StrangeSox

It's not 0%, but the false positive rates for these tests is really, really low.

NYT has a page tracking the current status and latest updates for the vaccine candidates out there. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/science/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker.html Pfizer is already partnered with a couple of other groups for making an mRNA vaccine.

"employee-owned" in that the low-wage workers can buy company stock, but they have zero decision-making power.

Illinois continuing to quickly decline:

People look to officials and leaders for guidance. If officials are opening bars, well, it must be safe to go engage in that activity, etc.

Same with HyVee. It shouldn't be up to individual businesses, though. It should be at a minimum a state-level mandate, ideally a federal one.

It was remarkable, but really unfortunately predictable, that Congress lost all sense of urgency as soon as they bouyed the stock market.

The record for weekly claims prior to this spring was a few hundred thousand at the depths of the great recession.

oof

Restore Illinois IDPH Plan, Phase 3, "HOW WE MOVE TO THE NEXT PHASE" https://coronavirus.illinois.gov/s/restore-illinois-phase-3 Illinois moved to Phase 4 on June 25th, almost a month ago. JB Pritzker, today: https://capitolfax.com/2020/07/22/pritzker-extends-evictions-moratorium-through-august-22/ I still remain baffled and frustrated that Illinois completely ignored this key requirement and nobody seems to be holding the public officials accountable for the completely predictable rise in cases.

It will depend on what the Phase 3 trials find as far as complications go and how large the trial sizes were and what countries' FDA equivalents have reviewed and approved it.

I just don't think any of the medical/scientific experts expect such dramatic improvements in treatment, especially going forward. They threw everything they could think of at this thing at the start and now have a much better handle on it than they did in March and April. But by now, a lot of the different possibilities have been tried. It's made a difference, but it didn't suddenly make this not a dangerous and potentially deadly virus for a lot of people.

Yeah. Even if we stay below hospital capacity, that doesn't mean we're on good shape. That's still hundreds of thousands dead and millions or tens of millions seriously ill, some chronically, and trillions upon trillions in health care costs. We're getting better at not having the worst cases die, but there are still a lot of terrible outcomes out there and will be for the foreseeable future.

Optimistic at this point is that the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine flies through Phase 3 trials with continued high rates of success. Emergency distribution could begin as early as October. Widespread availability could be some time early next year or next spring in the US. Experts seem cautiously hopeful on this one. The Moderna one has some more questions. I think the best-case expectations are that we have enough vaccines out there and distributed and injected that things can pretty much return to normal by next summer. I'm not sure how well you can stabilize if you're still below the threshold for herd immunity stopping Rt from going to 1 or higher. If 40-50% of your population has protective antibodies, the disease could still spread rapidly through the other half at ways that could overwhelm local health care. Hey man I can only say "go listen to TWiV" so many times! They regularly have Daniel Griffin from NYC on and discuss clinical updates. That's something else to keep in mind with whatever vaccine(s) we do get out of this. They may not be fully protective, meaning you might still be able to contract SARS-Cov-2, but it may substantially reduce the risk of serious complications. The flu vaccine works partially like this in that it boosts our general immune system and can take the edge off influenza even if you do get sick.

This is either very optimistic about how widespread this already is and how long natural immunity lasts, or pretty pessimistic on vaccine development

Confirmed here Not sure how bars survive this indefinitely without federal support (many other industries and public services as well)

You'd have to figure out where the risk inflection point is on the chart for "spending 7 hours with 15 kids vs. spending 1 hour with 5 sets of 15 kids," but it's probably much less risky to be with that small group rather than cross-contaminating all day. The difference between being with an infected person for 1 hour vs 7 is probably pretty small, and if you're seeing multiple classes you're increasing your odds of coming in contact with an infected person. The FDA gave EUA for test pooling up to 4 people. The Harvard doc on a recent episode of TWiV argued strongly in favor of test pooling. The idea is you can increase the throughput of the testing greatly by running 4 samples at once. In places with a low enough positivity rate, like Illinois, a big majority of the batches will come back negative, and now you've just reduced the testing time for those 4 people by 75%. If the batch tests positive, then you re-run the individual samples to narrow it down. It can be very efficient at screening down to the trouble spots. Not sure how well it'd work when you're in an area with 30% positivity rate like some states though. https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-covid-19-update-fda-issues-first-emergency-authorization-sample-pooling-diagnostic

Increasing total testing and positivity rate is, uh, not a good sign

A graph of Rt (transmission rates) over time for every state

That does seem inadequate! For last spring, when this all hit everyone without warning, you gotta give some leeway. For this fall, things need to be better. There has been plenty of time for districts and school boards to plan. My wife's district solicited zero input from her until after they published their plan.* If her district cannot feasibly support e-learning for both teachers and students when an outbreak inevitably closes one of their schools, that is on them, not the teachers. Now, if given a reasonable plan and proper resources, the teachers will need to put in effort on their end to adapt and make the best of a bad situation. *actually, the district still hasn't directly solicited teacher feedback. Her principal, who is clearly unhappy with it, sent out a questionnaire to staff, as did her union. The union says they made it clear early on that the proposed plan was unacceptable.

An "online meeting" isn't the same thing as normal in-person teaching, especially for young kids. You know how many online conference calls my wife did in her teaching career until last spring? Zero. It's not a common tool for teachers or students. Besides, group work and interaction are key. Unfortunately not the easiest to accomplish in an online setting, but it'll be impossible to accomplish in any even remotely safe in-person setting this fall. Sounds like both teachers and administrators were left to deal with an unprecedented situation in very short order and limp to the end of the school year. Administration should be setting the appropriate policies as far as what online instruction will look like. Teachers should be given flexibility in how they teach, how they accomplish things, etc. It's not like teachers set their own bell schedule in-person or show up whenever they feel like. I know that online learning wasn't great in many places last year. My wife struggled to provide it to her students while we were both juggling caring for our infant and 2-1/2 year old. She did the best she could. Maybe half of her students showed up. Her district focused on absolutely nothing to enable her to teach online in the coming school year and instead are having shortened days with full in-person attendance 5 days a week. That was a complete failure by the administration.

Teachers didn't cause this. Teachers didn't leave us with only bad and worse options. But hey, bars in Chicago are still open!