South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
‘Vaccine buddy’ gives others a shot
In Mass., bring in a senior and you can both get vaccinated
BOSTON — Gloria Clark of Malden, Massachusetts, woke up on Thursday with one goal and one goal only: to find herself an unvaccinated person over the age of 75.
She started with an ad on Craigslist, but responses were sluggish, so she started knocking on doors. The 89-year-old two doors down wasn’t interested. An 80-year-old neighbor wasn’t home, and typically napped in the afternoon, but Clark was undaunted.
“I’ll catch her tomorrow morning,” said Clark, 72, a retired high school math teacher. “I’ll find someone. I know I will.”
Last week, Massachusetts began a first-in-the-nation experiment, offering vaccinations to those who accompany people who are 75 and older to mass vaccination sites.
The plan was intended to ease access problems for older people, who have struggled to book online appointments and travel to sports stadiums. Right away, it met with criticism from state legislators and some public health experts, who said it could result in scarce doses going to young, healthy people.
It also gave rise to an unusual online market, as entrepreneurial Massachusetts residents sought to forge caregiving relationships at top speed.
“I have a great driving record and a very clean Toyota Camry,” said one person in an advertisement on Craigslist. “I can pay $100 cash as well. I am a friendly conversationalist and will allow you to choose the music and show me all the pictures of your grandkids!”
A Boston-area graduate student offered “$200+ for the privilege of transporting a Massachusetts resident to his or her first or second vaccine appointment.”
Other inquiries were made more delicately.
Jean Trounstine, an author and professor who lives in Tewksbury, Massachusetts, said she received a phone call from a friend who asked if she could accompany her to a vaccine appointment. (Trounstine is
74, it turned out, and no.) “I think she’s just going to look around for 75-year-olds,” she said. “That just blew me away.”
Trounstine heard about the companion program on the car radio on Wednesday, and “flipped out,” as she put it, because it struck her as yet another way for people with resources to jump the line.
“I’m waiting to get the vaccine patiently, I’m not pulling any strings,” she said. “It’s just kind of a slap in the face to someone like me, who isn’t going to go hunting around for a
75-year-old.”
At a Thursday news conference, Gov. Charlie Baker acknowledged that some were approaching the program opportunistically, and warned seniors to be cautious about offers of help from strangers.
“Don’t take calls or offers from people you don’t know well or trust, and never share your personal information with anyone,” he said.
Public health experts offered divergent opinions on the companion program.
Massachusetts is trying to crank up vaccination rates after lagging early in the process, when the state focused on front line health care workers and care facilities and many doses sat in freezers unused.
About 10.4% of the state’s population has received at least one dose.
Andrew Lover, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, said the plan would accelerate vaccinations by providing an “extra push” for older people who live alone.
“There’s definitely potential for people to game the system, but my assumption is it’s a reasonably small number,” he said. “The more people we can get vaccinated the better, in the grand scheme of public health, and we are more than happy to accept that small problematic fraction.”
Others worried that the policy allows young, healthy people doses that are in short supply.
“What I’m worried about is that there are lots of people in their 70s — 74-year-olds — who can’t get a vaccine, but there are 22-year-olds who are perfectly healthy who are going to get them,” said Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health.
It wasn’t all criticism, though. Many people in their late 70s last week contemplated their sudden possession of a golden ticket, and discussed among themselves which friend most deserved or needed it.
Margaret Bibbo, 66, had brought in an elderly friend without expecting to be vaccinated herself, and when a doctor offered her a shot as a companion she initially refused.
“I said, ‘I would love it, but I’m not going to jump in front of anybody,’ ” she said. “Her quote was, ‘You’re just as important as anyone else; you took the time to bring this woman here without expecting the injection. We can take care of you.’ It was precious.”
Driving home, she said, she was flooded with gratitude and relief.
“I was blessed yesterday, totally blessed,” she said.
For Clark, it made perfect sense. Her friends in longterm care facilities have all been vaccinated, “but if you’re like me, and live in your own home, you’re stuck.”
At 72, she is healthy enough to drive some of her neighbors to colonoscopies, and public-spirited enough to work the polls at special elections. “Someone’s out there who needs the help,” she said.
China’s coronavirus vaccines were supposed to deliver a geopolitical win that showcased the country’s scientific prowess and generosity. Instead, in some places, they have set off a backlash.
Officials in Brazil and Turkey have complained that Chinese companies have been slow to ship the doses and ingredients. Disclosures about the Chinese vaccines has been slow and spotty. The few announcements that have trickled out suggest that China’s vaccines, while considered effective, cannot stop the virus as well as those developed by Pfizer and Moderna, the American drugmakers.
