by Tony Hicks – As Contra Costa County opened vaccine availability to everyone 16 and older Tuesday, health officials warned that the county’s infection and hospitalization rates went up last week.
“I also want to sound a note of caution. Our case numbers have actually leveled off and bumped back up a little bit, as well as our hospitalization numbers,” Deputy Health Officer Dr. Ori Tzvieli said at the county’s Board of Supervisors meeting.
He said the county hit another grim milestone this past week.
“We received coroner data about a 15-year-old who passed away back in December from COVID-19,” he said.
“This is the first pediatric death in our county, that we know of. While these events are incredibly rare, they’re also very tragic. It’s just one more reminder of how urgently we need to vaccinate our community.”
The health officials said the county could move from the red to the orange tier of the state’s reopening guidelines by next week, once total state vaccinations hit 4 million in underserved communities. Then restrictions loosen.
“Even when we do get to the orange tier, it’s really important we continue to mask, to socially distance out in public,” Tzviell said.
County health director Anna Roth said at the board meeting, “If you’re 16 and over and you live or work in Contra Costa County, it’s your turn.”
She also cautioned that state sites haven’t opened to everyone, making it important to use the county site at cchealth.org or call (833) 829-2626. The state’s MyTurn.ca.gov site will likely open to everyone ages 16 and older by April 15, she said.
“We still have appointments available,” Roth said. “We already are getting people — we just updated it and we’re getting one request per second.”
Vaccines will be available on a limited walk-in basis at two sites beginning next week: Richmond Auditorium and Bay Point Clinic.
“But we do have a plan to expand those,” Roth said. “Those are coming soon. We do have some (walk-in) capability at our mobile clinics.”
Contra Costa County has administered more than 630,000 doses of vaccine, covering more than 45 percent of its population. Roth said 97 percent of county residents 75 and over have received at least one dose; 85 percent of 65 to 74-year-olds, and 45 percent of those 50 to 64.
Roth said the county will see a bigger influx of vaccine in coming weeks, thanks to ramped-up federal efforts. Aside from tiers based on age and serious health issues, vaccine allocation is distributed based on community need, with those hit hardest by the virus getting priority.
“Last week we delivered almost 100,000 vaccines in one week,” Roth said. “Even with that, we still have thousands of appointments now available because of this increased supply of vaccine. We really want to see them; we want to get them their first dose. We’ve made a lot of progress, but our work’s not done.”
condolences to all those who have lost loved ones but i’ll say this now, this pandemic will never end as the dems have found a way control us and they won’t give it up
#EndTheLockDown
#EndTheDemocratLies
They’re not really dems, they’re neo-liberals and very authoritarian. Bill and Hillary believe in neo-liberalism and probably Barack too. The Democratic Party has been hijacked by the big corporations and is not the party of the people any longer. But they may be very delusional if they think they’re going to win.
The Democrat party was never the party of the people — they were, and still are, the party of unions and special interest groups.
I remember in the late 1990s when the H-1B visa was getting a lot of push-back from American engineers. Predictably, Republicans supported it from the start. Pro-business you know. But the most verbal Democrat in opposition to the H-1B was Dianne Feinstein. Remember that? She said it hurt American workers and their families and was not good for our economic health.
Several months later she was invited to that big tech pow-wow. Bill Gates was there, as were the CEOs of Yahoo, Cisco Systems, HP, Sun Microsystems, Netscape, and all the Big Tech of the 1990s.
Overnight, Feinstein changed her position. She was now pro H-1B. All of a sudden the H-1B was good for American workers and their families.
What everyone witnessed was the beginning of Big Tech’s ownership of the Democrat party. The media soon followed suit, not only because the Democrats wanted the H-1B, but because the globalists who own the television networks wanted it as well.
If you’re not in a union, part of the Big Tech cabal, or a member of a protected class they can exploit to increase their power, the Democrats have no interest in you AT ALL.
Whereas the Republicans only care for the wealthy. Yes, we know.
If numbers are going up, why would they still allow the county to move into the next tier? Just trying to understand the logic (or lack thereof)
This is a great question! The logic behind it is that since vaccinations reduce the chances of hospitalization and serious COVID (and tentatively transmission by a non-clinical CDC study) by close to 100% you will have a lesser load on hospitals. The prior tier system was based on trying to predict the number of hospitalizations based on infection rates in order to protect hospital capacity.
