Covid-19 (Coronavirus) - Please stay safe, y'all


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Reportedly from what I've heard, the reason some of these tests have completed so quickly is due to the reduction in delays between the phases of the trial. Most trials people take their time gathering results, and there are delays in even starting the next phase of the trial because of problems getting people to all start on the same date. The difference this time is there's a lot more money around which always helps to motivate people, plus people can't really find anything more important to do than to support finding a vaccine for covid-19.
Nowhere near as comprehensive as I’d like but it’ll do for starters:
 
Reportedly from what I've heard, the reason some of these tests have completed so quickly is due to the reduction in delays between the phases of the trial. Most trials people take their time gathering results, and there are delays in even starting the next phase of the trial because of problems getting people to all start on the same date. The difference this time is there's a lot more money around which always helps to motivate people, plus people can't really find anything more important to do than to support finding a vaccine for covid-19.

I understand, but the point is that delays give time for secondary effects or problems to show up. They may be normally caused by bureaucracy and underfunding, and avoided this time because of money/priority, which is directly good, but indirectly it might be hiding problems.
It may be that the procedures with COVID-19 are better than usual, but at least they're relatively untested procedures, because the procedures that gave us the vaccines we had were different (slower).
I'm also disturbed by the fact that the press release and stock frenzy goes first, and only later is the paper out or the data shared with authorities. I could not really make sense of the data, but I'd like my doctor and her peers to be able to have a look at it besides the decision of the governmental agency. It all smelled fishy with Sputnik, but once it's by Pfizer/Moderna it should smell rosy or something ?

I don't know, I guess when the problem is riskier, a riskier solution becomes acceptable. So the authorities might be right. But the people I see hesitating are not only the typical antivaxxers I never listen to.
 
There is a danger to the way these reports have been handled thus far, I believe. The drug companies are releasing preliminary data earlier than they normally would, and more often than not the media doesn't indicate this in their reports. The markets are doing what the markets do, and will correct if they've overreacted to these reports.

As I understand it, the regulators shouldn't approve these drugs until the third stage trial is complete and reported on. But I can understand why they're not saying that just now. What happened with Sputnik 5 in Russia was utterly ridiculous, and I'm only glad they've reportedly carried on with the normal three stage trials in spite of government interference, although I'm not in a position to really speculate on how good three stage trials carried out in Russia really are and whether we should trust them to the same degree as we do the western companies.
 
Heh. It's not that their vaccine doesn't work. They just failed to predict the correct dosage of it. That's why it's good that they had different people in their study take different doses, so they could find the correct dosage.
 

I'm no finance nor health expert, but that article sounds disgusting to me. [EDIT: maybe it's not the article but what is reported, I don't want to kill the messenger]. An investment expert criticizing a medical researcher because the dose and efficacy is not "what the markets expected". What a bullshit!
They complain that they need lower doses ? That's just good news (but too relative, compared with what?). Besides what @JDTAY says, the real reason the stock value pluummets is that the pharma company said they want to sell the (cheapest to buy, store and handle so far?) vaccine at cost, and make no profit (at first). And then US pharma lobbyists are throwing dirt at their competitor just because the trial in the US is still ongoing... Besides I never understood how can race be taken into account in a scientific study. I never found a convincing scientific definition of race. Humans are (luckly) diverse and mixed, I can never tell where one so-called race ends and another one begins, and I never need to. Just how dark someone's skin must be to be called black? Just how almond-like their eyes should be to be called asians ? Are scientists supposed to assign race at a whim and then draw conclusions from that?

The only reason I won't say "a little lower efficacy for much cheaper means more people saved" is because I haven't studied medicine. If there's something suspicious in Oxford's data I couldn't tell.

I no longer have the account to do it, but I would buy AstraZeneca right now just out of spite.
 
I can never tell where one so-called race ends and another one begins
Same goes for the spectrum of visible light. Still you don't have a problem with differentiating colours, I presume? I'm far from declaring one race as better than the other, but clearly humans in different regions developed different styles over time. And those style diversity most probably is written in genes (plus other diversities), and that might have biochemical implications, when it comes to vaccines, I'd guess?
 
Same goes for the spectrum of visible light. Still you don't have a problem with differentiating colours, I presume? I'm far from declaring one race as better than the other, but clearly humans in different regions developed different styles over time. And those style diversity most probably is written in genes (plus other diversities), and that might have biochemical implications, when it comes to vaccines, I'd guess?
My intuition is that if race can be defined and can be attributed influence, then it's more often due to how humans treat people of that race than from biochemistry. It still sounds to me like if vaccine trials should control for zodiacal sign. But what do I know?
 
I've now read this ArsTechnica article on Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine. One thing I didn't know is they have some kind of subtrial testing for infection. Moderna and Pfizer only look for symptomatic cases (you can't die without symptoms). But Oxford looks for that and then also tests a subset of participants for infection (that's what detects asymptomatic carriers that spread the disease even if they don't die/fall ill). So all have still too little data, but at least Oxford/AstraZeneca cares more for stopping the epidemy. Also AstraZeneca thinks it can manufacture 3 billion doses (for 2 billion people ?) in 2021, Moderna 0,5 to 1 billion doses (for 0.25 to 0.5 billion people?) and Pfizer 1.3 billion doses (0.65 billion people?). The two mRNA vaccines will manufacture some millions in 2020 already. Oxford (and Sputnik) is also a more traditional approach than mRNA.
 
Oh man, hospitalizations in my state just jumped by over 100 people, to over 1700, a new record high.

I know when a similar jump happened on the 12th, it was due to a change in reporting. I don't see anything like that this time though.

Edit: Hmm, admissions are actually down the last two days. It could be cases are lasting longer, but I'm thinking maybe they did make changes to reporting again.
 
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I don't know about NC USA, but here in Germany the weather has gotten not-so-nice. Great conditions for more overall infections - not just the current most famous one.
 
In today's bit of optimism, a University of North Carolina doctor says vaccines alone won't get us through the pandemic.


Specifically, he says we need treatments too. He's been helping test one. I'm not sure it's even possible for a treatment to target a virus the way a vaccine can though. All you can do is give people general anti-viral treatments, which have always been iffy.
 
In today's bit of optimism, a University of North Carolina doctor says vaccines alone won't get us through the pandemic.


Specifically, he says we need treatments too. He's been helping test one. I'm not sure it's even possible for a treatment to target a virus the way a vaccine can though. All you can do is give people general anti-viral treatments, which have always been iffy.

Agreed.

I am surprised people and the stock market are so optimistic. Even optimistic estimates put it at 1+ year for everyone to be vaccinated and there are warranted concerns about virus mutations rendering vaccines ineffective.

To say nothing about how long immunity will last...
 
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Did a vaccine eradicated the flu ?
It's all about killing as much people as possible while destroying the economy.
They had more than three months to close the borders to stop the spreading. They didn't.
And now they will make megatons of money selling vaccines.
 
will make megatons of money
Yup, and ministers have shares and/or a cousin or friend working for the one they promote.


From the History Rewritten department:

So Duckduck Go finds this (old march 2020 - pizza shop guy):

Screenshot_20201125_124312.png


But the newsbyte UTL now points to (current today affairs):
(the place where, like your freezer, CoronaVirus survives for 2 years instead of 2 weeks)

It could be about space, but other newspapers do have their links available:
 
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