outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

And obv if you don't want to say nbd

not for sure, no - according to my paperwork, the only way they could tell me is if I'm removed from the study for health reasons or something.

I am guessing I did get the vaccine only because the immune reaction was rougher than any other vaccination I've ever received - I don't react to flu shots, or tetanus or any of them I've ever gotten. It's possible I got the placebo, but I doubt I've have had that reaction given my history.

really should take an antibody test to find out, though that doesn't technically prove it either! :)

that doesn't technically prove it either! :)

yeah. in aggregate the testing is a valuable tool for health officials, but in regard to any one outcome of any one test, it's all "seen through a glass darkly".

Our local medical centre has got the (Pfizer) vaccine and has booked in 1000 over-80s for their two doses of vaccine. It sounds like an amazing takeup, there will be lots more to do before they can move on to the next group but a big first step.

those over 80s are going to be incorrigible when they've had their jabs.

where do you live, kinder?

I'm in the uk, not in London

NY Times front page headline

"Moderna Vaccine Prevents Severe Covid-19, Data Show"

Actual correct discussion of this (i.e. the data do not show that)

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/12/fda-releases-data-on-modernas-covid-vaccine-it-looks-good/
"The trial also had a pre-defined "severe" category of COVID-19. By November 7, there were 19 cases in the placebo group and none in those who received the vaccine. As of November 21, it had gone to 30 cases among the placebo group, but the mRNA-1273 group remained without any cases. It's unclear whether this was because the vaccine also limits the severity of infection or because there were so few cases in the vaccinated group that the odds of having a severe case were low."

NYT journalist/headline writer caught in a not-understanding-statistics shocker.

I remember reading a few months ago that a vaccine may not be 100% effective but if you got it and still contracted Covid anyway the odds of it being a severe case would be far lower than if you hadn't gotten the vaccine. is that how things work?

There’s no way of knowing, is caek’s point

Yet, anyway.

one could reasonably say there are early indications this may be the case, but the evidence is insufficient to draw such a conclusion. even if you say this, most of your audience will draw its own premature conclusions anyway. people prefer drawing conclusions to suspending judgment.

yup, totally plausible but there's very little evidence it's true (or not) and it's certainly not the headline (the headline is the "VACCINE WORKS")

do vaccines typically work that way? if I get the flu shot but still get the flu, is it generally a milder case than I'd otherwise get?

any aspect of this comment could be bullshit, but here's my understanding:

it's pretty common for vaccines in general to reduce severity, but it's not the rule, and vaccines are a pretty big class of drugs, andd these are the first mrna vaccines and the first coronvirus vaccines and we're going to give them to literally billions of people, so it seems worth checking if claims are true before putting them on the front page.

Insane story of the day.

Yesterday:

https://www.wdsu.com/amp/article/medical-emergency-prompts-flight-heading-to-los-angeles-to-land-in-new-orleans/34970433

On twitter, several passengers on this flight from Orlando to LAX are saying the person who died was part of a large group who had traveled to Disneyworld (from LA wtf???) and the person who died midflight had just had a positive COVID test and was having trouble breathing prior to boarding. Neither the airline nor the airport had taken any temperatures prior to boarding.

(okay, so my wife just told me that Disneyland is closed whereas Disneyworld is not, not that that ratches down the insanity of this story much).

even ignoring the temp, how would someone conceal that they were visibly struggling that much?

i had to fly during the pandemic twice. JetBlue, they had reduced capacity, no middle seats, and the plane was practically deserted, and masks were mandatory and they were walking by seats to make sure people had them on and wouldn't push back if they didn't.

the other airline(s) I flew can fuck off and die, they didn't give a shit.

this was when cases were low....no way in hell am i flying one now

temperature-taking is security theater

I saw the twitter posts from passengers on the plane and thought it had to be bullshit. wow. no words

Yea it's amazing by now that people think taking temps for a disease where half the ppl have no symptoms proves anything.

The White House security director was in the hospital for three months with COVID. Had to have his foot amputated.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-14/white-house-official-recovers-from-severe-covid-19-friend-says

Global South countries, led by South Africa and India, have requested a suspension of the WTO's patent rules to enable them to manufacture or import affordable generic versions of the COVID-19 vaccine. Shockingly, Britain and other rich countries have refused.

— Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel) December 15, 2020

...which will come back and bite everyone on the arse/ass for years to come.

‘Shockingly’

I've been in a hospital for elective care recently (all good) and they're taking temps at every entrance, theater or no. That plus masks on everyone, but wearing them properly isn't enforced throughout the facility if ppl take them off or under their nose in a waiting room, for instance.

