Covid-19 #19 Tsunami Wave

[Luzifer's right hand]

12 minutes ago, Zorral said:

That is awful.  Did people stop wearing masks in your country to, or just flat out refuse to wear masks or distance and insist in packing in groups close together and drinking inside and dancing, making music?  That's been going on here like crazy and we've got the most cases in the world.

 

There was actually a short time in summer when our goverment stopped recommending masks in stores and while most people wear masks now many wear them in a completely useless way like below the nose. A large number of people just stopped following the recommendations completely I think as have most employers. Way more people worked from home during the first lockdown than this time. The goverment is at fault too because it encouraged tourism during the summertime when numbers started to climb again. The goverment does blame parties and stuff but it also pretends that the workplace is safe because all employers have great hygiene concepts now. I have yet to talk with someone who says that people follow those hygiene concepts though.  They look good on paper but that is it. There was and still is next to no enforcement of the "rules". But now that they stopped testing symptomless contacts official numbers might fall again. The plant next to the one I work at had a superspreader event despite the fact that people are supposed to wear mask and gloves all the time.

[Filippa Eilhart]

most of Europe is actually quite compliant with mask wearing. Luxembourg currently has 1% of its population actively infected and that’s despite people mostly obeying rules. It’s still claimed most infections happen in family setting.

[Luzifer's right hand]

1 minute ago, Filippa Eilhart said:

most of Europe is actually quite compliant with mask wearing. Luxembourg currently has 1% of its population actively infected and that’s despite people mostly obeying rules. It’s still claimed most infections happen in family setting.

Contact tracing appears to have collapsed here apart from family based tracing. The system was overwhelmed some time ago and at least in my circle people hear from infected people that they are a contact not from any official source. When a symptomless friend who had close contact with a positive friend called the official telephone number they were completely uninterested. His employer organised a private test in the end as he is a key worker. The same happened to some of my own co-workers with positive family members.

[Zorral]

29 minutes ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

There was actually a short time in summer when our goverment stopped recommending masks in stores and while most people wear masks now many wear them in a completely useless way like below the nose. A large number of people just stopped following the recommendations completely I think as have most employers. Way more people worked from home during the first lockdown than this time. The goverment is at fault too because it encouraged tourism during the summertime when numbers started to climb again. The goverment does blame parties and stuff but it also pretends that the workplace is safe because all employers have great hygiene concepts now. I have yet to talk with someone who says that people follow those hygiene concepts though.  They look good on paper but that is it. There was and still is next to no enforcement of the "rules". But now that they stopped testing symptomless contacts official numbers might fall again. The plant next to the one I work at had a superspreader event despite the fact that people are supposed to wear mask and gloves all the time.

Thanks.  That was what seems to be going on every where, and even worse, as in the state where I was born they never did any of it ever at all, and now they've got the highest rates of infection and death in the country -- but don't know how this happened -- while kissing trump's feet and hating on people who wear masks.

And now here too, in NYC where I currently live and have lived almost all my adult life, it seems a lot of what's creating the new spikes are out of workplaces including construction sites.

 

[The Anti-Targ]

2 hours ago, Filippa Eilhart said:

most of Europe is actually quite compliant with mask wearing. Luxembourg currently has 1% of its population actively infected and that’s despite people mostly obeying rules. It’s still claimed most infections happen in family setting.

Possibly true, but it still has to get into the family setting. Each household needs its own patient zero, so if it is spreading in many households, it means there is significant spread out in the community.

On masks, recent news has revealed that staff working in our quarantine facilities have only been given basic disposable surgical masks for quite some time. It is pretty well known that ye olde basic mask really only limits the amount of virus an infected person spreads, it is not very effective at stopping an uninfected person being exposed when they are in an environment with significant virus aerosols. They are NOW looking at making sure staff have properly fitted N95 masks. But I have to wonder, with the apparent determination to keep the virus out of our gen pop, nickel and diming PPE for quarantine facility staff seems like a bad idea.

[rotting sea cow]

13 hours ago, Impmk2 said:

Just on this. Shipping medical supplies and short term (day or 2) storage on dry ice (below -70) is not an uncommon thing. So I'm not convinced vaccination could only occur at facilities with dedicated -80s.

