FDA Vaccine Approval

 If you do a search on twitter for unapproved vaccine you will find loads of people saying some version of

A: I will not take an unapproved vaccine

The FDA explains why and how it uses Emergency Use Exemptions for Vaccines here

What will they do when the vaccine gets full FDA approval? 

I can imagine three responses.

1. Then I will be reassured and take it

2. That will increase my chances of taking it but I am concerned still about B,C,D...

3. No I am concerned about B,C,D...

3 is strange as if B,C,D are actually your worries then why say full FDA approval is your worry initially? I have asked a few people who expressed A what they will do after full approval. Not one of them has said 1 or 2 only some version of 3. That looks more like they are using FDA approval as an excuse rather than an actual real criteria they believe.

Vaccinate the old fast

The CDC give Infection Fatality Ratios for people of different ages as

0-19 years: 0.00003
20-49 years: 0.0002
50-69 years: 0.005
70+ years: 0.054

This mens 5.4% of all over 70s who are infected with Covid they believe will die.

The number of people in these age groups in Ireland is

425k over 70s

55-69 year olds =720k 

18-54 is 1,350,000

0-18 about 1,200,000 people

The ages do not quite line up but they are close enough.

If all over 70s in Ireland got infected with covid 23,000 would die. Assuming the infections were spaced out enough that the medical system stayed working.

All 55-69 about 3,600 would die

All adults 1350000 * 0.0002= 270 deaths 

Children=36

This ignores long term issues that Covid could cause. But hospitalisation numbers track Deaths pretty clearly. And long term issues seem to track hospitalisations.

The numbers are pretty stark though and indicate to me we should rapidly vaccinate older (and vulnerable) people as quickly as practical.

What jobs have most risk of Covid?

This data is Norway but I will assume the US and other countries would be similar. The full paper is Occupational risk of COVID-19 

"The difference between the first and second wave may be due to changes in the test criteria. In the first wave, there was a shortage of test equipment, and patients, risk groups and healthcare personnel were prioritised for testing. In the second wave, close contacts and people with mild symptoms could also be tested. " so I'll use the figures from the second wave for the risk.

How many people have these jobs? The US bureau of Labour Statistics has good numbers on occupations here 

I took all these jobs and got the numbers of US workers with them and their chance of getting ill. It works out that about 10% of workers account for 30% of cases (in workers). That is still about 16 million people. But it does give a possible next group for vaccines after medical workers. I put the combined risk and numbers employed data into a spreadsheet here