outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

I hope you all enjoy your vaccines because Australia is doing fuck all to secure any supplies of potential vaccines.

apologies if this is paywalled, but what happened in LA is covered well here, and is a applies to a lot of the US

https://www.latimes.com/projects/how-rushed-la-reopening-sparked-covid-19-cases/#nt=1col-7030col1-main

https://www.blogto.com/city/2020/08/toronto-anti-maskers-say-cherry-beach-chainsaw-guys-destroyed-their-dj-booth/

This kind of thing happened in the former Soviet states in the 1990s, after they’d lost the Cold War and had their economy turned into an abattoir by the Chicago school. Our government is doing it voluntarily for shits and giggles. https://t.co/4CCMc00iEC

— derek davison (@dwdavison) August 15, 2020

phase 3 trials often show up problems that can kill a drug's approval

Discussed a few posts back. How often?

here's one thing I'm still confused on - how long after exposure to or having close contact with someone that has COVID do you then become contagious?

every site says something like 48-72 hours before symptoms start, but what about asymptomatic people? If someone infected sneezes on them, are they, like, immediately a vector, or it takes maybe 2-3 days?

I realize there's a lot we don't know but I'm not sure if we have more info on this that I can't find.

i mean, the virus has to be able to replicate significantly, i can't imagine anyone could spread it in less than 24 hours, 2-3 days seems reasonable? maybe countries with excellent contact tracing could try to figure it out, but it's not the easiest thing to study.

I'd assume it's the same for asymptomatic, but they may be a little less contagious

Is there a Covid Conspiracy thread anywhere?

As I have some former close friends on my social media feeds who appear to have swallowed right-wing brain worms in the last few years and are now posting David Icke videos and claiming things like the vaccine is going to be mandatory for everyone and is going to make large numbers of people infertile and other crazy shit, so am looking for some sourced rebuttals

I wish that sourced rebuttals worked with the cases I know about, who trust nothing (except obviously the mad sites they get this stuff from)

Oh indeed. It'll just be some "you can't believe what the MSM tell you" shit

The one always comes out with some patronising bollocks along the lines of "i read all the different types of media available, not just the MSM, so have a much more informed opinion" despite the fact that every single link he posts is either from RT, Zero Hedge, Breitbart or some other right wing conspiracy site.

Pretty sure a lot of people will change their minds when they discover they can't go on even a short-haul foreign holiday without having been vaccinated.

Hopefully the vaccine will make some people infertile!

yeah that's kinda 2 birds with 1 stone

ummm, let's maybe avoid jokes about involuntary sterilization by the authorities being a good thing. at least in the US this has actual eugenic/white supremacist precedents.

talking about my self btw

a lot of people will change their minds when they discover they can't go on even a short-haul foreign holiday

A hundred million Americans: Huh? Why would I want to go to a DIFFERENT country when I'm already in the best one?

Dr C otm

ultimately I found a great way to deal with friends who have swallowed brain worms
making them "not friends"

tired of banging my head on moving goalposts

A hundred million Americans: Huh? Why would I want to go to a DIFFERENT country when I'm already in the best one?

why would i go to a different country when the beaches in the florida panhandle are perfect already?

ultimately I found a great way to deal with friends who have swallowed brain worms
making them "not friends"

thought it was posting about your arguments with them on ilx

I'm a Tar Heel born
I'm a Tar Heel bred
And when I die I'll be a Tar Heel dead

The Daily Tar Heel isn’t holding back this morning. pic.twitter.com/BZmuhAvMQD

— Susan Worley (@TarheelSoup) August 17, 2020

Just made a quick jaunt back to the mid-2010s in the ol' time machine to see if folks from our very recent past could make heads or tails of this headline:

Trump 'enthusiastic' over unproven coronavirus therapeutic, MyPillow creator says

I'm a Tar Heel born
I'm a Tar Heel bred
And when I die I'll be a Tar Heel dead

The Daily Tar Heel isn’t holding back this morning. pic.twitter.com/BZmuhAvMQD
— Susan Worley (@TarheelSoup) August 17, 2020
― mookieproof, Monday, August 17, 2020 2:06 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

just announced: shutting down all in-person classes

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02400-7

This, on the immune response and what it means for the possibility of a vaccine, is reassuring.

