Project
for this project I represent a vaccine expert in a module academic discourse discussing when animas high school should return to in person learning. below is my wright up for the academic discourse containing the information I needed to provide as a vaccine expert along with my recommendation as to when animas should reopen in relation to availability of the vaccine.
Academic Discourse wright up
Many companies have been working to develop a vaccine to prevent covid-19. Some of these vaccines are getting close to the end of their clinical trials process and are working to get approved for emergency uses. The most notable vaccine at this time being Pfizer BioNtech RNA based vaccine. Results from phase 3 testing show 94 percent effectiveness. Additional results show only mild to moderate side effects and 95 percent effectivity in people over 65 who typically have weaker responses to vaccines. This vaccine is an RNA based vaccine, meaning that it uses RNA to provoke an immune response that will defend against the virus. This could cause difficulties in the distribution of the vaccine because in order to preserve the RNA in the vaccine it must be stored at -70 degrees celsius or -94 degrees fahrenheit. The Pfizer and BioNtech vaccine has already been approved for emergency use by the UK government and they are currently distributing the vaccine. On november 20 Pfizer and BoiNtech submitted their application for emergency use in the US. Today FDA held an advisory committee that voted to recommend the approval of their application. A final decision for approving the vaccine is expected by Monday
If the vaccine is approved it will begin being distributed in phases. Colorado has a 3 phase plan for vaccinations. Phase 1 is expected to take place over the winter. It will include people with the highest risk for covid-19, such as high risk medical workers and nursing home residents and staff. Phase 2 is expected to begin in the spring of 2021. Phase 2 includes other high risk people, such as essential employees and people over 65 or with a medical condition. This is the phase that teachers will be able to get vaccinated. Phase 3 is predicted to begin during the summer of 2021. Phase 3 will be anyone over 18 that was not eligible in earlier stages.
It is unclear when the vaccine will be made available to students. The Colorado government did not include children in their 3 phase plan. They stated that children and pregnant women “may be prioritized if/when safety and efficacy data are available with the appropriate ACIP recommendation. Additionally the current proposal for emergency use of the Pfizer BioNtech vaccine would not include children under 16. This means until both the federal and state governments have enough data to deem the vaccine safe for children, students, with the possible exception of upperclassmen, may not be able to get vaccinated.
There are many factors to consider when it comes to whether or not to keep school open during these times, such as safety, actual learning and mental and physical well being of students and teachers. Taking all of this into consideration, my recommendation to Animas going forward is that school should stay online until vaccinations are available to teachers. At this time I believe school should be allowed to resume partially in person like it was before going online. As teachers are the only people in school to interact with different pods, I believe that they should be required to be vaccinated in order to resume teaching in person. Because of the uncertainty of when the vaccine will be available to students and the understanding that not all students or their parents will want them to be vaccinated I’m not going to recommend that students are required to be vaccinated. However i believe that once a vaccine is available to students that at least 50% of students going to in person school should be vaccinated. While I’m not sure what the logistics of this would be, but I believe that 50% is an obtainable number that would significantly reduce the risk of transmission among students and staff while still allowing for students that don't want or have parents that don't want them to get the vaccine.
sources
If the vaccine is approved it will begin being distributed in phases. Colorado has a 3 phase plan for vaccinations. Phase 1 is expected to take place over the winter. It will include people with the highest risk for covid-19, such as high risk medical workers and nursing home residents and staff. Phase 2 is expected to begin in the spring of 2021. Phase 2 includes other high risk people, such as essential employees and people over 65 or with a medical condition. This is the phase that teachers will be able to get vaccinated. Phase 3 is predicted to begin during the summer of 2021. Phase 3 will be anyone over 18 that was not eligible in earlier stages.
It is unclear when the vaccine will be made available to students. The Colorado government did not include children in their 3 phase plan. They stated that children and pregnant women “may be prioritized if/when safety and efficacy data are available with the appropriate ACIP recommendation. Additionally the current proposal for emergency use of the Pfizer BioNtech vaccine would not include children under 16. This means until both the federal and state governments have enough data to deem the vaccine safe for children, students, with the possible exception of upperclassmen, may not be able to get vaccinated.
There are many factors to consider when it comes to whether or not to keep school open during these times, such as safety, actual learning and mental and physical well being of students and teachers. Taking all of this into consideration, my recommendation to Animas going forward is that school should stay online until vaccinations are available to teachers. At this time I believe school should be allowed to resume partially in person like it was before going online. As teachers are the only people in school to interact with different pods, I believe that they should be required to be vaccinated in order to resume teaching in person. Because of the uncertainty of when the vaccine will be available to students and the understanding that not all students or their parents will want them to be vaccinated I’m not going to recommend that students are required to be vaccinated. However i believe that once a vaccine is available to students that at least 50% of students going to in person school should be vaccinated. While I’m not sure what the logistics of this would be, but I believe that 50% is an obtainable number that would significantly reduce the risk of transmission among students and staff while still allowing for students that don't want or have parents that don't want them to get the vaccine.
sources
Reflection
There are several different ways that vaccines can work to develop immunity to a virus. so far in the fight to develop a sars cov 2 vaccine mRNA vaccines have shown the most success with some vaccines in phase 3 trials and beginning to get approved showing as high as 95%efficacy ratings. mRAN vaccines work by exposing your body to slightly altered segments of mRNA from a sars cov 2 virus. This edited version of the virus enters cells and uses them to create viral proteins that are very similar to the virus but do not cause disease. your body uses these proteins to develop an immunity to the virus by launching an immune response to them. By doing this your body now has the antibodies necessary to prevent a covit 19 infection if you are exposed to sars cov 2.
in this project I gained a lot of knowledge about chemistry. in order to understand sars cov 2 and covid 19 we first needed to understand basic chemistry concepts. we learned about different atoms and molecules and how they interact with each other and how factors like temperature can affect that. We took this knowledge and used it to understand the process that viruses use to reproduce and how different types of vaccines are used to prevent viruses from reproducing.
I think it made sense to do a project on covid 19 this semester. one of the great things about animas is that the teachers can teach us things that are relevant to our lives and I don't think that there is anything more relevant to us right now than the corona virus. I think that we had a pretty good balance of learning chemistry and learning about the virus. I think it was a good thing to learn about corona because it gave us a better understanding of what is going on in the world and it also informed us on important things like wearing. I also enjoyed learning about chemistry and hope we get to do more with it next semester.