Though yes the storage requirements does really make it a lot harder for remote and rural areas. 

It's not only storage and shipping,  it's also handling and administration. Remember, this is going to be one of the largest vaccination campaigns ever. This is the kind of things you would like to start with health care workers at hospitals and the elderly at nursing homes , but to extend to workplaces, schools, regiments, the around the corner pharmacy or doctor, etc. The vaccine is a two shot dose separated by a month or so, which also make the logistic and administration complicated. You need to remember people to take the second dose for example or go to them.  You need to make sure that people can take the day off after the administration of the vaccine. In the case of the elderly, they have often limited mobility so you certainly need to go to them.

Yes, many of these things are currently being done on smaller scales, you need to train the people handle these things correctly over the next year.

 

[rotting sea cow]

A good take on the news,

 

Vaccine Efficacy Data!

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/11/09/vaccine-efficacy-data

[RhaenysBee]

Lockdown 2.0 starting tomorrow. Well not lockdown lockdown but with everything closed and an 8pm curfew, there’s really nowhere for anybody to go aside from absolute necessity errands. 
Confirmed active cases are about to hit 1% of the population mark, which indicates that around 10% is/has been infected. Mortality rate is at a nasty 8% and it’s only getting worse. Daily new deaths have been around and above 100 these past days. No idea how the world is getting out of this.  

[rotting sea cow]

19 hours ago, RhaenysBee said:

The Pfizer vaccine is not the same as the Russian vaccine, is it? It’s been in our news for a couple days that there’d be a vaccine to access around January, but that’s supposed to be the Russian vaccine once it’s validated. And I only read the Pfizer news today. 

No, they are different but share some similarties.

The Pfizer vaccine is a mRNA vaccine that gets inside the cells and force them to make the spike protein of the virus. The body responds making antibodies. Moderna uses a similar concept.

The Sputnik vaccine uses viral vectors (as Oxford/AstraZeneca, Johnson&Johnson and others). These are viruses where the genetic material has been removed and replaced by the RNA of the coronavirus. They infect the cells and again force them to make the spike protein inducing the immune response.

Here is a good summary of many of the vaccines being developed https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/09/03/coronavirus-vaccine-roundup-early-september

The Pfizer results put a lot of hope that many vaccines are going to be similarly effective. Now, safety issues needs to work out for them too. Brazil has temporally stopped the trial of a Chinese vaccine after a recipient developed serious adverse effects.  

I'm told that one of the problems the Sputnik vaccine has is that Russia doesn't have such a huge manufacturing capability and will need to rely in other countries for distribution, namely Cuba, Turkey and particularly India.

 

 

[Filippa Eilhart]

14 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Possibly true, but it still has to get into the family setting. Each household needs its own patient zero, so if it is spreading in many households, it means there is significant spread out in the community.

yes, and I still think it’s schools but no one will say that out loud.

[3CityApache]

15 hours ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

ETA: just called they are “TOTALLY FINE!!!!”

Oh boy, "totally fine" sounds a bit more worrying than "just fine".  

[Zorral]

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/11/10/world/covid-19-coronavirus-live-updates?

Scroll down to:

"Research using spring cellphone data in 10 U.S. cities could help influence officials facing rising cases and possible restrictions"

Quote

 

Restaurants, gyms, cafes and other crowded indoor venues accounted for some 8 in 10 new coronavirus infections in the early months of the U.S. epidemic, according to a new analysis that could help officials around the world now considering curfews, partial lockdowns and other measures in response to renewed outbreaks....

“Restaurants were by far the riskiest places, about four times riskier than gyms and coffee shops, followed by hotels” in terms of new infections, said Jure Leskovec, a computer scientist at Stanford University and senior author of the new report, in a conference call with reporters. The study was a collaboration between scientists at Stanford, Northwestern University, Microsoft Research and the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub.

....Public officials across Europe and in parts of the United States, including Gov. Philip D. Murphy of New Jersey, have begun to institute partial closures of restaurants and bars, or limited indoor hours, as new infections have surged in recent weeks. In New York City, a spike in virus cases threatens the city’s recovery and could mean “a lot more restrictions,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday.