Scotty has said the vaccine will be mandatory in Australia.

Scotty doesn't know

Vaccine maker says scotty doesn't have a contract for any vaccine.

Following on from Matt's link.

A first case of #COVID19 reinfection from HKU, with distinct virus genome sequences in 1st and 2nd infection (142 days apart). Kudos to the scientists for this study.

This is no cause for alarm - this is a textbook example of how immunity should work.

(1/n) https://t.co/oekESn0Uhq

— Prof. Akiko Iwasaki (@VirusesImmunity) August 24, 2020

Can anyone speak to the validity of the tweet that xyz just posted? Sounds right and is reassuring but i dunno the Prof in question.

She's quoted here too: https://time.com/5882907/covid-19-reinfection/

The NYT, on the other hand, is reporting this as if it's crushing news

Why would it be crushing news, the ENTIRE GOAL is to arrive with minimal death and long-term illness toll at the point where the virus is endemic instead of pandemic and everybody's walking around with partial immunity bolstered every year by vaccination but people still get mild cases every year. There's no other endpoint! We are not going to make the virus extinct! The Spanish flu is still around, you've probably gotten it!

Cos it's the NYT

This shit is maddening. The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine isn't some Trump-created snake oil!

They've been saying this whole time that they were hoping to start distributing vaccines in September/October, if everything went well.

just made a dental appointment for NYC; i suppose i gotta do this shit sooner or later and waiting until there's a tested vaccine means i will have no molars.

xp

nope. they are *still recruiting* for phase III trials *in the UK* (and brazil iirc) until september.

and the US generally requires phase III trials to take place *in the US* to approve drugs for use in the US.

that vaccine is not snake oil, but "They've been saying this whole time that they were hoping to start distributing vaccines in September/October" is not true.

(unless "they" is literally donald trump)

Whoops - you're right. They were targeting the end of the year.

I wonder if they’d even accept the fast-tracking? The risk seems pretty high to get a two month jump.

Right. The US is very litigious! I wouldn’t want preapproval from a corrupt administration that will hopefully be gone in January. And it’s not like they’ll have spare doses gathering dust.

the emergency use authorization for convalescent plasma yesterday was alarming in this regard -- it won't be much of a hassle for us as it's a therapy given in the hospital setting where demands for unproven treatments generally are fewer and easier to deal with -- but if they use the same logic to expedite marketing of a vaccine it could be a huge deal

Just got my first injection as part of the Phase 3 Moderna vaccine trial. Obv i will never know if it's placebo or real thing but glad to be taking part.

i guess the nightmare scenario is another one of these https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/05/01/vaccine-swine-flu-coronavirus/. if that happened again in a world with Qanon, populism, misinformation, etc. it would do far more harm to public trust in the idea of vaccination than it did back in 1976. the "sporadic deaths" bit seems unlikely if they're basing expedited approval on approval in the UK after successful completion of UK trials. but the "total chaos" part seems very likely.

Xpost the negative: ive been here 6 fuckin' hours. I was quoted 2! Welp...work is lost for today

Positive: $150 for today

if you want to see some insane (and interesting) face masks then this newsletter is fun https://rodolfor.substack.com/

The reported second-positive case referenced above, can that asymptomatic patient still infect others, despite being apparently immune from the effects of the illness himself?

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/24/astrazeneca-denies-white-house-is-fast-tracking-its-covid-19-vaccine-400963

A friend wrote this piece exploring the history of plague and its effects on language. He's a poet and writer, but also has a law degree as well as a degree in Ancient Languages...Commercials Correspondent for the Believer, etc. etc. He's kind of one of the weirdest and most brilliant people I know! And this is no different, interesting reading.

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/ascend-secrets-speaking-pandemic/

wow, that's fantastic!