Coronavirus

[Freed Roger]

Not sure if that works so easily now, with love-hate with pop icons. What 6- 10 people could be recruited that have singular mass appeal of one Elvis.

Probably plenty of options, though the politicization of celebrities makes it a bit tougher. Elvis wasn’t exactly beloved by older generations in the 50’s.

yep, will need to figure out what group(s) is reluctiant and recruit someone to appeal to them. some ass hole that only they like/trust etc etc.

might be one of the few perks of this [expletive] social media facebook [expletive] etc is that it can be targeted/stovepiped. Imagine that, facebook potentially being useful!

Here is more of the Elvis polio vaccination story
https://historydaily.org/the-day-elvis- ... ight-polio

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Not sure if that works so easily now, with love-hate with pop icons. What 6- 10 people could be recruited that have singular mass appeal of one Elvis.

Probably plenty of options, though the politicization of celebrities makes it a bit tougher. Elvis wasn’t exactly beloved by older generations in the 50’s.

yep, will need to figure out what group(s) is reluctiant and recruit someone to appeal to them. some ass hole that only they like/trust etc etc.

might be one of the few perks of this [expletive] social media facebook [expletive] etc is that it can be targeted/stovepiped. Imagine that, facebook potentially being useful!

Here is more of the Elvis polio vaccination story
https://historydaily.org/the-day-elvis- ... ight-polio

Trump, Kamala Harris, Kim Kardashian, and Kanye West. Who did I miss?

[mikechamp]

The headline is clearly clickbait, so I'm not going to include it in this post. However, I am going to provide the applicable sections of the article about a prognostication on the length of immunity due to a vaccine:

Distribution of the COVID vaccine is getting closer and closer to becoming a reality, with Pfizer and Moderna seeking emergency use approval. But there's still a lot we don't know about the vaccine. Who will get inoculated first, for example? Is it safe for kids? And how long will it stave off the novel coronavirus? In a new interview with McClatchy, Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), weighed in on that last question regarding the level of immunity the COVID vaccine provides. "The bottom line is we don't know right now how long it lasts," he said, but he does have some conjectures.

But data from similar coronaviruses may provide some insight, according to the nation's leading immunologist. In the 2002 SARS outbreak, for example, those who came down with the virus were naturally immune for over a year, though their immunity eventually waned. "So the bottom line is we don't know right now how long it lasts," Fauci said of immunity from the COVID-19 vaccine. "But it likely would last for a full year's cycle."

"From what we know of the duration thus far of immunity, I would be surprised if it turns out to be a 20-year duration, but I would also be surprised if it was less than a year," Fauci said. "I think it would probably be more than a year."

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/vaccine ... 07996.html

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

(Washington) — The actual number of coronavirus infections in the U.S. reached nearly 53 million at the end of September and could be approaching 100 million now, according to a model developed by government researchers.

The model, created by scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, calculated that the true number of infections is about 8 times the reported number, which includes only the cases confirmed by a laboratory test.

https://www.witf.org/2020/11/27/governm ... 0-million/

This would fall right in line with the infection fatality rate sitting around 0.3% which is the latest number I've heard in a couple different places.

So...almost 100 million cases, that's like 30% of the country. 40 million + cases over the past two months. That's disappointing.

Looking ahead, if the cases continue at 25 million cases per month +/-, we'll be at 200 million cases by the end of March.

No one knows if cases will continue at that rate. On the one hand, the more people have it, the quicker it spreads and gets into exponential growth very quickly. So, it's entirely possible (probable really) that the rate of infection goes up quickly here after the Thanksgiving holiday. At the same time, 30% have been infected?

If so, and if exposure to the virus prevents serious disease or even infectiousness, it's plausible the rate starts to decrease at some point as well.

This conversation needs to happen, so I'm just going to bring it up.

The vaccine is introducing the spike from the sars-cov-2 virus to the body in order to generate an immune response. This is something that occurs in natural infections as well. I don't see any reason at this point we shouldn't lump naturally infected people in with those vaccinated when accounting for....HERD IMMUNITY, everyone's favorite topic.

First, it's not proven if infection or vaccine prevents infectiousness and as such this entire conversation may be moot. But,let's assume both those naturally infected and those that are vaccinated become immune long term from serious covid (requiring hospitalization) and avoid becoming infectious. Big assumptions, but there's really no point discussing anything if it's not true, we'll just continue to live with covid killing hundreds of thousands of people a year perpetually.

The clinical equation for herd immunity is R effective -1 divided by R effective. R effective is 3ish, so herd immunity is at 67%ish. This isn't meant to be exact, just back of the napkin calcs to understand what's coming if the above assumptions are valid. If so, we're going to start reaching that number in Marchish as the vaccine rolls out and natural infections continue. It should be noted as i think mikechamp posted an article to earlier, herd immunity isn't a black/white simple equation. Even at 67%, the virus doesn't drop dead, it represents a point where spread slows to a point where the instantaneous R transmission value drops below 1 meaning it will eventually fade away even with no restrictions. Still, since people can still contract it, it's not like 67% then party.

