Covid-19 #22: What Were You Doing This Time Last Year?

[Zorral]

58 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

 Yeah, predicting bad outcomes is obvious and suggesting it's likely that they're not even counting the slums is common sense. 

 

That you've been beating the drum relentlessly on this, yet it hasn't happened there  LIKE IT HAS AND IS HAPPENING HERE in locations that are anything but slums and which are populated mainly of white people.

Again, like so many USians you again are presenting this as a disease of non-white people and non-rich people. Just like trum;p.

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

37 minutes ago, Zorral said:

That you've been beating the drum relentlessly on this, yet it hasn't happened there  LIKE IT HAS AND IS HAPPENING HERE in locations that are anything but slums and which are populated mainly of white people.

Again, like so many USians you again are presenting this as a disease of non-white people and non-rich people. Just like trum;p.

 

Er, no. First of all, the three countries I pointed out from the jump, almost a year ago, were India, Brazil and Argentina, and they're second, third and twelfth respectively in cases now. And I don't trust their numbers at all specifically because they have huge areas that are never going to be accounted for. There is no way to pay for the tests needed for an accurate count. We have the same problem here, and it's only worse in countries that lack the resources we have.
 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

4 minutes ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

And another thing with Brazil is its populist leader, much in the mold of our current President. “It’s only a little flu” he says. And of course, why test, because that just “increases the case count”. 

I'm frankly far more worried about Argentina given it's the only other country I've lived in. The poverty in Buenos Aires shocked me. 

Then I went to Uruguay.....

[DireWolfSpirit]

Want Vaccines fast?

Suspend Intellectual Property Rights (temporarily)

Achal Prabhala NYT

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/07/opinion/covid-vaccines-patents.html

https://www.democracynow.org/2021/1/1/people_s_vaccine_calls_grow_for

[Zorral]

When we wish to sneer at Latin America and the poverty nurtured by the elites, let us consider our current situation in the USA.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/31/health/us-coronavirus-thursday/index.html

Quote

Covid-19 hospitalizations have soared in December. The US set a record Thursday for the number of patients in hospitals on a given day, at 125,379, according to the Covid Tracking Project.

In the US -- in California alone:

Quote

 

More than 21,000 Covid-19 patients are in hospital beds throughout the state, with about 4,500 of them in intensive care units.  With Covid-19 hospitalizations rising, California doctor says sometimes beds only open up when patients die

And the outlook is grim for January. More than 80,000 Americans could die of Covid-19 over the next three weeks, a US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ensemble forecast projects -- offering a stark reminder the nation is still facing challenging times.

 

This the case for many other states in the US, while those not yet in such dire straits are aiming like an arrow to arrive there as fast as possible.

Which is why our niece is dead, who by any means could hardly be called latino, black or poor, just  a good person, a medical person, working in hospital in anti-mask Arizona.

[The Anti-Targ]

11 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

Yes. It was bound to happen, sooner or later, but better later, always. Uruguay went through the winter without a lockdown and sandwiched between the massive Brazilian and Argentinian outbreaks, countries that are as integrated as the EU in terms of travel and commerce. A great feat. Schools were closed for a while but re-opened in June if I'm not mistaken.

They have now a wave, not yet very big but very clear and deaths are rising. I haven't been able to find information either in newspapers or forums, but my take is the population got tired of restrictions, first signs of difficult-to-control outbreaks were seeded by teenagers parties and some military personal returning from peace missions. It might well be related to the upgraded SARS-CoV-2 as is easier to travel between Uruguay and Europe in comparison to other LA countries.

Hopefully summer will help, but if the virus reaches the socioeconomically disadvantaged population (aka the slums), there is no way to control it.

As a side note, Chile is having the beginnings of a summer wave, despite being hit hard in winter and SARS-CoV-2.1 has been detected there in people without connection to international travel.    

The situation with the vaccines in LA is chaotic. Pfizer is being pushed by the authorities but there is no enough doses and it's mostly a PR stunt by authorities. Oxford/AZ, Sputnik and SinoPharm are the best options but it's unclear whether they will also be able to fill up the demand.

