Board 8 > Coronavirus Topic 13: Back to Normal: The Finale: Take 1

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Wanglicious posted...

i see the denial runs in the family.

It's one of the main sources of her information.

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Remember when it looked like India might pass USA in cases. = /

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I find it hard to trust data from China, personally.

I think we all have thoroughly believed that it was highly unlikely that asymptomatic spread happened though unless in extreme contact. It is why many felt children could go to schools and not be an issue as major vectors because they are mostly asymptomatic. That argument has been posed from the start. That, yes, you can spread as an asymptomatic but it was unlikely and even if you did it was likely going to be a lesser infection.

Of course, this is theorying, but I mean, the idea has been out there for months upon months now.

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https://www.barrons.com/news/russia-reports-nearly-26-000-virus-related-deaths-in-november-agency-01609168807

Russia updates death toll to 180+k from 55k.

O.o

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Corrik7 posted...

Remember when it looked like India might pass USA in cases. = /

they did a long time ago. india's numbers aren't accurate either, they either don't want to or don't have the ability to count those in the lower two castes in particular. happens with every disease outbreak that happens over there, you'll get a more accurate count in a couple years. happened to malaria in 2013 when it was undercounted by a factor of 20-30x, happened to tuberculosis in 2015 where only half were counted, and according to India's own government statistics, 20% of deaths aren't reported at all. note, that's a normal stat for them, not a pandemic one that'll primarily involve people with no toilets, poor hygiene, no electricity, etc. eventually when more info is known there you'll see numbers that utterly dwarf ours. which is also a more accurate take of china's numbers too, though we won't know those for a fact because they won't either.

russia's also known to lie on numbers.

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Wanglicious posted...

they did a long time ago. india's numbers aren't accurate either, they either don't want to or don't have the ability to count those in the lower two castes in particular. happens with every disease outbreak that happens over there, you'll get a more accurate count in a couple years. happened to malaria in 2013 when it was undercounted by a factor of 20-30x, happened to tuberculosis in 2015 where only half were counted, and according to India's own government statistics, 20% of deaths aren't reported at all. note, that's a normal stat for them, not a pandemic one that'll primarily involve people with no toilets, poor hygiene, no electricity, etc. eventually when more info is known there you'll see numbers that utterly dwarf ours. which is also a more accurate take of china's numbers too, though we won't know those for a fact because they won't either.

russia's also known to lie on numbers.

Remember when they were about a day or two from OFFICIALLY passing us? Now USA is about double of India officially, with us rounding 20 million cases and 350k dead.

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i just don't bother keeping track of any numbers from those 3 nations past the first 3 months since by then data's gonna be too messed up and most leaks will have been plugged outside of higher level intelligence. official numbers won't be particularly useful even then but you'll have some clearer markers and trends on it to work with. india's... not the same as china or russia, it does legitimately seem like incompetence and lack of ability are much bigger factors, but it's prone to miss just as much.

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It was more a couple of weeks away, but to be fair the US was getting 20-30k cases while India was pushing 100k cases and within a couple of weeks the numbers were almost flipped.

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https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

Pennsylvania had more new deaths than Texas today even thought PA had more restrictions in place, New Jersey also for some reason had more new deaths than Florida, what a strange virus.

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Walking-Alive posted...

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

Pennsylvania had more new deaths than Texas today even thought PA had more restrictions in place, New Jersey also for some reason had more new deaths than Florida, what a strange virus.

This is a combination of holiday reporting lag and population density. There isn't anything particular strange here.

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are they reported the same way? I would be hesitant to pull much information out of a single day.


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Every state does their own thing.

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There's going to continue to be a lag in reporting through into the middle of next week. I suspect that by January 7 we'll see non-lagged numbers again.

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NJ isn't locked down or anything currently, so I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean anyway.

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My fiancees sisters mother in law went to her (my fiancees sisters) Christmas gathering with covid and symptoms.

I am personally shocked.

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Are they the type of people to go visit someone if they have the flu/cold or are they just being stubborn because this is COVID

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charmander6000 posted...

Are they the type of people to go visit someone if they have the flu/cold or are they just being stubborn because this is COVID

Covid, though I suppose they wouldn't let a cold stop them either. I dunno about the flu.

The person who tested positive today had to be talked into getting tested because she refused because "they are going to force me to get a vaccine if I go". Lol.

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literally not how it works. i assume you know that already so good job talking her into it.
and i hope that personal shock was sarcasm.

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Wanglicious posted...

literally not how it works. i assume you know that already so good job talking her into it.
and i hope that personal shock was sarcasm.