 

 

[Impmk2]

10 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

It's not only storage and shipping,  it's also handling and administration. Remember, this is going to be one of the largest vaccination campaigns ever. This is the kind of things you would like to start with health care workers at hospitals and the elderly at nursing homes , but to extend to workplaces, schools, regiments, the around the corner pharmacy or doctor, etc. The vaccine is a two shot dose separated by a month or so, which also make the logistic and administration complicated. You need to remember people to take the second dose for example or go to them.  You need to make sure that people can take the day off after the administration of the vaccine. In the case of the elderly, they have often limited mobility so you certainly need to go to them.

Yes, many of these things are currently being done on smaller scales, you need to train the people handle these things correctly over the next year.

 

Oh yes it's a colossal logistical problem whichever way you slice it, I completely agree. This will not be a quick or easy vaccination campaign, and the -80C storage requirement just adds another layer of complexity. Was just pointing out there's a relatively low-tech and accessible way for short distance distribution which people who aren't familiar with the bio-medical industry may not be aware of.

[The Anti-Targ]

5 hours ago, Filippa Eilhart said:

yes, and I still think it’s schools but no one will say that out loud.

Indeed. The research is saying that children don't get as sick and don't spread it as easily. Well, not getting as sick means people ignoring the symptoms (if there are any) in their children and not keeping a distance from their children, and homes are confined spaces, so even though thy don't spread it as easily, they can still spread it in the right conditions.

[Fragile Bird]

Good grief, I just did my 5:30-ish check (at 5:45) and the US has already reported 111,000 new cases.

[Zorral]

Schools were not mentioned in that tracking study linked and quoted above.

Again it was work places (schools are workplaces of course), restaurants, gyms and indoor activities -- which of course does mean not only schools but 'places of worship.' Not to mention election night celebrations in the WH.

 

[Kalbear]

I'm definitely a bad person for dunking on this, buuuuut

 

 

[Fragile Bird]

10 minutes ago, Killjoybear said:

I'm definitely a bad person for dunking on this, buuuuut

 

 

Damn.

Fight the hood fight!

[Zorral]

Latest re covid-19 infections revealed from testing, but not exactly sure what it means.

Quote

 

New data from the Department of Health is showing a growing share of very young children and teenagers are testing positive for COVID-19 compared to earlier in the pandemic, a worrying sign that could have major implications for New York City's in-person schooling initiative.

Compared to other age groups, children aged 4 and under showed the highest weekly positivity rate: 3.2% for the week ending on October 31st, compared to 2.2% for city residents overall. The positivity rate was more than double that of the first week of September, when 1.4% of children under 4 tested positive.

Children ages 13 to 17 had the second highest weekly positivity rate. In early October, the rate among that group soared to 3.9% before declining to 2.6% in the last week of October.

Interestingly, positivity rates for children aged between 5 to 12 also began rising after September, but after peaking at 2.8%, have since declined to 1.5%.

The findings in the city are consistent with national trends, although experts have cautioned that the United States has yet to develop a consistent tracking system for coronavirus cases. However, state data collected by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has shown case rates as well as hospitalizations and deaths increasing at a faster rate in children and teenagers than those for the overall population.

Since the pandemic began, more than 927,000 children in the U.S. have tested positive for COVID-19, according to the AAP. Nearly 200,000 new cases in children were found in the month of October alone.

The pattern of infections among teenagers is consistent with findings from studies both in South Korea and in the U.S. In September, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention released a report showing teenagers as being twice as likely to become infected with COVID-19 as younger children. . . . 

 

https://gothamist.com/news/covid-positivity-rates-are-rising-nyc-among-very-young-children-and-teens

[The Anti-Targ]

We don't have bomb scares here, we have COVID scares. Police have received a COVID threat of someone claiming they will cause a super-spreader event at Auckland University end of year exams that will be happening over the next few weeks.

I went to my son's university graduation last week. Not a single mask anywhere in sight, a few thousand people all sitting in an enclosed stadium (albeit pretty spacious, and with lost of empty seats). If someone wanted to cause a super-spreader event there are definitely opportunities for it on a regular basis.

Of course the deliberate super-spreader events to be worried about are the ones no one tells the Police about in advance. Obviously a hoax, but cops have to take it seriously.