SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00863-w

The world needs around 11 billion doses of coronavirus vaccine to immunize 70% of the world’s population, assuming two doses per person. As of last month, orders had been confirmed for 8.6 billion doses, a remarkable achievement. But some 6 billion of these will go to high- and upper-middle-income countries. Poorer nations — which account for 80% of the world’s population — so far have access to less than one-third of the available vaccines.

One reason for this imbalance is that wealthier countries have been able to place substantial advance orders with the relatively small group of companies that are making vaccines, most of which are based in richer countries. Unless manufacturing and supply can be distributed more evenly, researchers forecast that it will be at least another two years before a significant proportion of people in the lowest-income countries are vaccinated.

This is why around 100 countries, led by India and South Africa, are asking fellow World Trade Organization members to agree a time-limited lifting of COVID-19-related intellectual-property (IP) rights. The main vaccine suppliers, they argue, should share their knowledge so that more countries can start producing vaccines for their own populations and for the lowest-income nations.
. . .​

Without world wide vaccination, the unvaccinated will remain sources for COVID-19 and incubate variants. It isn't clear how to make this work in a way that ensures fairness and quality. A poorly made vaccination would likely promote even more variants.

Bob Wilson

 

Generally Western Nations of the free world are extremely generous. Once these nation vaccinate their populations which should be their first responsibilities-I expected they will put together a massive coordinated effort to provide vaccine to these countries who need help.

Generally the United States is one of the most generous countries and an acknowledged leader in this area.

A person that is dying is not going to be much help to others - a country that is deep in an economic depression with millions out of work and a rapidly spreading pandemic in its own country would do well to take care of itself first so it is in good enough shape to help others.

I think that is what a lot of the world is doing now.

A benefit for the countries who will be helped is they will be receiving a tried and true product with well developed distribution channels which may be better than the product original given to initial countries to receive it. Example Moderna has been asked to decrease the amount of virus RNA in their shot and still maintain its efficacy. Both Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are highly effective after one dose with the second dose only providing approximately a 7% to 10% boost in effectiveness - maybe only one dose required? Initial research into Pfizer vaccine storage requirements to see if they do not have to be so extreme.

One of the communist counties who was distributing the vaccine was actually getting some of it back because of questions about its safety, prior testing and efficacy - so maybe not a good idea to rush into things

A great point about us being a world community who must care for each other to eliminate a pandemic!

 

we're in the fourth surge and j&j just lost 15 million doses to an incorrect ingredient

 

That's what the newsies say.


I'm thinking that 100 years from NOW they're going to count "surges" a little differently (science and data) and see one surge in 1.5 years versus 3 surges in 3 years from the bug before this one, depending on motivations ($$) and "data reduction."


Fortunately, my second shot goes in today, and our numbers locally are looking pretty "last august."
That's CASES.....not hospitalizations.

Data (to me) indicate that there are not many double taps for this bug either among those infected or those inoculated....kinda sorta like 100 years ago.
I know MANY people who have gotten the bug but not one single person I know or have heard about (including, probably, this humble poster) got it again.

So........I'm channeling my inner Charlotte Keys:

Suppose they gave a pandemic (or a "surge") and nobody got sick?

 

glad to hear your cases are low. we're climbing from our low on march 8 of 1,000 cases to 2,500 yesterday. hospitalizations are following the upward trend.

last august 15 we had 500 cases

 

^ Well....I'm in flyover country so we may yet be a lagging indicator, but all of the usual suspects are fairly consistently reporting that the vaccine is statistically 100-percent effective in preventing hospitalizations and severe illness following infection from the letter.dot.number.dot.number..etc variants.
For some reason it's offensive to some to call it a "____" virus, but less offensive by the same people to call it a "______" variant.

YMMV.

Second shot is in my arm, and I have the CDC "passport" tucked into my wallet.
Strangely enough, there wasn't a "666" anywhere on the card!
...and TODAY is April the first!!!

Clearly the buzz-kills down at the local hospital need somebody to liven the place up a little bit.


Slightly more painful than the first but so far...only because the trainee double-clutched the injection and used a gorilla-glue strength bandage that removed about two square inches of hide when I ripped it off.

