The Trump regime was going to put senior White House officials at the top of the first tier of people to get the vaccines in the US but officially walked it back shortly afterward since it was comically evil and corrupt even for them, apparently. But I'm sure it'll still happen anyway, just like how Trump and his cronies have been hogging the monoclonal antibodies.
Interesting that the actual White House Proper staff - like cooks, custodial crew, security, etc. - don't seem on the radar, given they're at least as necessary for keeping the place running and don't have any ability to push back against mandatory exposure. I'm wholly bereft of sympathy for the political personnel at this point, but something like what, five hundred people work in and around that building?
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BlackDragon480Bluster KerfuffleMaster of Windy ImportRegistered Userregular
And what was the last tally, something like 3 dozen secret service members in the WH detail?
No matter where you go...there you are. ~ Buckaroo Banzai
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MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
edited December 2020
Welp, we might now have an animal reservoir for SARS2, as that coronavirus has been detected in wild mink in Utah. The wild mink did live near a mink farm, and farms spread diseases to nearby wild animals all the time, so it wasn't unexpected and was why the USDA was testing wild mink around farms in the first place. Of course, there's no guarantee that it will spread into wild populations only to jump back into humans, but at the same time, it might've spread through wild populations months ago unseen and is just going to become endemic like leprosy in armadillos.
But then again, what does it matter if there's an animal reservoir if humans are determined to remain disease reservoirs themselves? Half the nurses in a Texas critical care unit refuse to get vaccinated purely because of their political leanings - we know which ones, and that can likely be extended across the US population (and a quarter of the Brazilian population as I mentioned before, among others).
The Trump regime was going to put senior White House officials at the top of the first tier of people to get the vaccines in the US but officially walked it back shortly afterward since it was comically evil and corrupt even for them, apparently. But I'm sure it'll still happen anyway, just like how Trump and his cronies have been hogging the monoclonal antibodies.
On the contrary, I think they should get it. The number of anti-vaxxers in red states is scary. By seeing their idols eager to get the vaccine, they will become eager to get it themselves.
I also want Biden and Harris to get the vaccine - partly because Biden is 78 and about to move into a mansion where Covid is going round all the staff - but also so that Democrats trust the vaccine, too, despite being developed under Trump.
In other places that had outbreaks, Mongolia. They were doing so well, even maintaining strict 21 day quarantines instead of the usual 14 day, but there was a tiny breach of that quarantine that wasn't caught until after he had caused a cluster in Ulaanbaatar, where he had taken public transportation and attended a concert, as there were no lockdowns in Mongolia. Now there are, to try to eradicate this outbreak. In the meantime, Mongolia is writing off all utility costs for every household in the country through July. No one is getting the heat or water cut off while they're stuck at home.
For all the continued claims that Africa isn't being affected by the pandemic, that they're too young and healthy or whatever, it's not true. There's a lack of testing and recordkeeping across most of the continent. It could be that it's less bad than in other parts of the world, but that doesn't mean they're fine. If everything was fine twenty doctors in Nigeria wouldn't have died of COVID-19 in a single week. There are also anecdotal stories of coffin-sellers across the continent doing record business, but we'll probably never really know how bad it was. Most countries that supposedly do good recordkeeping have been doing a lousy job at it (except for Brazil - the number of excess deaths in Brazil over the past year very closely match the COVID-19 deaths. Good on you, Brazilian statisticians.)
Sometimes places just get overwhelmed, unable to count and record the dead properly. A lot of times and places though, it's highly political. Russia may have the third-highest number of COVID fatalities in the world, behind only the US and Brazil, as their federal statistics agency estimates the actual death toll in Russia to be over 186,000 rather than the 55,000 officially reported. All the things the online trolls do to try to downplay the numbers (these deaths don't count because it's just deaths of people who died with COVID, not of COVID) is stuff that the Russian health ministry was doing to massage the numbers into lies.
Also, anytime you see some idiot talking about "natural herd immunity" and giving ludicrously low numbers like 20% of the population or something to achieve it, remind everyone around the idiot (you're not going to convince the idiot) that herd immunity only occurs after vaccination. The city of Manaus, Brazil saw upwards of 76% of its population get infected by October and it did not stop transmission of SARS2. Over 90% of the population needs to have immunity before actual herd immunity sets in, and that is done by vaccine. Bolsonaro's policy of "do nothing and let people die" didn't get herd immunity despite almost 200,000 deaths. *glares at the US* Remember this.
The number of COVID-19 deaths are underreported even in places attempting to accurately report them. Testing for cause of death isn't really being done even in places capable of doing so.
Are there details of what the UK has planned for the new lockdown?
In other, non-good, news, the EU is being severely critiziced by membeer states for not getting vaccines distributed quickly enough, being well below expectations.
In good news, Norway has 0 excess deaths in 2020 compared to a normal year. 449 people have died of corona, but we have not had any influenza this year and a lot lower incidence of other communicable diseases, so statistically it's a wash. (However, health care workers are severely overworked dealing with the current situation.) (We also just entered a 14 day national lockdown.)
The number of COVID-19 deaths are underreported even in places attempting to accurately report them. Testing for cause of death isn't really being done even in places capable of doing so.
Are there details of what the UK has planned for the new lockdown?
daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
Czech Republic is turbofucked. About 13k new cases yesterday, and Monday's numbers are always on the low side. They added a new color to the map because red just wasn't getting the message across, so now most of the country is purple. I look forward to fuligin being the next color added, possibly with skulls, just so people might get the hint.
