This thread is different from the updates thread. The updates thread is for posting updates (new news) so that people who just want new information (or clarification of it) don't need to dig through posts about your uncle to get to it; this one is for discussing how we are affected as individuals, and families, and communities. Feel free to cross-post from there to continue discussions.
Oh yeah, and if you are throwing a bunch of numbers out there, or info not everyone might have,
cite your sources. It helps keep confusion/misinformation to a minimum and people will like you slightly more.
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Maybe this has already been discussed- I've honestly been trying to not get too worked up one way or the other over vaccines due to election-related political propagandizing being a huge impact on how we talk about it.
(Statement in-lined and spoilered for big)
A measured and sensible statement that reflects the reality of the situation.
However, I would suggest we can allow ourselves a modicum of good cheer at least. If a vaccine can be made that works, then a better one can be made. This first threshold of “does it do anything” is the most terrifying until you clear it, because if you can do something then you can do better. If you can do nothing? Then you need new ideas that we might not have for years.
Look at it like AIDS anti retrovirals. Early ones were amazing news, but not so much because of what they were, but what they foreshadowed. They have gone from being expensive infusions costing hundreds of thousands which prevent the worst symptoms, to pills which can stop you getting infected in the first place.
Now, we can hope that this vaccine just gets the job done all by itself, but once you can breach that first barrier, there can always be hope for a better and better one.
I do love the clarity of message here though. Donald Trump by contrast will announce that the vaccine will be given out at his rallies or something, and that all his true believers have already got it.
Here's what I've gleaned on the subject from trying to read as many experts as I can. I should emphasize that I am *not* an expert myself.
The reason vaccines usually take so long to go through trials is money and bureaucracy. Vaccine side-effects will show up relatively immediately, you don't need to monitor people for years to make sure nothing emerges at the last minute.
The biggest issue is side effects that are very negative, too rare to show up in your initial studies but common enough to show up when you make it population-wide. Something like "makes you grow a second head in 1 out of 250000 patients" would have a good chance of slipping through phase-III trials but would be a problem when you get into wider use. But there's literally no way to detect those *until* you give the vaccine out for wide use, which is why the initial public release is usually in the form of a phase IV trial.
I don't believe the accelerated timeline will cause them to miss any safety issues that they would have caught under a normal timeline.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/national/coronavirus-us-cases-deaths/?no_nav=true&tid=a_classic-iphone
Now at 176 cases per 100K daily. Death toll is spiking to match. It’s been weeks now since they were “only” at numbers like 40-50, the kind of numbers that had Californians talking about blocking off the roads to keep out Arizonans. And yet...they seem to have done literally nothing to bend the curve. Nothing. Montana seems to have started to bend it down slightly. But North Dakota is just trucking along.
Are they just going for High Score at this point?
I suspect that the rural nature means that the bodies are still largely out of sight, and will remain so for a while. Without a single major metro to generate that “oh shit” moment I’m not sure what is going to get North Dakota to wake the fuck up. I know part of this is just the general cold weather spike that is hitting most of the country. But North Dakota is already double the rate of most other states.
He was promptly shot down by Pfizer.
Geeeeet dunked on, you assholes.
Mixed feelings here, because Pfizer not needing government money is because of all the usual issues of the industry for sure. OTOH, woohoo vaccine! And I agree, get dunked.
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Which again is what is so good about Pfizer being nothing to do with warp speed. As they can respond to his nonsense with a solid "fuck you you Trump faced idiot, roll back in your hole and die"
Trump and others don't understand the calculus here. They don't have power any more. They don't have a resource anyone gives a shit about. Pfizer does. This is a nuke in 1946. The knowledge of how to plant crops in 10000 BC. This is the game changer.
People will want an effective vaccine. Vaccine hesitancy collapses when there actually IS an effective vaccine, as the lie of courage can be allowed to fade. All the idiots who are too brave and have immune systems that are too strong? We'll see their true colors here. They'll be in line clamoring for their shots with everyone else.
Katherine Faulders is a White House reporter for ABC
Guessing we'll be seeing more of this in the coming days.
Speaking of, I just got my first official reprimand at work an hour ago.
Was in the social distanced lunchroom for my break, sitting at a single table like I'm supposed to. Three staff from other departments are crowded around a single table. One if them was speaking, loud enough for everyone to hear, despite the people he was speaking to being less than three feet from him.
He was explaining why the US case load was skyrocketting. Was it a lack of prevention measures? No. Was it hospitals reporting false numbers? No. Was it governments/media reporting false numbers? No. What about an increase in testing making it disproportional? No.
The numbers are legitimate.
But the cause for those numbers, apparently, are that "some people" (he used finger quotes) intentionally infected people, to drive up the case count, so that Donald Trump would lose the election.
"What the FUCK? Are you insane?"
That's what got me in trouble. Because I used offensive language.
Really wanted to say "They did first.", but didn't see the point. Fucking hate corpo-jargo-policy. Always have.
The supervisor was kinda supportive, but a report still had to be filed.
Honestly hadn't heard that conspiracy theory before.
This is just a reminder, that people everywhere, are fucking morons. I live and work in Australia, my current place of work is a hospital, the speaker was a nurse, and the two people at the table with him were an orderly and an intern.
So fucking dispirited that this kind of thinking exists.
Should you see that person again, you may tell them that an American exists who will be happy to use much more than harsh language in response to their nonsense. My Aunts brother died yesterday of the Virus. Many confounding factors, as he was a long term cancer patient, who caught the virus while immunosuppressed and in the late stages of terminal cancer (caught it in hospital) but he certainly didn't TRY to catch it, and nor did anyone deliberately infect him. So I can personally account that 0.1% of yesterdays deaths were wholly 'natural'.