Getting back to the number of cases which accoridng to the article/CDC model is ~100 Million and we're increasing at a rate of new infections of 20-25 Million a month, that's 200M ish at the end of March.

Add in the vaccines which is 10M this year then just say an additional 40M in the first three months of next year. That's 50M, you can probably say 40% (?) of those receiving it will have already been exposed and accounted for in the numbers above so that's 30M that can be added to the herd. It's possible by the end of March we'll be at 230M people (69%) that have either been infected or vaccinated (20M of which will have been both infected and vaccinated).

Which brings me to my next point, given that all a vaccine is doing is introducing the spike protein to the body to create an immune response, wouldn't it make a lot of sense in limited supply to test recipients for either antibodies or some other markers (whatever is quickest) before vaccinating those people?

All that to say, I have no idea what the next 4-6 months holds in store, there are reasons to be petrified if exponential growth really kicks in over the holidays and we see massive outbreaks that overrun the hospitals. But, if the vaccine is the savior, it's likely those that have been naturally infected are a part of the solution as well.

If not, covid's going to be around forever and we're all [expletive]. Even if we hit 230M people immune by April of 2021, that's still 100M plus people vulnerable and restrictions will carry for some period of time, probably through 2021 until everyone has had a chance to be vaccinated.

[GeddyWrox]

I don't think anyone here will knock you for an honest discussion about herd immunity, AW... I certainly won't. It's a valid topic. It's just how the right was pushing it 2, 3, 4 months ago that was so infuriating.

It's always been clear to me that true herd immunity was vaccinated people + natural infections >= about 75% population... assuming that our immune systems had a sufficient "memory", which it sounds like we're seeing that it has a fair amount. But yeah, we won't be anywhere close to "back to normal" until the second half of 2021. And by then, how's the economy look?

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Going through those numbers I just posted, you could make the point that strict lockdowns/restrictions/etc could save somewhere in the vicinity of 250K lives over the next 4 months given we will see 100M new infections. There are counterpoints, but I'll not get into them.

Removing that 100M, what does the math look like to get to the similar 230M immune number? You could hold the number of previously infected at 30% and vaccinate 180M people. That would be 126M moved into the immune herd and add it to the 100M already there. 180M people is 360M doses of vaccine. How long would it take to get that out? I have no idea. But, it's probably, what, late 2021? Will that many people even get it? I have no idea. Just stuff to think about.

Assuming late 2021 gets you to 180M vaccinated, you still have 100M people to go and it's all but guaranteed the restrictions are kept through 2021 and into 2022. I think....

Really, we need a point where the country officially can declare the pandemic is medically over and no more restrictions will be put in place. Because, the issue, as I see it, is that people will want an end. Like reading the last page of a book. Everyone wants an ending. In my opinion, that ending is when people that want to be vaccinated have the opportunity to do so. Given that maybe 100M people won't get vaccinated in the first year or two, we can't hold on to daily cases or even excess deaths as a true measuring stick. If 100M people have the option of going to a Walgreens and getting vaccinated but choose not to do so, the country as a whole shouldn't continue to live with restrictions, school closings, business closings, imo. Of those 100M people that don't want the vaccine, some will probably get it and die. That's unfortunate but also their prerogative.

That said, if we go that route, how is that quantified? What other measuring sticks are there? What will make people feel comfortable enough to resume life as 'normal'? I'd think if 100M don't want to be vaccinated, they probably aren't too far from their 'normal' already, so maybe it's a problem that takes care of itself.

[Freed Roger]

Herd immunity with substantial chunk coming from infections does seem an inevitable part of this frustrating massive failure.
I am familiar with dozens of cases between workplaces of my wife and mine, extended family, students in kid's schools etc.

AW, exponential is right. the same math we were fearing early March is now here (midwest) .And yep, hard to say how many infected already, not known.

How much was avoidable? , hard to say - Culture wars, terrible leadership, disinformstion, intersecting with the pandemic. Maybe we deserve it collectively.

Got to press on, for the workers in hospitals and nursing home. older people like my in-laws, my Mom, and people with cancer like my friend - it could be a heart-breaking end of life not seeing family, and getting to know new grandchildren - only to get hit with the exponential surge

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Yeah, it's been a frustrating failure. Looking around and seeing what other nations have done, it's pretty bad. Going on deaths/capita alone, the US (827 deaths per million people) is ranked 10th worst and may well go higher. But, there's really not that much difference between the top 20ish countries (all up above 700
and extending up to 1400). Not to say that is good, just to say that it's not like the US did considerably worse than the other worst countries (Spain, Italy, UK, Belgium, etc are all at the top).

That said, it's tough to look at the situation and not think certain common sense measures/policies could have considerably improved where we are in a lot of respects.

