COVID-19/Coronavirus thread

[bmags]

Modernas phase 3 reports are fantastic. 95% efficacy and does NOT require the deep freeze storage Pfizer did.

[Dick Allen]

President continuing to try to save American lives from his golf course. 

Wasn't there a certain someone who used to go on Fox News and complain Obama was golfing? 

 

 

[NWINFan]

39 minutes ago, Dick Allen said:

President continuing to try to save American lives from his golf course. 

Wasn't there a certain someone who used to go on Fox News and complain Obama was golfing? 

 

 

There was a certain someone all right. Don't worry about him being on the golf course. The country is safer with him there. That is, except for his secret service protection.

[whitesoxfan99]

14 hours ago, Balta1701 said:

It’s not. An open tent is better than indoors, a closed tent is basically the same or worse. It’s another symptom of us not taking this seriously.

It’s a symptom of Mitch McConnell being a piece of trash prioritizing a Supreme Court judge and humoring Trump’s asinine election complaints to drive the base to vote in Georgia for the special elections rather than actually giving a damn about Americans.  

[shipps]

What does a vaccine that is 90-95% effective mean going forward? I am curious to know if we will still have covid season with infections and deaths just far less? 

[bmags]

19 minutes ago, shipps said:

What does a vaccine that is 90-95% effective mean going forward? I am curious to know if we will still have covid season with infections and deaths just far less? 

Can’t answer how well 90% would cut down on cases (substantially though) but the other piece was the vaccine may also lead to much less serious cases.

[southsider2k5]

32 minutes ago, shipps said:

What does a vaccine that is 90-95% effective mean going forward? I am curious to know if we will still have covid season with infections and deaths just far less? 

In a normal society where people listened to science and got their shots, it would be essentially herd immunity.  In the US where half the country is brainwashed and anti-science, it would mean sporatic targeted outbreaks, but a gigantic reduction in the pandemic.

[StrangeSox]

2 hours ago, bmags said:

Modernas phase 3 reports are fantastic. 95% efficacy and does NOT require the deep freeze storage Pfizer did.

Friendship ended with Pfizer vaccine now Moderna vaccine is my best friend

 

[StrangeSox]

These are just press releases at this point, so we need to wait to see the full (preliminary) Phase 3 data when it's written up and submitted. But both of these vaccines appearing to be highly effective is of course great news.

 

What's not clear from what I can read in the press releases is whether they think it's providing protective immunity, e.g. you can still get a SARS-CoV-2 infection but just end asymptomatic or mildly sick, or if it's actually giving some level of sterilizing immunity, meaning you don't ever get an infection and aren't going to be an asymptomatic spreader yourself. The later is much much better, but the current target endpoints are the first. Hopefully we know more in a few weeks.

[bmags]

Did not expect Moderna and Pfizer to release phase 3 preliminary results ahead of J&J. 

Considering both those had data ready sooner than expected due to the surge of cases, I wonder when oxford/Astrozaneca, Johnson&johnson drop. 

[StrangeSox]

J&J is having a hard time getting fully enrolled and started their trials later than Pfizer, Moderna, or AstraZeneca/Oxford. They also had to pause for a couple of weeks in October. AZ/O is still on hold in the US by the FDA I think, but it's proceeding in Brazil and the UK. 

Some of the Moderna numbers:

Most of these Phase 3's are targeting somewhere around 200 infections for their initial data sets before going for a EUA.

Edited November 16, 2020 by StrangeSox

[he gone.]

should be good news. i knew something was fishy about the pfizer news when the ceo sold 60% of his stock on the day of the news. always follow the money.. this is much more promising. now next step is convincing more than 1/3 of the population to take it. going to be a whole other battle that's going to be a year-long battle.

[bmags]

6 minutes ago, StrangeSox said:

J&J is having a hard time getting fully enrolled and started their trials later than Pfizer, Moderna, or AstraZeneca/Oxford. They also had to pause for a couple of weeks in October. AZ/O is still on hold in the US by the FDA I think, but it's proceeding in Brazil and the UK. 

Some of the Moderna numbers:

Most of these Phase 3's are targeting somewhere around 200 infections for their initial data sets before going for a EUA.

Ah, J&J was going for double that amount.

[StrangeSox]

6 minutes ago, BrianAnderson said:

should be good news. i knew something was fishy about the pfizer news when the ceo sold 60% of his stock on the day of the news. always follow the money.. this is much more promising. now next step is convincing more than 1/3 of the population to take it. going to be a whole other battle that's going to be a year-long battle.

It's basically the same as the Pfizer news, and the Pfizer stock sale was scheduled back in August. A lot of pharma execs are going to make obscene amounts of money off of this, and that's gross and a problem with our economic system imo, but that doesn't mean their vaccine is fake.

