At some point on Sunday, the USA will reach a quarter of a million people dead. And It feels like 95% of this country doesn't give a darn.
If things continue to deteriorate into the ultimate feared situation with people recklessly continuing to 'swap air' as commented on by Dr. Osterholm who has been appointed a member of the new upcoming (in January) COVID-19 task force and is someone worth heeding - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-l-AWzkq4BM#t=3m36s
Penton, you and your wife take Vitamin D each day? Tell all your friends to do the same; all winter long, all year long ... it just can't hurt...no one.
I don't get how Pfizer and Moderna can say their vaccines are so effective considering the mechanism they use is the creation of antibodies - when numerous other studies have shown protection from antibodies fades away rather quickly.
“this fine diagram in a paper recently submitted to the Annals of Internal Medicine by about 30 contributing co-authors from around the world for consideration for possible publication in an upcoming issue of AoIM, serves as a guideline for clinical trials and emphasizes the importance of proper timing by clinicians for the administration of various therapeutics” -
I don't get how Pfizer and Moderna can say their vaccines are so effective considering the mechanism they use is the creation of antibodies - when numerous other studies have shown protection from antibodies fades away rather quickly.
What am I missing???
Antibodies may not be found in the same quantities as when you first develop them, but if actual protection faded we'd be seeing tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of people being re-infected and that hasn't happened. The trials lasted several months and included 30,000 people (in the Moderna trial).
I'm a bit cynical about the percentages myself, only in the sense that it's impossible to know exactly how effective it is, and how much could be attributed to a person's behavior. All we can rely on is the data that the vaccine group had statistically significant less people infected than the placebo group, but how that applies to even larger populations, or the highest risk ones, remains to be seen.
As of now, I definitely prefer the Moderna vaccine over the Pfizer one, if only because it doesn't require the stringent storage capacities of the Pfizer one, and should make storage, and distribution much more practical. I believe the Moderna trial was more diverse too.
Why a coronavirus vaccine might not get things back to normal
Quote:
"Coronavirus infections are climbing to record highs in Washington state and nationwide. Patients are filling hospitals in some states. Experts fear we’re in for a dark winter.
A shot of hope could be coming, as vaccine makers are deep in clinical trials. Governments are stockpiling doses and preparing for efficient delivery of a vaccine, should one be proven safe and effective.
But over time, the stiffest challenge when it comes to vaccines may not be creating, approving or distributing them. It might be getting people to take them.
Americans’ willingness to be vaccinated dropped over the summer, with about half of people polled now saying they’d be reluctant, according to recent surveys. Vaccinating only half the population would likely fall short of stopping transmission of the virus.
Decisions made now, by scientists and by those in political power, could have a lasting effect on whether vaccines succeed in driving out COVID-19 and other diseases.
● ● ●
The U.S. has set its sights on herd immunity, a term describing when a large enough proportion of society is immune from infection and even those without immunity are indirectly protected because the virus cannot be readily transmitted from person to person.
How is “large enough” defined, when it comes to immunity to this coronavirus? Epidemiologists believe it could be around 70% of the population, but there’s little certainty, and it’s a moving target.
This number, known as the herd immunity threshold, is one of the major factors scientists are still puzzling over when it comes to how — or whether — coronavirus vaccines could achieve herd immunity.
The threshold is determined largely by the virus’s transmissibility and how long immunity lasts.
“On average, an infectious person will infect three people,” said Luis Barreiro, an associate professor in genetic medicine at the University of Chicago.
And there are signs people can be infected with coronavirus more than once. Scientists are trying to understand more about these cases of re-infection. If someone who’s had the virus is protected from re-infection for only a few months, then herd immunity is unreachable.
“The virus will become, basically, another like flu, another thing we’ll have to live with,” Barreiro said.
