outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

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/

(statnews is the best website for vaccine stuff btw)

mRNA vaccines are extremely cool technology to me btw

Yeah

Needs two doses, so half the number of doses = number of people getting it, wouldn't get too cocky yet even if it works.

Also, distribution of RNA vaccines is going to be tough. The Pfizer vaccine candidate requires a cold chain at -80 °C for stability, so you most likely won't be able to pop into your local drugstore or family doctor's office to get the shots. Pfizer evidently has secured a significant fraction of the the nation's dry ice supply for distribution.

Moderna's apparently isn't as difficult (though still challenging climate wise) and it is also mRNA.

Fingers crossed that it also works

The Pfizer vaccine candidate requires a cold chain at -80 °C for stability

Sounds exotic until you realize dry ice has a temp of -78°C. Even yahoos like me regularly handle lab supply shipments that have to stay super-frozen. Hazardous and controlled materials are way more of a hassle.

I got a text from the vaccine testing people today asking me if I was still interested in taking part in a trial. Waiting for a call to discuss. Interested to know which vaccine it is for, the day I assume is coincidental.

Sweet! Do it if ya can.

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

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.

Agree with both of these--when I woke up to the vaccine news this morning, I started on the first and then the second occurred to me.

I.e., I think both could be true.

Urgh at the predictable and yet still depressing replies to this tweet

VACCINE SURVEY
Will you have the Pfizer vaccine? If not, why not.
(Please share so we can get a representative response).

— Dr Nigel Kellow 🩺 (@NigelKellow) November 10, 2020

"Have" the vaccine?

with some fava beans and a nice chianti

Hardly surprising. See, for instance:

https://www.euronews.com/2020/10/16/coronavirus-only-around-1-3-of-french-respondents-would-take-covid-19-vaccine-euronews-pol

twitter surveys aren't exactly a very accurate measure of anything either, tbf.

I have 10 twitter accounts for example. 9 are banned though.

the replies to that tweet tho

I think the important thing to also consider = people's reactions to a possible vaccine now may not mirror the reactions when one actually arrives, esp if people think it's their only chance of ending possible quarantines (which would take forever even after the distribution of said vaccine).

but yes there's a large anti-vax contingent and then there are also people who aren't anti-vax that may object on grounds that the process was rushed (which I don't entirely blame them for).

but...sigh...idk!

i'll let a few million other humans be the first guinea pigs and see how it shakes out

Sweden having a huge spike. prior to 10/23, their daily record was 1698, and they'd been having between 300-700 cases a day. Now they're about 3000 - 5000 per day.

death rates haven't sharply spiked, though have increased, but that's a trailing statistic

treatment options are (hopefully) better so deaths might not rise as fast as they did

probably won't

treatment options are better, but the capacity of hospitals and the number of trained health care workers have hard limits and can be overwhelmed. that's soon going to come into play in Sweden and presumably many other places, just as it already has in Belgium.

^^^ key point the anti-vax anti-lockdown clowns keep forgetting.

It's >99% survivable in current conditions with suppressed numbers and empty beds. As soon as those beds are filled it's a different world. It doesn't matter how good the treatment is if you can't access it.

hernias start to become unsurvivable when there is no one to operate on you

I was worried this morning about Australia cocking up its vaccine procurement and not ordered enough doses, but thanks to anti-vaccine idiocy it looks like I’ll have no trouble getting one of the limited number of doses.

The mayor of San Francisco (the first US city to shelter-in-place from COVID-19) just announced that a second Shelter-In-Place order is being considered as cases nearly triple over the last 3 weeks.

SF is what pushed Chicago to virtually the same thing back in March, I'm half surprised we aren't there yet but I think the business owners have been in the ears of Lightfoot and Pritzker to a degree that it'll never happen here again, no matter how bad things get.

Sacramento County back up into highest restriction tier again though i dont think we are at the shelter in place level

it’s so frustrating, plus every other county is at a different level so its just this yo yo of opening & closing, there has to be a better way but the better way is way more draconian & ppl just seem to want to do whatever the fuck they want anyway

Nearly 10% of the new US COVID cases are in Illinois, and we've maintained that pace pretty much every day for the past week or so. I expect we'll exceed it soon enough.

The mayor of San Francisco (the first US city to shelter-in-place from COVID-19) just announced that a second Shelter-In-Place order is being considered as cases nearly triple over the last 3 weeks.

in Chicago, our cases have nearly tripled as well over the last 3 weeks (7-day moving averages are up 2.66x). Our 7-day moving positive rates have doubled (5.5% to the current 10.8%), and the moving 7-day deaths are doubled as well (up 86%, 36 to 67).

I guess the same thing comes through more clearly just by looking at hospitalizations, ICU, ventilators:

https://i.imgur.com/WTirF5O.png

Meanwhile, in Brazil:

https://www.deccanherald.com/international/world-news-politics/jair-bolsonaro-asks-brazilians-not-to-deal-with-covid-19-like-fags-914199.html

Can’t wait for this guy to get it a fourth time but hopefully for real, covid has been very disappointing in this regard

Seriously.

ffs

NYS is taking action to stop the spread in response to rising COVID numbers.

Any establishment with a state liquor license, including bars and restaurants, must close at 10pm.

Gyms must also close at 10pm.

These new statewide rules will take effect Friday, 10pm.

— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) November 11, 2020

Sure that’ll help