outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

Dean of St Andrews has announced a 7pm curfew for students starting tonight, apparently.

(Though that’s according to my mum, so who knows)

Pretty grim news here on the Oxford coronavirus vaccine: 2 of the 8,000 UK participants in the trial have developed a rare illness involving inflammation of the spine; in the US the illness hits about 1 in every 236,000 people annually. https://t.co/zcBbAbLNBg pic.twitter.com/mVVFZOMCHd

— Tom Gara (@tomgara) September 20, 2020

This is all making me super excited to get my second dose of Moderna's on Tuesday (tho i think i got placebo fortunately)

The Moderna vaccine is a mRNA for the spike protein. Body cells absorb it by endocytosis, and hopefully enough express the spike protein that it's presented on cell membranes to the immune system.

The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine is a chimp adenovirus (non-encapsulated, unlike SARS CoV-2) that expresses the spike protein, though not for its own construction. Some SARS CoV-2 spike protein in infected cells presumably finds its way to cell membranes to elicit immune response. But the chimp adenovirus vector means a lot of other potential antigens, some of which may present molecular mimicry problems. Chimp adenovirus vaccines have been used successfully for vaccines against Ebola and Zika in animal models, but AFAICT never for a successful human vaccine. There are more potential antigens in the Oxford vaccine candidate, and potential for the Oxford vaccine's proteins to have molecular mimicry with CNS proteins.

I'm very glad that there are over 100 vaccine candidates at various stages of research, though only a few dozen being pushed through human testing ATM. Some won't provide (much) immunity to SARS CoV-2, some may elicit autoimmune disorders through molecular mimicry. There will be Nobels for the team lucky enough to make the first vaccine against any coronavirus.

what’s a CNS protein?

The case prompted a pause in AstraZeneca’s vaccine trials to allow for a safety review by independent experts. A company spokeswoman told the Times last week that the volunteer was later determined to have a previously undiagnosed case of multiple sclerosis, unrelated to the vaccine, and that the trial resumed shortly thereafter.

Transverse myelitis can sometimes be the first sign of multiple sclerosis, which involves more complex symptoms. But the myelitis alone can also occur after the body encounters an infectious agent like a virus.

It's alarming but I don't think it necessarily means the Oxford vaccine is necessarily unsafe.

Tracer: CNS = Central nervous system. The concern is that antibodies to vaccine proteins could be cross reactive with endogenous proteins, starting up autoimmune disorders.

i don't know what endogenous means either, sorry :( You're talking at a technical level that I just can't understand

Q: Is Dr. Fauci right that masks help stop the spread?

A: He’s a liar.

Q: Why is that?

A: Because I don’t believe in numbers. pic.twitter.com/ZLqUlK5Z2M

— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) September 21, 2020

It's a good thing these people have an outsized influence on, and representation in, our government. This fuckin' country.

Wish these people would stop believing in breathing. Oxygen must be some sort of Soros-G5-PizzaGate-Bilderberg ploy à la chemtrails amirite?

I can't say I can read the graph too well but if it supports the question..

Anyone with a theory about why COVID-19 cases have started rising again has to be able to explain why the timing of the rise was so simultaneous across the whole of the UK. This is every local authority in the country on the same plot: pic.twitter.com/rQfJqx3pnO

— Colin Angus (@VictimOfMaths) September 22, 2020

It's probably a combination of schools + people getting more relaxed/complacent in pubs and restaurants in late August?

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=47574f7a6e454dc6a42c5f6912ed7076

This is probably the most granular map so far of where the cases are and even that is only showing the confirmed cases, not as much use when the testing system has fallen over.

twitter ruined that image (their compression is garbage; even worse for videos)

Apologies for the fuzzy image, Twitter doesn't like the original - it's too big. You can find a massive, zoomable version here: https://t.co/uKBPP5gRG1

And the code to create it is here:https://t.co/fY9Wykn0Kl

— Colin Angus (@VictimOfMaths) September 22, 2020

xp

haha, the massive, zoomable version is too big for my display.

Colin Angus: create a 1600x1200 jpg or something!

Branwell was wondering what he was up to these days

This is the friend of someone I know here in Cardiff. Sounds absolutely horrible but as an update, almost six months later, she was finally able to go for a run yesterday (although only for a minute)

https://sarra43.wixsite.com/saracovid19blog

Wow. I don't get why people are so blasé about it, I'm constantly seeing "well you only have a 0.001% chance of dying" or whatever they reckon it is. For many families even one person getting it badly would screw up jobs, childcare, dependants, let alone the toll on mental health and longterm physical health.

"well you only have a 0.001% chance of dying"

This is just the usual binary thinking trap that people put their foot into time and time again. For those without firsthand experience, the dominant idea is that you either die or recover and dying is bad, but recovery is good. All other details tend to get overlooked. The fact that this disease is so new also means that its long term health effects aren't really identified and familiar, yet, so people haven't learned to fear them.

tbf I'm not sure many people are being blase, per se, so much as taking calculated risks, just like every time we get in a car. and those risks are different for different people. and people are just different, too. for example, I know low risk people taking more precautions than some higher risk people I know.

yeah it's insane that people think that way and again I feel like our poisonous political environment & media coverage has something to do with it. if you're pro-Trump you can point to the death toll as the only "bad" outcome and then say "well we all know these numbers are bogus, right?" and if you're anti-Trump you can point to it and say "holy shit all these people are dying because of our idiot president" and either way you kind of oversimplify the total effect of this thing

do we know how likely "long term health effects" are to manifest? you'd think that after 9 months we'd have some idea

There are so many numbers I don't know after all this time. for example, not how many people get it, but how many people are hospitalized with serious conditions, what percentage. I dunno.