I would not be shocked if we get 20k new cases on Wednesday or Thursday.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
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JeanHeartbroken papa bearGatineau, QuébecRegistered Userregular
edited January 2021
Not a good start to 2021 in Quebec!
Our governement is strongly considering lenghtening all current restrictions for 3-4 additional weeks. Current restrictions are until 11 January but our amount of hospitalisations is getting higher every day and our amount of new daily cases is at the higest it's ever been.
Apparenty they are considering imposing a curfew, France's style, but they haven't finalised their decision yet.
Initially the announcement was supposed to be today at 5PM but its been pushed back to tomorrow and we've been hearing all kind of rumors today. Curfew, no curfew. Schools open, not open...
It's pretty much a given than non essential commerces will stay closed and private gatherings with people outside your household will keep being prohibited, tough.
EDIT
Curfew starts 9 January until 8 Feburary, 8PM to 5AM. Fines from $1K to $6K for violating the curfew.
Groceries stores & convenient stores order to close 7:30PM
In person learning will resume 11 January for elementary school as initially planned. In person learning pushed back to 18 January for secondary schools.
Churches CLOSED excepted for funerals
As expected, gatherings outside your household are still prohibited.
Non essential commerces still closed excepted for curbside pickup.
Finally, PM Legault stated than Quebec have the capacity to vaccinate 25K people/day (Im not certain if his claim is accurate or not. Sure hope it is!)
Jean on
"You won't destroy us, You won't destroy our democracy. We are a small but proud nation. No one can bomb us to silence. No one can scare us from being Norway. This evening and tonight, we'll take care of each other. That's what we do best when attacked'' - Jens Stoltenberg
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MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
Total official worldwide COVID-19 deaths are at 2 million. Official deaths in the US are about to hit 400,000 in a few days. Remember how we crossed 300,000 not that long ago? It adds up fast once you have multiple days of 4000+ deaths.
Total official worldwide COVID-19 deaths are at 2 million. Official deaths in the US are about to hit 400,000 in a few days. Remember how we crossed 300,000 not that long ago? It adds up fast once you have multiple days of 4000+ deaths.
Thus, the perfect time for North Dakota to end its mask mandates and capacity limits. Stuff your churches and bars full of maskless people!
North Dakota local cases are actually way down. Not gone, but it's more understandable why they'd ease on on restrictions than if you look at country (or world)- wide numbers.
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Powerpuppiesdrinking coffee in themountain cabinRegistered Userregular
I believe N Dakota has gone from the worst state in the country six weeks ago to the second best state today, in terms of 7-day rolling average new cases per day per 100,000 people. Hawaii still has fewer cases, of course, and I think N Dakota is still doing worse than parts of Canada that just went into emergency lockdown, but a tremendous improvement.
Also the official, diagnosed case numbers are what, one in seven of the population? One in six? And you know those aren't anywhere near comprehensive?
Kind of suspect the numbers are down less to whatever mandates they had in place and more because just about everyone in any reasonably-sized community's already gotten it.
Also the official, diagnosed case numbers are what, one in seven of the population? One in six? And you know those aren't anywhere near comprehensive?
Kind of suspect the numbers are down less to whatever mandates they had in place and more because just about everyone in any reasonably-sized community's already gotten it.
Also isn't a big chunk of those numbers tribal, which are imposing their own lockdowns and restrictions completely independent and much more effective than whatever the state is doing officially?
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MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
Also the official, diagnosed case numbers are what, one in seven of the population? One in six? And you know those aren't anywhere near comprehensive?
Kind of suspect the numbers are down less to whatever mandates they had in place and more because just about everyone in any reasonably-sized community's already gotten it.
I had posted earlier about Manaus, Brazil still having uncontrolled spread after 75+% of the population appeared to have antibodies against SARS2. Herd immunity does not kick in until you get over the 90% (exact number depending on the disease) range, which comes from vaccination. Vaccination rates dropping below 90% lead to outbreaks when the disease is reintroduced back in.
But like, you can still "open up" the economy while still having mask mandates. New Hampshire's Republican governor extended the state mask mandate through March 26 for instance. Taking away the masks is just asking for that low level to return to the high level again.
Speaking of Manaus, BTW, their hospitals just ran out of oxygen. Emergency supplies were being flown in from across Brazil, but patients were dying at a much faster rate. There are also oxygen shortages in many other places, with one report of an entire ICU in Egypt dying after that hospital's oxygen supply also ran out. This is another manifestation of health systems being pushed past their limits, and why people talked about "flattening the curve" a thousand years ago last year. Death rates shoot up dramatically once hospitals can no longer provide necessary care.
This is like banana republic level shit. I didn't even know that police were allowed to not tell you what charge you face before arrest. Like isn't knowing what you're being arrested for kind of important?
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MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
Well, we've found at least some of DeSantis's lies: how many people have been vaccinated. DeSantis was claiming that a million seniors had been vaccinated in Florida. It's over a hundred fifty thousand less than that. Didn't even need Rebekah Jones for this one to be called out.
Two ministers of the Zimbabwean government died in two days. Official numbers are massively underreported across most of the continent/world, though usually we don't know by how much. Might be *less bad* than in other, older countries, sure, but that's not *good*.
Also the official, diagnosed case numbers are what, one in seven of the population? One in six? And you know those aren't anywhere near comprehensive?
