Covid-19 #20: Nowhere to Hide

[Zorral]

The mayor and governor continue to change the metrics for closing down restaurants' as indoor dining (and recall we now have outdoor indoor dining in the new 'streatery' shacks that are supposedly an extension outdoors for the 25% indoor allowance, all enclosed -- yes, entirely irrational!), gyms, churches and bars.  First it was 3%, then it was 5% and now they want to change it again, since 5% arrived over the weekend. WTF -- surely They learned last winter the longer they put off the closings, the longer the closings have to last.  But they are determined to reconcile what CANNOT be reconciled: the reality of the virus contagion and keeping everything open to satisfy the real estate mafiosi.

 

[Larry of the Lawn]

17 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Mothership is self-isolating after testing positive. She obviously caught it from him as he tested positive two days prior and they were both having to isolate in their house. Touch wood she has only mild symptoms right now and i sincerely hope it remains that way. Fortunately my Aunty is still able to run shopping to my nanna and make sure she is ok.

There really shouldn’t be anything to worry about logically, I know, she only has mild symptoms and says she is fine, but this still has me anxious and on edge. I took one of my ‘emergency’ anti-anxiety meds (prescribed to me) in the hopes i can get some sleep tonight. 

Hoping for a speedy recovery for her and minimal anxiety for you!  Hang in there

[Larry of the Lawn]

Anyone with more formal understanding of virology have an opinion on this from NY Mag?  

Quote

None of the scientists I spoke to for this story were at all surprised by either outcome — all said they expected the vaccines were safe and effective all along. Which has made a number of them wonder whether, in the future, at least, we might find a way to do things differently — without even thinking in terms of trade-offs. Rethinking our approach to vaccine development, they told me, could mean moving faster without moving any more recklessly. A layperson might look at the 2020 timelines and question whether, in the case of an onrushing pandemic, a lengthy Phase III trial — which tests for efficacy — is necessary. But the scientists I spoke to about the way this pandemic may reshape future vaccine development were more focused on how to accelerate or skip Phase I, which tests for safety. More precisely, they thought it would be possible to do all the research, development, preclinical testing, and Phase I trials for new viral pandemics before those new viruses had even emerged — to have those vaccines sitting on the shelf and ready to go when they did. They also thought it was possible to do this for nearly the entire universe of potential future viral pandemics — at least 90 percent of them, one of them told me, and likely more.

The idea would be to sort of copy what we do with the flu and preemptively guess at what viruses could go pandemic.  And that doing this ahead of time would avoid many of the problems caused by doing it only when the epidemic strikes, namely overwhelming the healthcare system and not running into as many infrastructure and production roadblocks.

Quote

According to Florian Krammer, a vaccine scientist at Mount Sinai, you could do all of this at a cost of about $20 million to $30 million per vaccine and, ideally, would do so for between 50 and 100 different viruses — enough, he says, to functionally cover all the phylogenies that could give rise to pandemic strains in the future. (“It’s extremely unlikely that there is something out there that doesn’t belong to one of the known families, that would have been flying under the radar,” he says. “I wouldn’t be worried about that.”) In total, he estimates, the research and clinical trials necessary to do this would cost between $1 billion and $3 billion. So far this year, the U.S. government has spent more than $4 trillion on pandemic relief. Functionally, it’s a drop in the bucket, though Krammer predicts our attention, and the funding, will move on once this pandemic is behind us, leaving us no more prepared for the next one. When he compares the cost of such a project to the Pentagon’s F-35 — you could build vaccines for five potential pandemics for the cost of a single plane, and vaccines for all of them for roughly the cost of that fighter-jet program as a whole — he isn’t signaling confidence it will happen, but the opposite.

 

[Fragile Bird]

It will be interesting, then, to see how quickly the mystery virus hitting India right now is identified.

[Fury Resurrected]

Today I got an injection in one of the vaccine studies. The split is only 1/3 placebo so I probably have my first dose on board. So far I just have the normal achey arm thing.

[Zorral]

Just heard on NPR's All Things Considered that the current spiking we're experiencing of infections, hospitalizations and deaths isn't even the Thanksgiving surge yet.  That will hit about Christmas weekend.  January is going to be beyond anything we can imagine, even though we know it's going to be the very worst time medically, the worst epidemic situation, this country has ever experienced in its history.

 

[Fragile Bird]

Does anyone know if there is any difference between Dose 1 and Dose 2 of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines?  Are the doses identical?

I heard someone today say he’d like all 40 million doses being delivered to the US to be given to 40 M different people, as opposed to 20 M people and the second dose being held for them, with other people having to wait for the next delivery. I guess the issue is, what happens if there’s a manufacturing delay and the second shipment is late? Will that cause a problem, other than full protection not being met for a bit longer?

Giving it to 40 M people would mean 40 M people have some protection...

[Fury Resurrected]

27 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Does anyone know if there is any difference between Dose 1 and Dose 2 of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines?  Are the doses identical?

I heard someone today say he’d like all 40 million doses being delivered to the US to be given to 40 M different people, as opposed to 20 M people and the second dose being held for them, with other people having to wait for the next delivery. I guess the issue is, what happens if there’s a manufacturing delay and the second shipment is late? Will that cause a problem, other than full protection not being met for a bit longer?

Giving it to 40 M people would mean 40 M people have some protection...

There is no difference in the doses. I would imagine that they aren’t using their whole stock for first doses and waiting for the next shipment for dose two, since everyone needs two doses. The AstraZeneca vaccine had some variance in when second doses were given and you can probably dig up some data on that

[Makk]

42 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Does anyone know if there is any difference between Dose 1 and Dose 2 of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines?  Are the doses identical?

