outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

how do you give back a vaccine

Hey! It worked for FDR as "lend-lease" for sending war materials to UK in 1940.

Btw any news regarding AZ's effectiveness for people over 65?

nice!

Sorry, I meant: have there been any additional studies on this? That those three ok'd it is excellent news, of course.

Public Health England had a preprint based on real world data

According to a pre-print study from PHE, which involved more than 7.5 million people aged 70 and over in England:

Infections in the over 70s fall from around three weeks after one dose of both vaccines.

Protection against symptomatic COVID in those over 70, four weeks after the first jab, ranged between 57-61% for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and 60-73% for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine
The vaccines are more than 80% effective at preventing hospitalisations in over 80s around three to four weeks after one dose.

As well as the protection against symptomatic disease, over 80s who had received a Pfizer jab had an additional 43% lower risk of emergency hospitalisation and an additional 51% lower risk of death

Over 80s who had been given the first dose of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine were found to have a 37% lower risk of emergency hospital admission, but there is insufficient follow-up data to assess its impact on death

Thanks, that's exactly what I was looking for.

and that's just after the first dose? not bad

ass grass or vax nobody bides for free

Heh, I’ve been thinking of making that joke but was holding back for some reason.

How are you feeling post-covid btw? I suppose it's been several weeks now.

Fine, mostly. I am okay with my attenuated sense of smell, but my daughter is more irritated by hers, says it messes with her sense of taste. Also went to the dentist today for the first time since the pandemic but that is for another thread I think.

Ah, anosmia sounds immensely irritating indeed. My understanding is that it usually sorts itself out after a (long) while.

Good news

The majority of people who have had COVID-19 are protected from getting it again for at least six months, a study showed, but older people are more prone to reinfection than younger people https://t.co/HdZoDqZlVP

— Reuters (@Reuters) March 18, 2021

This is, uh, concerning.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/03/michigan-covid-19-coronavirus-outbreak/618332

It is, but I think a silver lining to it is that a much lower percentage of "hospitalizations" now are patients in critical care or on ventilators
https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2020/05/16/tracking-michigan-covid-19-hospitalization-data-trends/

utah opening up vaccine to everyone next tuesday, 3/24.

uh wednesday lol

anosmia
Just did the smell test with some pure essential oils. Barely anything.

That sucks. I hear you can slowly retrain your sense of smell, but I have no idea how you'd go about achieving that.

Oddly, michigan relaxed a number of restrictions on businesses exactly two weeks ago. Also the former state HHS director resigned unexpectedly a few weeks before this was announced and got a large payout and had to sign an NDA which caused enough ruckus that whitmer had to waive the disclosure agreement.

Also it's been really nice weather and I watched hundreds of students - all maskless - wandering by my home office window on st. patrick's day. There were also the angry shitty parents wanting to reinstate high school sports and which led to a major outbreak between a couple of schools.

OUR KIDS GOTTA PLAY BASEBALL AND RUB EACH OTHERS' GENITALS TOGETHER IT'S OUR PATRIOTIC DUTY

LA county actually has new guidelines on the whole rubbing thing

.@CAPublicHealth update on youth sports: https://t.co/Yrf04Pv251 @KNX1070 pic.twitter.com/1PTPjMSBvf

— Claudia Peschiutta (@ReporterClaudia) March 19, 2021

modern NBA-style basketball is very low contact and high social distancing so that should be fine

call fouls if players get within 6 feet of each other

Shot block is a flagrant 2

Typical cave-shaming! You'll hear from our lawyers!

https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2021/02/24/dna-from-neanderthals-affects-vulnerability-to-covid-19?

Here’s Miami Beach tonight, 10 minutes after new 8 p.m. city-wide curfew.

City also declared a State of Emergency today in light of larger than expected #SpringBreak crowds. @CBSMiami pic.twitter.com/D6aCjgE2cf

— Brooke Shafer (@BrookeShaferTV) March 21, 2021

State of emergency curfew imposed due to spring break crowds.

crowd is actually all reporters tweeting how busy it is

(joeks, bro)

in London there was a march complaining at lockdown, similarly thousands of people about, most not wearing masks. the state of this country now.

Drove into London (Ontario) for a movie this afternoon, and there was a big slowdown downtown. First "Freedom Rally" I've yet encountered in my sedate corner of the world. One sign said something about "Communism is the real virus." Having spent the last year basically doing everything I'm supposed to, makes you feel quite hopeless. I've been very sympathetic to small business during this time, and do what I can to support them--that part I get. The defiantly crowding together and not wearing masks, no.

https://london.ctvnews.ca/hundreds-across-southwestern-ontario-gather-to-protest-provincial-lockdowns-1.5355639

Some more good news:

https://apnews.com/article/us-data-shows-astrazeneca-vaccine-safe-all-ages-a73e711c7309be4444c65d5f9ae90c43

Cool. Now don't pull it from circulation over unfounded rumors!

xpost - https://sciencenorway.no/covid19/norwegian-experts-say-deadly-blood-clots-were-caused-by-the-astrazeneca-covid-vaccine/1830510

A puzzling claim seeing as millions of people have received the AZ vaccine with no statistically significant life-threatening complications. Perhaps there's something wrong with the lots that were shipped to Norway?

xp that article is 4 days old and the EMA have subsequently approved it for use

We are the new Israel narrative developing.

