good practices. I’m also starting to appreciate the role that monoclonal antibodies can play in early Covid. They can offer substantial protection against severe Covid and needing to go into the hospital.
I would resist directly providing care to a family member if you are not vaccinated. There’s a lot you can still do from a distance, like get groceries or supplies. If you must show up in person, I would make sure to use an N95 mask and limit your time to the briefest exposure.
The best thing you can do right now is shorten the time between now and when you receive the vaccine. I would use your talent using the internet to find yourself a vaccination. You need it now!
If I recall correctly, you were planning to get vaccinated on March 16. Did that happen? If so, which vaccine did you get? Did your dog enjoy the road trip?
As Terry has already suggested, the best ways to mitigate risks are to (1) get (fully) vaccinated and (2) continue to mask up to mitigate to the extent possible transmitting or receiving the virus.
Is it safe for me to go rock collecting down by the river where the homeless camps are? After 2nd vacc, is it safe for me to have that much contact with the unvaccinated, for example? I wanna make some painted rocks for my sister-in-laws new house. I will paint a small village of rocks that looks like all the houses on their block. I only know one place down by the river where you find rocks shaped like houses.
I was planning to go over to my friends house once we are both passed 2nd vacc. But, he has a friend over there today with some sporadic mental health issues who ends up in some tricky living situations. I’m certain that she has not been vaccinated. I barley got him vaccinated. Is it safe for me to go over to his house for coffee if she has been staying there for days and its a very small apartment?
I am very unclear.
Am I innately more afraid of contact with the homeless or mental ill, now? should I be?
Are we supposed to know how to access this even if we have been vaccinated? Or, is that just the unvaccinated? Do we notify healthcare providers if we get sick after completing vaccination.
Outside activities are pretty much safe by default, unless someone is super close to you (think right up next to you), coughing at you, etc. So probably you are fine to go collect rocks!
Dog had a wonderful trip. The roads were clear all the way up to the Iron Range. Dog didn’t even need a jacket, but he did bring his emergency pack incase we broke down and had to walk a long ways. He would have loved that.
But we did drive right past the location where a Senators plane crashed many years ago and people had constructed a memorial with large polished rocks. I’ve heard stories about that day from people up there, so Dog and I stopped to see what it looked like. We were really hoping to see gnarled plane wreckage. There was none.
You seem to be expecting a yes or no response for a question which can only be answered statistically. That’s understandable. You are a human being. Human beings hate statistics. Humans tend to not accept that an answer can be simultaneously both “yes” and “no”.
As was already pointed out, it is relatively safe to do stuff outdoors so long as you physically distance from other people. The virus is primarily transmitted through the air via respiratory droplets from coughing, sneezing, or talking. If you mask up and don’t meet with people in confined spaces it seems less likely you’d be risking infection.
It’s unlikely you would get the virus from picking up rocks. While there is still a lot of “hygiene theater” out there about wiping down surfaces, people are most likely to catch covid by inhaling it.
Meeting your friend for coffee could be OK, but sounds like a higher risk. Maybe wait for a warmer day when a door or window could be left open for better ventilation? Maybe allow a day or two to pass beyond when your friend’s friend has last visited?
I believe that the ultimate responsibility for health lies with the person themself. I think the successful use of monoclonal antibodies to fight Covid is for the unvaccinated. But if I came down with Covid symptoms following vaccination, I would definitely ask my doctor about getting these.
For those who have no idea what a monoclonal antibody is, it was part of the successful treatment received by our former president when he caught Covid.
And yes, I would notify my doctor if I came down with Covid symptoms following vaccination. While the vaccines sport a large percentage effectivity, none are at 100% for protection from Covid.
On April 5 they will add for the first time “people with 1 certain medical condition” (our official state page still includes only type 2 diabetes, not type 1 diabetes). Then on April 19 they will remove all restrictions so everyone can schedule. That only gives T1s two weeks to figure out whether they are really included or not, before everyone is able to start getting in line.
Yes, I’d love to know the anatomy of this poor decision. It seems the committee just didn’t understand T1D and without the voluminous data like that T2D provided, would not base a decision on any other non-statistical basis.
I’m not interested in assigning blame but am more interested that this decision not be repeated the next time this situation arises. Failure to include T1D for vaccination at an earlier step is probably not the only inequitable decision made.
I can only hope that a sincere and thorough after-action analysis gets made that examines the public health-decision making that has occurred in Covid-19.
This poor decision would have been made inconsequential if the US had secured much more robust vaccine quantities and an earlier delivery schedule that a competent national leadership could have delivered. But those poor choices were made in last 3-6 months of a failed administration. We’re lucky that leadership has changed and better choices are now being made.