And, all that said, I think its pretty clear that there is one way that would have taken incredibly strong, if not downright impossible, leadership to implement. The countries that went through incredibly strict lockdowns (New Zealand, Australia, China) did very well. Could America stomach that? No clue. Then, there's the true shining stars in Japan, S. Korea, Iceland et al that kept going while containing the virus through testing, tracing, and....science and all are at like 10 deaths per million citizens. Truly incredible.

All those countries have things that could be singled out. Iceland sequenced the genome of every test they took, and they tested a TON. This allowed them to more/less be the leaders in figuring out the infection fatality rate and figuring out that there was a lot of transmission within households and, IMPORTANTLY, that there was a ton of transmission from pre/asymptomatic carriers. It allowed them to trace incredibly well and predict where outbreaks were likely and who needed ot quarantine. S. Korea's incredible mobilization and use of technology to track as well as ability to set up massive drive through testing facilities and quarantine those that actually needed it was downright astonishing. And, tellingly, they had citizens that listened and followed guidelines.

That, probably more than anything, has really reared its ugly head. Still to this day there are Americans that trust ...idk, pick your source, Infowars more than the CDC. Sure, it didn't help that America's leadership was not strong, but even if you had a John McCain figure or George Bush or Obama or [insert whoever you want here], the rise of disinformation and conspiracy theories as mainstream beliefs really showed its ugly head.

Even Sweden who literally did nothing, not even masks, listened to their govt for the most part. Their death per capita compared to the S. Korea's of the world is astonishingly bad sitting at 660 deaths/1M, but it's equally astonishingly better than America's.

That said, the CDC and FDA failed miserably without any help from political leadership. The CDC for its part has been okay after initially coughing sars-cov-2 all over the tests they sent out leaivng Americans without tests for the first couple months of the pandemic. The FDA then refused to alter its approval process for private medical testing companies, which in combo with the CDC contaminating all its tests, really [expletive] us. Then, learning from their failures, the FDA did an about face and approved willy nilly a ton of antibody tests. And, to this day, they refuse to approve at home antigen tests. Companies that could scale up, mail out, and provide Americans tens if not hundreds of less sensitive tests for pennies on the dollar of what these stimulus packages cost have abandoned that notion due to the FDA making it clear they won't go that route and have focused on getting approval for antigen tests that pharmacies and doctor offices can use and passing all the costs onto the end user (us). It costs $95 [expletive] dollars to get a rapid test at a pharmacy around here. Pure insanity. The govrt could literally throw a couple billion at these companies, provide some oversight and technical help, and within a month or so we could all have the equivalent of a high quality pregnancy test to check every day...which would be mighty [expletive] helpful considering that, well, the CDC estimates 30-50% of transmission is occuring in pre/asymptomatic people. What Iceland figured out in March, the CDC figured out in October. Okay, enough ranting.

In the end, we'll be able to right novels about what not to do.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Going back to Iceland, I remember reading a NYT article I think it was where the columnist wrote about taking a trip to Iceland in like May or something. The article really focused on Iceland's complete freedom, comparatively, in their everyday lives. In short, he and the fam went to see some friends or relatives or whatever and were greeted with testing and open arms. They, being from NY, were wary after everything they'd just gone through, and the host basically said:
Look, you've been tested. You're fine. In the event you are positive and transmitting, you'll be found quickly and all will be fine. All is good here, just live your life. Follow the rules whatever they are. And enjoy.

At first, I thought it was kind of a sensationalistic article, but after learning more about what they are doing, it's not. They figured out back in February or March that a lot of testing was key to preventing pre/asymptomatic spread and rigorously tested early...They were the first to realize pre/asymptomatic spread was rampant and tested accordingly, even screening their population early on and focusing in hot areas.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03284-3

Truly amazing we didn't do something similar. And still don't. Mind bottling.

[Freed Roger]

great rants-analysis AW. can't think what I would add or take away

is it feasible to test people now to determine if they were infected, to perhaps expedite needed vaccinations? you may have covered, sorry if I missed.

Tangent, with comparisons to other countries, US stats would be even worse if densely populated as say, Italy. But then again Island nations (Iceland, NZ) with means recognized the necessity of being on top of this with testing, quarantines, tracing.

Virus worked deviously against all things America 2020. We saw it hitting NY Chi etc, and stay relatively ok in less urban less hub-like areas. a blue state/city thing. We erred on the side of caution in March - we rarely went to grocery store, and now that whole lot more is known and virus is rampant here, we err on side of recklessness.

As mentioned, in hindsight , efficient and coordinated subsidized testing would have been key. ( Then you would know who to send stimulus too, the person /places out of work because they are positive or exposed. ) Now people reluctant to get tested because their life can't afford to miss work, or screws up something else.

But what could be expected in a country where leaders couldn't establish testing protocols and participation to keep it out of the [expletive] WH and statehouses. And same politicians discouraging testing because more testing makes the cases go up.

oi [expletive] me