I heard someone today say he’d like all 40 million doses being delivered to the US to be given to 40 M different people, as opposed to 20 M people and the second dose being held for them, with other people having to wait for the next delivery. I guess the issue is, what happens if there’s a manufacturing delay and the second shipment is late? Will that cause a problem, other than full protection not being met for a bit longer?

Giving it to 40 M people would mean 40 M people have some protection...

I do think the frontline doctors and nurses at least should have the second dose reserved for them. They deserve all the best protection they can possibly be given.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 minutes ago, Makk said:

I do think the frontline doctors and nurses at least should have the second dose reserved for them. They deserve all the best protection they can possibly be given.

This goes without saying. Just don't be shocked when all the pro sports teams magically get the vaccine before everyone else.

[Larry of the Lawn]

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

Does anyone know if there is any difference between Dose 1 and Dose 2 of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines?  Are the doses identical?

I heard someone today say he’d like all 40 million doses being delivered to the US to be given to 40 M different people, as opposed to 20 M people and the second dose being held for them, with other people having to wait for the next delivery. I guess the issue is, what happens if there’s a manufacturing delay and the second shipment is late? Will that cause a problem, other than full protection not being met for a bit longer?

Giving it to 40 M people would mean 40 M people have some protection...

I heard in the radio (cannot find this reference online anywhere, so fair warning this may be completely wrong) that there is a danger of the virus becoming vaccine resistant if you don't get the second dose?

[Fragile Bird]

I’m watching the news with Shepard Smith, and a doctor in Seattle (a Dr. Gupta) is suggesting that if you are over 55 you should wear both a face mask and a face shield, especially since the next two months will hit disaster levels. He said there is very good evidence of additional protection that way.

[Zorral]

12 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

This goes without saying. Just don't be shocked when all the pro sports teams magically get the vaccine before everyone else.

Actually, the guys who work 'on' Wall Street / Stocks & Bonds, Etc. -- ya even the day traders who never leave home -- are demanding they be classified as essential labor and should be up there first to get it.  As far as I know hardly anyone in any Wall Street firm has been inside their offices for months and months, btw.  Quite unlike people who work in the supermarkets.

~~~~~~~~~~~

In the meantime Cuomo is threatening that as early as the coming Monday (next week) indoor dining will be OVER, unless the numbers come down.  The numbers are not coming down.  We all know it.

Hair salons will continue to be allowed to operate with restrictions.  But what about gyms?  And churches?  And how much they matter -- along with now the determination to have in home gatherings, the one that cannot be enforced.

https://zeynep.substack.com/p/small-data-big-implications

 

 

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

14 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Actually, the guys who work 'on' Wall Street / Stocks & Bonds, Etc. -- ya even the day traders who never leave home -- are demanding they be classified as essential labor and should be up there first to get it.  As far as I know hardly anyone in any Wall Street firm has been inside their offices for months and months, btw.  Quite unlike people who work in the supermarkets.

Taco Bell employees are deemed essential. Let that sink in...

Quote

In the meantime Cuomo is threatening that as early as the coming Monday (next week) indoor dining will be OVER, unless the numbers come down.  The numbers are not coming down.  We all know it.

Hair salons will continue to be allowed to operate with restrictions.  But what about gyms?  And churches?  And how much they matter -- along with now the determination to have in home gatherings, the one that cannot be enforced.

https://zeynep.substack.com/p/small-data-big-implications

That ship has sailed. Five religious zealots on the Supreme Court has seen to it.

[williamjm]

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

Does anyone know if there is any difference between Dose 1 and Dose 2 of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines?  Are the doses identical?

On a related topic I was just reading that there is going to be a trial which uses different vaccines for the two doses, the idea being that the vaccines might have different strengths.

[Fury Resurrected]

16 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Taco Bell employees are deemed essential. Let that sink in...

That ship has sailed. Five religious zealots on the Supreme Court has seen to it.

How are food workers not essential?

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

21 minutes ago, Fury Resurrected said:

How are food workers not essential?

Not all food workers are the same though. If we had done this smartly, we would have closed everything except hospitals and grocery stores, and frankly the military/national guard could have handled the latter.

[Larry of the Lawn]

5 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Not all food workers are the same though. If we had done this smartly, we would have closed everything except hospitals and grocery stores, and frankly the military/national guard could have handled the latter.

Care to unpack that?

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

23 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

Care to unpack that?

I did in that very post. We should have shut everything down and only left open things that are truly 100% essential. We could have done without Taco Bell for a few weeks, but too much of our society refuses to sacrifice even a little to end the pandemic. 

[VigoTheCarpathian]

2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

I did in that very post. We should have shut everything down and only left open things that are truly 100% essential. We could have done without Taco Bell for a few weeks, but too much of our society refuses to sacrifice even a little to end the pandemic. 

I don’t think it’s that easy to subdivide “essential” food workers, especially with stats around food deserts and big assumptions about people having the wherewithal and ability to cook for themselves.  Two relevant examples close to my experience - I know people who get their groceries from the dollar store - essential business by your standard or no?  And there are hundreds of thousands of tired hospital staff that have to eat something on shift and after work - you’re telling them to shut up and cook for themselves until this is over? Where’s your bright line on this, ser ?

And it begs the question on the food supply chain - was Trump correct in making meat-packing plants essential in your estimation to keep grocery stores supplied, even though no one needs to eat meat and they are hotbeds of infection?