Kind of suspect the numbers are down less to whatever mandates they had in place and more because just about everyone in any reasonably-sized community's already gotten it.
I had posted earlier about Manaus, Brazil still having uncontrolled spread after 75+% of the population appeared to have antibodies against SARS2. Herd immunity does not kick in until you get over the 90% (exact number depending on the disease) range, which comes from vaccination. Vaccination rates dropping below 90% lead to outbreaks when the disease is reintroduced back in.
But like, you can still "open up" the economy while still having mask mandates. New Hampshire's Republican governor extended the state mask mandate through March 26 for instance. Taking away the masks is just asking for that low level to return to the high level again.
Speaking of Manaus, BTW, their hospitals just ran out of oxygen. Emergency supplies were being flown in from across Brazil, but patients were dying at a much faster rate. There are also oxygen shortages in many other places, with one report of an entire ICU in Egypt dying after that hospital's oxygen supply also ran out. This is another manifestation of health systems being pushed past their limits, and why people talked about "flattening the curve" a thousand years ago last year. Death rates shoot up dramatically once hospitals can no longer provide necessary care.
There's some misinformation here that needs to be sorted.
Herd immunity does not "kick in" at a certain percentage. Herd immunity describes a point on a continuum. Population levels of immunity always reduce the ability of a virus to spread. The more immunity you have, the further along the continuum you are, the more spread is suppressed. Herd immunity is the point on the continuum when that effect drives transmissions rates (the number of new cases each case creates on average) below 1.0. It doesn't just wait until you get to a certain point and then "kick in." There's no magic force detecting prevalence levels in the population so it knows to turn on the herd immunity.
That percentage can be 90%, but it can also be 30%, or 50%, or a lot of other percents. It's a complicated number that is hard to pin down. An oversimplified formula to give you an idea is usually 1-(1/R0) where R0 represents the transmission rate in a fully susceptible population. That won't give you a number above 90% until the R0 of the virus gets to 10, which is pretty rarified air for viruses. Measles, chickenpox and mumps are that contagious. Most viruses aren't.
The Manaus thing. The best way to explain the Manaus thing is to recall 2011 when scientists in Geneva announced that they had detected neutrinos appearing to move faster than the speed of light. Everyone know this was impossible, so it had to be a measurement error, but they had to publish the results anyway because they're scientists and let peer review figure out where the error was.
If it appears that Manaus has unchecked spread despite extremely high prevalence for a virus to which exposure generates immunity, the most likely explanation is not "exposure does not generate immunity" or "population immunity levels do not slow down spread." It's "we probably measured prevalence wrong."
The study that said Manaus had 75% prevalence was widely criticized almost as soon as it was released (https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/study-estimates-76-percent-of-brazilian-city-exposed-to-sars-cov-2-68272). The simple answer is that Manaus never had 75% prevalence and the paper estimating it did was incorrect. Like many of the early serological studies that massively overestimated prevalence, they used a sample that had been obtained by advertising free covid testing, which inadvertently biased the sampling toward people who had reason to believe they had been infected.
Also the official, diagnosed case numbers are what, one in seven of the population? One in six? And you know those aren't anywhere near comprehensive?
Kind of suspect the numbers are down less to whatever mandates they had in place and more because just about everyone in any reasonably-sized community's already gotten it.
I had posted earlier about Manaus, Brazil still having uncontrolled spread after 75+% of the population appeared to have antibodies against SARS2. Herd immunity does not kick in until you get over the 90% (exact number depending on the disease) range, which comes from vaccination. Vaccination rates dropping below 90% lead to outbreaks when the disease is reintroduced back in.
But like, you can still "open up" the economy while still having mask mandates. New Hampshire's Republican governor extended the state mask mandate through March 26 for instance. Taking away the masks is just asking for that low level to return to the high level again.
Speaking of Manaus, BTW, their hospitals just ran out of oxygen. Emergency supplies were being flown in from across Brazil, but patients were dying at a much faster rate. There are also oxygen shortages in many other places, with one report of an entire ICU in Egypt dying after that hospital's oxygen supply also ran out. This is another manifestation of health systems being pushed past their limits, and why people talked about "flattening the curve" a thousand years ago last year. Death rates shoot up dramatically once hospitals can no longer provide necessary care.
There's some misinformation here that needs to be sorted.
Herd immunity does not "kick in" at a certain percentage. Herd immunity describes a point on a continuum. Population levels of immunity always reduce the ability of a virus to spread. The more immunity you have, the further along the continuum you are, the more spread is suppressed. Herd immunity is the point on the continuum when that effect drives transmissions rates (the number of new cases each case creates on average) below 1.0. It doesn't just wait until you get to a certain point and then "kick in." There's no magic force detecting prevalence levels in the population so it knows to turn on the herd immunity.
That percentage can be 90%, but it can also be 30%, or 50%, or a lot of other percents. It's a complicated number that is hard to pin down. An oversimplified formula to give you an idea is usually 1-(1/R0) where R0 represents the transmission rate in a fully susceptible population. That won't give you a number above 90% until the R0 of the virus gets to 10, which is pretty rarified air for viruses. Measles, chickenpox and mumps are that contagious. Most viruses aren't.
The Manaus thing. The best way to explain the Manaus thing is to recall 2011 when scientists in Geneva announced that they had detected neutrinos appearing to move faster than the speed of light. Everyone know this was impossible, so it had to be a measurement error, but they had to publish the results anyway because they're scientists and let peer review figure out where the error was.
