*** OFFICIAL *** COVID-19 CoronaVirus Thread

[prosopis 1,516]

11 hours ago, beer 30 said:

Glad to hear you're back on your feet GB 

Not glad to hear about the arthritis issue since I have psoriatic arthritis. You can PM me if you don't want to get into specifics here but what do you take for it? I'm on Enbrel (an injectable) once a week. Wonder how that will interact with this?

Thanks,

I use Ginger, Turmeric with Curcumin, B-12, Fish oil, Mens multi vit, milk thistle extract, Vit C immune support.

I also use topical Voltaren that I get in Mexico. It's double the strength of what you can get in the US and cheaper.

[prosopis 1,516]

10 hours ago, Courtjester said:

My wife is getting her 1st shot today. I asked her to make sure they tell her what brand she is getting and to do all she can to nail down a follow up appointment. 

I have seen horror stories on the news about the vast number of people who are overdue for their second dose and I don't want that to happen to her. 

I also worry (and maybe this is unfounded) about people getting Pfizer for their first shot and then, because of availability, getting a different brand the 2nd time. I assume there is some quality control going on there. 

I always thought I would be the first in the family to get the vaccine, but being in education, she beat me to the punch. I am still on a wait list. 

Here in Az they scheduled both shots three weeks apart at the same time. When I got there for my second shot we all confirmed Pfizer and away I went. I have no complaints about the system I used and how they had it set up.

[Battersbox 151]

5 hours ago, Doug B said:

A few months back (Aug-Sept 2020), the issue of amplification cycles affecting PCR tests was also being discussed soberly in center-left media. Examples from The New York Times, MIT Medical School, and The Advisory Board (who's 'The Advisory Board?'). Maybe back in the spring, amplification cycles were a big thing for COVID deniers, but that's not universally true anymore.

In researching amplification cycles, I did find various links to Twitter pages and such ... most of which were, yeah, about what you expect from social media. So I just rejected all that out of hand and looked for more grounded information from better-rooted sources.

Thank you for the links. The New York Times story I remember quite well, which specifically mentions 40 cycles. I knew I'd seen that before.

[Biff84 2,793]

I still think that retail pharmacy will play an important role in getting the vaccine out but I think it may take some thinking outside the box. Today we did an ‘in store clinic’ with both pharmacists working. I was able to increase to 60 doses today from the 20 I normally do and I could have probably done double that. I focused completely on giving the shots with one tech focusing on paperwork leaving two people to do normal pharmacy business.

Likewise the next two days a group of 10 immunizers will give out 1000 shot each each day for teachers.

I say use the pharmacies as hubs but bring in immunizers to focus on giving shots. With pharmacy techs able to immunize in many states, if opens up a lot of opportunity to do it better than usual.

[beer 30 3,325]

1st vaccination clinic in the state of SC set to open today. They have 500 doses with another 2,000 on order. 

https://www.heraldonline.com/news/coronavirus/article248663715.html

There are 5,024,369 in the state of SC and it’s January 21st 

[The Z Machine 4,782]

6 hours ago, Biff84 said:

I still think that retail pharmacy will play an important role in getting the vaccine out but I think it may take some thinking outside the box. Today we did an ‘in store clinic’ with both pharmacists working. I was able to increase to 60 doses today from the 20 I normally do and I could have probably done double that. I focused completely on giving the shots with one tech focusing on paperwork leaving two people to do normal pharmacy business.

Likewise the next two days a group of 10 immunizers will give out 1000 shot each each day for teachers.

I say use the pharmacies as hubs but bring in immunizers to focus on giving shots. With pharmacy techs able to immunize in many states, if opens up a lot of opportunity to do it better than usual.

This is obvious.  We need an army of volunteers to handle admin tasks while trained folks do the jabbing.

Why can't the US mobilize a workforce like we do for the census? 

Companies should give their workers days off to volunteer in this effort.  It will shorten the time to "normal", build community, and result in fewer deaths. 

[parasaurolophus 6,996]

12 hours ago, Battersbox said:

Thank you for the links. The New York Times story I remember quite well, which specifically mentions 40 cycles. I knew I'd seen that before.

iirc the NYT story focused on the non infectious aspect of it, not the false positive aspect. 