17 deaths. Lowest announced day since 28th September. Cases not so good. Graphs later.

— Oliver Johnson (@BristOliver) March 22, 2021

Typical cave-shaming! You'll hear from our lawyers!

https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2021/02/24/dna-from-neanderthals-affects-vulnerability-to-covid-19?

― "Salvation Army FUCK!" (Neanderthal), Saturday, 20 March 2021 17:29 (two days ago) link

I've been wondering this whole time about what if any role genetics might play due to the massive geographically-based differences in the severity of the outbreaks. Climate likely plays a big role too.

We are the new Israel narrative developing.

🐦[17 deaths. Lowest announced day since 28th September. Cases not so good. Graphs later.
— Oliver Johnson (@BristOliver) March 22, 2021🕸]🐦

There are lots of LFT tests being used in addition to PCR tests since schools started back two weeks ago - on some days as many if not more than PCRs. I'd say they're a lot woollier in terms of ascertaining a real positive rate (partly because people are testing so often they might not bother reporting a negative) but I'd be interested to know how many cases are from LFTs - I've seen people suggest it's quite a large proportion, so that's a lot more cases now 'known' due to asymptomatic testing that we didn't 'know' before.

I should clarify, I mean positive LFTs without subsequent positive PCRs - so 3 days ago in England it was 3990 cases, of which 722 were LFTs without positive PCRs (I think you need to allow for some time lag to marry up the actual LFTs and subsequent PCRs if you're being accurate, though)

Didn't want to post this (heavily political) story in the mostly apolitical thread, but this one is bumming me out today:

https://www.wbez.org/stories/loretto-hospital-admits-mistakes-in-covid-19-vaccine-chance-for-judges-and-their-spouses/a395bac9-b41a-45c0-b78b-43668812e988

pertinent point if you don't want to read the whole thing:

In a statement, Lightfoot cited recent “stories” about health care providers who “allowed well-connected individuals to jump the line to receive the vaccine, instead of using it to service people who were more in need.”

“Our city will not tolerate providers who blatantly disregard the Chicago Department of Public Health’s distribution guidelines for the COVID-19 vaccine,” Lightfoot said, threatening similar action against other providers who are caught not following the rules.

And administration officials said Loretto can give second and final doses of the vaccine to those who received their first shot there — but the hospital will not get any first doses from the city next week and “until we can confirm their vaccination strategies and reporting practices meet all [city health department] requirements."

Obviously a shitty story and there needs to be some punishment for the hospital leaders that allowed this to happen (twice!), but punishing an underserved, majority black and brown neighborhood by taking away an entire source of vaccine distribution is indefensible, imho, and a terrible look for Lightfoot.

Yup. Give them vaccines to administer properly, as required, but fine them bigly for each confirmed case of blatant favoritism.

Statement from NIAID (Fauci's part NIH): Data & Safety Monitoring Board (independent monitors) for the AstraZeneca trial are concerned about the company's statement on efficacy. It may be "outdated...[&] have provided an incomplete view" of the data https://t.co/7hKyc8v9GC

— Hilda Bastian, PhD (@hildabast) March 23, 2021

Zeynep is taking this a bit personally but she’s not wrong (see rest of the thread). Amateur hour stuff and people are going to die because of it.

The short of it is the AZ final trial results look fine, but for some unfathomable reason, they did a press release on *earlier* results instead of waiting 48 hours to release latest ones (which may have a few more negative events, but are still great). https://t.co/kBdIUKXMzZ

— zeynep tufekci (@zeynep) March 23, 2021

https://chicago.eater.com/2021/3/22/22344263/restaurants-bars-capacity-limit-proof-covid-19-vaccination-pritzker-ramova-theater-restoration

All adults in Illinois will soon be eligible for vaccinations, and that could have major ramifications for restaurants: Fully vaccinated customers — with proof — won’t count against COVID-19 capacity rules. Under current Phase 4 rules, Chicago’s restaurants and bars are allowed a maximum of 50 customers per indoor dining space or 50 percent of full capacity, whichever is fewer.

This is going to be interesting to see how it plays out. The assumption here being that, especially for restaurants struggling to survive after the last year, owners are obviously going to want to prioritize customers that have been vaccinated. If the choice is between a half filled house or a full house, of course they want the latter. It does raise interesting questions about the legality and ethics of discriminating against the unvaccinated, especially those who can't for medical reasons.

i'm guessing ppl who are unvaccinated for medical reasons will not be dining out in restaurants for awhile in any case

Oh fair, I deleted an additional paragraph where I made the same assumption, but I don't know... some of the restaurants around here seem (to my eyes) dangerously crowded already, and I don't assume they're all vaccinated. Personally, I'm in no hurry to return to indoor dining, doubt I will even after I'm vaxxed up, at least not anytime soon.

The one thing I couldn't find was whether this applies only to restaurant and bars, or if it applies to other businesses as well.

I mean, hell, maybe it's not going to be a problem at all and hopefully vaccines ramp up enough to make this a very short term problem. On the other hand, I will never underestimate the willingness of Americans to find new and novel ways to sort themselves into haves and have nots, nor will I underestimate their glee in being able to discriminate against another group.