 

Maybe my perspective is distorted, but ~15,000 cases in 2 months in a population of 3.5-ish million is a bloody big wave to me.

[Clueless Northman]

It's definitely a matter of perpsective, and of what your objective against the virus actually are. If you want to fully eradicate it, it's very bad news. If you're a bloody murderous European government that only barely tries to avoid a complete collapse of healthcare and the economy, it's no biggie: some countries with barely 10 mio people have been hitting 15K cases a day.

What still surprises me is that such governments are still in charge, heck, I barely see any political opposition on the matter. All over Europe and Americas, barely anyone is saying the obvious, that these governments are basically killing their people for money. Heck, no grieved relative has even tried to shoot one of these fuckers - something that at least wouldn't be totally surprising in gung-ho countries with weapons available.

I'm at a point where I'm disappointed by a lot of people - sure, not yet by nearly everyone, but it sure looks like mankind is trying to push me to the brink right now : the governments for being corrupt traitorous scum, the parties/opposition for being cowardly jerks who don't defend their people, the media for being the propaganda arm of their governments instead of siding with the victims, which is the sacrificed people, half the people for being selfish pricks who don't care and are totally fine with thousands of deaths as long as their comfort is intact and the dead aren't their family and mates. Granted, the bulk of scientists and health workers don't disappoint, though alas a minority of them is still a massive disappointment, what with divas like Raoult, anti-vaxx fools and the 50% of nurses who don't seem interested with a free vaccine, even if that might prevent them killing their patients / nursing home residents. But then, I'm close to being fucking done for good with democracy, individual freedoms and the like, after having seen how they performed during a mild (compared to what's coming) crisis, and how they've been used to protect assholes from the consequences of their murderous evil uncaring egotistical behaviour, how they've been abused to actually enable these assholes to do more harm than they should've ever been allowed to do, instead of actually acting as if these principles and ideals were there to protect everyone, the weakest first of all, and to ensure the well-being, happiness and decent future of their people, society and country. Not that any alternative sounds realistic, obviously, after all there aren't many people around who could efficiently do the benevolent world dictatorship schtick and pull us out of this mess.

[Luzifer's right hand]

1 hour ago, Clueless Northman said:

It's definitely a matter of perpsective, and of what your objective against the virus actually are. If you want to fully eradicate it, it's very bad news. If you're a bloody murderous European government that only barely tries to avoid a complete collapse of healthcare and the economy, it's no biggie: some countries with barely 10 mio people have been hitting 15K cases a day.

What still surprises me is that such governments are still in charge, heck, I barely see any political opposition on the matter. All over Europe and Americas, barely anyone is saying the obvious, that these governments are basically killing their people for money. Heck, no grieved relative has even tried to shoot one of these fuckers - something that at least wouldn't be totally surprising in gung-ho countries with weapons available.

I'm at a point where I'm disappointed by a lot of people - sure, not yet by nearly everyone, but it sure looks like mankind is trying to push me to the brink right now : the governments for being corrupt traitorous scum, the parties/opposition for being cowardly jerks who don't defend their people, the media for being the propaganda arm of their governments instead of siding with the victims, which is the sacrificed people, half the people for being selfish pricks who don't care and are totally fine with thousands of deaths as long as their comfort is intact and the dead aren't their family and mates. Granted, the bulk of scientists and health workers don't disappoint, though alas a minority of them is still a massive disappointment, what with divas like Raoult, anti-vaxx fools and the 50% of nurses who don't seem interested with a free vaccine, even if that might prevent them killing their patients / nursing home residents. But then, I'm close to being fucking done for good with democracy, individual freedoms and the like, after having seen how they performed during a mild (compared to what's coming) crisis, and how they've been used to protect assholes from the consequences of their murderous evil uncaring egotistical behaviour, how they've been abused to actually enable these assholes to do more harm than they should've ever been allowed to do, instead of actually acting as if these principles and ideals were there to protect everyone, the weakest first of all, and to ensure the well-being, happiness and decent future of their people, society and country. Not that any alternative sounds realistic, obviously, after all there aren't many people around who could efficiently do the benevolent world dictatorship schtick and pull us out of this mess.