Now that vaccinations are rolling out the theory is that fewer people are hospitalized – so you shift the focus away from hospitalizations and begin your transition by slowly lifting the thresholds as vaccination ramps up. 4 cases/100k residents in a vaccinated population is very different than 4/100k in an unvaccinated one.
Hope that helps!
Gavin wants to stay in office. He thinks if he convinces California that he, our leader has guided us through Covid and kept us safe, that he will stay in office. He just can’t comprehend that we want him out because he failed us in a multitude of ways. Poor confused soul……
@Answer II totally appreciate your explanation, and thank you for breaking it down. The point where I am still confused is with the county wanting to loosen restrictions with the numbers going up, and while I wish I could say this helps it’s clouding things up more. If the prior tier system was based on hospitalizations and going to cases (is there a new tier system now?), wouldn’t 4/100k in a vaccinated population be worse than 4/100k in an unvaccinated population? Especially if that number is rising? I would think that if numbers are getting worse than the county would be more wary to lift the threshold. By no means am I pro lockdown or anti vaccination, I am simply trying to understand where the county is coming from as it seems like things have been changing arbitrarily for a while now.
@cheeseburguesa – case rates haven’t really ticked upwards in our county. I check usually everyday around 11:30 when the county website is updated. Yes, a few more hospitalizations but no different than the hospitalization rate prior to Halloween/the holidays, it’s not drastically out of the range of the weekly average
Yes, this is a new tier thresholds are higher. 10 cases per 100k for purple instead of 8. 4 cases per 100k for orange instead of 6. CC is currently at 4.7 or so (adjusted for the # of tests we’re running)
The vaccines while 90% effective in preventing illness are 100% effective in preventing death. So 4 cases in a vaccinated population are less likely to transmit and be hospitalized than in an unvaccinated population. And are even less likely to die of it. The goal of the tier system has always been to reduce the strain on the hospital systems – not to protect against people getting sick.
Eat well, move outside for 30 minutes a day, exercise, take vitamin D, Quercin, and vitamin C and your immune system will fight the covid. Eat crappy food, get crappy results and we all have to suffer because people cant take care of themselves
Drink Ginger tea.
I have nearly 50 years of practicing alternative medicine and taking workshops in it. At this point in life of being careful about what I eat and getting regular exercise I’m not that interested in tossing that care aside to let big pharma put their junk in my body. Suit yourselves but I think that many have already achieved “herd immunity” as predicted by a number of university professors of immunology.
I think people should be able to make their own decisions about this vaccine, for sure.
But the flip side of your point is that “if anybody gets sick, it’s their own fault,” which is ridiculous and poisonous. How about a little gratitude for your own health, and some recognition that it’s not all under your control?
OMG
Our case numbers have actually leveled off and bumped back up a little bit, as well as our hospitalization numbers
OMG
I got the shots
OMG
We’re all doomed.
I’m shutting all the doors and windows, again.
My mask is on 24/7.
No visitor allowed.
Food delivered to the door.
Gotta flatten the curve, again.
I’m in a perpetual state of panic.
Arrrrrrgggg.
With all due respect to the 15 year old who died in Dec., there have been many MORE examples of young people dying as a result of suicide during the last year, than of Covid.
Lockdowns kill!
If you are scared, get the vaccine, and/or stay home.
No more medical tyranny!
Amen!
or awomen if a person believes that the term “amen” refers to a gender, like:
‘Unbelievable’: House Democrat’s opening prayer ends with ‘amen and a-woman’
https://tinyurl.com/akckn9fr
If only we can recall health officials, we can always start with board of supervisors who elected these people
I think it is also rather sleazy of them to bring up this single case of a 15-yr-old who died without any further info. Like, was this a cancer patient who posthumously tested positive for trace amounts of the virus? Or someone whose clinical history actually suggests that the virus played a causal role in their death? Was it someone with severe immune dysfunction?
Of course any death of a 15 year old is a tragedy many times over, AND people with immune issues are people too, and deserve the same consideration as anybody else! But here this case is being used to make people think that teenagers are at risk from Covid, and that’s very, very misleading.