[Balta1701]

1 hour ago, shipps said:

What does a vaccine that is 90-95% effective mean going forward? I am curious to know if we will still have covid season with infections and deaths just far less? 

The answer to this depends on 3 factors which are not currently known: sterilizing immunity, duration of immunity, and effectiveness of vaccination campaigns.

1. Sterlizing immunity. It is possible that the Vaccine totally prevents you from getting the virus, or it is possible that the vaccine could prevent symptoms but still leave a patient contagious. In the latter case, the vaccine could actually increase transmission, because someone who was exposed to the virus and contagious would go out as though nothing was wrong, thinking they needed no mask as they had the vaccine and have no symptoms, go to bars or restaurants  or an NBA game, and transmit the virus widely. At present, there is no data on whether the immunity is sterilizing, because testing that would require testing your entire population in your vaccine study with a PCR test every 2 days, which would require something like 10-20% of the US's entire testing capacity and several billion dollars per study. At this point, we hope the immunity is sterilizing, but without having studied it, one cannot say with absolute certainty.

2. Duration of immunity. It is possible that vaccine immunity could be permanent, or it could last months to years. This virus has only been widespread in human populations for about 8 months so it is literally impossible to know if you're immune 12 months later, experience with other coronaviruses suggests that people's immunity to them does decline within a couple years of getting them (so you can get the same cold virus a couple years apart and have the same symptoms), there are a handful of documented cases already of people being reinfected within a few months of getting it, and there's only been 1 country on Earth where the virus has circulated out of control for so long that we would have any idea about people being reinfected 8 months later (the US) so even if immunity declined after 6 months there would be no data on this yet. If immunity declined over a couple years or after a year, booster shots would be required constantly as long as the virus was circulating.

3. Effectiveness of vaccination campaign. If we only vaccinate 50% of the population because people can't afford it or people resist it, then the virus will continue circulating in unvaccinated populations. If there are large groups (poor people in inner cities or overseas) where the vaccine is never distributed, the virus will continue circulating within them.

These 3 issues can act together. In the best case scenario, the vaccine provides sterilizing immunity for several years. In that case, if you vaccinate 90% of the human population and don't miss large groups because they're poor or the wrong race, the virus dies from the human population, and can only come back if it repeats the same jump from animals that it made last year.

In the worst case scenario, the vaccine doesn't provide sterilizing immunity and the immunity is short. In that case, anyone who hasn't had their booster shot could be at risk of severe illness and death, and almost all of our defenses (masks, contact tracing) are useless because people aren't going to know whether or not they are transmitting the virus. In this case, COVID-19 would become a permanent fixture on causes of death in this country and would never leave the human population. Death rates would probably never match the Pre-COVID era and we would see a permanent decrease in average length of life.

Anywhere in-between is possible, and perhaps most likely. A moderately effective vaccine campaign eliminates some of the carnage, but everyone needs a booster shot each year and some people just don't get it because they don't want to or they lose their health insurance and can't afford it, and there are populations that are never reached by the vaccine or the immunity isn't perfectly sterilizing so the virus continues circulating, and again COVID-19 remains a cause of death every year and there's a COVID and Flu season every fall.

[NWINFan]

One thing I can see about the vaccine is that the public will have to be educated so it is known what we will have to do protect ourselves and the rest of society. This is not a time for misinformation or politics. Hopefully Trump can be sidelined because we don't need him stirring up his base. The election is over. It is time to move on with some sanity. Hear that, Trumpies?

[Chisoxfn]

1 hour ago, southsider2k5 said:

In a normal society where people listened to science and got their shots, it would be essentially herd immunity.  In the US where half the country is brainwashed and anti-science, it would mean sporatic targeted outbreaks, but a gigantic reduction in the pandemic.

Except for the fact that this pew study indicates 85% of Americans wear masks most of the time.  While it has been politicized, blanket statements implying half of Americans are just ignoring it is nonsense. Again - there are people who don't like it on the right and railroad against it, but more often than not, most everyone is wearing their masks and those that don't are outliers not mainstream.  

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/08/27/more-americans-say-they-are-regularly-wearing-masks-in-stores-and-other-businesses/

 

There might be a more detailed study which shows it has dropped back down - I don't know.  I just googled and picked first survey that came up (so maybe this is highly flawed).  I just know I live in what was long a conservative county (although it has since slid to being a combo blue/red) but let me tell you - everyone wears masks around here (regardless of political views).  

Now to your point - there are going to be anti-vaxxers and there are going to be people on both sides that are in more polarized political positions. 2 months ago if a vaccine went out, I think those some anti-maskers (who make up a small sub-set of the right) would have been the first to get their arm pricked just to prove their loyalty to the president. Where those same people feel now with a vaccine coming out under a different admin - who knows. 

