outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

Another good vaccine coming on-stream, from Novavax

Breaking: Novavax Covid vaccine shows 89% efficacy in UK trials. Half the cases on the trial were the new ‘Kent’variant so this is first vaccine to show it is effective against the new more contagious variant

— Fergus Walsh (@BBCFergusWalsh) January 28, 2021

Seemingly only "pretty good" (60% or so) against the SA variant. They're working on boosters for that, though (as are the others)

feels like I'm reading about more contagious strains popping up everywhere. the SA variant does seem worrisome though

I just want to get my first shot

Who's that mutant viral gent
Who ran amok in Kent
Lately it's been overheard in Mayfair

Holy shit, I knew vaccine distribution sucked in Illinois, but was not prepared to see how truly abysmal it is locally. We’re supposed to be into phase 1b, which is supposed to be healthcare workers, frontline workers and people over 65. Our city just sent out an email that said they only have enough for people over the age of 83.

It appears my pessimism is well warranted and June of 2022 is a pipe dream, at best.

I’m just really struggling with the disconnect between what Biden is saying and what we’re hearing locally. Biden says there will be enough to get everyone who wants it vaccinated by the end of the summer. Yet Pritzker said just this week that there is “no way” everyone gets vaccinated by then. One of them has to be wrong.

Depressing af that multiple new more contagious strains and possibly a vaccine resistant one are popping up right when mass vaccinations are starting. Guess they brought back the same writing team for 2021 etc etc

Also: why does it feel like suddenly restrictions are getting loosened in the US just as swathes of Europe are going on lockdown? Isn’t it kind of inevitable that the new strains will be brush fires here too any day? Or is there some reason why not?

amnesia

I don’t know, but I’m feeling more despair than I have in many, many months. After seeing how badly the US has fucked up since mid-March I shouldn’t be at all surprised that the vaccine rollout is also an utter catastrophe and failure on all levels.

I mean mutations were always expected, it was mutating last year too but the variance wasn't that significant in terms of transmissibility mortality so they didn't get as much press. that finally changed, but right now the SA is the only one that they seem to be thinking might need a boost.

tbh if a vaccine is 60% good against the South African, no, that's not great, but it's a good starting point, and I'm assuming the boosters can improve that a bit.

the other strains like the UK strain/etc seem to be well matched by the vaccines. i'm nervous of course but the main thing I am worried about is most countries finding a way to get the vaccines into people's arms, and at least in the US it's nice to see competent people in charge even if we aren't even remotely fucking close to where we should be there, and probably won't be for a good long time.

I think there were questions in the study too about whether 50-60% was the true efficacy against the SA version, as that wasn't the primary thing they were measuring.

i think Biden's end of summer prediction is a wee bit over-optimistic and I kinda want him to tamp down those expectations a bit as I don't have a huge degree of confidence in that (at least not yet). health officials don't seem as bullish on those prospects.

but idk. I think one thing we've learned is predicting this pandemic has been next to impossible. I don't think many of us thought almost a year ago that we'd still be dealing with this shit TO THIS DEGREE a year later. I sure didn't.

I guess I should only blame myself for getting my hopes up. I kinda thought that seeing people actually get vaccinated would represent some sort of light at the end of the tunnel, but it turns out we aren’t even fucking close. Which, sucks, but lesson learned. I’m going to work on not foolishly putting my hope in a vaccine that isn’t going to save us.

I’m feeling more despair

we know

I don't think many of us thought almost a year ago that we'd still be dealing with this shit TO THIS DEGREE a year later.

When it became apparent around May last year that the US federal response was beyond incompetence to become actively harmful, I recalculated. In March I only knew this virus would sweep the world like a brushfire fanned by high winds.

