Covid-19 #15 : It Ain't Over Until It's Over

[The Anti-Targ]

We certainly have the usual winter sniffles floating around, a friend of mine was laid up, slightly, the last couple of days with a cold. But, right at the start of the lockdown there was a big push to get everyone who is vulnerable to have a 'flu vaccine, and we ran out of the southern cocktail and had to bring in some Northern hemisphere cocktail, which isn't as protective but it does somewhat protect. In our office people with sniffles are told to piss off home. We have reasonable legally mandated paid sick leave, which I didn't realise is a privilege not enjoyed by workers in all developed countries until this year.

We have zero cases domestically*, so there is no social distancing or recommendations for it, no mask wearing etc. So while we have good vaccination rates, and our border remains closed to everyone except returning residents and citizens we should have a pretty mild 'flu season. But because it's social contact as usual it will probably circulate a bit. A recent news article said 'flu rates are about 1/3 what they typically are for June. So it is here, and could get around, potentially even accelerate now that people are getting more comfortable with social mixing like its 2019.

 

*We currently have 22 cases in quarantine, all recent arrivals back into the country. So still no COVID-19 in the community.

[maarsen]

17 hours ago, Ran said:

Very doubtful most other countries would dare do such a thing.

Hope it works out for the soldiers, being turned into guinea pigs... 

Soldiers have always been used as guinea pigs for testing. The US used soldiers to test the radiation exposure of atomic bombs. 

[Zorral]

6 hours ago, maarsen said:

Soldiers have always been used as guinea pigs for testing. The US used soldiers to test the radiation exposure of atomic bombs. 

Particularly if they are of color, doubtless.  Using African Americans as medical guinea pigs goes back far beyond the War of the Rebellion -- even before the War of Independence.

Most infamous example of the 20th century maybe is this:

https://www.history.com/news/the-infamous-40-year-tuskegee-study

Equally infamous is this guy -- whose statue here has finally come down, just now.

https://www.history.com/news/the-father-of-modern-gynecology-performed-shocking-experiments-on-slaves

Seeing more and more opinion pieces and other public outcry begging NYC not to reopen the bars-restaurants for inside, seated service.

https://www.grubstreet.com/2020/06/do-not-reopen-nycs-bars.html#_ga=2.117426305.684078307.1593543349-1360648233.1593543349

And not just here and us: all over the country it has really hit home that this reopening was a disaster, that never shutting down was a disaster, than never mandating masks was a disaster. But we knew that already before nobody was not doing what needed to be done, right?

 

[Kalbear]

Oh hey look

 

 

[JGP]

[writing notes]

-somewhere really fucking hot

-without air conditioning

FUCK

-without air conditioning

[The Anti-Targ]

On 6/30/2020 at 6:56 AM, Fez said:

I sure hope this doesn't backfire at all...

I wonder if other countries will start doing this and what the ramifications will be.

"approving" it for use in a defined group of people effectively is a phase 3 trial.

This could mean one of two things. Either they are not confident that the vaccine is safe and it should not go ahead with phase 3 trials because of this, so they want to use the military rather than volunteers from the public to find out. Or they are very confident it is safe and effective and vaccinating the military will mean the army will be able to move freely and easily in and out of hotspots and do what the military does best without fear of the disease running rampant among the ranks.

I lean towards believing the second scenario.

I see a certain president has repeated the "if you don't test there will be less disease" line. If it is a joke then it's becoming a rather tired one and he should get some new material.

[The Anti-Targ]

10 minutes ago, Triskele said:

Totally fascinating if true if not also awful.

On some thread I mentioned Vox's explainer on virus on Netflix which was just astounding overall, but one of cooler parts was where they'd mapped out beyond belief what they thought happened with the initial SARS outbreak.  Makes me think the nerds are looking at this the same way.  

It's been known that AC systems spread coronavirus ever since the Diamond Princess debacle in Japan. I guess the awful bit is govts and businesses not taking this knowledge and applying it to themselves when considering how to manage the work environment and staff safety.

[The Anti-Targ]

33 minutes ago, Triskele said:

Wait, is not phase 3 the so-called gold standard double-blind placebo-controlled trial?  I thought the F-D tweet was saying they skipped that and said certain military take it now, no more trial.  What am I missing? 

I'm not saying China is conducting a phase 3 trial using the military. But the effect of what they are doing is like a phase 3 trial. They will sure know if it's effective if they deploy military to any hotspots without any PPE and no military personnel get sick or infectious. I hope they will do some rigorous testing of vaccinated personnel after they have been exposed to infection to see if they can pick up any virus being shed. Off the top of my head I don't believe there is any placebo or double blind aspect to phase 3. They already know the vaccine produces an immune response. Really phase 3 means getting the vaccine out into the community in a limited way (thousands of doses rather than millions / billions, and not enough so as to cause a herd immunity effect to come into play) in a population that is likely to have a high exposure risk. The 'control' element is not vaccinating everyone in that population group and then seeing if there is a difference in infection rate among the vaccinated population compared to the unvaccinated population. Theoretically among the vaccinated group you should see infection rate drop to zero (or close to it) while in the unvaccinated proportion of the population you should see no change in infection rate. I think it would be unethical to actually have a placebo group in a phase 3 trial, because you are basically making people think they have the vaccine (placebo group is no good if they think they don't have the vaccine) and then they feel like they are protected and thus will engage in riskier behaviour,a dn potentially increase their chance of getting the infection.