Yeah I guess I meant people being blase in what they say to people who are likely to already have it/be at high risk from it (eg healthcare workers). People's own actions vs risk is a whole other thing, and likewise I've seen the full range. Age is the biggest single risk factor I believe, so that's why I find it sobering when 26-year-olds are really struck down by it. A relative thinks they've had it for 100+ days and they were the one venturing to the shops to protect the asthmatic partner!

well, let's bust out the good ol envelope and turn it around to the back, where the work must be done

https://covidtracking.com/data/national

mortality rate
6,941,911 confirmed cases
194,852 deaths (confirmed + probable)

194,852 / 6,941,911 = 0.0280

converting that to a percentage, that's a 2.80% mortality rate.

hospitalization rate
6,941,911 confirmed cases
400,840 cumulative hospitalizations

400,840 / 6,941,911 = 0.0577

converting that to a percentage, that's a 5.77% hospitalization rate.

(all figures for the US only)

so basically, in the US at least, about 5% of the cases end up going to the hospital, but of those, almost half die.

(unless my envelope got really messed up. a lot of pushing going on lately)

although actually, i guess it's not always true that one goes to a hospital for covid19 before dying. so i suppose the likelihood of dying after hospitalization is lower than "almost half", sorry.

Hi, y'all https://www.miamiherald.com/news/article246005375.html

^

The governor’s announcement Friday allows restaurants across the state to immediately reopen at full capacity — and prevents cities and counties from ordering restaurants to close or operate at less than half-capacity...

missionaccomplished.jpg

florida wins!

What's kept us sane since March -- I've said so here many times -- are local mask ordinances; they've been required since late March in MDC and enforced with fines since July. DeSantis' order says nothing about public spaces, so I hope counties still have this flexibility.

10% of all US cases, if I read that right. And ~7% of all deaths.

The governor said he would stop cities and counties from collecting fines on people who don't wear face masks, virtually nullifying local mask ordinances.

“As an act of executive grace, all fines and penalties that have been applied against individuals are suspended," the governor said.

Madness

Florida: Global Warming is Too Lingering a Death For Our Tastes.

Is it hyperbolic to call that an act of genocide?

local reporter:

I'm told @GovRonDeSantis and @MayorGimenez are on the phone presently, trying to decide what this means for Miami-Dade. https://t.co/vGLg7H4vey

— Carlos Frías (@Carlos_Frias) September 25, 2020

Nice of the governor to announce the plan before figuring out what it means for the largest city. Some very good public administration procedures there

Who would think that the anti-governance party would elect incompetent governors

Not to mention Gimenez is running for a House seat in a tightly contested district (i.e. mine).

Not to mention there's a Heat game tonight.

well, let's bust out the good ol envelope and turn it around to the back, where the work must be done

these numbers are kinda useless though if you don't know how many unreported cases there are, and the estimates on that vary wildly. has there ever been a randomized antibody test done anywhere?

that's a 2.80% mortality rate

kinda useless though if you don't know how many unreported cases there are

yes, karl's number, if accurate, would make covid19 about 28x more deadly than influenza. but even if you assume known cases only represent a third of actual cases the mortality rate would still be about 10x that of influenza. so, it is a particularly deadly disease by anyone's standard.

my county never enforced fines against masks so that part doesn't hurt here locally, but statewide, it's idiotic af.

I wasn't eating at restaurants anyway, other than once or twice masked with my best friend at a half capacity place. won't be going to any now.

at least relieved that I think I got the vaccine in my Covid trial so that I have some protection but not going to live as such.

in other words...the same ole "sitting in my room listening to death metal records and feeling very alone!"

i'm just fucking tired rn

Jason Leitch, Scotland's national clinical director, said the other day that they were estimating 4% hospitalisation and 1% deaths so far but that both numbers were decreasing across the UK as the infected population was now generally younger.

2.8% is much too high but so what? It's a really bad disease. There is no one answer to "what proportion of people who get COVID die" -- huge variation in age is the most obvious thing but e.g. there is variation time (fewer people die now because we've learned more about treating it, which was one big motivation for slowing down case growth in March/April), and there seems to be big variation between regions too for reasons I think people don't really understand.

Do we have any stats yet on what percentage of people who caught it early on still have significant fatigue/breathing/nervous/heart complications 6 months later?

At this rate I fully expect the hospitals to be overwhelmed by West Nile virus.

So there seems to be another anti-lockdown demo in Trafalgar Square today. Central London's turned into a no-go area on weekends now hasn't it? Thousands of credulous racists who believe the pandemic that's happing isn't actually happening, coming in from all over the country and wandering around without masks on. Throw the lot of 'em into gaol say I.

Do we have any stats yet on what percentage of people who caught it early on still have significant fatigue/breathing/nervous/heart complications 6 months later?

― Fetchboy,

I think this will be forthcoming. My duties as a contact tracer in my county now involve trying to reach people that had the virus between April and July and asking them about any persistent symptoms, or any new neurological/mental/physical developments. We fill out a questionnaire that gets sent in to some database

If you manually fill out too many questionnaires do you get... tracer hand?