100% agree Led, no context, and used to push fear in young people and their parents, right as they open up the shots to everyone over 16. Pure marketing.
They only know 1 speed at the county health department – Fear and panic.
These are averages they will fluctuate.
Don’t believe a thing they say.And yes it’s all about control.
Messenger RNA vaccines are designed to alter your DNA
Do you trust the Marxist regime “Our Democracy” with your DNA?
Now they are trying to prepare the mask loons to welcome vaccine passports
The regime will utilize their hive mind of private companies to create policies to implement since they want to avoid/bypass legal challenges
Exactly.
How many of those deaths were vaccinated?
Oh, just like the flu…….they DO NOT keep records of those who died from flu although they were vaccinated.
How many died due to the CONVID vaccine??
NO, mRNA is not designed to alter your DNA. It is not capable of doing so. Please, stop with that nonsense. Read up on cell biology, find out where mRNA is produced in your cells, and what its function is. You may also want to read a little on just how DNA is alternated, and mRNA simply cannot do that. mRNA is produced by your DNA, it is transported across the cell to you ribosomes, where it produces the proteins needed by your body. I studied cell biology in college as part of my course work in biology, and this notion that mRNA is gene therapy or somehow alters your DNA is just flat wrong.
Please, stop trying to scare people with false information.
@Yves, then tell us why they bother putting mRNA in the “treatment” (it’s not really a vaccine)? Since you are an expert we’re all ears. 😉
“Messenger RNA vaccines are designed to alter your DNA”
BULL**** they do not, before you crack your trap you need to know what your talking about.
You sound like a numbskull when you talk out your butt.
FWIW, it is entirely possible (and reasonable) to be against the lockdown mania, the overemphasis on masks (esp. outdoors!), the political opportunism, the nanny-state overreach, the dystopian idea of vaccine passports, etc. etc. …
…and at the same time be a big fan of the Covid vaccines. I think it is fantastic that effective vaccines have been developed so quickly, I think people should take them in general (but not be forced to), and I think this is our best way out of this garbage political moment. Resist the tyrannical stuff, mock the ridiculous stuff where appropriate, don’t trust the politicians … and take advantage of the amazing vaccines.
Bebops, you smooth brain
The mRNA is used to cause your body to produce a COVID-like protein which your immune system will attack and produce an immune response which will then give you some level of immunity to COVID
They can’t alter your DNA. Please don’t spread conspiratorial fiddle faddle.
Are the people saying the vaccine does not alter your DNA the same ones that are claiming Biden’s 2 trillion dollar pork barrel spending fiasco is an infrastructure program? Seems like maybe a third of that is infrastructure and the rest is affordable housing, broadband access for street people, and such.
mRNA vaccines won’t change your DNA but there is nothing out there, other than a bunch of dead lab rats, that says mRNA vaccines are safe for long term use or even efficacious long term. Translation errors are common and we’re only using a short sequence of bases that is also found in part of the spike protein. Viruses mutate every 10 hours, plenty mutations will break through. At best its false hope at worse we’re going to have an new pandemic of autoimmune diseases in a few years as confused immune systems becomes overreactive. I think these mRNA vaccines are a huge mistake.
Vaccines….I’ve been sick from shot # 2 for four days. Worse than the worse flu. Another co-worker was the same. Third coworker was hospitalized for lymph node issues from shot 2. At this point, the cure is worse than the disease, and IMO not worth it.
Remote cases, I had no reactions at all cept for a sore muscle for a day. Those that have severe reactions like that have borderline immune systems.
There’s no correlation between side effects and efficacy.
So, because you had no reaction, these other cases are the outliers? Solid logic there…
So because there are a few reports of reaction the ones with no reaction are the outliers? But of course Rollo must be the arbitrator of logic…..
JWB, if you had the intelligence of a house plant you’d more easily comprehend what others are communicating.
Captain – they “bothered” to put the mRNA into the vaccine because it works by entering the ribosomes, where the ribosome machinery then produces the SARS COV2 spike proteins. The mRNA in the vaccine is coded for those spike proteins. The researchers had sequenced the RNA in the virus and were able to produce the needed mRNA based on the sequences.