In the Philippines, some lawmakers have criticized the government’s decision to purchase a vaccine made by a Chinese company called Sinovac. Officials in Malaysia and Singapore, which both ordered doses from Sinovac, have had to reassure their citizens that they would approve a vaccine only if it has been proven safe and effective.
“Right now, I would not take any Chinese vaccine because there’s insufficient data,” said Bilahari Kausikan, a former official at Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
He added that he would consider it only with “a proper report.”
At least 24 countries, most of them low and middle income, signed deals with the Chinese vaccine companies because they offered access at a time when richer nations had claimed most of the doses made by Pfizer and Moderna. But the delays in getting the Chinese vaccines and the fact that the vaccines are less effective mean that those countries may take longer to vanquish the virus.
Beijing officials who had hoped the vaccines would burnish China’s global reputation
are now on the defensive.
State media, meanwhile, has started a misinformation campaign against the other vaccines, questioning the safety of the Pfizer and Moderna shots and promoting the Chinese vaccines as a better alternative. They have also distributed online videos that have been shared by the anti-vaccine movement in the United States.
Liu Xin, an anchor with CGTN, the state broadcaster, asked on Twitter why the foreign media has failed to “follow up” on the deaths of people in Germany who have taken one vaccine — though scientists have said the people were already seriously ill. Liu’s tweet was shared by Zhao Lijian, a top spokesman at China’s foreign ministry.
George Gao, head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, has questioned the safety of the U.S. vaccines because their
developers used new techniques rather than the traditional method embraced by Chinese makers.
China had hoped its vaccines would prove it had become a scientific and diplomatic powerhouse. It remains on par with the United States in the number of vaccines approved for emergency use or in late-stage trials. Sinopharm, a state-owned vaccine-maker, and Sinovac have said they can produce up to a combined 2 billion doses this year, making them essential to the global fight against the coronavirus.
Unlike the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, their doses can be kept at refrigerated temperatures and are more easily transported, making them appealing to the developing world. They have been doled out as aid to countries like Pakistan and the Philippines.
China’s campaign has been plagued with doubts,
however. The delays in shipments to places like Brazil and Turkey have been the latest hitch.
In Turkey, the government initially promised that 10 million doses of the Sinovac vaccine would arrive in December. Only 3 million did in early January, according to Fahrettin Koca, Turkey’s health minister. The remaining doses finally arrived Monday, according to Anadolu, Turkey’s staterun news agency.
In a statement, China’s foreign ministry cited its needs at home, where the coronavirus has reemerged.
“Currently, China’s domestic vaccine demand is huge,” it said. “While meeting domestic demand, we are overcoming difficulties, thinking and trying ways to develop international vaccine cooperation with other countries, especially developing countries in different ways, and providing support and assistance
according to their needs and within our capacity.”
The sporadic outbreaks could also hinder production. Sinovac, which declined to comment, said online Friday that it was looking for workers for a Beijing-area facility where an outbreak had frightened off potential employees.
Countries like Turkey and Brazil are rolling out their immunization programs with a Sinovac vaccine because Western companies cannot deliver as quickly. But Brazil’s efforts have been delayed as well. Eduardo Pazuello, the country’s health minister, said China is not acting fast enough with the documents needed to export raw materials to Brazil.
Other vaccines are beginning to fill the gap.
Brazil’s health ministry said last week that a delayed shipment of 2 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine would arrive soon from India.
The world was also caught off guard by the disclosure that the Sinovac vaccine may not be as effective as previously thought. Earlier, officials in Turkey said trials there showed the vaccine has a 91% efficacy rate. In Indonesia, it was
68%. In Brazil, researchers initially said its efficacy was
78%.
Then, Jan. 12, scientists said it had an efficacy rate of just over 50%, once people who experienced mild symptoms were included. That level is a hair above the threshold set by the World Health Organization to consider a vaccine effective.
In a news conference last week, Sinovac CEO Yin Weidong reiterated that the vaccine is 100% effective in preventing severe cases. He said the lower efficacy rate was because the trial was focused on health care workers, who had a higher propensity of contracting
COVID-19 than the general population.
In Hong Kong, a special administration region of China that has ordered 7.5 million doses of the Sinovac vaccine, officials have not received an application for emergency distribution nor any data from the Chinese company.
“Whether it is because they are not making enough or if they have no plans to send the vaccines to Hong Kong yet, I don’t know,” said Dr. Lau Chak Sing, who heads a Hong Kong government advisory panel on
COVID-19 vaccines. Data disclosure has also been an issue in the Philippines, which has secured
25 million Sinovac vaccine doses.
Risa Hontiveros, an opposition lawmaker, said President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration “continues to cram their preference for Chinese-made vaccines down the public’s throat, without emergency use approval and with inconsistent data.”