All things Corona Virus

[Nature Boy 2.0 8,370]

I am glad we have turned the corner and things have gotten so much better in regards to covid in the last week

[Dashinka 24,448]

8 minutes ago, Nature Boy 2.0 said:

I am glad we have turned the corner and things have gotten so much better in regards to covid in the last week

Yes, the Biden vaccine is coming, and Cuomo and Newsom will fully endorse it.

 

 

[Dashinka 24,448]

Gotta love Cuomo.

 

Cuomo says it's 'bad news' that Pfizer coronavirus vaccine progress came during Trump administration

 

Cuomo pointed to the scale of the distribution project, which he estimated would involve as many as 330 million vaccinations -- which could require two doses -- compared to 120 million coronavirus tests performed in the U.S. in seven months.

"And the Trump administration is rolling out the vaccination plan and I believe it's flawed," Cuomo continued. "I believe it learns nothing from the past. They're basically going to have the private providers do it, and that's going to leave out all sorts of communities that were left out the first time when COVID ravaged them."

Stephanopoulos then asked Cuomo what Biden could do that Trump will not do, and Cuomo immediately went back to discussing his problems with Trump.

 

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/cuomo-bad-news-pfizer-coronavirus-vaccine-trump-administration

[Boiler 45,411]

The Big Man has that in hand and 10% will add up to a lot!

[Steeleballz 7,550]

59 minutes ago, Nature Boy 2.0 said:

I am glad we have turned the corner and things have gotten so much better in regards to covid in the last week

 

   Things were not actually getting better, and they are going to get a lot worse before they actually do improve. We are actually getting to the point where they might have to defer some elective surgeries again, despite all the protocols that were in place to prevent that. Despite the number of improvements to treatment and mitigation of spread, the actual numbers of people testing positive are going to overwhelm that.

 

 As optimistic as I am for a vaccine, it's still a couple of weeks away, and it's still 4-6 week from the first does until full immunity is conferred. That's a long ways away, given what we are seeing right now.

 

 

[TBoneTX 45,155]

Pfizer couldn't have announced this LAST Monday?

[Crtcl Rice Theory 2,432]

11 hours ago, Steeleballz said:

 

   Things were not actually getting better, and they are going to get a lot worse before they actually do improve. We are actually getting to the point where they might have to defer some elective surgeries again, despite all the protocols that were in place to prevent that. Despite the number of improvements to treatment and mitigation of spread, the actual numbers of people testing positive are going to overwhelm that.

 

 As optimistic as I am for a vaccine, it's still a couple of weeks away, and it's still 4-6 week from the first does until full immunity is conferred. That's a long ways away, given what we are seeing right now.

 

 

I read today that Utah is declaring a state of emergency, you might get some overflow.

[laylalex 7,284]

I guess we need to pick up the Pfizer vaccine thread here. I found this article on 538 today really interesting and little deeper than I've been reading over the past day.

Quote

 

And Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, wants to know more about the demographics of the people who contracted the virus, especially their ages. It’s not out of the question that you could end up with a vaccine that was very effective for healthy young people, but not so much for the elderly, high-risk population that really needs the protection.

We don’t know any of these things because what’s been released is not scientific data. It is a preliminary efficacy check conducted by an independent review board outside of Pfizer itself. Even Pfizer scientists don’t know the answers to the questions experts outlined to me — at least not yet — because the trial is ongoing and still blinded to them so that the knowledge of who is taking the placebo won’t affect final results.

And that independent review is a good thing. These outside perspectives are something pharmaceutical industry critics like Topol like to see, because it’s another layer of transparency that ensures we’re not just taking Pfizer’s word. They’re also a normal part of any trial of a medicine for a serious disease, Ellenberg told me. You don’t want to run a trial for years if it’s already clear the medication is overwhelmingly effective and could already be saving lives. But at the same time, you don’t want to just randomly lift the lid on the pot and stop the trial when it looks good to you — that would tend to bias you towards stopping whenever things look statistically good, even if that success is a mirage that would have disappeared in a few weeks.

 

 

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/pfizers-vaccine-announcement-was-always-going-to-be-political/

[Steeleballz 7,550]

21 minutes ago, laylalex said:

I guess we need to pick up the Pfizer vaccine thread here. I found this article on 538 today really interesting and little deeper than I've been reading over the past day.

 

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/pfizers-vaccine-announcement-was-always-going-to-be-political/

 

    We have to keep in mind they are still collecting data, so while they have stated that the data looks promising, they are not finished with the trials yet.