At least here in Austria it feels like what the goverment does is the most extreme approach that the majority is going to tolerate. The most vocal opposition here is actually against most measures. A lot of people seem to live in a world where turning 65+ is a death sentence anyway and people dying "early" is no biggie.

[The Anti-Targ]

The most vocal opposition anywhere is people who oppose whatever measures are being taken by the govt. A govt with a spine will simply ignore them and do the right thing, which includes the right policy settings that prioritises population health. Now we have fully approved vaccines its actually time for countries to really tighten restrictions while the vaccine rollout is happening. Loads of people said that the reason to be loose on control measures was that it would be impossible to maintain those controls for the 4-5 years it would take to develop a vaccine. Well, now it's only 4-5 months, for a lot of countries, to get a wide distribution of the vaccine and in particular to vaccinate all of the vulnerable population. But I imagine a lot of people are going to call for a relaxation of control measures, because now we have the vaccine so we're all safe now, right?

[rotting sea cow]

Can these guys do anything right? The EU vaccine procurement is apparently becoming a huge mess.

Currently the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine is the only one approved in the EU. Pfizer is struggling to meet the global demand of vaccine and it has been revealed that the EU did not place enough orders in the hope that more alternatives are available. It will take a time for BioNTech/Pfizer to ramp up production and actually meet the contracts deadlines.

They were hoping for other vaccines. But the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine study is a mess and might not meet the EU standards and the Sanofi/GSK fizzled out and need to start anew with their studies, leaving the EU with no alternatives. Maybe Moderna and later J&J can help a bit.

In the meanwhile, UK has two approved vaccines (soon will join Moderna) but they are discussing to skip the second dose to vaccinate more people faster. It makes some sense. Anyway, pretty sure that Brexiters can (quite rightly) say: we told you. Specially because Hungary is in the crosshairs because they imported a quite small quantity of the Russian vaccine. 

Some links

https://www.dw.com/en/biontech-admits-it-will-struggle-to-fill-covid-vaccine-gap/a-56110454

https://www.dw.com/en/germanys-covid-vaccine-procurement-labeled-a-gross-failure/a-56115322

https://www.gsk.com/en-gb/media/press-releases/sanofi-and-gsk-announce-a-delay-in-their-adjuvanted-recombinant-protein-based-covid-19-vaccine-programme-to-improve-immune-response-in-the-elderly/

https://www.cas.mhra.gov.uk/ViewandAcknowledgment/ViewAttachment.aspx?Attachment_id=103739

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-eu-hungary-idUSKBN27Z1H4

 

 

 

 

[Clueless Northman]

Why the heck would approval of the Moderna one take much longer than approval of Pfizer? Both are as efficient, it seems, and public health would be greatly improved if several vaccines were available.

 

4 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

The most vocal opposition anywhere is people who oppose whatever measures are being taken by the govt. A govt with a spine will simply ignore them and do the right thing, which includes the right policy settings that prioritises population health.

This. It's time for governments to lash out the assholes who call for less measures and actually openly call them for what they really: they are bloody murderers. Governments aren't here so that every side is satisfied, governments are here first of all to protect their people and ensure they won't die stupidly - making sure your political buddies can go on making tons of $$ or can go out to have a beer should come very low on the priority list.

Right now, we can see which political systems and countries just don't work. And there are few that actually work in Europe and America. Places like Brazil, Sweden, US, Austria or Switzerland needs a massive overhaul.

[rotting sea cow]

9 hours ago, Clueless Northman said:

It's definitely a matter of perpsective, and of what your objective against the virus actually are. If you want to fully eradicate it, it's very bad news. If you're a bloody murderous European government that only barely tries to avoid a complete collapse of healthcare and the economy, it's no biggie: some countries with barely 10 mio people have been hitting 15K cases a day.

We will see. Uruguay has put a robust traceability system, it might well be that they are actually catching the infected before they infect others. They are doing ~8000 tests per day during the last two weeks, which is quite robust. Let's see how it pans out. My apprehension is that it will happen like in Europe where the virus got deep into the population that it's now impossible to eradicate or contain. 

