Pandemic 2020

Fogdog said:

Just a note from Oregon regarding the seriousness with which we are taking the recent spike in new cases.

Drove over to the coast yesterday with the family. Beautiful day. Sun out, light breeze, cool but not uncomfortably so.

Lots of people out enjoying the day. Kayaks on the bay, surfers along the coast, dogs running on the beach unleashed, people out strolling and talking. No masks evident. Not much effort at social distancing. People were just having a good old time as if the epidemic weren't spreading rapidly.

We ate lunch in the car. Did not go for a walk on the beach as planned. We headed inland where we could hike in the woods without being exposed to the virus by idiots.

We are so fucked right now.

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Awesome day! I love the Oregon Coast. My favorite place being the Dunes. Those little forest island pits hidden in the dunes were so trippy! Great forest hiking trail leading you into the dunes . Up and down huge sand piles with the trail tracking poles over the sand dunes to find your way back to the forest trail that would finally lead you to the ocean . What a great escape!

U.S. could begin COVID-19 vaccine rollout by mid-December, top health official says
FDA meeting on Dec. 10 will discuss authorization of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine

The head of the U.S. effort to produce a coronavirus vaccine said the first inoculations could happen as soon as 24 hours after the Food and Drug Administration grants approval, which would kick off the largest inoculation campaign in U.S. history starting in mid-December.

"Within 24 hours from the approval, the vaccine will be moving and located in the areas where each state will have told us where they want the vaccine doses," Dr. Moncef Slaoui, the chief scientific adviser for the government's "Operation Warp Speed" vaccine program, told NBC's Meet the Press.

The FDA's outside advisers will meet on Dec. 10 to discuss whether to authorize the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and German partner BioNTech for emergency use. Slaoui told CNN he expects vaccinations would begin on the second day after approval, Dec. 12.

Moderna Inc is expected to seek approval later in December for its COVID-19 vaccine.

Dr.Amber Trichome said:

Awesome day! I love the Oregon Coast. My favorite place being the Dunes. Those little forest island pits hidden in the dunes were so trippy! Great forest hiking trail leading you into the dunes . Up and down huge sand piles with the trail tracking poles over the sand dunes to find your way back to the forest trail that would finally lead you to the ocean . What a great escape!

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We were at Alsea bay, north of the dunes area. Driving across the bridge of the bay, it was clear and calm on the bay with stacks of waves breaking at the bar. Beyond that, the ocean was calm and blue. Visibility was unlimited. It was a strikingly beautiful day.

The woods were damp but still sunny. We hiked in an area where we had found chanterelle mushrooms. before We found a few but maybe people were there ahead of us, IDK. It was like an Easter egg hunt. Picked enough to add to some grilled cheese sandwiches this afternoon.

Not many days like that left. Pretty soon the winter storms will blow in and we'll just have to hunker down until it breaks next year.

Fogdog said:

We were at Alsea bay, north of the dunes area. Driving across the bridge of the bay, it was clear and calm on the bay with stacks of waves breaking at the bar. Beyond that, the ocean was calm and blue. Visibility was unlimited. It was a strikingly beautiful day.

The woods were damp but still sunny. We hiked in an area where we had found chanterelle mushrooms. before We found a few but maybe people were there ahead of us, IDK. It was like an Easter egg hunt. Picked enough to add to some grilled cheese sandwiches this afternoon.

Not many days like that left. Pretty soon the winter storms will blow in and we'll just have to hunker down until it breaks next year.

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Hopefully you have a some luck and the storms hit during the week leaving some glorious winter weekends to get out and explore . When I arrived in Oregon in Feb 2016 it was a lucky season and so many weekends were gorgeous . We explored the entire coast line that year on the weekends and it was a lot of fun. I have many good memories to reflect on and they help me get through life right now.

Dr.Amber Trichome said:

Hopefully you have a some luck and the storms hit during the week leaving some glorious winter weekends to get out and explore . When I arrived in Oregon in Feb 2016 it was a lucky season and so many weekends were gorgeous . We explored the entire coast line that year on the weekends and it was a lot of fun. I have many good memories to reflect on and they help me get through life right now.

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With any luck you'll be on the road again this summer and safer soon, the hospital crowd must be thrilled with the vaccine, those with a fucking brain! Less PPE might make life easier too, but I imagine it will still be used for covid patients, masks for all staff for awhile though. When are ya going back to the Jersey shore, the garden state, where civilized folk live?

Looks like back to somewhat normal for summer, so there's something to look forward to and take some comfort from. Stay safe.

DIY-HP-LED said:

With any luck you'll be on the road again this summer and safer soon, the hospital crowd must be thrilled with the vaccine, those with a fucking brain! Less PPE might make life easier too, but I imagine it will still be used for covid patients, masks for all staff for awhile though. When are ya going back to the Jersey shore, the garden state, where civilized folk live?

Looks like back to somewhat normal for summer, so there's something to look forward to and take some comfort from. Stay safe.

