outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

Our daily update is published. States reported 1.5M tests, 155K cases, and 1,565 deaths. 77k people are currently hospitalized with COVID-19 in the US. pic.twitter.com/tY6FB4eIic

— The COVID Tracking Project (@COVID19Tracking) November 18, 2020

oops, meant to post this one:

20 states are at their record currently hospitalized today. pic.twitter.com/pwcRlsbaJ2

— The COVID Tracking Project (@COVID19Tracking) November 18, 2020

~3 week lag between cases and deaths. Case doubled in the past 3 weeks, from ~80k to ~160k cases/day.

US hospitals seem more reluctant to triage at entry than to set up rooms like UMC El Paso's "The Pit", where revival attempts are limited.

Meanwhile, the latest on 'Long covid': Damage to multiple organs presents in young, low risk patients

data from 201 patients suggest that almost 70% had impairments in one or more organs four months after their initial symptoms.

The most commonly reported ongoing symptoms—regardless of hospitalisation status—were fatigue (98%), muscle ache (88%), shortness of breath (87%), and headache (83%). There was evidence of mild organ impairment in the heart (32% of patients), lungs (33%), kidneys (12%), liver (10%), pancreas (17%), and spleen (6%).

Multiorgan impairment was significantly associated with risk of prior covid-19 hospitalisation (P<0.05).

Is it just me or does Karl's map look suspiciously, um, red?

To embrace death is to overcome it, amirite?

so rhode island, huh?

NYT has more about the Pfizer vaccine:

Pfizer and BioNTech’s trial included nearly 44,000 volunteers, half of whom received the vaccine. The other half received a placebo shot of salt water. Then the researchers waited to see how many in each group developed Covid-19.

The companies said that out of 170 cases of Covid-19, 162 were in the placebo group, and eight were in the vaccine group. Out of 10 cases of severe Covid-19, nine had received a placebo.

Pfizer and BioNTech said that the vaccine’s efficacy was consistent across age, race and ethnicity. The most common serious adverse event was fatigue, with 3.7 percent of volunteers reporting tiredness after they took the second dose. Two percent of volunteers reported a headache after the second dose. Older adults reported fewer and milder side effects, the companies said.

“It’s pretty amazing,” said Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale University. She said the results in people over 65 were the most promising. “We know from the influenza vaccine that it’s very difficult to achieve protection in this age group with vaccines,” she said, so 94 percent efficacy in that group “is really remarkable.”

you can take your kids to brunch, but you can't take them to school
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/11/18/world/covid-19-coronavirus#nyc-will-shutter-public-schools-on-thursday-as-virus-cases-increase

he blamed restaurants staying open on Cuomo. no idea if that's true or not between all their bickering

Those freaks would blame each other for earthquakes

my understanding is that only cuomo can declare businesses have to shut down
these two guys are so spectacularly wrong for this moment. DeBlasio in particular.

I will say our restaurants around here went from kinda just nudging people about the masks to all putting signs on their doors requiring facemasks. granted, there is still an ordinance here requiring it, but it's the toothless kind, as Desantis stripped counties of the ability to fine people for not wearing them. some of them are still even imposing capacity restrictions despite Deshitnis saying it wasn't required anymore.

tbh - it's kind of accepted here, which is good to see, except there's an awful lot of dicknosin. and employees who do chin-diapering.

i stayed in a hotel while my house was going through repairs and woman came to the glass mask-free even though there was a big sign on the door requiring guests to wear them.

yet at the Walmart, the greeter outside refused entrance to one person who didn't have one.

yet go to Cocoa Beach, and they talk shit about you if you have one on (I heard someone behind me mocking me til I glared at him)

i feel like it's kinda crazy that people are getting excited about results based on 9 or 10 people?

i mean, the fact that 21K volunteers haven't gotten some kind of obscure heart damage as a result of taking the vaccine is a plus, don't get me wrong

we're all so desperate for any hope, it's not surprising.
let's see how the first million take it

I think it’s more that out of 22k vaccinated people, 8 got COVID

ah right i get it now. 162 vs 8. And only 1 of those 8 vaccinated people who went on to get COVID actually had a severe case. so that seems good.

Potentially very good.

Potentially. 162/22k would also be a very low infection rate so volunteers in general were probably being relatively smart about distancing and isolation.

They actually told ne it wouldn't help the Moderna study if I quarantined.

*me

i don't understand the argument these vaccines reduce the rate of severe cases. conditional on you getting covid, it appears to make no difference to how severe the case is. it only prevents severe cases to the extent it prevents infections. is that how everyone else understands it?

They actually told ne it wouldn't help the Moderna study if I quarantined.

― Lover of Nixon (or LON for short) (Neanderthal), Wednesday, November 18, 2020 3:58 PM (twenty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

ironically the raging third wave is part of the reason these trials are able to wrap up so quickly.

unclear to me if it also impacts severity of the disease. the implication is definitely there.

Caek & forks,

i don't understand the argument these vaccines reduce the rate of severe cases. conditional on you getting covid, it appears to make no difference to how severe the case is. it only prevents severe cases to the extent it prevents infections. is that how everyone else understands it?