[williamjm]

1 hour ago, Clueless Northman said:

Why the heck would approval of the Moderna one take much longer than approval of Pfizer? Both are as efficient, it seems, and public health would be greatly improved if several vaccines were available.

For the UK I think it might be because the Moderna vaccine wasn't one of the ones they ordered in advance so we're at the back of the queue for it and won't get any for a few months so they might have been prioritising the available vaccines. I don't know whether the EU is in the same situation.

[Padraig]

The EU approval of the Moderna vaccine will be next week.  That was announced a couple weeks ago.

https://www.euronews.com/2020/12/17/eu-countries-planning-to-begin-covid-19-vaccinations-on-december-27

1 hour ago, rotting sea cow said:

They were hoping for other vaccines.

There are a lot of vaccines that are being developed, so it was a reasonable plan to put your eggs in a lot of baskets.   But yes, I imagine there will now be a lot of passionate views based on hindsight.

https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-eu-pfizer-idUSKBN28R19D

Quote

In total, the EU has booked nearly 1.3 billion vaccines in deals with Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca/Oxford, Sanofi/GSK and CureVac, and has options to buy another 660 million.

Furthermore, the Moderna and Pfizer options were unproven technology, so you wouldn't want to have over relied on them 6 months ago when you started to order them.

Regarding speed, generally, a vaccine is too important to be focused on who is first or second (or third) to approve it.  Being appropriately confident that the vaccine works is the main thing.  The process is the process and I'd be a lot more worried if I was reading that the EU threw its process out the window over the last couple of months, because it was in a panic to approve the drug first. 

Rolling out the vaccine is the far bigger challenge anyhow.  I hope countries get that right.

I don't quite understand what is going on with the AstraZenaca vaccine though.  I've seen articles saying that the US doesn't expect to approve it until April.  And it hasn't even applied for approval to the EU.

2 hours ago, Clueless Northman said:

It's time for governments to lash out the assholes who call for less measures and actually openly call them for what they really: they are bloody murderers.

Most governments in Europe are adding a lot more measures now.   No choice given how badly things have gotten.  Anyhow, the "less measures" side is definitely losing currently.

 

[Fragile Bird]

Because Astra-Zeneca screwed up their doses in their trial, they’ll have a hard time getting US approval. Their best results came from the Phase 3 group that got the wrong doses, the full dose and a half dose, which gave 90% efficacy. The two full doses only gave efficacy in the 60s range. 
 

Johnson & Johnson will release their results this month, and as a huge company they will be able to produce ver large amounts of vaccine. I think, like the other companies, they are already making vaccine to be ready for immediate shipment.

[Fragile Bird]

@Zorral I just saw NY state is way ahead of everybody else, they’ve already given 32% of their vaccine, compared to 23% in the rest of the states.

[Wilbur]

Why is the process to actually administer the vaccines taking so long?

Well, here in Arizona the state board requires that an individual who administer sthe shot have to a.) be a licensed, currently-practicing doctor or nurse, and b.) go through an extensive background check that replicates the process licensed, currently-practicing doctors or nurses have already completed to become licensed, currently-practicing doctors or nurses.  This does not exactly pave the way for swift action, and is just one of the many strange cul-de-sacs of administrivia that the whole critical path to issuing the vaccine has to take in the state.

Local news, my neighbors who are doctors, no one really knows why the process to vaccinate citizens is being created to be so unwieldy.  The hospital systems have stopped doing any sort of non-emergency procedures, ICUs are full, ventilator beds are full, and yet the institutions in place or being put in place to vaccinate are a bottleneck.

And here in the valley the hospitals continue to slowly full up with the "long-haulers", Covid-19 patients who have been suffering for months with organ failures and other weird and debilitating outcomes.  Quite a large number of these are from the Navajo Nation and other Indian communities, where multi-generational living arrangements, lack of access to water and terrible Federal health care have encouraged the spread.  But residents of California, extended Jewish family groups who came down from New York City in large caravans in the spring, and European tourists are also starting to make up noticeable numbers sufficient to be counted as their own populations of long-haulers, too.  Those three types really have no excuse for traveling while likely sick and ending up far from home in long-term care.