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Actually with any luck I will get this job I am interviewing for today and will be out of here by next month . Jersey is a pipe dream . I seriously doubt I am going back for the family reunion in the summer because I don’t want to be around my younger sister and her jerky cigar smoking husband who both voted for Trump . I have had nothing but bad luck with all the jobs I have applied for there and the pay scale sucks . Looking at them going legal but you can’t even grow your own. Seriously? Fuck them. This entire country has issues. I’m going where the money takes me with a good retirement plan and some room for growth within a good reputable organization. Getting away from hospitals system would be nice, since they are all in serious debt right now and many are shutting their doors. I am thinkin if I can’t get a gig out of Okie by March or April I will quit and take the rest of the year off. Travel and enjoy life a bit more.

AstraZeneca Says Vaccine Can Be Around 90 Percent Effective | Morning Joe | MSNBC

AstraZeneca said on Monday that its Covid-19 vaccine could be up to 90 percent effective in preventing the disease — the third promising breakthrough in the fight against a pandemic that has killed nearly 1.4 million people worldwide

Moderna’s Covid Vaccine: What You Need to Know
Last Updated
Nov. 20, 2020, 6:08 p.m. ETNov. 20, 2020
Nov. 20, 2020, 6:08 p.m. ET
Does this mean the end of the pandemic? Who was in the trial? Is it part of Operation Warp Speed? And other questions answered.

On Monday, the Massachusetts-based company Moderna reported promising preliminary results from its coronavirus vaccine trial. Coming just a week after similar news from Pfizer and BioNTech, the announcement immediately gave the stock market a fresh jolt. It offered more hope that there’s going to be a way out of the pandemic.

Like Pfizer, however, Moderna released only early data from their trial. There’s more work to be done before they’ll know if the vaccine really is safe and effective. And even if Moderna’s vaccine gets the green light from the F.D.A., it will take months to reach widespread distribution. In the meantime, the United States is suffering a devastating explosion of new cases of Covid-19.

Here’s where things stand with the development of coronavirus vaccines.

What did these scientists find out?
The scientists randomly assigned volunteers to get either the Moderna vaccine or a placebo. The trial was blinded, meaning that neither the volunteers nor the people running the trial knew who got what.

Over time, some of the volunteers got sick with Covid-19. To get a preliminary sense of how the trial was going, an independent board of experts took a look at the first 95 participants who got sick. Ninety of them had received the placebo, and only five had been given the vaccine. Based on that data, the board estimated that the vaccine is 94.5 percent effective.
— Carl Zimmer

Do the new vaccine trial results mean the end to the pandemic?
In the short term, no. The soonest that coronavirus vaccines could possibly become widely available would be in the spring. But if effective vaccines do indeed become available — and if most people get them — the pandemic could drastically shrink. As coronavirus infections became rarer, life could gradually return to normal.
— Carl Zimmer

Covid-19 can lead to a mild illness, or it can lead to a severe case that requires hospitalization and oxygen support. Out of the 95 people who got sick in the Moderna study, 11 experienced severe disease. None of those 11 people were vaccinated. In other words, the five vaccinated people who got sick experienced only mild symptoms, and all of the severe cases were participants from the placebo group.

“It couldn’t be a more favorable split,” said Natalie Dean, a biostatistician at the University of Florida.

The split suggests that Moderna’s vaccine doesn’t just block the virus in most cases, but also shields the people who do get sick from the worst outcomes of the disease. It also eases concerns that a vaccine for Covid-19 may make the disease worse, not better.
— Carl Zimmer

Who participated in the vaccine trial?
Moderna recruited 30,000 volunteers across the United States to participate in its trial. A quarter of the participants are 65 years or older. White people make up 63 percent of the volunteers; 20 percent are Hispanic; 10 percent are Black; and 4 percent are Asian Americans.

The 95 people who got sick with Covid-19 reflect the diversity of Moderna’s volunteers: Fifteen were 65 or older. The group also included 12 Hispanic volunteers, four Black participants, three Asian Americans and one multiracial person. The efficacy and safety appeared the same in all of the subgroups, Moderna said in its announcement. But researchers will have to wait for the trial to advance further to confirm this finding.
— Carl Zimmer

Is Moderna in Operation Warp Speed?
Very much so. The United States government provided $1 billion in support for the design and testing of the Moderna vaccine. Researchers at the National Institutes of Health oversaw much of the research, including the clinical trials. Moderna also received an additional $1.5 billion in exchange for 100 million doses if the vaccine proved to be safe and effective.

Although Pfizer has its own advance purchase agreement for its vaccine, it did not take Operation Warp Speed money to support its design or testing.
— Carl Zimmer
more...

More excepts from the above article.
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What about other vaccine candidates?

The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are similar not only because they use mRNA but also because they coax our cells to make the same viral protein, called spike. Other vaccines that don’t use mRNA also make the spike protein their target. The success of Moderna and Pfizer may bode well for them as well.

A number of teams have created vaccines based on another virus called an adenovirus, for example. The adenovirus slips into cells, delivering the gene for the spike protein. On Wednesday, a sponsor of a Russian vaccine announced that its adenovirus-based vaccine, called Sputnik V, was over 90 percent effective. Outside experts wanted to see more data, however, because the announcement was based on just 20 sick volunteers — far fewer than in the Moderna and Pfizer trials.

AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson are also conducting Phase 3 trials on adenoviruses that carry the spike protein gene. And other companies, including Novavax and Medicago, are running advanced trials on vaccines that deliver the spike protein itself, or pieces of it, to the body.
— Carl Zimmer

What do the Pfizer and Moderna reports mean together?
Pfizer and Moderna used the same basic design to build their vaccines. Both vaccines contain a genetic molecule called messenger RNA, which is wrapped in an oily bubble. The bubble can fuse to a muscle cell and deliver the RNA. Encoded in that molecule are instructions for building a single coronavirus protein called spike. When a vaccinated cell releases copies of the spike protein, the immune system learns to make antibodies against it.

While scientists have investigated mRNA vaccines for years, no vaccine has yet been licensed as safe and effective to use in people. When Moderna and other vaccine makers began designing mRNA vaccines for coronaviruses, skeptics wondered how well they would work. The two preliminary reports from both Moderna and Pfizer suggest this type of vaccine may work very well. Neither trial has uncovered serious side effects from the vaccines, although studies on their safety are continuing.

“I would expect some similarities in how they perform,” said Natalie Dean, a biostatistician at the University of Florida. “I think I would have had a lot of questions if they got different results.”
— Carl Zimmer

What happens next?


Construction on a building in Visp, Switzerland, where the Moderna vaccine will be produced.Credit...Denis Balibouse/Reuters

Both the Moderna and Pfizer trials are continuing to gather more data from large studies. The two companies expect to apply to the Food and Drug Administration in the next few weeks for an emergency use authorization to begin vaccinating the public.

The F.D.A. will review the applications and consult with its own external committee of experts before making a decision. If it authorize the vaccines — as experts think it will — a committee at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will then make recommendations for who should be first to receive a vaccine.

It’s possible that the distribution of one or both vaccines will begin by the end of the year.
— Carl Zimmer

— Carl Zimmer

What all the GP physicians and state or provincial medical record people should be doing right now, is trolling trough their records and databases for vulnerable patients and setting them up for early vaccination ASAP. Get the elderly and vulnerable vaccinated first and fast along with healthcare works and other frontline people and watch the mortality rate plummet, even if the pandemic roars on, if the numbers of infected can be controlled, the limited amount of antibodies could be deployed to reduce the toll even further and reduce long term effects for many.

Thanksgiving will be a disaster for millions and thousands will have regrets come Christmas with grand ma, or mom, or dad dead or dying of covid in the hospital. We are not just responsible for ourselves, we have larger responsibilities and obligations than that, we owe others, particularly those we claim to love.

captainmorgan said:

Researchers Identify Melatonin as Possible COVID-19 Treatment

A new study suggests that one potential treatment for the virus could be found at your local pharmacy: the common sleep aid melatonin.

www.verywellhealth.com

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zinc has been proven to interrupt replication of rhino and corona viruses.

@Fogdog
Mushrooms and Politics .
Your mentioning mushroom picking I thought of you when I just read a passage in Obama’s new book. lol. The book is great so far .

It appears Ben Carson got antibody treatment, or said Chris Hayes tonight and suggested Donald, friends are getting it, the elites I guess. I wonder if Joe got covid would he get antibodies too, or would the drug companies have to give it to him directly?

captainmorgan said:

Doctors say CDC should warn people the side effects from Covid vaccine shots won't be 'a walk in the park'

Doctors urge the CDC to be transparent about the side effects people may experience after getting their first shot of a coronavirus vaccine.

www.cnbc.com

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It can be a bitch for a few days they say, perhaps the newly announced oxford vaccine might be better tolerated, they've found a half dose in the first injection followed up by the booster later was 90% effective and appear to produce fewer side effects. I saw an interview with the head of the program.

Best way I can describe the scene at my job is like the infrastructure to the building is cracking and no one has a plan to fix it. Everyday more and more people are out and no one is communicating anything about the huge gaps of loss and how to manage any of it. One colleague came back today after 11 days quarantine Covid positive. I was so excited to see her and asked how she was doing . She looked terrible and said she was really tired and has a headache . A couple hours later I heard she went home. It’s weird because it’s like people don’t want to admit who has Covid and is out . Like it’s some kind of hush thing so we are left guessing why and when are they coming back. It is beyond weird and management has no plan and pretending like the earth ain’t spitting up under our feet.

Ted Cruz Mocks Covid-19 Safety Warnings As Texans Die | All In | MSNBC
Sen. Ted Cruz offers nothing but memes as Texas inmates carry bodies out of mobile morgues.

captainmorgan said:

Doctors say CDC should warn people the side effects from Covid vaccine shots won't be 'a walk in the park'

Doctors urge the CDC to be transparent about the side effects people may experience after getting their first shot of a coronavirus vaccine.

www.cnbc.com

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They should also tell people that are vulnerable to talk to their doctor about it and for the rest of the people who eat hotdogs and baloney, not to be such pussies! Be a fucking man and rollup yer Godamn sleeve, need a lollipop?

Though love is sometimes required and often the stupid have to be told what to do! Catching covid confers immunity too and also often has side effects, like death.

Make the unvaccinated wear a white feather!