Some politicians, and a few scientists, have called for the U.S. to seek herd immunity without a vaccine — that is, by simply allowing much of the population to get infected, on the hope that those who recover would remain immune. Barreiro dismissed that idea, saying it was “crazy” to allow the virus to spread without control.
“There’s no strategy,” he said.
● ● ●
No vaccine maker has applied for emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) — yet. During that process, regulators — and the public — will be able to review safety and efficacy data.
The pharmaceutical company Pfizer indicated in a news release Monday that its mRNA vaccine had shown 90% efficacy in early data and did not present significant safety concerns. More data and details are needed to understand the nature of the protection this vaccine provides, which populations it protects well and whether it provides lasting immunity.
“Nobody yet has actually seen the actual published reports with statistics and numbers,” said Dr. John Dunn, the medical director of preventive care at Kaiser Permanente Washington. If the efficacy data holds up and protection lasts, Dunn said it would be “marvelous.”
A vaccine using the mRNA platform has never been approved, and it’s an encouraging sign that Pfizer’s vaccine — and several others based on the platform — could be effective.
The FDA has long said it wanted vaccines to show at least 50% efficacy, meaning vaccines that prevent infection, disease or transmission in at least half of people who receive them.
But that represents “a low-end threshold to make sure no one is wasting their time,” said Dunn.
Even with an effective vaccine, the math is daunting.
A 90% effective vaccine would likely require at least two-thirds of those susceptible to be vaccinated “to start to see what we think of as herd immunity,” Dunn said, adding that it could require a much higher percentage, even 90%.
Gallup polling released in October found that if a free, FDA-approved vaccine were available now, only half of Americans would agree to get it. And a survey from STAT and The Harris Poll found that 58% said they would get vaccinated as soon as a vaccine was available, a sharp drop since summer polling.
“The rate at which we vaccinate people is critical,” Dunn said. “As the joke goes in medicine: The effectiveness of a vaccine that doesn’t go into someone’s arm is zero.”
● ● ●
Vaccination traces its roots to centuries-old inoculation practices that researchers believe originated in Asia, in which people inhaled dried pustules of smallpox to induce mild infection.
An enslaved man named Onesimus taken from West Africa brought knowledge of the practice to North America and helped quell an outbreak in Boston in 1721.
By that century’s end, researchers had developed a smallpox vaccine. The World Health Organization declared the disease eradicated in 1980 — a public health triumph.
In the United States, vaccines have eliminated polio, which primarily affects children and can cause paralysis, and largely eliminated measles and tetanus, among other diseases.
Vaccines inspire both unbridled optimism and skepticism, said Emily Harrison, a postdoctoral fellow in the history of epidemiology at Harvard University.
“Just as old as the process or technology of vaccination is resistance or hesitancy of vaccination,” Harrison said.
Groups have opposed vaccination for religious reasons, over safety concerns, in reaction to colonialism and over concerns about medical experimentation and exploitation.
“Vaccines have often been deployed by authorities with conflicting motives,” Harrison said.
In the early 1900s, for example, as occupying American soldiers in the Philippines became sickened with smallpox, the U.S. Army led a vaccination campaign for the population at the same time it routinely tortured Filipinos during interrogations.
A history of medical exploitation and missteps also has eroded trust among some communities of color in the United States, said Abigail Echo-Hawk, chief research officer for the Seattle Indian Health Board and a member of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma.
The U.S. Air Force in the 1950s conducted clinical trials using radioactive isotopes on Alaska Natives, including lactating and possibly pregnant women, without informed consent.
High-profile technical mistakes also led to reforms. In the 1950s, during what came to be known as the Cutter Incident, some batches of polio vaccine were shipped out containing live virus, which paralyzed dozens of children and killed several.
“I don’t want to scare the public,” Harrison said, adding that the Cutter Incident spawned a comprehensive safety overhaul, government regulations and oversight that continues today.
These safeguards have been negotiated, over time, for public trust.
“Vaccines today are highly regulated, and they need to meet the most rigorous of safety standards,” Harrison said.