And our own home-grown idiots were celebrating the New Year and Christmas with large family gatherings, too.  I have already told my daughter to steer clear of the members of one family down the street who had massive parties last week - cross the sidewalk, smile and wave, but no more stopping to chat with them for the next couple of months.

The lack of good judgement is just prevalent everywhere and at every level.

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

@Zorral I just saw NY state is way ahead of everybody else, they’ve already given 32% of their vaccine, compared to 23% in the rest of the states.

That's good, of course, but it's not very many people.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Why don't the WaPo, the NYT and other US papers run a daily feature daily, like this on the Guardian, shows us what's going on in the whole world, as opposed to hiding what's happening in our state, and even more so, in our city, in hard to notice / find pieces, that are by and large graphs that are impossible to read for most of us, whether due to lack of graph-math reading skills, or because of really lousy vision.

To sneer at Africa, for instance, is really hard to do, when going the information in this Guardian piece, that gives rate of infection, hospitalization and deaths for every nation on the planet.

California in particular is just shocking, with a mess far beyond most countries all together, large or small.  The UK and the USA are appalling.  Only insanity can explain this.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/girlfriend-nashville-bomber-warned-police-he-was-building-explosives-2019-n1252536

But what to expect of a nation who has big conspiracy theories like the one ascribed to by the Nashville bomber, that the US and the world are actually being run by lizards, who wear suits.  Biden is a lizard.  Yes. Really.  Whether or not the bomer specifically believed this, at least 17 million other USians do believe it.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/02/covid-world-map-which-countries-have-the-most-coronavirus-cases-and-deaths

I mean, the Congos, so densely populated, yet with endless massacres and wars as the gangs backed by the Chinese, the Russians, etc. have warred over the extraction wealth the ground possesses, not to mention other diseases, such as the infections of HIV often given deliberately to women, without social services, etc.  -- California per capita, comes off far worse.

[rotting sea cow]

4 hours ago, Padraig said:

The EU approval of the Moderna vaccine will be next week.  That was announced a couple weeks ago.

The deal with Moderna is far smaller than the deal with Pfizer, 80 millions of doses, unlikely to make a difference for this winter, which is the point here, because in 6 months the situation will be different one can hope.

4 hours ago, Padraig said:

Regarding speed, generally, a vaccine is too important to be focused on who is first or second (or third) to approve it.  Being appropriately confident that the vaccine works is the main thing.  The process is the process and I'd be a lot more worried if I was reading that the EU threw its process out the window over the last couple of months, because it was in a panic to approve the drug first. 

As I mentioned above, UK is seriously discussing to roll out the vaccine with a single (yet unproven) shot. The EU should discuss the same, but it's unlikely to happen.

 

4 hours ago, Padraig said:

Rolling out the vaccine is the far bigger challenge anyhow.  I hope countries get that right.

I don't quite understand what is going on with the AstraZenaca vaccine though.  I've seen articles saying that the US doesn't expect to approve it until April.  And it hasn't even applied for approval to the EU.

They already told them it won't be easy. https://www.thejournal.ie/oxford-vaccine-eu-approval-5313515-Dec2020/

They have made a mess of their study, with effectivity depending on dosage and time interval, at the cost of low number statistics.

 

[rotting sea cow]

2 hours ago, Wilbur said:

Why is the process to actually administer the vaccines taking so long?

Well, here in Arizona the state board requires that an individual who administer sthe shot have to a.) be a licensed, currently-practicing doctor or nurse, and b.) go through an extensive background check that replicates the process licensed, currently-practicing doctors or nurses have already completed to become licensed, currently-practicing doctors or nurses.  This does not exactly pave the way for swift action, and is just one of the many strange cul-de-sacs of administrivia that the whole critical path to issuing the vaccine has to take in the state.

Because these freaking mRNA vaccines are more delicate than a flower. There is a proper speed for thawing, you cannot shake it and you need to be careful of giving the proper dose.  In Germany some workers at a nursing home were given five times the proper dose because they didn't read the instructions, the vials contain five doses, not one.

One would hope they are training people, but who knows