If it appears that Manaus has unchecked spread despite extremely high prevalence for a virus to which exposure generates immunity, the most likely explanation is not "exposure does not generate immunity" or "population immunity levels do not slow down spread." It's "we probably measured prevalence wrong."
The study that said Manaus had 75% prevalence was widely criticized almost as soon as it was released (https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/study-estimates-76-percent-of-brazilian-city-exposed-to-sars-cov-2-68272). The simple answer is that Manaus never had 75% prevalence and the paper estimating it did was incorrect. Like many of the early serological studies that massively overestimated prevalence, they used a sample that had been obtained by advertising free covid testing, which inadvertently biased the sampling toward people who had reason to believe they had been infected.
Another thing to note is that if I have a single population, such as a city, surrounded by many other populations and during an outbreak the main thing people do is stop moving between populations then you can end up with one population (the city) with a very high number of infected people, surrounded by many other communities with a very low fraction of infected people.
If during normal times, there is extensive mingling between the city and the surrounding communities then the 75% prevalence in the city helps them a little bit, but it will NOT stop spread in the city. Because the susceptable people in the city are continually bumping into infected people from outside the city. Rt in the city community is below 1, but the city community only exists during lockdown. Imagine if you had an outbreak in your house with 6 people in it. 5 of your family got infected, one didn't. Is that last person protected from infection? Of course not, because your house is not a community into itself.
However, as Inkstain says, the simple fact that the city of Manaus is saying 'It is a worse outbreak this time, we have more sick people' means it is impossible that they got to 75% infected, because, in order to get to 75% of people infected you need an ENORMOUS number of people to be infected very quickly.
In data collected up to 2 days after the second shot the vaccine is working in the wild, with decent effacacy even in old people, even after only one dose. All metrics look to be continuing to improve over time, and the second shot should be expected to accelerate the trend.
"In its 15,000-volunteer U.K. trial, Novavax said, the vaccine prevented nine in 10 cases, including against a new strain of the virus that is circulating there. But in a 4,400-volunteer study in South Africa, the vaccine proved only 49% effective. In the 94% of the study population that did not have HIV, the efficacy was 60%."
Larger study returned greater effacacy signal. Second trial is quite small, and was intended to study the results of HIV vs having the virus. As such, error bars there are pretty large.
A good result all round, if perhaps a little dissapointing vs the modified SA strain. However, there's a lot of detail in terms of why that might have happened beyond just "The vaccine worked less well" as there were different monitoring protocols and definitions of case vs non case (as the SA trial was originally designed to probe the effects of HIV)
Johnson and Johnson reports results for their single shot vaccine.
Varied performance against symptomatic disease claimed
72% effective against all symptomatic disease in the US
57% effective against all symptomatic disease in South Africa
Consistent performance against severe disease claimed
85% effective against severe disease
100% effective against death (which I imagine has a weak confidence band, but still)
Their description of disease is a bit odd in the press statements, but should still give confidence.
“ We're 85% effective at preventing severe disease, which we define as disease that makes you feel particularly sick at home, or may go to the hospital, or worse," Dr. Mathai Mammen, global head of research and development at Johnson & Johnson, told CNN.
"And we are right now completely protective, it would appear 100% protective, against disease that actually does make you go to the hospital, we're 100% protective against death."
“ "I'm looking at that South African variant, and I'm seeing that we're able to completely protect against concerning levels of illness, where one might go to a hospital," he said.”
72 -> 57 should give us more hope that our other 95% vaccines won’t fall quite so far.
This is an enormous result, espescially for combatting the disease around the whole world, because this is a fridge stable vaccine which requires one shot. In addition, other articles have indicated there are strong signs that protective markers have risen and remained on the increase throughout the trial. A two shot trial is being evaluated, and one can hope for improved protection there.
From their own press release, rather than a summary
“Prevention of severe disease; protection against COVID-related hospitalization and death
The vaccine candidate was 85 percent effective in preventing severe disease across all regions studied, 28 days after vaccination in all adults 18 years and older. Efficacy against severe disease increased over time with no cases in vaccinated participants reported after day 49.
The Janssen COVID-19 vaccine candidate demonstrated complete protection against COVID-related hospitalization and death, 28 days post-vaccination. There was a clear effect of the vaccine on COVID-19 cases requiring medical intervention (hospitalization, ICU admission, mechanical ventilation, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO)), with no reported cases among participants who had received the Janssen COVID-19 vaccine, 28 days post-vaccination.”
If that latter statement is true as apparent and there’s not some kind of weird ‘And’ logic going on there then it would seem they are claiming zero hospitalizations across all regions 28 days post vaccination, and 100% effacacy against severe disease across all regions 49 days post vaccination. This would be astounding news, espescially vs the variants as it would imply that you can get infected with them, but that the immune system quickly figures out their tricks and tells them to piss right off.
tbloxham on
"That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
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HedgethornAssociate Professor of Historical Hobby HorsesIn the Lions' DenRegistered Userregular
0% hospitalization and 0% death from the Johnson & Johnson vaccine seems like it should be the takeaway. If it results in Covid at its worst being equivalent to a rough cold that keeps you at home for a few days, that seems like an unmitigated victory.
0% hospitalization and 0% death from the Johnson & Johnson vaccine seems like it should be the takeaway. If it results in Covid at its worst being equivalent to a rough cold that keeps you at home for a few days, that seems like an unmitigated victory.
