COVID-19/Coronavirus thread

[Quin]

1 hour ago, Balta1701 said:

Which vax? Can you let us know how it goes?

Pfizer at a FEMA facility. Presented my ID and vaccine card. Checked in, got the shot from an air force member, waited for 15 minutes, walked out. Took maybe 20 minutes total.

[Balta1701]

2 hours ago, Quin said:

Pfizer at a FEMA facility. Presented my ID and vaccine card. Checked in, got the shot from an air force member, waited for 15 minutes, walked out. Took maybe 20 minutes total.

Any immediate reaction? I have about an hour drive after I get mine and that’s the spot I’m a bit nervous about. I could tell my head was a bit off for the first 30 minutes after the first shot.

[Quin]

1 hour ago, Balta1701 said:

Any immediate reaction? I have about an hour drive after I get mine and that’s the spot I’m a bit nervous about. I could tell my head was a bit off for the first 30 minutes after the first shot.

Sore arm and very tired.

[caulfield12]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/03/10/dont-let-intellectual-property-rights-get-way-global-vaccination/
 

There’s an interesting debate on both sides of the fence about surrendering Covid 19 vaccine patents to India.

As a Dem, I’d normally agree with the developing world and go against Big Pharma, but perhaps not this time.

[Quin]

10 hours ago, Quin said:

Sore arm and very tired.

Update: Feel like I was hit by a scooter and very sore eyes to the point that I can't wear my contacts, but that's about it.

I started taking some vitamins and hydrating way more than I was previously (which I should have been doing ahead of time) to prep for this, so that may have helped.

[StrangeSox]

 

[caulfield12]

COVID vaccines might stop a '4th wave' in the U.S. But the rest of the world isn't so lucky.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/covid-vaccines-might-stop-a-4th-wave-in-the-us-but-the-rest-of-the-world-isnt-so-lucky-090020655.html

Why?  Because the single biggest difference between these recovering countries and the rest of the world is immunity — both the kind acquired from prior infection and, going forward, the kind acquired from vaccination. As more dangerous variants take over, hard-hit countries with higher rates of vaccination are (mostly) withstanding the onslaught. Hard-hit countries with lower rates of vaccination are (mostly) not. This suggests that until vaccination has ramped up everywhere, the virus will keep spreading, evolving and threatening to dodge our defenses.

And that’s not just someone else’s problem. The more vaccines that rich countries buy up — and the slower that some of them vaccinate their own populations — the more likely it is that poorer, less protected countries will serve as breeding grounds for variants, prolonging the risk for everyone

 

[Balta1701]

47 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

COVID vaccines might stop a '4th wave' in the U.S. But the rest of the world isn't so lucky.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/covid-vaccines-might-stop-a-4th-wave-in-the-us-but-the-rest-of-the-world-isnt-so-lucky-090020655.html

Why?  Because the single biggest difference between these recovering countries and the rest of the world is immunity — both the kind acquired from prior infection and, going forward, the kind acquired from vaccination. As more dangerous variants take over, hard-hit countries with higher rates of vaccination are (mostly) withstanding the onslaught. Hard-hit countries with lower rates of vaccination are (mostly) not. This suggests that until vaccination has ramped up everywhere, the virus will keep spreading, evolving and threatening to dodge our defenses.

And that’s not just someone else’s problem. The more vaccines that rich countries buy up — and the slower that some of them vaccinate their own populations — the more likely it is that poorer, less protected countries will serve as breeding grounds for variants, prolonging the risk for everyone

 

1. Considering that no one on earth F***ed up their responses to this virus as much as the leaders of the US and UK, vaccinating the hell out of those places as fast as humanly possible to contain the 2 largest outbreaks on Earth is the right strategy for preventing new mutations from developing. While this isn't fair to countries that did a better job of controlling the virus, it's a virus, it doesn't care how fair things are.

2. Considering that the rest of Europe isn't in all that great of shape, vaccinating the rest of Europe soon is quite important for that task too.

3. We are working on the other problem. China has approved 5 vaccines and is shipping many of them around the world. The Russian Sputnik vaccine is being shipped around the world. The US already bought 100 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, and AstraZeneca hasn't even submitted it to the FDA for approval yet, so those doses will probably be paid for by the US and shipped places. We just today are announcing Canada and Mexico are going to get the first 1.5 million of those. The US has already paid for a comparable number of doses of the Novavax vaccine, and that should actually receive an approval soon. The world knows this is an issue and they're working on it.