 

i might have to move. florida is looking good, but i don't really want to spend the summer there

 

Yesterday I caught a local TV news bit that was slightly short of 100% effectiveness: out of a group of 1.2 million vaccinated people in this state, there were 8 covid hospitalizations and 2 deaths. Both deaths were of age 80+ patients with multiple underlying conditions.

I haven't yet seen a print version with better detail or to confirm that I heard it correctly. But though now slightly short of 100% effective when subjected to a much larger sample size than the official trials, it is still vastly better than being unvaccinated.

 

Jan, Feb and Mar in FLA would be nice, but expensive.

 

I have little faith that the talking heads on TV actually know what they are talking about. What is their definition of "vaccinated" (Mine is 2 weeka after the second dose of one of the mRNA vaccines).

JeffD

 

That is why I need to find a print version of the item.

 

No major symptoms from the second shot.

I will be giving my masks a Viking funeral in 2 weeks.......

 

We are fully vaccinated but our youngest still needs their 2nd shot.

I am continuing to wear a mask everywhere out of deference to my fellow members of the community.

It may not do anything for me but it may offer them some comfort and a feeling of safety for them. I will wear a mask until Governor lifts mask mandate. All our stores still require mask - it is still rare to go out shopping and see anyone without a mask here in our area.

This year flu has been non-existent in our area and for the first time in many many years I have had no spring allergy symptoms. I am now a believer in the effectiveness of masks and may continue to wear one each fall and spring allergy season. Our Asian brothers and sisters may be on to something with how they wear mask during their flu and cold seasons each year.

 

Not here. Despite having surpassed that two weeks post vaccination threshold, we are dropping masks only among small groups of similarly vaccinated friends in private places.

We are still doing full masking in public places, and still avoiding crowds. If we quit, so will many among the un-vaccinated hordes, which will drive infection rates higher before they can get theirs.

And speaking of rising infection rates ...


=================================
P.S. My 99.8 year old aunt, fully vaccinated a month ago, tested positive yesterday morning. It is currently a very mild case, no fever. She was randomly selected for testing after another facility member tested positive the previous day, forcing a re-lockdown, not because she displayed any significant symptoms. We are still crossing our fingers for being able to have a 100th B-day party at the end of next month.

 

Textbook case on why wearing mask is so important - maybe not for yourself but for your fellow man.

 

I hope she sees 100 as well....if so this will likely be a vaccination success story.....or a false positive....or any of several possibilities.

No fever....
Asymptomatic.
She didn't go to the test, but rather the test came to her.....

...interesting.

I'm a full throated advocate of businesses being allowed to exclude mask-less customers but then I also believe businesses ought to be FULLY selective about the customers they serve.
I also remember when the lie that we were told was "flatten the curve" or "keep hospitals from being overwhelmed."

 

Hmm, so one year ago early March, US COVID cases were doing this:

Code:

2020-02-27     16
2020-03-01     30
2020-03-03     73
2020-03-05    172
2020-03-07    336
2020-03-10    708
2020-03-12   1.6k
2020-03-15   2.9k
2020-03-17   6.1k
2020-03-19  14.1k
2020-03-21  25.7k
2020-03-23  43.7k
2020-03-26  83.8k

Returning just briefly to math class to smell the chalk dust and recognize exactly what kind of curve that was, what ballpark would our case count have been in by 2020-04-05, and by 2020-04-15, in a world where we had not gotten serious about flattening that curve (2020-03-26 was the date by which stay-at-home orders covered roughly half the US population, and that's when you can see the curve begin to change)?

Just to help me understand which lie you've got in mind here.

A thought experiment in the other direction: keep everything else the same, every good and bad decision made since last March, but move that get-us-off-this-curve date ten days earlier, from 2020-03-26 to 2020-03-16. Back of the envelope: everything else the same after that, what would today's cases and fatalities be?

 

The irony of the situation is that, if the entire world population of human beings stayed at home and quarantined for two weeks simultaneously last March, then this virus would have been completely irradicated then. Yeah, I know that is highly hypothetical and totally unrealistic to think such a thing could have happened, but still, I must ponder upon this what-if scenario.

 

That's why I preferred to suggest the less-radical, "everything good and bad that we actually did, but moving our get-serious date ten days earlier" thought experiment instead.

From what I remember of a year ago March, a ten-day-earlier get-serious date probably could have been achievable.