Of course they may also do the far more unethical thing of actually artificially exposing soldiers to the virus (with or without knowledge or consent with and without being vaccinated) to "speed up" the testing process. Of course early on in animal trials this is exactly what's done to see if the vaccine works and some might argue that it it no less or more ethical to deliberately expose animals to virus than it is to humans.

Honestly, for me, if a vaccine was at a phase 3 stage I would be OK with being vaccinated and then being deliberately exposed to the virus, because at that stage they are really only looking to see if there is a good immune response in a much wider range of people (age, sex, health status etc), and that there are no safety / side effect issues that weren't picked up in the more limited trials. But I would definitely not be OK to receive a placebo, or not be jabbed at all and be deliberately exposed to the virus. So I also agree that it is unethical, and should therefore never be done, to deliberately expose people to the virus (and I am conflicted about doing it to animals, but I don't have a creative idea of how to avoid that and still have a vaccine industry), and that phase 3 trials should continue to follow the model it currently does. 

If China does end up proving this year* that their vaccine works though unethical use of their soldiers, it will still be a welcome relief to the world that vaccination is going to work, but the means should still be criticised and not justified based on the ends. I would not oppose deployment of that particular vaccine globally despite the unethical way in which it's efficacy was demonstrated.

*A vaccine trial really needs to run for at least a year to find out if the vaccine confers immunity for at least a year. So, proving the vaccine works this year will only prove that it confers immunity for less than 6 months, which as discussed before is not a very good vaccine, but it is still better than nothing for certain purposes, like sending aid / health / law enforcement workers into hotspots for short term tours of duty.

[Altherion]

55 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

It's been known that AC systems spread coronavirus ever since the Diamond Princess debacle in Japan. I guess the awful bit is govts and businesses not taking this knowledge and applying it to themselves when considering how to manage the work environment and staff safety.

It's not that they're particularly averse to this knowledge, just that there is no easy or short-term solution. Many (most?) office buildings, factory floors, etc. in the US are simply not designed to function without air conditioning. In the building where I work, the windows simply do not open so if the AC is off, there will be no air circulation at all.

[Zorral]

Yet the construction of these death traps was the first activity -- Phase 1 -- to reopen.  Here in NYC I don't think they ever completely shut down, meaning particularly the vast NYU construction project that is their sports complex that has disrupted a long stretch of West Houston for years already.

(Do not forget, boyz 'n girlzes, that vast universities are not about education but about real estate.)

[The Anti-Targ]

1 hour ago, Altherion said:

It's not that they're particularly averse to this knowledge, just that there is no easy or short-term solution. Many (most?) office buildings, factory floors, etc. in the US are simply not designed to function without air conditioning. In the building where I work, the windows simply do not open so if the AC is off, there will be no air circulation at all.

Not saying it is totally transferable, but the practical way we did it was to depopulate the buildings and everyone work from home. Essential jobs requiring physical handling of goods can't avoid putting people at some risk. But there are structural and attitude elements to the USA that leads to more people being put at greater risk than is necessary. lack of paid sick leave is one such element. AC systems are perfectly safe if no one in the building has the infection. Not having systems that allow unwell people (or people exposed to infection / living with infected people) to stay at home and not suffer financially basically guarantees the AC system will help to spread the disease around.

I will also note that everyone I work with in the US federal govt (USDA and FDA) is still working from home. As are pretty much all our embassy staff in DC.

The other thing I meant to mention before getting distracted replying to other people was that daily case numbers in the USA began to spike about 10 days ago. Death rates have remained low since then but I expect some time next week death rates are going to go up, possibly quite dramatically. If the reports of hospitals filling up with COVID patients are accurate it means deaths are going to follow.

[DireWolfSpirit]

The bar in East Lansing that was a outbreak sight (100 people last I knew)  mentioned having an air purification filter system installed in their HVAC ducts to help mitigate a future disaster like they just experienced.

So maybe that's a thing that needs to start getting incorporated into building maintenance on a widescale (air purification filters in the ducts)? We already have extensive building codes for firedampers in ducts, firesprinklers, even building code for mechanical systems within earthquake areas. 

It doesn't seem like an insurmountable challenge to get mechanical engineers to retrofit air systems to supply better filtered air that is contaminant free, I mean we're able to filter the most putrid water down to drinking level, I think we could achieve it with the air we breathe from these ducts as well.