 

 

[caulfield12]

46 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

1. Considering that no one on earth F***ed up their responses to this virus as much as the leaders of the US and UK, vaccinating the hell out of those places as fast as humanly possible to contain the 2 largest outbreaks on Earth is the right strategy for preventing new mutations from developing. While this isn't fair to countries that did a better job of controlling the virus, it's a virus, it doesn't care how fair things are.

2. Considering that the rest of Europe isn't in all that great of shape, vaccinating the rest of Europe soon is quite important for that task too.

3. We are working on the other problem. China has approved 5 vaccines and is shipping many of them around the world. The Russian Sputnik vaccine is being shipped around the world. The US already bought 100 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, and AstraZeneca hasn't even submitted it to the FDA for approval yet, so those doses will probably be paid for by the US and shipped places. We just today are announcing Canada and Mexico are going to get the first 1.5 million of those. The US has already paid for a comparable number of doses of the Novavax vaccine, and that should actually receive an approval soon. The world knows this is an issue and they're working on it.

 

 

My wife’s company was provided a half day to get one of the Chinese vaccines, for free, and only 3/170 volunteered to go.  Most or many are hesitant or waiting unless they absolutely have to travel abroad.

They’re actually making re-entering the mainland through HK contingent on getting on of those 5.

Also, my friend who’s a nurse said she was encouraged to get one, not required, and still hasn’t done so.

So you’re going to have a massive issue in touristic countries like Thailand and Indonesia who haven’t vaccinated much of their population coming under tremendous pressure to re-open their tourism industries, especially to Chinese.

We still wear masks in Wuhan at least eight months since the last active case...on subways, buses, entering malls and restaurants...you can take off after entering the latter category.  But they still have what look like shacks/telephone booths all over the city with cameras and a PA system that will remind you if you’re not wearing a mask or covering the nose in quite a few neighborhoods.

The fourth vaccine approved in China was their official CDC one through Dr. Gao Feng, different technology/platform/approach with that one.   What’s the fifth?  The CDC one just got EUA I think it was last Friday or just four days ago.

[Balta1701]

1 hour ago, caulfield12 said:

My wife’s company was provided a half day to get one of the Chinese vaccines, for free, and only 3/170 volunteered to go.  Most or many are hesitant or waiting unless they absolutely have to travel abroad.

They’re actually making re-entering the mainland through HK contingent on getting on of those 5.

Also, my friend who’s a nurse said she was encouraged to get one, not required, and still hasn’t done so.

So you’re going to have a massive issue in touristic countries like Thailand and Indonesia who haven’t vaccinated much of their population coming under tremendous pressure to re-open their tourism industries, especially to Chinese.

We still wear masks in Wuhan at least eight months since the last active case...on subways, buses, entering malls and restaurants...you can take off after entering the latter category.  But they still have what look like shacks/telephone booths all over the city with cameras and a PA system that will remind you if you’re not wearing a mask or covering the nose in quite a few neighborhoods.

The fourth vaccine approved in China was their official CDC one through Dr. Gao Feng, different technology/platform/approach with that one.   What’s the fifth?  The CDC one just got EUA I think it was last Friday or just four days ago.

I don't know how to count them, but here's the NYT Article "5th vaccine approved for use in China"

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/16/world/covid-vaccine-china-hamster-ovaries.html.

[caulfield12]

57 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

I don't know how to count them, but here's the NYT Article "5th vaccine approved for use in China"

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/16/world/covid-vaccine-china-hamster-ovaries.html.

I guess there are two distinct ones from Sinopharm, but nobody’s all that confident in any of them.

Seems the SE Asian leaders who are making deals for the general population all are favoring AstroZeneca on a personal basis.

 

Also, they just announced no foreign tourists will be allowed into Japan for the summer Olympics.

Edited March 19, 2021 by caulfield12

[StrangeSox]

AZ efficacy against b.1.351 ("south african" variant that has the e484k mutation that's popping up independently in a lot of places) is barely better than placebo, fwiw.

[Texsox]

Three weeks ago I was in mine with several hundred people, today I walked right up, no waiting. I'm not certain if that means

YEAH! we've been very efficient and have vaccinated a lot of people

OR

BOO, too many people are not getting vaccinated. 

[Iwritecode]

At this point I'm going to wait until my HR gets something setup for all the employees at my workplace or they are readily available at CVS/Walgreens or whatever without having to schedule an appointment.

I've been signed up with my local heath department since early February and every time I check CVS/Walgreens websites they say nothing is available within 25 miles.