● ● ●
Harrison said skepticism of vaccines today is marked by several characteristics: distrust in public institutions; a growing number of people who don’t wish to participate in the common cause; and the influence of social media, where “theatrical, orchestrated disinformation” can thrive.
Kolina Koltai, a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for an Informed Public at the University of Washington, said anti-vaccination proponents have been discussing the novel coronavirus on Facebook since January, before it hit broad mainstream discourse in the U.S.
Koltai, who has studied these groups for about five years, said conspiracy theories have accelerated during the pandemic. Prominent anti-vaccination groups have mixed their messages with QAnon conspiracies and anti-lockdown messages.
“Uncertainty breeds concern and fear and worry,” Koltai said. “People become really susceptible to misinformation.”
The relatively quick pace of vaccine development, the perception of political influence and even the name of the federal vaccine effort — Operation Warp Speed — have also spurred concern among people who typically support vaccines, Koltai said.
“We are seeing people otherwise normally classified as pro-vaccine, who think childhood vaccines are safe, who now have reservations about a [coronavirus] vaccine,” Koltai said. “You almost couldn’t have picked a worse name.”
Anne Jaworski, a 65-year-old retiree from Des Moines who described herself as a “fan of public health” and whose parents met while working on a polio project, said she typically views vaccines with favor but remains “skeptical” of COVID-19 vaccines.
“It’s Operation Warp Speed and not Operation Warp Quality,” Jaworski said.
Jaworski distrusts the large pharmaceutical companies at the helm of vaccine efforts and was concerned about political influence over vaccine development and approval.
Regulators have rallied to assert independence and provide public reassurance. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, promised to resign if politicians fast-walked a vaccine that wasn’t safe and effective.
Meantime, Gov. Jay Inslee said Washington state would join other Western states in an independent review.
“This will be an added layer of assurance” for residents “so that we can increase the number of folks that actually get the vaccination,” Inslee said. The state Department of Health is planning a campaign to promote approved vaccines.
Dunn, of Kaiser Permanente, said clear, transparent communication about risks and benefits of each vaccine will be critical. The message should be consistent among doctors and medical organizations, he said.
Echo-Hawk said vaccine makers must prioritize diverse recruiting in clinical trials and seek to enroll people often not represented, including from American Indian and Alaska Native communities.
“Their hesitancy now is going to affect whether their communities are willing to be vaccinated later,” Echo-Hawk said.
A vaccine, at least initially, will be no panacea, and experts shouldn’t make promises they can’t keep, Echo-Hawk said.
“We’re still going to have to wear masks, we’re going to have to social distance,” she said. “We’re going to need to be trusted messengers with the community.”
Santiago Rodriguez-Anderson, a 31-year-old Burien engineer who grew up in developing countries affected by polio and other diseases, said he’s been dismayed by anti-vaccine messages shared by friends on Facebook.
He fears that the vaccines, as expected, won’t be 100% effective, and that enough people will decline vaccination to miss herd immunity and leave everyone potentially at risk.
“Even if I’m vaccinated, I could catch it,” Rodriguez-Anderson said of this scenario. “That’s a problem. That affects whether or not I can continue to live my life as I’m used to.”
- The Seattle Times
Last edited by LordoftheRings; 11-16-2020 at 06:11 PM.
"NE Calgary has the highest prevalence of active covid cases relative to population in the entire world."
Why? Well one, that's where the airport is, and two, NE has a very, um, let's say 'diverse' population - apparently they can't isolate in households where there's like a dozen or more people living in the same home.
Edit: Our local Corona virus FB group is arguing if this is accurate or not....
Last edited by Pondosinatra; 11-17-2020 at 12:24 AM.
"NE Calgary has the highest prevalence of active covid cases relative to population in the entire world."
Why? Well one, that's where the airport is, and two, NE has a very, um, let's say 'diverse' population - apparently they can't isolate in households where there's like a dozen or more people living in the same home.