Your immune system recognizes those spike proteins as foreign, and a threat so the immune system ramps up to produce antibodies which would then attack any SARS COV2 virus that enter your body. The mRNA in the vaccine does not enter your cell nucleus where your DNA resides, and cannot alter your DNA. They do not have that functionality.
No need for the snark, Captain. You could read up on cell biology and learn what the various cell organelles do and don’t do. As I said, human mRNA is produced in the cell nucleus by your DNA, and releases it. mRNA does not have the capability to alter your DNA, thus is not a treatment or engineering of any kind.
I’m trying to be polite here, but the snark doesn’t help. If you don’t understand some basic cell biology, then you will believe that false crap that is being circulated.
You mentioned that the mRNA created in the lab for the vaccines is coded to make ribosomes create a certain protein which is claimed to fight COVID virus only but could be used for other protein creation in theory
Certainly very complicated process involved
My understanding is that traditional vaccines like the Russian Sputnik banned in US simply incorporate bits of live virus to make ribosomes create proteins that facilitate immunity process
Why use a new more complicated process?
Thanks Yves! Hope my anti vax neighbor reads your post.
@Obamavirus
You could not be more wrong in you understanding. Yes the BioNTech and the Moderna vaccine both use mRNA encapsulated in a chemical protective shell. Once that mRNA is in the vaccinated subject cells it will be used as the blueprint to make Covid spike protein and the subjects immune system will be trained to react to that spike protein and that will hopefully result in protection from natural infection
The Russian Sputnik V vaccine uses a DNA sequence from the Covid spike protein which is inserted into a non-replicating adenovirus. There are hundred of adenoviruses and most don’t cause disease in humans and some cause cold like disease in humans. The adenovirus strain used in Sputnik is not known to cause disease and as an additional safety the genome of the virus has been altered so it will not replicate in humans. Once the altered adenovirus infects a cell in a vaccine subject it will make mRNA which will be the blueprint to make Covid spike protein and again the vaccine recipient will make an immune response to the spike protein.
You are correct that the Sputnik V vaccine has not been approved in the US. But the same technology has been used in the J&J vaccine which has been approved in the US. BTW also the Astra Zenca/Oxford vaccine is an adenovirus based vaccine just as the J&J and the Russian one.
And the J&J approved Covid vaccine is the first ever approved adenovirus based vaccine approved for use in humans in the US. So no neither the J&J nor the Astra Zeneca nor the Russian Sputnik vaccines are considered “traditional vaccines”.
And just as the BioNTec or the Moderna the adenovirus based vaccine use the cells of the vaccine subject to make the Covid antigen for immunization. The difference is whether you inject simply the mRNA or whether you use an adenovirus vector, which in turn produces the mRNA in the vaccine subject.
And yes Yves is absolutely correct mRNA can not alter your DNA. You can google the central dogma of molecular biology. It states that DNA can be transcribed to RNA and RNA can be translated to protein. And it can only go from DNA to RNA to protein and not the other way round. With one notable exception there are some viruses called retroviruses which have the ability to reverse transcribe from RNA to DNA. One prominent member of that group is HIV and while it has an RNA genome it can reverse transcribe its genome to DNA and that can integrate (thus alter) the infected individuals genome.
For this process one needs an enzyme called reverse transriptase. Humans don’t have this enzyme it needs to be supplied by the retrovirus. The m-RNA in both the BioNTech and the Moderna vaccine do not have reverse transriptase activity, so there is no chance for that RNA to alter your genome.
@Obamavirus,
Basically, a vaccine works by introducing into your body some protein that is part of the target virus you want immunity against. “Traditional” vaccines used weakened or killed virus that cause the disease of concern. It is generally safer to just introduce a part of the virus protein as a component of the vaccine. The Sputnik vaccine uses similar technology to that of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in that they both contain the DNA code for the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus inserted into a different virus that infects humans. That DNA tells your cells how to make, first mRNA for the spike protein and then the protein itself. The Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines skip some steps and just introduce the mRNA into your body. With any of these four vaccines you are getting mRNA for the spike protein whether you realize it or not. In two cases your body makes it and in the other two the factories make it. None of these four vaccines contain the spike protein itself but all ensure that it is made in your body and then your body develops an immune response without being exposed to the active virus.
I hope that makes sense.
@JWB
Very thorough explanation. Do you work in the industry?
Some questions:
Why not use a traditional approach with inactive/dead virus?
