Scientists developed vaccines less than a year after the Covid-19 was identified, a reflection of remarkable advances in vaccine technology. But progress in vaccine distribution is a different story.
Many questions that arose in vaccines decades ago are still being discussed today. How should local and federal authorities coordinate? Who should be vaccinated first? What should officials do against resistance in communities? Should the places hardest hit be prioritized? Who has to pay?
Some answers can be found in the successes and failures of vaccines over the past two centuries.
In 1796, when the scientist Edward Jenner discovered that people infected with cowpox were immune to smallpox, doctors went from city to city in England and deliberately spread cowpox by scratching infected material in the arms of humans.
The rollout worked locally, but how could it be spread to people in distant places, such as in the Americas, where smallpox has devastated populations? In 1803, the Spanish government put 22 orphans on a ship to its territories in South America. The chief physician, Francisco Xavier de Balmis, and his team injected cowpox into two of the boys, and then, as soon as cowpox ulcers developed, took material from the sores and scratched into the arms of two more boys.
By the time the team arrived in the Americas, only one boy was infected, but that was enough. The distribution of vaccines in the Spanish territories was unsystematic, but eventually members of the Spanish expedition worked with local political, religious, and medical authorities to set up vaccination clinics. By 1805, more than 100,000 people in Mexico had received free vaccinations, according to a journal article, The World’s First Immunization Campaign, in the Bulletin of the History of Medicine.
1947: Smallpox, weather
By the twentieth century, when scientists were figuring out how to store the smallpox vaccine and bring it into mass production, there were mostly outbreaks.
But an outbreak in 1947 in New York City, just before a parade Sunday on a hot weekend, posed a major problem. The city’s health commissioner at the time, Israel Weinstein, called for everyone to be vaccinated, even if they were vaccinated as a child. Posters around the city warned: “Be sure. Be safe. Get vaccinated! ”
The rollout was quick and well orchestrated. Volunteers and health care professionals went to schools to deliver vaccines to students. The public at the time had strong confidence in the medical community, and the modern anti-vaccination movement barely existed. In less than a month, more than six million New Yorkers were vaccinated, and in the end, the city recorded only 12 infections and two deaths.
1955: Polio
On April 12, 1955, the U.S. government released the first poliomyelitis vaccine, which was developed by Dr. Jonas Salk was created, licensed after scientists announced that day that it was 80 to 90 percent effective.
Covid19 vaccines>
Answers to your vaccine questions
Although the exact order of vaccine recipients may vary by state, medical workers and residents of long-term care institutions are likely to be first. If you want to understand how this decision is made, this article will help.
Life will only become normal when society as a whole gets enough protection against the coronavirus. Once countries approve a vaccine, they will be able to vaccinate at most a few percent of their citizens in the first few months. The unvaccinated majority will still be vulnerable to infection. A growing number of coronavirus vaccines offer strong protection against disease. But it is also possible for people to spread the virus without even knowing they are infected, because they experience only mild symptoms or not at all. Scientists do not yet know whether the vaccination also blocks the transmission of the coronavirus. For now, even vaccinated people will have to wear masks, crowds inside, and so on. Must avoid. Once enough people are vaccinated, it will be very difficult for the coronavirus to find vulnerable people who can become infected. Depending on how quickly we as a society reach the goal, life may begin by the fall of 2021 to approach something as normal.
Yes, but not forever. The two vaccines that may be approved this month clearly protect people against Covid-19. However, the clinical trials that have yielded these results have not been designed to determine whether people who have been vaccinated can still spread the coronavirus without developing symptoms. It remains a possibility. We know that people who are naturally infected by the coronavirus can spread it while experiencing no cough or other symptoms. Researchers will study this question intensively as the vaccines begin. Meanwhile, even vaccinated people will have to think of themselves as possible distributors.
The Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine is delivered like a shot in the arm, like other typical vaccines. The injection will not be different from what you received before. Tens of thousands of people have already received the vaccinations, and none of them have reported serious health problems. But some of them felt transient discomfort, including pains and flu-like symptoms that usually last a day. It is possible that people after the second shot may be planning to take a day off from work or school. Although these experiences are not pleasant, it is a good sign: it is the result of your own immune system encountering the vaccine and getting a powerful response that will provide long-lasting immunity.
No. The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines use a genetic molecule to replenish the immune system. That molecule, known as mRNA, is eventually destroyed by the body. The mRNA is packaged in an oily bubble that can fuse with a cell so that the molecule can slide. The cell uses the mRNA to make proteins from the coronavirus, which can stimulate the immune system. Each of our cells can contain hundreds of thousands of mRNA molecules at any one time that they produce to make their own proteins. Once those proteins are made, our cells cut the mRNA with special enzymes. The mRNA molecules that make up our cells can only survive for a few minutes. The mRNA in vaccines is designed to resist the cells’ enzymes a little longer, allowing the cells to make extra viral proteins and trigger a stronger immune response. But the mRNA can only take a few days at most before being destroyed.
The next day, The New York Times reported in a headline headline: “Supply should be low for time, but production will be fast.”
State and local health officials were responsible for rolling out children, who are at greatest risk of contracting the disease.
“Young, African-American children are being hit, but they were not at the top of the priority list because of the social conditions at the time,” said Dr. René F. Najera, editor of the History of Vaccines project at the College, said. of Doctors of Philadelphia. Dr. Najera noted that it was difficult for working-class parents to take the time to stand in line with children at clinics. You see it again and again, history repeats itself. “
Shortly after the rollout began, the program was suspended after reports that children contracted polio in the arms where they were vaccinated, rather than the bones, which were more typical of the disease.
More than 250 cases of polio have been attributed to faulty vaccines, which were caused by a manufacturing error by one of the drug manufacturers involved in the attempt, Cutter Laboratories, based in California, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The so-called Cutter Incident led to stronger regulatory requirements, and the introduction of the vaccine continued in the fall of 1955. The vaccine has prevented thousands of cases of crippling disease, saved lives and eventually ended the annual threat of epidemics in the United States.
1976: Swine flu
The H1N1 flu virus, which originated in Mexico, struck in the spring of 2009, not during the typical flu season.
By late summer, it was clear that the virus had caused fewer deaths than many seasonal flu strains, and that some of the early reports from Mexico were exaggerated. This was one of the big reasons why many Americans avoided the flu vaccine when it was ready in the fall. It was not just the anti-vaccination movement, but it was a factor.
The H1N1 virus was difficult for children and young adults and apparently had an excessively high mortality rate among pregnant women. As a result of these factors, the first groups to be vaccinated, after health workers, were people at greatest risk for complications, pregnant women and children.
The last group to be eligible for the vaccine were healthy people over 65, who had the least chance of contracting it because they appeared to be resistant to it.
Donald G. McNeil Jr. contribution made.