Consider This from NPR - Third Vaccine On The Way, Fauci Hails 'Spectacular Results'

Episode Date: February 3, 2021

A third COVID-19 vaccine could receive emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration this month. The vaccine made by Johnson & Johnson is 66% effective in preventing moderate to severe disease, according to a global study. Combined with the two vaccines currently in circulation, the U.S. could have three vaccines that are all highly effective at preventing death or hospitalization due to COVID-19.Despite that promising news, NPR's Richard Harris reports on why the journey to herd immunity still won't be easy.And Rae Ellen Bichelle goes inside a Colorado long-term care facility that has vaccinated nearly all of its residents. They say the initial steps to a return to normalcy feel great.Additional reporting in this episode on the spread of coronavirus variants from NPR's Allison Aubrey.In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

It looks like a third vaccine is on the way. It's only with the collaboration of all of the pharmaceutical companies here that it will be able to combat this disease in the world. And that's where our vaccine will have its place. Dr. Paul Stoffels is the chief scientific officer at Johnson & Johnson. He spoke to NPR this past week about his company's vaccine. New data show it appears to be 85% effective at preventing severe disease and 100% effective at preventing hospitalization and death. We will submit a file

in the course of next week and then of course the FDA as well as other authorities will have to do their evaluation work. The FDA could authorize the vaccine as early as this month. Now, you may have heard that when it comes to preventing moderate cases of COVID-19, Johnson & Johnson's shot is about 65% effective. That's compared to about 95% for the Pfizer and Moderna shots. If this had occurred in the absence of a prior announcement and implementation of 94 and 95 percent efficacy, one would have said this was an absolutely spectacular result. Dr. Anthony Fauci pointed out this past week the Johnson & Johnson efficacy rate is still high and the vaccine has a lot of upside. It only requires one shot instead of two. It doesn't require extreme refrigeration.

And the company is capable of making billions of doses. That will alleviate so much of the stress and human suffering and death in this epidemic that we're seeing. This plus the few others that we have that actually prevent severe disease to a very substantial degree. Consider this. COVID-19 vaccines continue to be highly effective at preventing hospitalization and death, but reaching the ultimate goal of herd immunity won't be easy. From NPR, I'm Audie Cornish. It's Wednesday, February 3rd. This message comes from NPR's sponsor, BYU Radio, with the podcast Top of Mind.

Each weekday, journalist Julie Rose asks the experts what you need to know so you can have the facts free from commentary or speculation. Top of Mind is available wherever you get your podcasts. This message comes from NPR sponsor, Dispatch Coffee. Sourcing, roasting, and delivering quality and traceable coffee at a fair price. Try their flexible monthly subscription. Shipping is free. Go to dispatchcoffee.ca slash consider to get 50% off your first order. We are still in the middle of this pandemic.

And right now, having science news you can trust, from variants to vaccines, is essential. NPR Shortwave has your back. About 10 minutes every weekday, listen and subscribe to Shortwave, the daily science podcast from NPR. It's Consider This from NPR. does, which also helps a lot of people get less sick and stay out of the hospital. Bottom line, public health experts say, is that with more contagious variants of the virus circulating, there's no room to be picky about which shot you're getting. Viruses cannot evolve if they don't have the opportunity to replicate. So by reducing transmission now, we can reduce the likelihood that there are going to be additional variants that may be more resistant to the vaccines emerging in the future. That's Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Georgetown University.

So far, vaccines do appear to be pretty effective against the variants we know about. But newer variants could still develop, and the ones we currently have aren't being tracked extensively in the U.S. We're still not sequencing nearly enough of the viruses that are circulating here in the U.S., so I think that the best thing for people to do is to assume that those variants are circulating in your community and take precautions to protect yourself. Protecting yourself means the usual stuff, staying home, avoiding crowds, wearing masks, and getting a vaccine when one is available to you. Of course, the problem continues to be that vaccines are not available to a lot of people, even in states where they're told they're eligible. We know it's not only the amount of vaccine that matters. Another critical component is creating

easily accessible places for Americans to get vaccinated. That's Jeff Zients, the White House not only the amount of vaccine that matters. Another critical component is creating easily accessible places for Americans to get vaccinated. That's Jeff Zients, the White House COVID coordinator. This week, the Biden administration announced a plan to send an additional one million vaccine doses out to more than 6,000 local pharmacies around the country. Those pharmacies, the administration says, have been strategically chosen to help increase vaccine availability where people need it most. The Center for Disease Control, which has quite a bit of experience working with pharmacies, is making sure that we are picking pharmacies that are located in areas that are harder to reach to ensure that we have equitable distribution. Of course, the main goal of vaccine distribution is herd immunity.