Edit: Our local Corona virus FB group is arguing if this is accurate or not....
Why a coronavirus vaccine might not get things back to normal
- The Seattle Times
Well that’s the problem isn’t it. Even with COVID-19 vaccines as reportedly (press releases) efficacious as those of Pfizer’s and Moderna’s, we really need a lot of people to get vaccinated in order to achieve herd immunity (non-Atlas type).
Given how polarized U.S. society has become, unless we start seeing people drop dead in the streets, it may be a giant leap of faith to hope for state mandated vaccination for COVID-19, but I sincerely hope that a lot of employers step up and require their employees to get vaccinated because they can legally do so as long as they don’t discriminate and make accommodations for those who have a legitimate reason to be exempted.
It’s a multi y-axis, the solid purple line shows the amount of virus particles, the solid red line denotes the amount of inherently produced antibodies.
(the paper is still in review for publication)
Well that’s the problem isn’t it. Even with COVID-19 vaccines as reportedly (press releases) efficacious as those of Pfizer’s and Moderna’s, we really need a lot of people to get vaccinated in order to achieve herd immunity (non-Atlas type).
Given how polarized U.S. society has become, unless we start seeing people drop dead in the streets, it may be a giant leap of faith to hope for state mandated vaccination for COVID-19, but I sincerely hope that a lot of employers step up and require their employees to get vaccinated because they can legally do so as long as they don’t discriminate and make accommodations for those who have a legitimate reason to be exempted.
Several months ago we mentioned that vaccines will be another chaotic period; not only for the 50/50 split among the population but also for several other issues...like the temperature, storage, distribution, etc., etc., etc.
There are zero vaccines approved yet as I type this.
Plus vaccines alone won't get rid of this virus. Masks and distancing and washing hands are still our best tools. But what's the percentage of people in the Americas and also in Europe who follow these simple procedures ... 25, 30% @ best?
There are so many super spreader events that I believe the expert scientists when they say that we're going to see one million new cases a day worldwide, ...200,000 in the US alone.
No vaccine is going to stop this tomorrow or the day after.
I look @ Thailand for my dose, or Taiwan, or Vietnam, Singapore, New Zealand.
Thanksgiving is November 26; the US is no Taiwan or Thailand in the art of wearing masks, and solidarity. Then the Christmas Holidays ...
India, keep an eye in December/January ...
Oh yes, it's all very promising; Sputnik @ 95% efficiency, Moderna @ 95.5% and Pfizer @ 90% when stored @ minus 70-80° Celsius. Look @ Brazil with their Chinese vaccine...caput...it's been abandoned. Look @ South America ... by the numbers.
Oh yes, hope, faith, optimism, light @ the end of a very long dark wintery tunnel, the miracle cure, a nation divided, a world divided in search of a better outcome.
* Sorry for your friend, RIP.
_____
In my own country today we hit the record in new cases ... 20201116_200737.jpg
Well that’s the problem isn’t it. Even with COVID-19 vaccines as reportedly (press releases) efficacious as those of Pfizer’s and Moderna’s, we really need a lot of people to get vaccinated in order to achieve herd immunity (non-Atlas type).
Given how polarized U.S. society has become, unless we start seeing people drop dead in the streets, it may be a giant leap of faith to hope for state mandated vaccination for COVID-19, but I sincerely hope that a lot of employers step up and require their employees to get vaccinated because they can legally do so as long as they don’t discriminate and make accommodations for those who have a legitimate reason to be exempted.
I’m all for people getting vaccinated if that’s the choice they want to make, but my employer definitely shouldn’t be able to force that on me.
Until all the side effects of the vaccine are revealed then I’m definitely not getting it. Why should I get it, and risk serious health damage later on just because my employer thought they should make that choice for me?
It should be just like the yearly flu shot (which I do get) in that it’s up to each individual person as to whether they think it’s safe or not.
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