I agree, although, clearly rarer events are harder to prove with high confidence. However, the claimed uniform worldwide performance vs all strains in all countries vs severe/hospitalization/death is very promising. A truly unmitigated victory would be a more than 80% reduction in transmission overall as well as that (because that will eventually lead to viral extinction), but thats even harder to prove because the vaccine may also be affecting how infectious you are and for how long, as well as how susceptible you are and for how long.
0% hospitalization and 0% death from the Johnson & Johnson vaccine seems like it should be the takeaway. If it results in Covid at its worst being equivalent to a rough cold that keeps you at home for a few days, that seems like an unmitigated victory.
22,000 patients in the trial and zero hospitalizations sounds seriously great.
Zibblsnrt on
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OrcaAlso known as EspressosaurusWrexRegistered Userregular
An important thing to consider is that the vaccine group in this study was 3x bigger than the placebo group. This is a perfectly fair thing to do if you expect high effacacy of your vaccine, and high incidence of disease in your control group. So, remember to consider fraction ratios, not raw numbers.
The Gamelaya institutes multiple adenovirus vector covid vaccine proves to be ~92% effective in a full trial with ~100% effacacy reported against severe disease starting 21 days after dose 1.
" 62 (1·3%) of 4902 individuals in the placebo group and 16 (0·1%) of 14 964 participants in the vaccine group had confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection from day 21 after first vaccine dose (the primary outcome). A time-resolved plot of the incidence rate in the two groups showed that the immunity required to prevent disease arose within 18 days of the first dose. "
"There were no cases (vaccine group) and 20 cases (placebo group) of moderate or severe COVID-19 confirmed at least 21 days after dose 1; thus, vaccine efficacy against moderate or severe COVID-19 was 100% (94·4–100·0)."
This trial was conducted primarily in Russia, however, Russia has very little genetic sequencing and a severe ongoing outbreak with few controls in place, as such, it is likely but not known for sure that the vaccine faced multiple strains which exist in Russia.
This is another excellent result, and does provide some weight to the 'Oxford vaccine second small dose could work better' pile. In addition, its another example of severe disease and infections decreasing a few weeks after dose 1 (18 days here) which is good news for other Adenovirus vector vaccines.
Weakness of this data is very few non white participants, and no known testing vs variants of concern. However, if you want me to believe Russia somehow does not have any variants of concern despite extensive travel links with the UK and South Africa, then I'd need some pretty serious proof! For the UK variant at least.
10s of millions of doses of astra Zeneca/Oxford vaccine sit awaiting us government approval, while results from the UK and follow up clinical trials continue to demonstrate that it is an excellent vaccine, even with only one dose. We could double our rate of vaccinations tomorrow by approving it for emergency use, and if we aren’t willing to use it, we should relinquish our order and ship the doses overseas.
10s of millions of doses of astra Zeneca/Oxford vaccine sit awaiting us government approval, while results from the UK and follow up clinical trials continue to demonstrate that it is an excellent vaccine, even with only one dose. We could double our rate of vaccinations tomorrow by approving it for emergency use, and if we aren’t willing to use it, we should relinquish our order and ship the doses overseas.
Meanwhile, AZ is approved for use in the EU, but they don't have any doses to deliver. (More precisely, they're delivering less than half of what they've promised. My country is getting less than 10% of what they promised (2M doses vs. 0.19 M doses).)
10s of millions of doses of astra Zeneca/Oxford vaccine sit awaiting us government approval, while results from the UK and follow up clinical trials continue to demonstrate that it is an excellent vaccine, even with only one dose. We could double our rate of vaccinations tomorrow by approving it for emergency use, and if we aren’t willing to use it, we should relinquish our order and ship the doses overseas.
Meanwhile, AZ is approved for use in the EU, but they don't have any doses to deliver. (More precisely, they're delivering less than half of what they've promised. My country is getting less than 10% of what they promised (2M doses vs. 0.19 M doses).)
Agree 100%, at the very least we should be shipping new production to Mexico (where it is approved) instead of warehousing it! A stockpile is one thing, ready for approval, but an ever growing stockpile is ridiculous in these times.
In other good news, a new Isreali drug just passed phase 1 trials and appears to be very successful at treating symptoms in moderate/severe patients. 29/30 patients recovered completely within a few days of it being administered. It seems to target the cytokine storm that Covid19 causes, and counteracts it. First I've heard of this, but it seems very promising.
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MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
Oh, and don't tell yourself that people will be drinking and dining outdoors. Iowa along with most of the Midwest is currently in a big cold snap where temperatures are predicted on many days not to get above 0 F for at least the next week. I guess we'll just be seeing how bad it gets.
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Also, haven't most of them had it by now? :P
Interesting that the actual White House Proper staff - like cooks, custodial crew, security, etc. - don't seem on the radar, given they're at least as necessary for keeping the place running and don't have any ability to push back against mandatory exposure. I'm wholly bereft of sympathy for the political personnel at this point, but something like what, five hundred people work in and around that building?
~ Buckaroo Banzai
But then again, what does it matter if there's an animal reservoir if humans are determined to remain disease reservoirs themselves? Half the nurses in a Texas critical care unit refuse to get vaccinated purely because of their political leanings - we know which ones, and that can likely be extended across the US population (and a quarter of the Brazilian population as I mentioned before, among others).
Also Florida was absolutely manipulating their COVID death reporting, creating an apparent lull just before the election to make it look like deaths were declining when they weren't.