Most Americans are going to do what makes sense and that will be a good thing.  At least that is my hope.  While there have been complaints and protests, most American's have done what their states have established. The issue is really whether the states (or Fed - which chose to do nothing) have done enough.  But California has been very aggressive and still has its own issues. LA has problems and the country is slipping back - despite pretty strict measures (compared to the rest of the US).  It hasn't stopped this thing. One could argue the measures California took weren't enough either - that is a whole seperate point.  

[southsider2k5]

1 minute ago, Chisoxfn said:

Except for the fact that this pew study indicates 85% of Americans wear masks most of the time.  While it has been politicized, blanket statements implying half of Americans are just ignoring it is nonsense. Again - there are people who don't like it on the right and railroad against it, but more often than not, most everyone is wearing their masks and those that don't are outliers not mainstream.  

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/08/27/more-americans-say-they-are-regularly-wearing-masks-in-stores-and-other-businesses/

 

There might be a more detailed study which shows it has dropped back down - I don't know.  I just googled and picked first survey that came up (so maybe this is highly flawed).  I just know I live in what was long a conservative county (although it has since slid to being a combo blue/red) but let me tell you - everyone wears masks around here (regardless of political views).  

Just looking at people when I go places, while 85% say they are wearing them, 85% are NOT wearing them correctly.

[he gone.]

1 hour ago, StrangeSox said:

It's basically the same as the Pfizer news, and the Pfizer stock sale was scheduled back in August. A lot of pharma execs are going to make obscene amounts of money off of this, and that's gross and a problem with our economic system imo, but that doesn't mean their vaccine is fake.

No not a fake at all, didn't mean it like that at all. In August though they were likely doing trials, or had a good idea of what they were working with at that point. It's all fine and well to cash out - I agree, it's an incentive issue - not like that CEO is doing anything more than every single employee who is actually working on the cure ... but for some reason the top guy gets all the benefit. More so, he likely knew the issues and downfalls of the vaccine - aka how do you transport and store said vaccine? He cashed out on the news knowing it wasn't as rosy as the price associated with the bump.

[bmags]

2 minutes ago, BrianAnderson said:

No not a fake at all, didn't mean it like that at all. In August though they were likely doing trials, or had a good idea of what they were working with at that point. It's all fine and well to cash out - I agree, it's an incentive issue - not like that CEO is doing anything more than every single employee who is actually working on the cure ... but for some reason the top guy gets all the benefit. More so, he likely knew the issues and downfalls of the vaccine - aka how do you transport and store said vaccine? He cashed out on the news knowing it wasn't as rosy as the price associated with the bump.

There is a simpler answer: that the vaccine isn't going to be a lucrative product, and the company will be higher in value due to good sentiment than it will in the future as it searches for other uses for the technology.

[greg775]

7 hours ago, Dick Allen said:

We are turning the corner. This will just go away. If your governor puts restrictions in place, listen to Dr. Atlas and rise up. No need to follow the science. It's gotten us to this point. 

The vaccines are 90 percent or better effective according to today's reports. Now I just hope I can get vaccinated and not have to wait a full year.

[Dick Allen]

8 minutes ago, greg775 said:

The vaccines are 90 percent or better effective according to today's reports. Now I just hope I can get vaccinated and not have to wait a full year.

If you are lucky, you will get it in April, probably a little later. Trump already tweeting how the vaccines were created under his watch. No mention of the dead. 

[Dick Allen]

1 hour ago, southsider2k5 said:

Just looking at people when I go places, while 85% say they are wearing them, 85% are NOT wearing them correctly.

It's getting a little better with the mask wearing around me the last week or so. The standard used to be they had a mask they  but held it. That probably counted in the data as someone who wore a mask. I was waking on the sidewalk yesterday and a woman was approaching in front of me with no mask. She coughed without even trying to block anything. I ran to the other side of the street. She looked at me like I was the crazy one.

Edited November 16, 2020 by Dick Allen

[southsider2k5]

7 minutes ago, Dick Allen said:

It's getting a little better with the mask wearing around me the last week or so. The standard used to be they had a mask they  but held it. That probably counted in the data as someone who wore a mask. I was waking on the sidewalk yesterday and a woman was approaching in front of me with no mask. She coughed without even trying to block anything. I ran to the other side of the street. She looked at me like I was the crazy one.

If you eliminate the over the mouth, but not the nose crowd, we are probably closer to 50%.

[mqr]

4 hours ago, shipps said:

What does a vaccine that is 90-95% effective mean going forward? I am curious to know if we will still have covid season with infections and deaths just far less? 

The flu shot is like 60% effective