Obviously we saw all the false positive data about antibody tests. Did we ever see false positive data for PCR tests? 

[Doug B 6,584]

5 minutes ago, parasaurolophus said:

iirc the NYT story focused on the non infectious aspect of it, not the false positive aspect. 

Obviously we saw all the false positive data about antibody tests. Did we ever see false positive data for PCR tests? 

From what I've been able to gather, the two aspects in red are related when filtered through a popular understanding of the science by non-scientists.

"False positive", used colloquially, can mean "having no virus or viral fragments whatsoever" ... but it can also mean "having a small number of noninfectious viral fragments still detectable". For the purposes of the layman ... "being virus-free" is equivalent to "no longer having enough virus to infect others".

[Nathan R. Jessep 5,687]

15 hours ago, ericttspikes said:

Should a vaccine strain change be required to address virus variants in the future, the Companies believe that the flexibility of BioNTech’s proprietary mRNA vaccine platform is well suited to enable such adjustment."

https://biontechse.gcs-web.com/news-releases/news-release-details/pfizer-and-biontech-publish-results-study-showing-covid-19

https://investors.biontech.de/news-releases/news-release-details/vitro-study-shows-pfizer-biontech-covid-19-vaccine-elicits

My question on this is... if you already have their vaccine in you, I assume this means you'd need a third (or more) "update" or booster shot?  Or, looking ahead, basically we might be looking at yearly flu-shot-like type deal here, it seems?  If so, it seems the single-dose vaccines due to hit the market will be a better long-term solution. 

[parasaurolophus 6,996]

35 minutes ago, Doug B said:

From what I've been able to gather, the two aspects in red are related when filtered through a popular understanding of the science by non-scientists.

"False positive", used colloquially, can mean "having no virus or viral fragments whatsoever" ... but it can also mean "having a small number of noninfectious viral fragments still detectable". For the purposes of the layman ... "being virus-free" is equivalent to "no longer having enough virus to infect others".

One of them is a "current" false positive. Doesnt really bother me if that makes case count stats. They had it at one point. I want to know the false positive % where they never had it and it is a true false positive. Cant seem to find that. 

[Doug B 6,584]

28 minutes ago, Nathan R. Jessep said:

My question on this is... if you already have their vaccine in you, I assume this means you'd need a third (or more) "update" or booster shot?  Or, looking ahead, basically we might be looking at yearly flu-shot-like type deal here, it seems?  If so, it seems the single-dose vaccines due to hit the market will be a better long-term solution. 

In the future -- when a sufficient level of herd immunity is reached and maybe a few years past that -- I would expect that even the two-dose vaccines will start being given as single doses. With a possible exception of initial vaccinations for people entering healthcare work, the military, and so on.

Keep in mind that the current flu vaccines don't typically approach 90% effectiveness. My understanding is that flu vaccines' effectiveness regarding infection-prevention are typically ~50% (plus or minus some range, varies year-to-year) but that their effectiveness in preventing severe illness if infected is quite high.

A COVID-19 vaccine, in the future, would be similar. A one-dose effectiveness of 50-80% percent would be just fine for a COVID-19 vaccine in, say, 2029-30 -- presumably in an environment where COVID-19 is largely beaten back (if still endemic).

[Nathan R. Jessep 5,687]

3 minutes ago, Doug B said:

In the future -- when a sufficient level of herd immunity is reached and maybe a few years past that -- I would expect that even the two-dose vaccines will start being given as single doses. With a possible exception of initial vaccinations for people entering healthcare work, the military, and so on.

Keep in mind that the current flu vaccines don't typically approach 90% effectiveness. My understanding is that flu vaccines' effectiveness regarding infection-prevention are typically ~50% (plus or minus some range, varies year-to-year) but that their effectiveness in preventing severe illness if infected is quite high.

A COVID-19 vaccine, in the future, would be similar. A one-dose effectiveness of 50-80% percent would be just fine for a COVID-19 vaccine in, say, 2029-30 -- presumably in an environment where COVID-19 is largely beaten back (if still endemic).

Right, I get that. The 95% rate of COVID vacc was a homerun, and I think made them initially confident it would cover variants well, but I guess as more data becomes available, now they aren't so sure. And my fear is that it will cause many to say "See the shot doesn't even work!!"