I mean, god forbid I should be doom and gloom in the global pandemic thread. But yeah, if you guys think my pessimism is a bit much, you should see how I feel! I’d prefer a dose of optimism, but I’m just not finding any, what with the constant discovery of new variants, more studies on long term ill effects and the woefully inadequate rollout.

please step away from the information that is making you feel bad

I have mixed feelings. I’m much less afraid of the virus itself than I used to be. Maybe because I’ve seen so many people I know have extremely mild cases and the only harsher cases among people I know were early on. Obviously that’s anecdotal, but it includes even people who are higher risk. The case fatality rate for me or my wife (who just got her first vaccine dose) or my kids is incredibly low. Even for my parents it’s nothing close to cancer. I’m also skeptical of there being a high incidence of permanent damage in otherwise healthy people with mild cases but I could be wrong.

At the same time, it spreads so easily and is deadly enough that we can’t just go about our business, and the combination of the new variants and slow vaccine rollout has left me a bit despairing.

Ok

man half the people in this thread are determined to feel like dogshit no matter what’s going on, huh? probably should not be surprised by that, it’s ilx!

where I live a bunch of cars broke down in the snow and one of them was a pharmacy truck with some techs on board and so they got out of and vaccinated all the folks in cars bc the supply was gonna go bad either way. That’s cool! It’s *amazing* we have a vaccine less than a year after this thing hit the USA! It works against the major new variants! wtf is wrong with you people, the news about all this is mostly incredible.

n.b. I almost died out of nowhere of an unrelated grave surprise illness this summer so it’s great to be here, things aren’t going that bad! There was *zero* plan from the federal government to roll out shots before last Wednesday. It’ll be slow but it will happen. Cmon.

once things really start rolling out I think cases will drop very quickly and we may have a day this year with 0 Covid deaths in the United States. that'll be a pretty big celebration, I reckon.

Deaths will fall precipitously sooner than cases hopefully as the most vulnerable 15% or so of the population reaches full protection

it’s perfectly reasonable to be doom and gloom, but your need to reiterate it four times a day is tiresome and unhelpful. we’re living through it too, you don’t have to convince anyone

that said it’s far more welcome than man alive’s insistent ‘no one *i* know has gotten sick, so this is all overblown’ bullshit

Yeah, sorry. That’s absolutely fair. I’m just running on fumes these days and struggling. I’ll try to fuck off for awhile.

don't worry, jon. i'm with you, i'm frustrated. there are few outlets for it right now, to blow off steam. this continuous, goddamn steam

i just registered zachtbd.com so i guess it's official

No such thing as posting wrong*.

*excl. bigotry

zachtbf.com

Johnson and Johnson vaccine's headline effectiveness 66%. Hmmm.

wanted to apologize if I came in a little hot — there’s a reason I don’t post much on these sorts of threads. I’m a childless dude living in the relatively covid-safe PNW who long ago priced in a year and a half of social silence and hundreds and thousands of deaths. It breaks my heart to see online folk I care about from afar despairing anew and I’m sorry the fever hasn’t broken, so to speak. Try to find some hope if you want, it’s out there on the ground and the horizon.

66% after one dose seems pretty good, more effective after a single dose than pfizer or moderna

Key points I get so far about the JNJ vaccine - highly protective against severe disease, hospitalization or death after *one dose*. Study includes S African patients so presumably captures some B.1.135 variant. I view this as a clear win. And two-dose regimen likely even better. https://t.co/MoR4rfkGco

— Ed MD (@notdred) January 29, 2021

Clay, your post was a little ray of sunshine and I am glad you didn't die.

The two posts together.

Will people who have already had a jab of the older vaccines now have to have another dose of these latest ones that are more efficient for the SA variant?

I mean it feels like the vaccine conveyer belt is rapidly picking up speed now, so its' probably an irrelevant question as everyone is going to get the more efficient jabs eventually.