I didn't talk her into getting a test. My fiancee did. I don't really talk to that lady.

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https://www.gov.uk/government/news/oxford-universityastrazeneca-vaccine-authorised-by-uk-medicines-regulator

The Oxford/AZ vaccine was authorized in the UK. Potentially a sign of future authorization in the US if they apply for special consideration to have data considered by the FDA from outside the US trial (which is still a few weeks from completion)

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Furthermore on the US trials for AZ's vaccine, I was mistaken and apparently they aren't expected to be completed until April. So the expectation is that approval wouldn't be until April.

I can't say I'm a fan of that. They absolutely have to step from usual procedure and consider foreign data.

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Esuriat posted...

Furthermore on the US trials for AZ's vaccine, I was mistaken and apparently they aren't expected to be completed until April. So the expectation is that approval wouldn't be until April.

I can't say I'm a fan of that. They absolutely have to step from usual procedure and consider foreign data.

I remember a month ago they said as of now that they expected the Oxford vaccine to not get approval.

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That was likely based on the information that was released prematurely, and wasn't the full data that was submitted to the UK's regulatory committee which then saw approval as of today. Also now Argentina's regulatory committee has approved it.

The US trial differs from the completed foreign trials in that dosing is far more of the "half dose, then full dose" regimen that was discovered by accident earlier, as well as administering them with a three month space between doses. But it doesn't alter the fact that there's an efficacious vaccine at the current dosing plan that seems to fully protect from hospitalization even if it doesn't fully protect about 30% of recipients.

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Right, they said it's 100% of the most severe effects. It's also significantly cheaper while also being easier to transport and store due to temperature/tech behind it. Lots of benefits to it if they can get it right.

Granted it's a bit silly to phrase it as 100% from hospitalization or severe effects but that's probably closer to the reality of the mRNA pair too. It's an important vaccine because of the three it's the one best suited for mass production.

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So, I see multiple things going on here. So, what makes sense?

My fiancees work place says 10 days from positive, she is due back at work. No negative test required to return.

An acquaintance of mine had a December 15th Covid positive. He isn't allowed to return back to work until he tests Negative and is still out and still testing positive.

My future work place delayed my start date because their policy is if you have someone in your household positive that you must quarantine for 10 days, then stay out an additional 14 days in which you then need two negatives to return to work.

Here is the CDC...

"If you have recovered from your symptoms after testing positive for COVID-19, you may continue to test positive for three months or more without being contagious to others. For this reason, you should be tested only if you develop new symptoms of possible COVID-19. Getting tested again should be discussed with your healthcare provider, especially if you have been in close contact with another person who has tested positive for COVID-19 in the last 14 days."

Like, this sounds like a crapshoot.

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https://www.wtae.com/article/hundreds-of-covid-19-vaccine-doses-thrown-out-after-vials-were-intentionally-removed-from-hospital-fridge/35101448

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the fact that we are sucking so bad at rolling out the vaccine is stressing me out

the federal government basically saying "hey we made the vaccine, you figure out the rest" to the states at some point has to be criminally negligent right?

like we're supposed to be a superpower right? not a bunch of college freshmen on a group project, right? RIGHT RIGHT RIGHT? no one knows what's going on.

sorry, my mom tested positive the week before her nursing home was set to administer vaccines, so I'm pissed


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To try to keep some optimism:

Has it been confirmed that the new variant of COVID is more virulent? I was under the impression that there was a possibility that the reason it spread so rapidly in the UK was due to a superspreader event(s), and it wasn't 100% clear it was the virus itself, as the variant doesn't seem to be spreading rapidly anywhere else it's been found. Have scientists confirmed that the virulence is due to the variant itself and I missed it, because the media seems to be reporting this as if it is established fact.

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they tracked the virus in the UK back to September and have been marking steady increases. 29% in mid-November, 62% early December. so the assumption here is that it's just much more contagious based off of the increases. i'm sure there was definitely some super spreader stuff happening too and that explains why they went from 70% to 56% more contagious but that's where we're at right now. a perfectly firm statement of how much more, nobody actually knows, it just appears to be the case.

with that said.
it does not appear to be more severe at all. there ARE strains which are both - Africa had an outbreak - but that's rarer and hasn't had anything notable in western nations. that's also why it's accepted as fact, there's a couple dozen changes the virus has had with some subtle differences. nothing that any of the vaccines can't figure out though.

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Corrik7 posted...

Like, this sounds like a crapshoot.

That's what you get when you let everyone come up with their own policies.

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Yesmar_ posted...

Have scientists confirmed that the virulence is due to the variant itself and I missed it, because the media seems to be reporting this as if it is established fact.