Scientists estimate that means between 70 and 85 percent of people need to be immune from the coronavirus. The idea of herd immunity is that after enough people have been infected or vaccinated, the virus will start to subside on its own because there's just not enough susceptible people left to infect. Lauren Ansell Myers of the University of Texas says it's not a magic moment after which the virus vanishes, but the disease should gradually ebb when we reach that point, whether it's 70%, 85%, or some other percent of the population. However, there's a lot of complexities with this pandemic that make herd immunity a little bit more of a complicated and possibly elusive concept. NPR science correspondent Richard Harris has more on why getting to herd immunity fast will be complicated.

New variants of the virus, for example, could create a new wave of infections, even in people who have been vaccinated or previously exposed. That could slow progress toward herd immunity. Another big question is what to make of the people who have already been infected. Researchers at Columbia University estimate the figure at more than 100 million, about 30 percent of the U.S. population. Dr. Kari Nadeau at Stanford University says they're giving us a head start toward herd immunity. I think you can say asymptomatic, mild, moderate, severe. If you've had COVID before, then you can be added to the herd immunity number. But Dr. Stanley Perlman, who studies coronaviruses at the University of Iowa, isn't so sure.

People who have more severe disease are probably better protected from being reinfected. People who are vaccinated, of course, are going to be better protected from being infected. But what we don't know is somebody who had asymptomatic infection or very, very, very mild infection, how long will their immunity last? And that's an important point because a large fraction of the 100 million estimated to have had previous infections may have had mild symptoms or none at all. Perlman points to studies of other coronaviruses, those that cause the mild symptoms of the common cold. People don't remain immune to them for all that long. We know they're protective on the average for about a year, maybe longer, sometimes shorter, but it's certainly not permanent

protection. So it could be a race between getting enough vaccine into people's arms before natural immunity wanes in people who were previously infected with the coronavirus. Dr. Nadeau agrees we simply don't know how long natural immunity will last. And that's why for people that get COVID naturally, they should definitely get the COVID vaccine. Even given the best case scenario, if all 100 million Americans previously exposed to the virus are immune, it still won't be easy to achieve 70 to 85 percent immunity in the population. That figure would include children who make up 22 percent of the U.S. population, and vaccines are not approved for anyone under 16 right now.

Dr. Anthony Fauci at the National Institutes of Health says studies are ongoing to show whether vaccines are safe and effective in children. So that hopefully, by the time we get to the late spring and early summer, we will have children infected, so that natural immunity could help close the gap. Presuming that immunity persists for a while. NPR science correspondent Richard Harris. In most places, widely available vaccines are still months away. But it's a different picture in some long-term care facilities, which are getting closer to full vaccination for residents.

Reporter Rae Ellen Bushell reports on one of them in Colorado. For the first time in nearly a year, the residents of the Haven Assisted Living Facility in the small town of Hayden have assembled in the dining hall. Okay, here we go. Let the games begin. For a game of giant crossword puzzle. Yes! Thank you.

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Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. masks, and they're seated about six feet away from each other. But they're in a room, playing a game, together. To Norma Price, that's something. I haven't been with this many people for like a year. Most residents got their second shots in late January. They need to wait for federal guidance and state rules to change before they can hug their relatives or throw away their masks.

But for now, they can gather and laugh. I know about snakes. I know you do. Like when Sally Haskins swiftly guesses the words boa and adder, and it becomes clear the 94-year-old rancher and whiskey lover has some snake killing under her belt. Yes, I have killed several snakes. Because you're a hardy ranch woman. We were out south of Mayville. Staff there are still very much on guard. Cases are not looking good in the county.

And Adrienne Idsel, the director, said some residents are still afraid to leave their rooms. Even though we've gotten our vaccines and things are starting to feel a little lighter, it's not time to let our guard down whatsoever. And COVID is still like a constant threat. But things are looking up. I mean, I feel like every single time that we're all getting together, it feels like history is being made. They're gearing up for Super Bowl and Valentine's Day parties,

and their first field trip outside the building since the pandemic started, to a private movie screening at a theater. Y'all can come on in. The other big change is that visitors can come indoors, masked and behind plexiglass, a little like fish in an aquarium, but no longer muffled by an internet connection or phone line. Resident Deb Davis is visiting with her daughter and grandson. It has been like a year, I think, since we've had, it's been a while. But being vaccinated feels good. You really can do more.

Her daughter says before the vaccine, her mom would always pick up the phone. Now it's hard to catch her. Four letters. Back at the crossword game, the Haven is a world away from the time when the coronavirus took two of its 15 residents. Go, Portram! Yes! Meteor, tigers, arias, Oslo. The one word that didn't come up was COVID. Did everybody get candy?

Ray Ellen Bichelle in Colorado. And that story comes from our partner, Kaiser Health News. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Adi Cornish.