DeSantis lies and SWATs anyone who dares to contradict him.
On the contrary, I think they should get it. The number of anti-vaxxers in red states is scary. By seeing their idols eager to get the vaccine, they will become eager to get it themselves.
I also want Biden and Harris to get the vaccine - partly because Biden is 78 and about to move into a mansion where Covid is going round all the staff - but also so that Democrats trust the vaccine, too, despite being developed under Trump.
All the continents have had cases of COVID-19. ALL of them. The Chilean Antarctic base had an outbreak.
In other places that had outbreaks, Mongolia. They were doing so well, even maintaining strict 21 day quarantines instead of the usual 14 day, but there was a tiny breach of that quarantine that wasn't caught until after he had caused a cluster in Ulaanbaatar, where he had taken public transportation and attended a concert, as there were no lockdowns in Mongolia. Now there are, to try to eradicate this outbreak. In the meantime, Mongolia is writing off all utility costs for every household in the country through July. No one is getting the heat or water cut off while they're stuck at home.
For all the continued claims that Africa isn't being affected by the pandemic, that they're too young and healthy or whatever, it's not true. There's a lack of testing and recordkeeping across most of the continent. It could be that it's less bad than in other parts of the world, but that doesn't mean they're fine. If everything was fine twenty doctors in Nigeria wouldn't have died of COVID-19 in a single week. There are also anecdotal stories of coffin-sellers across the continent doing record business, but we'll probably never really know how bad it was. Most countries that supposedly do good recordkeeping have been doing a lousy job at it (except for Brazil - the number of excess deaths in Brazil over the past year very closely match the COVID-19 deaths. Good on you, Brazilian statisticians.)
Sometimes places just get overwhelmed, unable to count and record the dead properly. A lot of times and places though, it's highly political. Russia may have the third-highest number of COVID fatalities in the world, behind only the US and Brazil, as their federal statistics agency estimates the actual death toll in Russia to be over 186,000 rather than the 55,000 officially reported. All the things the online trolls do to try to downplay the numbers (these deaths don't count because it's just deaths of people who died with COVID, not of COVID) is stuff that the Russian health ministry was doing to massage the numbers into lies.
Also, anytime you see some idiot talking about "natural herd immunity" and giving ludicrously low numbers like 20% of the population or something to achieve it, remind everyone around the idiot (you're not going to convince the idiot) that herd immunity only occurs after vaccination. The city of Manaus, Brazil saw upwards of 76% of its population get infected by October and it did not stop transmission of SARS2. Over 90% of the population needs to have immunity before actual herd immunity sets in, and that is done by vaccine. Bolsonaro's policy of "do nothing and let people die" didn't get herd immunity despite almost 200,000 deaths. *glares at the US* Remember this.
Per capita, but given the population density of India...
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Are there details of what the UK has planned for the new lockdown?
In good news, Norway has 0 excess deaths in 2020 compared to a normal year. 449 people have died of corona, but we have not had any influenza this year and a lot lower incidence of other communicable diseases, so statistically it's a wash. (However, health care workers are severely overworked dealing with the current situation.) (We also just entered a 14 day national lockdown.)
Yes, the government's posted details here.
I would not be shocked if we get 20k new cases on Wednesday or Thursday.
Our governement is strongly considering lenghtening all current restrictions for 3-4 additional weeks. Current restrictions are until 11 January but our amount of hospitalisations is getting higher every day and our amount of new daily cases is at the higest it's ever been.
Apparenty they are considering imposing a curfew, France's style, but they haven't finalised their decision yet.
Initially the announcement was supposed to be today at 5PM but its been pushed back to tomorrow and we've been hearing all kind of rumors today. Curfew, no curfew. Schools open, not open...
It's pretty much a given than non essential commerces will stay closed and private gatherings with people outside your household will keep being prohibited, tough.
EDIT
Curfew starts 9 January until 8 Feburary, 8PM to 5AM. Fines from $1K to $6K for violating the curfew.
Groceries stores & convenient stores order to close 7:30PM
In person learning will resume 11 January for elementary school as initially planned. In person learning pushed back to 18 January for secondary schools.
Churches CLOSED excepted for funerals
As expected, gatherings outside your household are still prohibited.
Non essential commerces still closed excepted for curbside pickup.
Finally, PM Legault stated than Quebec have the capacity to vaccinate 25K people/day (Im not certain if his claim is accurate or not. Sure hope it is!)
Thus, the perfect time for North Dakota to end its mask mandates and capacity limits. Stuff your churches and bars full of maskless people!
North Dakota local cases are actually way down. Not gone, but it's more understandable why they'd ease on on restrictions than if you look at country (or world)- wide numbers.
Kind of suspect the numbers are down less to whatever mandates they had in place and more because just about everyone in any reasonably-sized community's already gotten it.
Also isn't a big chunk of those numbers tribal, which are imposing their own lockdowns and restrictions completely independent and much more effective than whatever the state is doing officially?
I had posted earlier about Manaus, Brazil still having uncontrolled spread after 75+% of the population appeared to have antibodies against SARS2. Herd immunity does not kick in until you get over the 90% (exact number depending on the disease) range, which comes from vaccination. Vaccination rates dropping below 90% lead to outbreaks when the disease is reintroduced back in.
But like, you can still "open up" the economy while still having mask mandates. New Hampshire's Republican governor extended the state mask mandate through March 26 for instance. Taking away the masks is just asking for that low level to return to the high level again.