 

   The other thing is they are still basically on schedule for the information we got in August, which was to be distributing by the end of November. The best case scenario they gave us was Nov 1st, and the more pessimistic one was by the end of the year. They are likely going to be right in the middle of those estimates. The big question really is how many doses will be available and how fast will they be able to produce the vaccine. 

[Steeleballz 7,550]

12 hours ago, CanAm1980 said:

I read today that Utah is declaring a state of emergency, you might get some overflow.

 

  We will be full shortly too. We are starting to see more staff out now too, although not necessarily testing positive. We are on 4 day leave automatically (or until the results come back negative) if we have enough symptoms. It's all going to add up. They have a difficult time with the workflow in Covid units when they are fully staffed. I hate to see what it looks like when they have people out. It's not going to be good.

[fip & jim 452]

This would be the first mRNA vaccine. Previous research on mRNA immunisation has been in oncology - it could be particularly suited to treating cancer tumours as it triggers the immune system to react to the proteins in tumours specific to the individual. What isn't known at this point is if a mRNA vaccine can trigger enough of a response to a virus like SARS-coV-2, particularly B-cell (antibodies). Because mRNA research has been focused on cancer treatment B-cell response has not been relevant to that research. It's also unknown at this stage how long immunity could last, what the side effects could be, for example if it could increase inflammatory responses or, even worse, aggravate the disease. So far the trials look promising but this isn't going to be the magic bullet we desperately want at this point. If trials make it through phase three it would still take months to roll out a vaccination program. The positives are that mass producing a mRNA vaccine is easier and shorter than traditional vaccines (months, rather than a year plus). 

[Dashinka 24,448]

COVID-19 antibody treatment heading to states immediately: HHS

 

The Trump administration said Tuesday it is starting to send out 300,000 doses of a COVID-19 antibody treatment from Eli Lilly and Co., one day after federal regulators approved it for emergency use.

The Department of Health and Human Services said state and territory health departments will determine which health facilities receive the drug, bamlanivimab, so they can help patients with mild to moderate illness stave off a serious bout or a hospital stay.

“The goal is to stop progression of the disease,” said Dr. Janet Woodcock, the therapeutics lead for Operation Warp Speed, a White House initiative to develop drugs and vaccines for COVID-19. “The goal here is to intervene very early.”

 

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/nov/10/covid-19-antibody-treatment-heading-states-immedia/

[Steeleballz 7,550]

1 minute ago, Dashinka said:

COVID-19 antibody treatment heading to states immediately: HHS

 

The Trump administration said Tuesday it is starting to send out 300,000 doses of a COVID-19 antibody treatment from Eli Lilly and Co., one day after federal regulators approved it for emergency use.

The Department of Health and Human Services said state and territory health departments will determine which health facilities receive the drug, bamlanivimab, so they can help patients with mild to moderate illness stave off a serious bout or a hospital stay.

“The goal is to stop progression of the disease,” said Dr. Janet Woodcock, the therapeutics lead for Operation Warp Speed, a White House initiative to develop drugs and vaccines for COVID-19. “The goal here is to intervene very early.”

 

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/nov/10/covid-19-antibody-treatment-heading-states-immedia/

 

  Good timing. We have still been using convalescent plasma to administer passive antibody, and they managed to accumulate a decent stockpile of frozen plasma as infections were dropping off in the summer, but they are starting to worry about demand exceeding the supply if infections keep increasing.

 

[fip & jim 452]

The UK government has announced that the NHS will be ready to start the Pfizer vaccine from the 1st of December, if it gets approval. They have placed an order for 40 million vaccines (enough for 20 million people) manufactured by Pfizer in Germany. They will start by vaccinating the staff and older patients in care homes, then frontline workers, then those above 80, then 75, 70, 65, at risk adults under the age of 65, 60, 55, 50, then the rest of the population. Children will not be vaccinated. They are preparing for centers to be open 7 days a week to administer vaccines. An extra £150m is being allocated to the NHS tor rolloutthe vaccination program. 

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/priority-groups-for-coronavirus-covid-19-vaccination-advice-from-the-jcvi-25-september-2020/jcvi-updated-interim-advice-on-priority-groups-for-covid-19-vaccination

Edited November 10, 2020 by fip & jim

[Darnell 8,478]

On 3/13/2020 at 9:49 AM, yuna628 said:

I know that you know it's summer in some countries currently experiencing active infections. There is no scientific evidence that a change in season will assist. We can hope it will, but there's no current evidence to that. Furthermore, we also don't know if it does abate, if it will return in an additional season change.

Ya, case numbers skyrocket in nothern states, where the snow falls, currently.