Maybe Congress could come up with some type of enticing tax credits to spur these retrofits (we do this with solar tech a bit no?) as well?

[rotting sea cow]

5 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

The bar in East Lansing that was a outbreak sight (100 people last I knew)  mentioned having an air purification filter system installed in their HVAC ducts to help mitigate a future disaster like they just experienced.

So maybe that's a thing that needs to start getting incorporated into building maintenance on a widescale (air purification filters in the ducts)? We already have extensive building codes for firedampers in ducts, firesprinklers, even building code for mechanical systems within earthquake areas. 

It doesn't seem like an insurmountable challenge to get mechanical engineers to retrofit air systems to supply better filtered air that is contaminant free, I mean we're able to filter the most putrid water down to drinking level, I think we could achieve it with the air we breathe from these ducts as well.

Maybe Congress could come up with some type of enticing tax credits to spur these retrofits (we do this with solar tech a bit no?) as well?

There is the speculation that AC systems "aerosolize"  the virus, so filtration and disinfection need to be really good. On the other hand, no outbreaks have been linked to airplanes as far as I know.  The german railways published an study where they claim that high air exchange may have prevented infections in train systems around the world. Maybe there is something to learn.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342353367_Preliminary_Implications_of_COVID-19_on_Long-_Distance_Traffic_of_Deutsche_Bahn

(On the other hand the german railways are in a dire financial crisis)

 

[Fez]

How is Singapore doing these days? I know they had that migrant worker outbreak after previously having everything under control, but havent heard anything since.

I ask because doesnt Singapore have a huge percentage of their buildings with AC? At levels basically only found in the US I thought. So I'm wondering if they're doing substantially worse than the countries around them at this point because of that.

[Luzifer's right hand]

There is a regional shutdown of schools and kindergartens  because of a local cluster caused by a free church(in the state capital). Numbers are rising again here in Austria. Things seem to be going in the wrong direction now that masks in stores are not a thing anymore and the tourism season has started. 95% acted like it is all over since the 15th.

[Wilbur]

Was the Marburg virus spread by air handlers and ducting in a laboratory, or am I just remembering the Michael Crichton book about it?

[Zorral]

The first bit of good news in weeks since the virus began wildfiring throughout the red states, and Floridians etc. started coming back here.  The governor has postponed the July 6th's 3rd reopen phase -- bars and restaurants can't have indoor service.  Thank goodness!

Gads it's a hopeless feeling, beginning the 5th month of this while there is utter refusal out of D.C. to even pretend to want to contain, manage, treat, track, trace, and the economy craters beyond recovery for anybody not already corruptly and obscenely wealthy.

[Mladen]

The situation in Serbia is getting worse. After we made spectacle of ourselves with tennis tournaments and soccer matches with filled stadiums and after we finally reached the point of one-party-system in Serbia during elections, the COVID-19 reminded us of its existence. There has been a lot of talk of government covering up the real information, the people are losing their trust in Crisis Management Team. Suddenly, after elections we got numbers going 2,3 times up... And independent body has claimed that there has been more than 600 deaths in Serbia from COVID-19 instead of 270 as has been official number.

From my personal experience, the situation is bad. And no one is doing anything. There is a wall of silence that no one can penetrate and I am having the Chernobyl (miniseries) vibes these days. 

[Fragile Bird]

43 minutes ago, Triskele said:

The US bought up all of the Remdesivir supply so no one else gets any?  Bet the world is envious of our freedumb.

Will be quite interesting if China or Europe comes up with a vaccine first if they'll remember this...

What I found so bloody annoying is that the day before they announced pricing, $520 per vial in the US, $390 per vial elsewhere in the world. You need 5 vials per treatment. The price difference made many Americans angry. Yet Gilead knew there were no sales being made to the rest of the world for at least 3 months, so they went out of their way to piss off people.

[Zorral]

A National Mask Mandate Could Save The U.S. Economy $1 Trillion, Goldman Sachs Says

https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahhansen/2020/06/30/a-national-mask-mandate-could-save-the-us-economy-1-trillion-goldman-sachs-says/#676ded4456f1

Key Take Aways:

Quote

 

As mask-wearing becomes a political flashpoint—despite coronavirus cases spiking to record levels across the country—new research from Goldman Sachs suggests a national mask mandate would slow the growth rate of new coronavirus infections and prevent a 5% GDP loss caused by additional lockdown measures. 

Goldman’s analysts found that wearing face coverings has a significant impact on coronavirus outcomes, and they suggest that a federal mask mandate would “meaningfully” increase mask usage across the country, especially in states like Florida and Texas, where masks are not currently required. 

The researchers estimate that a national mandate would increase the portion of people wearing masks by 15 percentage points, and cut the daily growth of new cases by 1.0 percentage point to 0.6%.

Reducing the spread of the virus through mask-wearing, the analysts found, could be a substitute for strict lockdown measures that would otherwise shave 5%—or $1 trillion—off the U.S. GDP.