Otoh the medical staff are getting vaccinated already! And not only the most frontline ppl but everyone, it seems like? Hooray!

I mean, doesn't temperature taking at least eliminate the (yes, likely very tiny) percentage of people who are definitely sick but refuse to give a shit? No, it's not going to catch the asymptomatic cases, which is why the other social distancing and masking is still vital in those spaces.

yes, but I don't think the problem is so much taking the temperature, but what the temperature check is then being used to allow. Airlines are using this to justify returning to the practice of overbooking their flights and jamming everybody together, rather than continuing to limit flight capacity and eliminate middle seats/etc.

symptomatic people, some will stay home, and even those who are feverish can simply take a pain reliever to make the fever go away when they board the plane. so they're probably not rooting out *that* many people, but they're saying "we took the temperature, nobody had a fever, ergo let's all mash onto this airplane". true, airplane transmission is still poorly understood and they have HEPA filters, but thats why I view it as "theater" too.

like if you have a flight somewhere,and you are hellbent on not rescheduling, all you have to do is pop 2 ibuprofen and boom, you're on

my doctor friend from high school got her first jab today. so glad to see this finally happening.

it didn’t work that way in my experience. the fever came and went of its own accord. acetominophen worked as pain relief (to an extent) but the fever would disappear and come back multiple times a day. usually worst in the evenings actually (after having had a whole day of continuous pain relief)

other countries take it pretty seriously. if you want to fly into france, you need a negative test from the prior 48 hours - even if you’re a citizen. if you don’t have that, you don’t get on the plane. same in egypt. many places require this.

lede of the day, possibly the year https://t.co/U6GjPeLk1Z pic.twitter.com/ZGaNmGxB7B

— 💭 (@samthielman) December 16, 2020

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

probably wasn't a great idea to shoot an indoors unmasked wedding tbh

a report from south dakota: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/12/09/south-dakota-mitchell-covid-masks

would the stupidity be this bad minus trump? idk

Probably wasn't a good idea for a government to abandon its citizens who need to feed their families.

Like, sorry not sorry kevin k and others, but some of the victim-blaming I've been seeing recently is maddening.

The government has left its citizens to spread this disease and die, with no safety net in place.

If the government isn't the first place you place blame, then you're fucking wrong. Period.

I think there's plenty of blame to go around and that it's perfectly acceptable to shed some blame to people who still absolutely insist on going to indoor bars unmasked after we're done blaming the government.

Going to indoor bars is stupid, yes.

Blaming a wedding photographer for taking jobs when she has kids to feed? Cruel.

from that texas wedding story upthread, i weep for humanity

The photographer who got sick after shooting the COVID-positive groom said her experiences throughout the pandemic have left her a little depressed. She recalled one conversation from that wedding, before she left the reception. “I have children,” she told a bridesmaid, “What if my children die?” The bridesmaid responded, “I understand, but this is her wedding day.”

Maddening quotes from that Guardian article:

"We’re here sitting outside, if we have to go inside we’ll wear a mask, all the seats and tables are apart, and they check if you live or work together.”

"At the end of the day, with the amount of people having parties in their own house, I just think it’s really silly.”

“I’m paranoid about the virus, but it’s so safe outside. We need to rethink and reimagine the whole thing.”

i have a lot of photog friends; they, like us, are doing their best to get by and pay their rent.

I blame the straights for getting married tbh

harsh but fair

I mean, I'm not getting married, but I have a couple younger cousins that we're supposed get married this past summer and both have tentatively rescheduled their weddings for 2021. I just don't understand the insistence on going forward with a wedding anyway, surely it's better and more enjoyable for everyone to just wait. Of course it's not ideal, but... I don't know.

Probably wasn't a good idea for a government to abandon its citizens who need to feed their families.

― "Bi" Dong A Ban He Try (the table is the table), Wednesday, December 16, 2020 1:00 PM (twenty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

no I get this, just saying that going to an unmasked indoor event is understanding you’re taking the risk that someone’s going to be positive. obviously the bride and groom are reprehensibly evil

I also agree that the entirety of the blame falls on the govt

The thing about a marriage is that you can just live together and postpone the ceremony indefinitely, or if the legal status is important right now you can have a judge officiate with a clerk to witness, send out announcements, and then schedule the big wedding celebration for later when it's safe.

Yeah. Sorry if I was a little testy, I'm just getting a bit miffed at how things are playing out in the court of public opinion.

Like, it isn't the fault of people taking risks to make ends meet when a government has so thoroughly abandoned its citizenry, but the news media and the government itself is really trying to make it out that this is entirely a personal responsibility issue. Fuck that noise.