Edit -Also, he's right. Some people did deliberately infect people. They organized large gatherings in areas with high viral loads, lied to people about protective measures, and then herded them together in tight quarters and inadaquate public transport. They prevented local governments from enacting preemptive responses, and forced them to re-open early. They denied benefits to the poor to make sure they were forced back to work to be infected. They hijacked media messaging, and national agencies to spread misinformation and lies, making people waste time on surface cleaning. They undermined communications efforts, and politicized safety to assure themselves of the strongest possible effects for their campaign of viral spread.
Those despicable traitors who undermined the Trump reelection campaign, causing 100s of thousands of additional virus cases in the US over the last few weeks and possibly scaring the public into voting Biden? I will name them here so that all will know their crimes!
Donald Trump
Donald Trump JR
Mitch McConnell
Mike Pence
Ivanka Trump
I haven't dug down into the numbers in NoDak, but it's just like anywhere else where most of the people live in populated areas. The populated areas are just smaller and the empty spaces between them are much longer. About half the population lives in a half-dozen population centers. I could be wrong, but I suspect the virus is spreading through Fargo and Bismarck and Grand Forks more than it is hopping through the farmlands. I assume the Bakken mancamps are an absolute cesspit, but then the viruses already spreading through those things might have been too strong for an upstart to horn in on their turf.
For sure. I lived in Montana, I kinda get the demographics. But I mention “major metro” because a city of millions produces a *pile* of bodies, due to density. It’s harder to miss, harder to ignore. I assume Fargo is like Billings, with maybe 100K people or so (and maybe another 100K in the surrounding area). Deaths in the state are spiking to about 2 per 100K, which means you only have maybe four bodies in the entire metro area daily. That’s not mass-grave and reefer-truck numbers. And I assume it’s similar in the smaller towns, whatever their equivalent to a Livingston or a Townsend might be. Just one here, one there. Its statistically very relevant, but the actual number is unfortunately small enough that it can still be ignored if you’re so inclined.
It just seems that their population density is low enough that Covid won’t produce the massive event required to get the people there to get on board with doing anything.
Edit: I suppose I should also look at county breakdowns by population. Could easily be this is just a couple major outbreaks that skews the state due to low numbers. But they just elected a person who had already died of Covid. So I suspect not?
I mean, it's still 2020, there is still a LOT that can go wrong here. But, this is the first breach in the wall. This means we can build a vaccine, and if you can build one which works, you can build a better one.
This doesn't put the vaccine into your arm tomorrow (and even if it did, it still takes 28 days to 'work'), but, it IS potentially strong enough that its incredibly good for you (who takes the vaccine) even if others are foolish enough not to. That's the potentially very strong news here. A vaccine between 50 and 75% effectiveness would still have been great news, but, benefits start to accrue most strongly for the vaccinated once 'everyone' takes it. It's still good, but, 50% risk of catching Covid is still much worse than the Flu 'overall'.
But 90%? That means that for the vaccinated the risk falls back to the level of 'flu exists and you could catch it'. Which is very good, and potentially offers even better results once large numbers are vaccinated. If it holds, it means that you can get the vaccine and then pretty much live your life. Now, we SHOULDNT do that, because if we have a well structured national rollout combining vaccinations with social distancing as we roll the protection to more people we can save many more lives, but, if we continue to be incompetent, or your local government is, then all YOU need to do. as an individual is get your hands on this vaccine, and hide inside for 28 days as it takes full effect.
Hopefully he gets some extra good care at Walter Reed Landscaping.
I may have just made a very undignified noise.
That's true, I did read it requires -80s. Labs are well equipped with storage at that temperature but I couldn't say what pharmacies usually have on hand. Worst case we use these in cities and some of the other candidates out where the facilities can't support the requirements.
I'd assume refrigerated trucks? We have other vaccines that have to be kept cold, so it may just be an issue of transport capacity. It's a serious issue to get it out to less developed parts of the world though.
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The mRNA ones have the worst transport requirements, the attenuated virus ones the best, with killed and DNA vaccines in the middle.
It doesn't have to be -80 all the time however, thats its long term storage temperature. As it gets closer to the target (your arm), it spends time in warmer environments which it is rated for.
It's like
20 C 6 hours
0 C 120 hours
-20 C 480 hours
-80 C Stable
Or something in that ball park.
I should say that those numbers aren't exactly published from the supplier, but data I have seen is that -80 C is stable, 20 C (room) is 6 hours and 8 C (fridge) is 24 hours.
The ice cream of the future saves the day today!
The storage temperatures are absolutely a challenge, because you can't just say, pallet it up and ship it to rural india or something which is a huge part of the task of an truly succesful vaccine, but, its certainly a solvable problem.
Indeed, as I mentioned, Vaccine #1 working is when you know this bastard of a virus can bleed. We can keep hitting it harder and harder with more and more effective options.
Its a thousand times easier to make something better, than to make the first of something.
No joke, when I was a food service manager at an amusement park, we had a big old walk in that was -60, and you weren't allowed to go in for more than 5 minutes at time, had special gear to wear and had to be opened and used on the buddy system. All just for storing the Dippin Dots for the whole park.
I think it’s about 3 weeks on average. Today we are seeing infections from roughly 9 days ago. That’s how long it takes to develop symptoms, get tested, and have your test results reported. Death usually happens 14-28 days after infection and takes another week or two to get reported because the death certificate has to be filled out and verified. So, we will see the deaths from the infections reported today in about 12-33 days.