[Texsox]

Note to our government. Next pandemic have an app for that. One sign up, and then notify people when and where to go. Or just have a nurse ride with an Amazon driver,  they eventually go to every house except Balta's but he's a smart man and will find a vaccine somewhere. 

We had a year. Three drunk college students could have written the code in a month. 

[Balta1701]

2 hours ago, Texsox said:

Note to our government. Next pandemic have an app for that. One sign up, and then notify people when and where to go. Or just have a nurse ride with an Amazon driver,  they eventually go to every house except Balta's but he's a smart man and will find a vaccine somewhere. 

We had a year. Three drunk college students could have written the code in a month. 

A national app would require...(drumroll)...national leadership! 

[Texsox]

11 hours ago, Balta1701 said:

A national app would require...(drumroll)...national leadership! 

That would be the easiest. But a private company, university, etc developing an app that any state or local government could buy would also work. 

[Balta1701]

5 hours ago, Texsox said:

That would be the easiest. But a private company, university, etc developing an app that any state or local government could buy would also work. 

No state is going to develop something for the whole country, not only would they not spend the money but they're not going to have the authority to collect that information across state lines, and while we're at it...(drumroll)...guess what month it was before the Federal Government appropriated substantial money to support the states in distributing the vaccine even though until January 20th they said it was all the states' job? 

[Texsox]

24 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

No state is going to develop something for the whole country, not only would they not spend the money but they're not going to have the authority to collect that information across state lines, and while we're at it...(drumroll)...guess what month it was before the Federal Government appropriated substantial money to support the states in distributing the vaccine even though until January 20th they said it was all the states' job? 

I wasn't suggesting a national program. State by state works for me. 

Does every state use the same DMV and voter registration  software? Seems like a private company could have developed the program and sold it to individual states. 

[Balta1701]

12 minutes ago, Texsox said:

I wasn't suggesting a national program. State by state works for me. 

Does every state use the same DMV and voter registration  software? Seems like a private company could have developed the program and sold it to individual states. 

One of the interesting things we learned last year was how every state has its own unemployment insurance system and some of them were designed using old versions of software that had last been updated in the 1980s. So when unemployment applications surged past the great recession and stayed there for 52 weeks now (what an accomplishment!), you had New Jersey trying to find people who knew that language. So yeah...that just ain't happenin'.

[Quin]

1 hour ago, Texsox said:

I wasn't suggesting a national program. State by state works for me. 

Does every state use the same DMV and voter registration  software? Seems like a private company could have developed the program and sold it to individual states. 

Some things states can handle by themselves - DMV is a good one. 

Managing a global pandemic, no. Not when person can hope state lines and cause an outbreak. We're gonna need a system operated by the entire, United States government if we're ever going to get out of this mess.

[caulfield12]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/20/americas/brazil-coronavirus-crisis-vaccine-distribution-shortfalls-latam-intl/index.htm

The next question is when the WHO, US, EU or possibly China recognize and act on the global threat Brazil poses... 

Also, China forcing every foreign traveler to use their own vaccines (no Stage 3 published results, efficacy as low as 50%, not authorized in EU and available there or in US) in order to enter China is just going to lead to continuing problems.  Vaccine passports run the risk of stigmatizing the developing world and exacerbates inequality/access issues. 

Edited March 20, 2021 by caulfield12

[RTC]

On 3/19/2021 at 3:48 PM, Iwritecode said:

At this point I'm going to wait until my HR gets something setup for all the employees at my workplace or they are readily available at CVS/Walgreens or whatever without having to schedule an appointment.

I've been signed up with my local heath department since early February and every time I check CVS/Walgreens websites they say nothing is available within 25 miles.

Keep trying around 7:30am.  I would often see what you described, and sometimes I’d be able to book the first dose but then it would say no appts available for second dose, try again later. Finally broke through this morning - first shot is Tuesday! 

[caulfield12]

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/miami-beach/article250090249.html
 

Miami, Spring Break, Covid...who could possibly have foreseen a problem?

[Texsox]

On 3/20/2021 at 2:27 PM, Quin said:

Some things states can handle by themselves - DMV is a good one. 

Managing a global pandemic, no. Not when person can hope state lines and cause an outbreak. We're gonna need a system operated by the entire, United States government if we're ever going to get out of this mess.

Leaving it up to CVS and Walgreens isn’t working. Statewide scheduling of vaccines seems like an easier improvement than a national system.