Was posting more on the mostly apolitical thread about my experiences but this month I’ve now received the vaccine — Pfizer, both doses, second one Wednesday night. Yesterday I had about eight hours from mid morning to early evening where the fatigue and aches hit but it pretty rapidly settled after that and I’m about back where I was. It was strangely good to get that feeling because then you know it’s working, but mostly just strange because it was like a flu but without any of the other symptoms. Good to be on the other side of it in any event!

BTW the reason I got it is due to my work at the main city hospital — both there and UCSF have been going gangbusters in getting staff and then long term patients covered.

I've managed to quash my pessimism because, however the Biden White House fails in other areas, it takes the virus seriously. Vaccinations are only going to increase. I think of 1942, months after Pearl Harbor. Nobody much remembers how the United States had no munitions, infrastructure, etc. to speak of. Nothing. By the fall production had accelerated so intensely that it was a matter of time when Germany and Japan would capitulate.

Yeah I remember saying when this all started to happen is that a WWII comparison can work if you allow for time. We are in essence coming up on a Pearl Harbor 1st anniversary — you really have to long haul it.

I was supposed to receive my appointment letter "by the end of the week" - today I discovered from the Health Minister that that includes Sunday, when there's no mail...

Ach well, just another three weeks of wandering around a cancer hospital full of coughing dicknoses.

Ugh, sorry onimo. Hope you get that appointment letter sooner rather than later.

While undoubtedly Biden's team will help things in the near future, I think much of my own pessimism stems from the local follow through. I'm frustrated that very, very few of the eligible folks in my life have been able to set up an appointment, much less get the jab itself. And our state and local politicians are painting a very different, far less rosy picture than the one that is being painted by Biden and the national team. I would expect this to be something really easy for politicians to be optimistic about, without making any specific promises, "things are looking up, things are improving and we think we'll see it rolling out faster and faster in the near future, yada, yada". The fact that they are being openly kinda pessimistic tells me that there is some disconnect between the national and local levels that we haven't fully grokked yet.

How many vaccines are there now? I've lost count, which can only be a good sign. Can't imagine any of them will be made open-source though, so expect price-gouging in poorer areas of the world to continue for years.

A good handful according to this

https://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-articles/2020/3/covid-19-vaccine-tracker

that said it’s far more welcome than man alive’s insistent ‘no one *i* know has gotten sick, so this is all overblown’ bullshit

― mookieproof, Friday, January 29, 2021 1:05 AM (nine hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think there's a position in between "bullshit" and the way some media reports have treated it.

Just for example, there were a bunch of articles going around a few weeks ago based on a doctor's tweet about how "COVID lung is worse than smokers' lung" and supposedly even 70-80% of asymptomatic patients had severe lung damage. Many people I know shared this information unquestioningly, even though it was wholly unscientific and not based on any research or study.

Here, there's at least *some* pushback on that idea, but the lede is still buried.

https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/verify/are-covid-19-lungs-worse-than-smokers-lungs-covid-19-lung-photos/65-13085a3d-6516-42c5-a128-c0f2abc9d5cc

Yes, even mild COVID patients may have bad chest xrays (not as bad as lifelong smokers) -- but the damage isn't permanent.

And to be clear, can COVID cause permanent lung damage? Yes, in patients with severe cases. That's bad. That's scary. I just think that the people I know who are 35 and healthy and think they are going to catch COVID and wind up with collapsed lungs are probably a bit overly worried.

I saw the Coughing Dicknoses open for Firehose at the 9:30 back in '92

wonder if that rumoured lost Peel session will ever surface

lol fuck Macron (2)

Macron on AZ/Oxford: “Today everything suggests that it is almost ineffective for those over 65, and some say over 60.” https://t.co/QsFFLqEcbG via @financialtimes @VJMallet

— Anne-Sylvaine Chassany (@ChassNews) January 29, 2021

And to be clear, can COVID cause permanent lung damage? Yes, in patients with severe cases. That's bad. That's scary. I just think that the people I know who are 35 and healthy and think they are going to catch COVID and wind up with collapsed lungs are probably a bit overly worried.