[Doug B 6,584]

6 minutes ago, parasaurolophus said:

One of them is a "current" false positive. Doesnt really bother me if that makes case count stats. They had it at one point. 

Even the point in red could be nitpicked, but admittedly it would only be an academic exercise.

Let's say someone was exposed to an infectious load of SARS-CoV-2, but their immune system got the drop on the virions and pretty much beat the infection within hours or days (uncommon, but well possible). That person would have detectable viral fragments in their blood stream for some length of time. Would we call that person a COVID-19 case? Or would it matter if we did?

I do agree with you that including "barely infected" people in the case counts is not problematic one way or the other -- it's not enough people to really change the overall story of COVID-19 in the US.

[JaxBill 6,742]

Meanwhile in Central Florida

@eric_adelson: Well-reported @OcalaGazette story from @Bfarrell727 on high school sports in the pandemic era: https://www.ocalagazette.com/high-school-athletics-vs-covid-19/

[Doug B 6,584]

1 minute ago, Nathan R. Jessep said:

Right, I get that. The 95% rate of COVID vacc was a homerun, and I think made them initially confident it would cover variants well, but I guess as more data becomes available, now they aren't so sure. And my fear is that it will cause many to say "See the shot doesn't even work!!"

I still think the popular media is making too much of "Variants!" and "New strains!". But we'll know more in the future, and I reserve the right to reconsider if more and better information comes in and scientific consensus is achieved.

[parasaurolophus 6,996]

1 hour ago, Doug B said:

I still think the popular media is making too much of 

A very long list of items...

[ericttspikes 2,588]

1 hour ago, Nathan R. Jessep said:

My question on this is... if you already have their vaccine in you, I assume this means you'd need a third (or more) "update" or booster shot?  Or, looking ahead, basically we might be looking at yearly flu-shot-like type deal here, it seems?  If so, it seems the single-dose vaccines due to hit the market will be a better long-term solution. 

I believe this will be a future booster shot situation, and COVID is endemic. I'm also skeptical that the JNJ will end up being 1-shot solution with similar efficacy as the mRNA vaccines, we'll see. I'm guessing that JNJ data will show that 2 shots will be the only way to get in the 90%+ range. Astra Zeneca looks to be moving to a 2 shot solution with the Oxford vaccine because the 1 shot can't compare to the mRNA results. Just a guess, and we'll find out soon.

[ericttspikes 2,588]

1 hour ago, Doug B said:

I still think the popular media is making too much of "Variants!" and "New strains!". But we'll know more in the future, and I reserve the right to reconsider if more and better information comes in and scientific consensus is achieved.

I've seen the same data spun different ways in articles; from the "Vaccines aren't working" headlines to "Good news, vaccines work on variants". I do think the efficacy cushion that Fauci was talking about yesterday is a decent way to look at it. 90%+ efficacy to start is really exceptional. Almost unheard of really. There is a lot of cushion there for the current vaccines to be a viable offensive weapon at ending the pandemic, and if efficacy really wanes, the technology allows rapid reformulation. The main thing now is to get what we have in as many arms as fast as we can.

[3 hour lunch 157]

After most people are vaccinated and start doing (more) stupid stuff, isn’t there a long period of time we are putting our kids at risk before any of them can get a vaccine?

[jamny 6,327]

Are there multiple regular flu shots or are they all made by one company each year?

[Doug B 6,584]

56 minutes ago, jamny said:

Are there multiple regular flu shots or are they all made by one company each year?

Here's an up-to-date CDC list of the 10 flu vaccines administered in the United States for the 2020-21 flu season. Four manufacturers collectively make these 10 vaccines -- GlaxoSmithKline (UK), Sanofi Pasteur (France), Seqirus (Australia), and AstraZeneca (UK). All have major holdings in the United States, including manufacturing facilities.

Page 3 of this Power Point shows the three dozen worldwide manufacturers of influenza vaccines as of 2012 (before AstraZeneca started producing them). Probably a few players from eight years ago have dropped out, while a few new ones have joined.

Edited Friday at 07:25 PM by Doug B

[worrierking 1,396]

7 hours ago, The Z Machine said:

This is obvious.  We need an army of volunteers to handle admin tasks while trained folks do the jabbing.

