I didn’t expect this to be a series of posts, but there is news since I wrote post number III. There is a partial change of subject, because the news concerns the Oxford/AstraZeneca adenovirus based vaccine and not the mRNA based vaccines which I discussed before. In the UK they decided to delay the second […]

The Good Part of Medicaid Originally, Medicaid filled the gap if Americans could not afford healthcare insurance. Today, Medicaid is filling the gap if people lost income and/or healthcare insurance during the pandemic. If below FPL or 138% FPL, people qualify for Medicaid. Others who were already in the ACA healthcare exchanges qualify for larger […]

First, I want to discuss the evidence on effectiveness of the first dose of the BioNTech Pfizer Covid 19 vaccine. The data from few person – weeks of the phase III trial suggested that one dose was highly effective after 10 days. This is based on 4 of roughly 40 cases in vaccinated participants. Much […]

Coronavirus dashboard for January 25: a vaccination race against time vs. the new mutations  All of the significant economic data is backloaded this week, onto Thursday and Friday. So don’t be surprised if I take a day off between now and then.In the meantime, here is a Coronavirus update. First things first: the most ominous […]

There is evidence from Israel that one dose of the Pfizer vaccine is less effective than was suggested by the few person-days of evidence in the phase III trials. In Israel  “over 12,400 have people tested positive for coronavirus after receiving vaccine shots” Israeli health officials estimate that one shot is about 50% effective after […]

“Restoring Medicaid,” What happens when states switch to Block Grants? I came across a NYT article citing Seema Verma’s approval of the Tennessee’s Block Grant recently. The Tennessee Block Grant is mentioned in section ” Revoke The Block Grant Initiative” of my post Restoring Medicaid. What Are Block Grants? Government funded normal Medicaid has established […]

I asked if, given the data collected in Phase III trials, it might be wise to delay second doses of the Pfizer and Moderna Covid 19 vaccines until supplies are ample. Since then the UK government has decided to give second doses three months after the first dose. The reason is explicitly to get first […]

Me – Talk: Recent article on Health Affairs I tapped into and decided to present here at AB. The topic? As expressed in the title, return Medicaid to its former self and improved upon by the new Biden Administration. I also have been working on additional posts touching upon the history of the opioid epidemic […]

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a dire warning about what is to come for the COVID-19 pandemic, according to its latest ensemble projections. An “ensemble” forecast combines each of the independently developed forecasts (state and federal) into one aggregate forecast to improve prediction over the next 4 weeks. The top row of the figure […]

Having just had an operation at Mass General earlier this week, I was pleased to hear that the nurses I met had their first vaccination. But then I checked the Boston Globe and Med Page Today on our local progress in relation to my own turn. Worth a discussion and feedback on your own locality. […]