Task Force addresses newly approved vaccines
At its Nov. 16 meeting, the Pine Island COVID-19 Task Force opened with discussions regarding current and imminent vaccines. Due to the novel nature of the virus, it’s been the experience of most Task Force members that people are leery of vaccines that haven’t had much chance to be tested yet, many of whom may even be in the medical field.
“People may have allergies or low level side effects that are not caught during clinical trials,” said member Sue Dahod, adding that in her opinion she understands the new vaccines to be both simple and safe. Member Martha Huard said unless there are unknown additives, the product itself is safe.
“If it’s not stored properly it’s just inactive,” said Dahod of a new Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, adding that Pfizer requires minus 78 degrees, while the recently approved Moderna vaccine requires minus 20 degrees. She explains it this way — “The Pfizer/BioNTech uses another kind of nucleic acid called mRNA. As Quartz previously reported, mRNA vaccines provide a different bit of code for our cells to translate into bits of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, which then solicit an immune response. It sneaks those instructions into our bodies using lipid nanoparticles that mimic other types of proteins our cells are used to letting through their membranes. The Moderna vaccine uses the same mRNA technology. It uses a different kind of lipid ‘capsule’ coating that makes the mRNA more stable and therefore doesn’t need super cold storage.”
Former WINK-TV News anchor Jim McLaughlin said that although many winter residents have come to Florida from northern hotspots, he’s heartened by the number of people he’s seen at the local Publix wearing masks.
“Winter residents may not pay any attention if they look around and see that quite a few people are not wearing masks here on the island,” said McLaughlin. “They may not go to a place like Publix where almost everybody has them on.”
McCrea said the CDC bi-lingual flyers will be placed in the food delivery bags from Community Cooperative and handed out at Pine Island First United Methodist Church, where he is the pastor.
Dahod told the group she has created a chart based on data from Lee Health’s Facebook page.
“I pulled all the data since the beginning of May,” said Dahod. “Mainly because it had very similar data over a long period of time, also it’s not cooperative health data so it’s an independent source of information.”
She went on to explain that she’s created a graph based on this data and asked whether there’s any value in bringing it to the attention of the public.
“I’m fearful that the curve of hospitalized patients is going to go up again,” she said. “I think we’re right at the early phase so it may not be appropriate quite yet, but as things start to take off, maybe we could just remind people how bad it could get.”
Huard agreed that there could be a misconception by the public that things are no longer that bad.
Dahod likened the current curve to the conditions of late May early June, when Florida began to see an escalation of infection, fearing a rapid return to the same situation.