Why can't the US mobilize a workforce like we do for the census? 

Companies should give their workers days off to volunteer in this effort.  It will shorten the time to "normal", build community, and result in fewer deaths. 

We've had internal discussions about this here in Louisiana.  Our guidance has been that there isn't enough vaccine coming to begin mass vaccination sites yet.  

Our Governor today confirmed this. We are basically at a plateau in how many doses we will be receiving of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines from the feds for the next 4-5 weeks.  Plans are to use the Johnson & Johnson vaccine for megasites when (if) it is approved for EUA.  It needs no special storage requirements and is a single dose, so it would be ideal for the megasites.  

Locally, we think we have the volunteers needed, but not the vaccines. 

Edited Friday at 09:20 PM by worrierking

[Terminalxylem 2,904]

6 hours ago, Nathan R. Jessep said:

My question on this is... if you already have their vaccine in you, I assume this means you'd need a third (or more) "update" or booster shot?  Or, looking ahead, basically we might be looking at yearly flu-shot-like type deal here, it seems?  If so, it seems the single-dose vaccines due to hit the market will be a better long-term solution. 

I doubt mutations which result in competent but immunologically distinct SARS-CoV-2 variants will be frequent enough to warrant yearly re-vaccination. The only virus that applies to is influenza, which changes both by point mutations (single nucleic acid errors during the replication process, which normally occur in non-coding regions of the viral genome) and wholesale exchange of large coding segments for structural proteins between species (typically birds, and to a lesser extent pigs and other critters). The latter mechanism is known as genetic shift, and isn't very common outside of influenza viruses.

This year is different in that SARS-CoV-2 is new, so huge numbers of people have been infected with commensurate large viral populations. The more any virus replicates, the more likely mutations occur. Eventually one or multiple mutations may lead to structural and functional consequences, as we're seeing with the UK and SA strains. It's unclear if we'll need a booster shot to cover those (especially SA) yet.

So if we beat SARS-CoV-2 down to non-pandemic levels, through some combination of natural and vaccine-induced immunity, there will be less opportunity for it to mutate. In concert with its overall slower mutation rate (than influenza) and lack of genetic shift, we shouldn't require short interval revaccination once the pandemic has passed IMO.

DISCLAIMERS:

1. Coronaviruses aren't known to act like flu and swap gene segments between species, but if somehow SARS learns this trick, all bets are off.

2. Immunity to non-SARS coronaviruses isn't believed to be long lasting, but that isn't thought to be the result of mutations. There are other ways coronaviruses (and respiratory viruses in general) evade the immune system, which were described in an article I linked hundreds of pages ago. But revaccination won't likely impact these mechanisms anyway.

[Ilov80s 29,232]

Not sure if anyone cares or if you are monitoring this stuff but I got round 1 of Moderna today.

[top dog 1,596]

 My 86 year old father was able to get vaccinated today. I've been trying to get him an appt. for the last two weeks. Signed him up at University Hospitals, The Cleveland Clinic, the local health dept. and all the local pharmacies that are distributing. Every site says "NO APPOINTMENTS" available when you try to sign up. He called me this afternoon and said "Hey I got a text from the pharmacy by your house. Can you go to this website?" He then proceeded to give me the wrong address multiple times.. "H-T-T-P, CORONA dash blah blah blah..." I'm like can you spell it? "Sure. CORONA.. C-O-V-I-D".  I said, Dad.. You are saying corona and spelling covid... "YOU WANT ME TO JUST BRING YOU MY PHONE???"... Yes dad.. That's a great idea. He came over at 5:15pm and I clicked the link for him in his text. Confirmed it was him and they had an appointment at 6:15 today!

I'm so happy. Happy for him and happy that I no longer have to look for him. For whatever reason, he thought I was in charge of vaccine distribution and called me every day asking when he was going to get his shot. 

[parasaurolophus 6,996]

2 hours ago, Ilov80s said:

Not sure if anyone cares or if you are monitoring this stuff but I got round 1 of Moderna today.

We care dude! Congrats. 

[Ilov80s 29,232]

3 minutes ago, parasaurolophus said:

We care dude! Congrats. 

