outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

Slovakia is testing its entire population: Slovakia to test all citizens over age of 10 for coronavirus

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/30/slovakia-to-test-all-citizens-over-age-of-10-for-coronavirus

Denmark will cull its mink population of up to 17 million after a mutation of the coronavirus found in the animals spread to humans, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said on Wednesday. Health authorities found virus strains in humans and in mink that showed decreased sensitivity against antibodies, potentially lowering the efficacy of any vaccines, Frederiksen said.

The head of the WHO's emergencies programme, Mike Ryan, called on Friday for full-scale scientific investigations of the complex issue of humans - outside China - infecting mink which in turn transmitted the virus back to humans.
Outbreaks at mink farms have persisted in the Nordic country, the world's largest producer of mink furs, despite repeated efforts to cull infected animals since June. Minks have also been culled in the Netherlands and Spain after infections were discovered.”

Just don’t raise mink *touches forehead and winks*

(I know they’re not wild and letting them go would be an extremely bad idea)

This tells me we are going to be dealing with this virus for closer to 20 years than 2 years.

There's also the chance that a mutation that increases transmission but reduces virulence/lethality will occur. It would be favored by evolution, and its a common fate of pandemic pathogens.

Our weekly update is live and it's brutal. COVID-19 is surging in large midwestern states while continuing to burn through heavily rural states in the Mountain West. Nationally, deaths are up 8% & for the last 2 days, the US has seen over 100k daily cases https://t.co/nCcpPB2d9L

— Jessica Malaty Rivera, MS (@jessicamalaty) November 6, 2020

it is brutal. near where I live, every single indicator is going the wrong direction, and fast. positive rates, deaths, hospitalizations are the highest they've been since mid-late May.

Oregon's numbers are all headed the wrong way, too, but they are rising from a lower floor, because so far we've been less hammered than most states. Our trend is the same bad direction as almost everywhere else.

The next four months look to be brutal. It's easy to foresee 400,000 dead by the time Biden is sworn in. Getting anything even remotely under control will be a massive challenge and the economy won't be in good health, either.

Zoom shares are tanking in the wake of the Pfizer vaccine announcement

more optimistic than i am

Vaccine hasn’t been peer reviewed yet, it’s great news but don’t pin everything on it until it’s been further studied.

/quietly stamps out bonfire of facemasks

I think it is quite irresponsible to even call it a vaccine until it is thoroughly tested + proven. But if these cunts put out yellow smarties and called it a vaccine they'd still make a fortune.

I have a vaccine in my pants pay me 2 c it

you want vaccines? bofa deez nuts are the vaccines!

Aaaaaay

I'm starting to think I might have had asymptomatic Rona a couple of weeks back. There was a small outbreak at my son's school and a week or so later I felt like I had a mild cold, with no temp, but my sense of smell was wrong for weeks. I kept thinking I could smell weed all the time, including in the middle of nowhere. Now I can just smell the fragrant decay of autumn, no weed.

If smelling weed everywhere is a symptom of Covid I might have had it for years

oh I know it is so strong and pungent + travels so far these days, but I was smelling it in places where the nearest sentient beings to me were cows that were dots on the landscape.

Cows love weeds though.

Oh, weed...

Cows always seem pretty mellow tbf

omg if smelling weed was a symptom give it me now!

oh really? it makes me feel physically sick!

I think cows might be tripping on shrooms when they occasionally decide to hunt down and trample some field interloping fule to death.

Unfortunately, I accidentally bought stock in Pfizer Total Landscaping

— wolf (@hungry_cap) November 9, 2020

This goes into the details of the study. The timing around the election is honestly pretty fishy! Haha oh well.

https://www.statnews.com/2020/11/09/covid-19-vaccine-from-pfizer-and-biontech-is-strongly-effective-early-data-from-large-trial-indicate/

Also note this one is going to be a fucking nightmare to distribute (two supercooled doses) but it’s mere existence bodes well for the others.

two supercooled doses

https://i.imgur.com/bqBwmlY.jpg

I totally could believe they purposefully held back the news until after tbe election, and I'm totally fine with that

Pfizer said before third week of November would be the earliest, so if anything they rushed it rather than hang on to it


https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/pfizer-mid-november-earliest-seek-virus-vaccine-73655074

I am told by my PHD pharmacologist brother whose career is reviewing such vaccine studies to not trust Pfizer.

if Pfizer had held to the original plan, the data would likely have been available in October

Guessing someone's going to be glowing red (or at least orange) with anger about this decision.

Is it pronounced fizzer?

More like F-eye-zer.

If they're named after a WipeOut class they're fine with me

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/wipeout/images/2/2a/Feisar_3.png

Sorry to hear you got COVID-420 calz

this is still great news though right? i mean i cried reading the article thinking i and loved ones could be vaccinated by january. nightlife, restaurants could be back in action by spring?

xp
lol the only vaccine for that is to smoke reefer!

it sounds quite problematic having a vaccine with a storage requirement of -80 something fahrenheit. Which I say knowing nothing about state of the art portable freezing tech

I totally could believe they purposefully held back the news until after tbe election, and I'm totally fine with that

*chef's kiss*

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/16/pfizer-coronavirus-vaccine-authorization-election-429797

pfizer......welcome to the resistance

Not to put myself into the position of defending big pharma here, but I have to imagine it was less about sticking it to Trump and deciding that maybe throwing that bombshell into the midst of an already contentious election was probably not good for anyone.

don’t pin everything on it until it’s been further studied

Also, "Based on current projections we expect to produce globally up to 50 million vaccine doses in 2020 and up to 1.3 billion doses in 2021."

Elsewhere I recall reading 15 million doses for the US market by end-2020. I anticipate we'll have stories about black market vaccines (diverted from health care workers and retirement homes) by February.

AHEM

AFRICAN-AMERICAN market vaccines, THANK YOU

Dallas Buyers Club

lol jesus Dan

having their vaccine taking on the rep of Hydroxychloroquine is probably not great for their bottom line

xp: sometimes it has to be the easy joke

Not to put myself into the position of defending big pharma here, but I have to imagine it was less about sticking it to Trump and deciding that maybe throwing that bombshell into the midst of an already contentious election was probably not good for anyone.

― soaring skrrrtpeggios (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, November 9, 2020 12:05 PM (fifteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yes, this seems very likely.

this is still great news though right? i mean i cried reading the article thinking i and loved ones could be vaccinated by january. nightlife, restaurants could be back in action by spring?

https://www.statnews.com/2020/11/09/four-reasons-for-encouragement-based-on-pfizers-covid-19-vaccine-results/