I believe they have at this point. I want to say it is something like a change to the outer shell that makes it easier for the virus to attach and begin to replicate.

colliding posted...

the federal government basically saying "hey we made the vaccine, you figure out the rest" to the states at some point has to be criminally negligent right?

They expect the private sector to figure it out because that is literally their answer to everything. It should have been what everyone would have expected them to do.

The good news is that they did actually acquire enough vaccine stock to distribute over time, so this can still be fixed.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/west-virginia-national-guard-accidentally-gives-42-people-regeneron-antibody-instead-of-covid-vaccine

this is insane. the monoclonal antibodies are administered through an IV. how in the world???

people are so ******* stupid.

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Esuriat posted...

That was likely based on the information that was released prematurely, and wasn't the full data that was submitted to the UK's regulatory committee which then saw approval as of today. Also now Argentina's regulatory committee has approved it.

The US trial differs from the completed foreign trials in that dosing is far more of the "half dose, then full dose" regimen that was discovered by accident earlier, as well as administering them with a three month space between doses. But it doesn't alter the fact that there's an efficacious vaccine at the current dosing plan that seems to fully protect from hospitalization even if it doesn't fully protect about 30% of recipients.

I thought they also changed the time between doses in the more effective regimen and didnt know which change was the important part?

In any case, I think they needed more data for that regimen at the very least to bring down the error bars; it was only like a fourth of the sample or something.

(Also pet peeve: people quoting the 70% number thats a weighted average over the two different dosing regimens makes absolutely zero sense and I hate it)

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I was pretty sure they were separate "issues" that appeared in their trials due to contractor error. They both had accidental half doses and doses that were delivered after 3 months.

And for the record I wasn't quoting the 70% number from the initial release (I agree that it sucks and its part of what I hated about AZ's public relations) but another more recent claim I'd seen around that target for the original dosing regimen.

The regulatory boards of the countries who have approved the vaccine agree. The only dosing they're allowing in the emergency use is what there's sufficient data for: The one that was initially seen at 62% for the two standard doses.

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Also the UK is going off script with their vaccine scheduling right now. A lot of people are being notified of changes in their second dose of Pfizer/BioNTech shots so that they're also several months out like the AZ vaccine plans, which Pfizer is rightfully angry about because there is not trial data to show that there's efficacy at that spacing.

https://www.axios.com/pfizer-single-dose-data-716702dd-324f-42b9-b88d-07df43ca198a.html

Basically they're trying to blitz people with a first dose and hoping the pieces fall in place for a second one. Somewhat relatedly, I remember a couple weeks back Florida (really just DeSantis) openly considering rationing a single dose of vaccine to people and calling it at that. Hopefully that notion doesn't cross their minds.

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Oh whoops I actually didnt intend the pet peeve part to be directed to you in particular (I didnt process the 30% part of your post) and that sounded more confrontational than I intended! It was just an aside since we were on the subject of that vaccine.

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It's fine, I just realized it could have looked that way and wanted to clear it up!

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https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/florida-breaks-record-with-17192-new-coronavirus-cases-reported-in-a-single-day

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https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-vaccine-updates-12-31-20/h_a21743b742f36b26d5b6e8ccf7e0b9a1

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/01/france-to-step-up-covid-jabs-after-claims-of-bowing-to-anti-vaxxers

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322 people total? Did France only get a small shipment? My province is doing almost 10x that rate per day and people are complaining that we are going too slow.

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charmander6000 posted...

322 people total? Did France only get a small shipment? My province is doing almost 10x that rate per day and people are complaining that we are going too slow.

It seems to say that it is because of their system that makes them sign a written consent and have days to determine if they want to have it still or not.

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https://newsinteractive.post-gazette.com/21-hours-in-uniontown-hospitals-red-zone-tears-frustration-and-grit/

This is my area. Ironically, on the Facebook post of this, the majority are arguing how this is basically a ruse and yadda yadda.

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/01/french-police-attacked-while-trying-to-stop-new-years-eve-rave

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https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2021/01/02/large-numbers-of-health-care-and-frontline-workers-are-refusing-covid-19-vaccine/?sh=669add6b3c96

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Corrik7 posted...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2021/01/02/large-numbers-of-health-care-and-frontline-workers-are-refusing-covid-19-vaccine/?sh=669add6b3c96

OK, no problem. Fire them all.

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say you fire them.
then where will you find the replacements for the nurses and doctors you just fired?

like yeah, there's a ton of people needing jobs right now, but i don't think nurses and doctors are particularly in the unemployed crowd.


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