Speaking of Manaus, BTW, their hospitals just ran out of oxygen. Emergency supplies were being flown in from across Brazil, but patients were dying at a much faster rate. There are also oxygen shortages in many other places, with one report of an entire ICU in Egypt dying after that hospital's oxygen supply also ran out. This is another manifestation of health systems being pushed past their limits, and why people talked about "flattening the curve" a thousand years ago last year. Death rates shoot up dramatically once hospitals can no longer provide necessary care.
This after she yesterday posted that they could not find the supposed message that was the reason for the first raid..
In other asshole news a doctor in Rhode Island deliberately exposed his staff and patients to SARS2 by wearing an N-95 mask with his nose exposed intentionally. Then he falsified his own records to pretend that he was asymptomatic while he was trying to super-spread it.
Also in "I keep telling everybody it's not all peachy in Africa":
Two ministers of the Zimbabwean government died in two days. Official numbers are massively underreported across most of the continent/world, though usually we don't know by how much. Might be *less bad* than in other, older countries, sure, but that's not *good*.
There's some misinformation here that needs to be sorted.
Herd immunity does not "kick in" at a certain percentage. Herd immunity describes a point on a continuum. Population levels of immunity always reduce the ability of a virus to spread. The more immunity you have, the further along the continuum you are, the more spread is suppressed. Herd immunity is the point on the continuum when that effect drives transmissions rates (the number of new cases each case creates on average) below 1.0. It doesn't just wait until you get to a certain point and then "kick in." There's no magic force detecting prevalence levels in the population so it knows to turn on the herd immunity.
That percentage can be 90%, but it can also be 30%, or 50%, or a lot of other percents. It's a complicated number that is hard to pin down. An oversimplified formula to give you an idea is usually 1-(1/R0) where R0 represents the transmission rate in a fully susceptible population. That won't give you a number above 90% until the R0 of the virus gets to 10, which is pretty rarified air for viruses. Measles, chickenpox and mumps are that contagious. Most viruses aren't.
The Manaus thing. The best way to explain the Manaus thing is to recall 2011 when scientists in Geneva announced that they had detected neutrinos appearing to move faster than the speed of light. Everyone know this was impossible, so it had to be a measurement error, but they had to publish the results anyway because they're scientists and let peer review figure out where the error was.
If it appears that Manaus has unchecked spread despite extremely high prevalence for a virus to which exposure generates immunity, the most likely explanation is not "exposure does not generate immunity" or "population immunity levels do not slow down spread." It's "we probably measured prevalence wrong."
The study that said Manaus had 75% prevalence was widely criticized almost as soon as it was released (https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/study-estimates-76-percent-of-brazilian-city-exposed-to-sars-cov-2-68272). The simple answer is that Manaus never had 75% prevalence and the paper estimating it did was incorrect. Like many of the early serological studies that massively overestimated prevalence, they used a sample that had been obtained by advertising free covid testing, which inadvertently biased the sampling toward people who had reason to believe they had been infected.
Another thing to note is that if I have a single population, such as a city, surrounded by many other populations and during an outbreak the main thing people do is stop moving between populations then you can end up with one population (the city) with a very high number of infected people, surrounded by many other communities with a very low fraction of infected people.
If during normal times, there is extensive mingling between the city and the surrounding communities then the 75% prevalence in the city helps them a little bit, but it will NOT stop spread in the city. Because the susceptable people in the city are continually bumping into infected people from outside the city. Rt in the city community is below 1, but the city community only exists during lockdown. Imagine if you had an outbreak in your house with 6 people in it. 5 of your family got infected, one didn't. Is that last person protected from infection? Of course not, because your house is not a community into itself.
However, as Inkstain says, the simple fact that the city of Manaus is saying 'It is a worse outbreak this time, we have more sick people' means it is impossible that they got to 75% infected, because, in order to get to 75% of people infected you need an ENORMOUS number of people to be infected very quickly.
In data collected up to 2 days after the second shot the vaccine is working in the wild, with decent effacacy even in old people, even after only one dose. All metrics look to be continuing to improve over time, and the second shot should be expected to accelerate the trend.
Article quote
"In its 15,000-volunteer U.K. trial, Novavax said, the vaccine prevented nine in 10 cases, including against a new strain of the virus that is circulating there. But in a 4,400-volunteer study in South Africa, the vaccine proved only 49% effective. In the 94% of the study population that did not have HIV, the efficacy was 60%."
Larger study returned greater effacacy signal. Second trial is quite small, and was intended to study the results of HIV vs having the virus. As such, error bars there are pretty large.
A good result all round, if perhaps a little dissapointing vs the modified SA strain. However, there's a lot of detail in terms of why that might have happened beyond just "The vaccine worked less well" as there were different monitoring protocols and definitions of case vs non case (as the SA trial was originally designed to probe the effects of HIV)
Johnson and Johnson reports results for their single shot vaccine.
Varied performance against symptomatic disease claimed
72% effective against all symptomatic disease in the US
57% effective against all symptomatic disease in South Africa
Consistent performance against severe disease claimed
85% effective against severe disease
100% effective against death (which I imagine has a weak confidence band, but still)
Their description of disease is a bit odd in the press statements, but should still give confidence.
“ We're 85% effective at preventing severe disease, which we define as disease that makes you feel particularly sick at home, or may go to the hospital, or worse," Dr. Mathai Mammen, global head of research and development at Johnson & Johnson, told CNN.