It was super random. I was able to get an appointment for Monday but then at like 2:00 today my friend who is also a Spec Ed teacher texted me that the community college by us was giving them until 3:30 for Spec Ed teachers. Word must  have got out because it really crowded and it was basically a big gym with 10 tables of 2 nurses just cruising through huge lines of people. 

[Nathan R. Jessep 5,687]

17 hours ago, Terminalxylem said:

I doubt mutations which result in competent but immunologically distinct SARS-CoV-2 variants will be frequent enough to warrant yearly re-vaccination. The only virus that applies to is influenza, which changes both by point mutations (single nucleic acid errors during the replication process, which normally occur in non-coding regions of the viral genome) and wholesale exchange of large coding segments for structural proteins between species (typically birds, and to a lesser extent pigs and other critters). The latter mechanism is known as genetic shift, and isn't very common outside of influenza viruses.

This year is different in that SARS-CoV-2 is new, so huge numbers of people have been infected with commensurate large viral populations. The more any virus replicates, the more likely mutations occur. Eventually one or multiple mutations may lead to structural and functional consequences, as we're seeing with the UK and SA strains. It's unclear if we'll need a booster shot to cover those (especially SA) yet.

So if we beat SARS-CoV-2 down to non-pandemic levels, through some combination of natural and vaccine-induced immunity, there will be less opportunity for it to mutate. In concert with its overall slower mutation rate (than influenza) and lack of genetic shift, we shouldn't require short interval revaccination once the pandemic has passed IMO.

DISCLAIMERS:

1. Coronaviruses aren't known to act like flu and swap gene segments between species, but if somehow SARS learns this trick, all bets are off.

2. Immunity to non-SARS coronaviruses isn't believed to be long lasting, but that isn't thought to be the result of mutations. There are other ways coronaviruses (and respiratory viruses in general) evade the immune system, which were described in an article I linked hundreds of pages ago. But revaccination won't likely impact these mechanisms anyway.

Thank you for the insight!  You mentioned the genetic drift. I had just read an article last night regarding the UK and SA variants. Not terrible, but certainly doesn't give you the warm and fuzzies either:

https://yourlocalepidemiologist.com/bad-news-about-the-circulating-variants/

Quote

Bottom line: The virus is getting smarter. Slowly but surely. This underscores the need to vaccinate as many people as quickly as we can, because these mutations are signals of antigenic drift.

 

[Biff84 2,793]

What I hope is being done is the Biden administration is drawing up a nationwide prioritization plan, either by age, health conditions, exposure risk or a combination with the inputs of states. Have each state come up with a plan to get them on track with that plan and get them the doses to get them there. Then move through phases as a country rather than a 50 state plan.

For example - tell them that they want to get everyone 65 and older, health care workers, school staff and first responders. How many doses do you need and how long will it take? We need a reset and a real plan at least until the point where it can be opened to the general public.

[culdeus 7,269]

There was a discussion whether cold weather drove things a few pages ago.  

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-81419-w

Quote

To determine the factor triggering the sudden surge of daily new COVID-19 cases arising in most European countries during the autumn of 2020. The dates of the surge were determined using a fitting of the two last months of reported daily new cases in 18 European countries with latitude ranging from 39° to 62°. The study proves no correlation between the country surge date and the 2 weeks preceding temperature or humidity but shows an impressive linear correlation with latitude. The country surge date corresponds to the time when its sun UV daily dose drops below ≈ 34% of that of 0° latitude. Introducing reported seasonal blood 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) concentration variation into the reported link between acute respiratory tract infection risk and 25(OH)D concentration quantitatively explains the surge dynamics. Several studies have already substantiated a 25(OH)D concentration impact on COVID-19 severity. However, by comparing different patient populations, discriminating whether a low 25(OH)D concentration is a real factor underlying COVID-19 severity or only a marker of another weakness that is the primary severity factor can be challenging. The date of the surge is an intrapopulation observation and has the benefit of being triggered only by a parameter globally affecting the population, i.e. decreases in the sun UV daily dose. The results indicate that a low 25(OH)D concentration is a contributing factor to COVID-19 severity, which, combined with previous studies, provides a convincing set of evidence.