Why has there not been an mRNA vaccine approved since the technology has been around since 2011?
Are you familiar with Pandemrix?
Has there ever been a more widespread use of unapproved injections in history?
Why have this massive scale of emergency use drugs for scientifically-speaking a relatively benign virus?
@Question everything (including questions),
The obvious disadvantage of the “traditional” approach is that the live virus must be first produced in a secure facility with all the risk that entails. Novavax is working on a vaccine based on recombinant production of the spike protein but they have lagged the others in clinical trials.
@ Question
As Bad Nombre already pointed out the traditional killed vaccine approach is very slow. It takes about a year to produce the influenza vaccine. Also there are not that many vaccine plants to grow virus needed for this and it would take quite a while to build more vaccine plants.
You are correct the m-RNA technology has been developed about a decade ago mainly by scientists at the NIH. The adenovirus approach is actually even older. The reason why there have no other vaccines approved yet using these more modern technologies is that it was viewed that the cost to develop and commercialize such vaccines (for example for influenza) would be to high to compete with the relative cheap established traditional influenza vaccines.
I’m not sure what your question regarding Pandemrix is. I know that the original old GSK vaccine plant is in Rixensart Belgium and thus GSK names all their vaccines ending in -rix. Pandemrix was the prepared regulatory file for a potential pandemic influenza vaccine (i.e, bird flu). But as far as I know it is just a skeleton filing which would need to be completed if there was a bird flu pandemic.
I think this is the first time that there has been such a quick response to a health threat including use of million of doses of a drug or vaccine under emergency approval. Obviously with millions of doses administered we now know much more both with respect to safety and efficacy.
Benign is obviously a relative term. If you look at the world wide number of infections and deaths as well as the economic impact all around the world, and the stressing of the health care systems all over the world, benign is not the term I would use. So that is obviously only my personal view but I do think the virus warrants the massive response, not only in the US but worldwide.
I inquired because just taking a biology class in college means nothing. Many people unless they use regularly what they learned there forget much of the course material. So that’s why I asked the question.
That said, much of this is still theoretical and under a “human testing” phase if we want to call it that. What other effects it will have is still yet to be determined.
BTW, what role does the autonomic nervous system play with covid?
Another case of fear mongering …
A pediatric patient is generally referred to someone who is under 2-3, with some sub-divisions there. A child is someone from that 2-3 to puberty. An Adolescent is someone from puberty through 17.
Using the word pediatric in this article is fear mongering … fear that a young child may die. Sorry, this is an example of the media picking a word to instill a preconceived notion into their readers. Despicable. Deplorable. But not surprising from a health department who wrote an article on how to have sex during this event.
And then, why did it take the coroners office 3 1/2 months to identify the cause of death … seriously … how is the government still in business that it takes them 3 1/2 months to come to a conclusion? That is another joke. Almost like .. the schools are back in person (another joke of study hall), and the same week the coroner ‘releases’ that findings that a 15 year old adolescent died ‘from’ Covid. That is an interesting coincidence … not saying it could not happen .. but the timing can lead to questions.
Have any of these vaccines actually been officially approved and not just being administered under emergency use authorization?
For the curious, look up Pandemrix. Bet you’ve never heard of it
Rotary phones were great when you wanted to slam the phone down and hang up on someone…………pressing a button just isn’t the same.
OMG…we need to shelter in place and lock it down. Dr. Fraudci is warning us of new strains and a 4th or 5th wave…can’t keep up, but I know its bad! I expect social distancing of how about 8 feet, hand washing, and permission to go out in public. We are all in this together say the politicians and bureaucrats so let’s join hands I mean elbows and only two more weeks to flatten the curve.
I think that perhaps Claycord needs to start censoring some comments so they can control what we read and know about the virus and the vaccines. Other “major” news sources are already doing so without hesitation – Facebook, Google, CNN, MSNBC, even the East Bay Times is caught in publishing pretty much one sided info. One sided information leads to a happy and ignorant society who blinding goes about daily life.
There is currently an “information campaign” in operation by the Marxist regime regarding vaccinations
They are enlisting various groups to monitor social media and ‘provide accurate information” about vaccinations
It’s called “We Can Do This” campaign
Or none at all. After all, this is America.