"And we are right now completely protective, it would appear 100% protective, against disease that actually does make you go to the hospital, we're 100% protective against death."
“ "I'm looking at that South African variant, and I'm seeing that we're able to completely protect against concerning levels of illness, where one might go to a hospital," he said.”
72 -> 57 should give us more hope that our other 95% vaccines won’t fall quite so far.
This is an enormous result, espescially for combatting the disease around the whole world, because this is a fridge stable vaccine which requires one shot. In addition, other articles have indicated there are strong signs that protective markers have risen and remained on the increase throughout the trial. A two shot trial is being evaluated, and one can hope for improved protection there.
From their own press release, rather than a summary
https://www.jnj.com/johnson-johnson-announces-single-shot-janssen-covid-19-vaccine-candidate-met-primary-endpoints-in-interim-analysis-of-its-phase-3-ensemble-trial
“Prevention of severe disease; protection against COVID-related hospitalization and death
The vaccine candidate was 85 percent effective in preventing severe disease across all regions studied, 28 days after vaccination in all adults 18 years and older. Efficacy against severe disease increased over time with no cases in vaccinated participants reported after day 49.
The Janssen COVID-19 vaccine candidate demonstrated complete protection against COVID-related hospitalization and death, 28 days post-vaccination. There was a clear effect of the vaccine on COVID-19 cases requiring medical intervention (hospitalization, ICU admission, mechanical ventilation, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO)), with no reported cases among participants who had received the Janssen COVID-19 vaccine, 28 days post-vaccination.”
If that latter statement is true as apparent and there’s not some kind of weird ‘And’ logic going on there then it would seem they are claiming zero hospitalizations across all regions 28 days post vaccination, and 100% effacacy against severe disease across all regions 49 days post vaccination. This would be astounding news, espescially vs the variants as it would imply that you can get infected with them, but that the immune system quickly figures out their tricks and tells them to piss right off.
I agree, although, clearly rarer events are harder to prove with high confidence. However, the claimed uniform worldwide performance vs all strains in all countries vs severe/hospitalization/death is very promising. A truly unmitigated victory would be a more than 80% reduction in transmission overall as well as that (because that will eventually lead to viral extinction), but thats even harder to prove because the vaccine may also be affecting how infectious you are and for how long, as well as how susceptible you are and for how long.
22,000 patients in the trial and zero hospitalizations sounds seriously great.
Discussion paper
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00234-8/fulltext
Results paper
An important thing to consider is that the vaccine group in this study was 3x bigger than the placebo group. This is a perfectly fair thing to do if you expect high effacacy of your vaccine, and high incidence of disease in your control group. So, remember to consider fraction ratios, not raw numbers.
The Gamelaya institutes multiple adenovirus vector covid vaccine proves to be ~92% effective in a full trial with ~100% effacacy reported against severe disease starting 21 days after dose 1.
" 62 (1·3%) of 4902 individuals in the placebo group and 16 (0·1%) of 14 964 participants in the vaccine group had confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection from day 21 after first vaccine dose (the primary outcome). A time-resolved plot of the incidence rate in the two groups showed that the immunity required to prevent disease arose within 18 days of the first dose. "
"There were no cases (vaccine group) and 20 cases (placebo group) of moderate or severe COVID-19 confirmed at least 21 days after dose 1; thus, vaccine efficacy against moderate or severe COVID-19 was 100% (94·4–100·0)."
This trial was conducted primarily in Russia, however, Russia has very little genetic sequencing and a severe ongoing outbreak with few controls in place, as such, it is likely but not known for sure that the vaccine faced multiple strains which exist in Russia.
This is another excellent result, and does provide some weight to the 'Oxford vaccine second small dose could work better' pile. In addition, its another example of severe disease and infections decreasing a few weeks after dose 1 (18 days here) which is good news for other Adenovirus vector vaccines.
Weakness of this data is very few non white participants, and no known testing vs variants of concern. However, if you want me to believe Russia somehow does not have any variants of concern despite extensive travel links with the UK and South Africa, then I'd need some pretty serious proof! For the UK variant at least.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3777268
10s of millions of doses of astra Zeneca/Oxford vaccine sit awaiting us government approval, while results from the UK and follow up clinical trials continue to demonstrate that it is an excellent vaccine, even with only one dose. We could double our rate of vaccinations tomorrow by approving it for emergency use, and if we aren’t willing to use it, we should relinquish our order and ship the doses overseas.
Meanwhile, AZ is approved for use in the EU, but they don't have any doses to deliver. (More precisely, they're delivering less than half of what they've promised. My country is getting less than 10% of what they promised (2M doses vs. 0.19 M doses).)
Agree 100%, at the very least we should be shipping new production to Mexico (where it is approved) instead of warehousing it! A stockpile is one thing, ready for approval, but an ever growing stockpile is ridiculous in these times.
In other good news, a new Isreali drug just passed phase 1 trials and appears to be very successful at treating symptoms in moderate/severe patients. 29/30 patients recovered completely within a few days of it being administered. It seems to target the cytokine storm that Covid19 causes, and counteracts it. First I've heard of this, but it seems very promising.
Oh, and don't tell yourself that people will be drinking and dining outdoors. Iowa along with most of the Midwest is currently in a big cold snap where temperatures are predicted on many days not to get above 0 F for at least the next week. I guess we'll just be seeing how bad it gets.