In the Moderna study 100ish people got infected. 95 were in the control (placebo) group, 5 in the vaccine group.

Eleven of the infected individuals were classified as "severe." All were in the placebo group and none were in the vaccine group.

That does not prove, but _suggests_, that not only did the vaccine tend to prevent infection, it also made it so that the infections that DID occur were less likely to be severe.

“in the wild”, you take 10 random people with COVID, severe cases are still very much the minority, yes? when we’re looking at numbers like 8, 10 people i don’t see how that tells you anything.

I guess my take on it sort of depends on if that's a real study endpoint and the results they have are sufficiently powered to make that finding, or if that's just press release material, like a fun fact about who had severe illness.

I dunno, if you have group A consisting of 95 people and group B consisting of 5 people, mix them well, and draw eleven people at random from the 100, the probability of all eleven belonging to group A is over 50% (actually approx 55%) according to my calculation? Seems a very weak suggestion, unless I've done something incorrect.

the lack of clarity on all this is disturbing but, i trust, also completely unavoidable. bring on the hypos.

“in the wild”, you take 10 random people with COVID, severe cases are still very much the minority, yes? when we’re looking at numbers like 8, 10 people i don’t see how that tells you anything.

right, i mean the fact that just one of those is a severe case wouldn’t seem to prove much one way or the other about whether a vaccine reduces the likelihood of getting a severe case because the sample size is so small

but this is maybe a minor point

If 10% of covid cases are severe among unvaccinated and 0 of 8 people in the treatment group get a severe case then that is extreeeeeeemely weak evidence that the vaccine reduces severe cases. Like so weak you cannot claim it, and I hope this is just statistically illiterate journalism and not something moderna put in the press release.

It’s not zero severe cases among the vaccinated group in the other vaccine. Conditional on getting covid, I think the fraction of severe cases among people who get covid is actually higher in the vaccinated group.

All this is meaningless because the number of vaccinated people who get covid in the first place is too low to draw conclusions about the relative frequency of severe cases. So I don’t understand where this claim is coming from!

“Plant manager Tom Hart organized a cash-buy-in, winner-take-all, betting pool for supervisors and managers to wager how many plant employees would test positive for COVID-19.” https://t.co/Nyra56dNJ5

— Taylor Lorenz (@TaylorLorenz) November 19, 2020

jfc

Interested in the report that tge vaccine is 90-95% effective. What happens to the 5-10% of people where this vaccine doesn't work? I know it's not in most people's minds rn..

It’s definitely in mine, plus people who won’t be able to have the vaccine - people with certain autoimmune conditions, for example (potentially my sister in law). If everyone who can have the vaccine gets it, and if you get the levels of virus in the population down, then the 5% plus those who can’t get vaccinated are safe because the virus stops circulating in the population.

That’s a big fucking ‘if’

My understanding is that the makers don’t actually expect the vaccines to be 90% effective across the board once rolled out at large scale, but that an effectiveness of ~50% would push the R rate down and slow/stop the spread. Presumably some people will still die from it, which is why there is talk of some of the current safety measures still being in place after vaccination occurs...

There really needs to be a push to educate people about how vaccines work and how everyone who can get it should in order not to fuck over the person with say an allergy that prevents them getting it. Easier said than done esp if you are a government that has spent years undermining the very principles of the common good, public health &c

90+ is much more effective than a flu vaccine. It's enough to push a high level of herd protection for those who can't get the vaccine and those for whom it isn't effective. It should drive r and therefore cases below endemic flu levels meaning it eventually becomes "just" another potentially deadly disease we can manage.
Treatment is also improving plus there is limited (disputed) evidence that the vaccines may reduce severity of symptoms in positive cases so overall there's lots to be hopeful about.

Apart from mRNA vaccines causing mutations that bring on a zombie apocalypse.

An mRNA vaccine shouldn’t cause mutations. They aren’t gene therapy being delivered with a retroviral vector, it’s just imported into the cell and translated. I know it’s a joke but let’s not even jokingly accidentally fearmonger about implausible things happening I guess.

Or do do that it doesn’t really matter

Great, thanks all - I just saw coverage of its effectiveness, and of the logistics in getting a vaccination program working. It makes sense that this would great herd immunity.

*create

There really needs to be a push to educate people about how vaccines work and how everyone who can get it should in order not to fuck over the person with say an allergy that prevents them getting it. Easier said than done esp if you are a government that has spent years undermining the very principles of the common good, public health &c

Sadly a fair chunk of those who do understand absolutely do not give a fuck.

https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/201021150507-01-anti-vaxxers-today-using-old-arguments-wellness-partner-large-169.jpg

Actual footage of me and user caek pushing eula biss onto ilxors

Fist bump

Today was a very, very odd day

I testified before @senatehomeland

They held a hearing on hydroxychloroquine.

Yup, HCQ

In the middle of the worst surge of pandemic

HCQ

It was clear how our information architecture shapes questions of science and medicine of COVID

A thread

— Ashish K. Jha (@ashishkjha) November 20, 2020

God damn, the despair I felt reading that thread