COVID-19 Pandemic: Transmissions, Deaths, Treatments, Vaccines, Interventions and More...
- Thread starter Richie O
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Do you math? 13,578 confirmed, plus 1,947 probable.
Are you always let's pretend like the state wasn't devastated to make COVID look like the flu? We all know that was your point of posting that 800 something people are currently in the hospital.
LOL "evidence". Thanks for the recap of Maddow's political talking points "Greg".
You gonna post the updated Horowitz article about Arizona deaths in here, or has he even lost you? Haven't seen Maddow in years.
Let's just start with your hypothetical about the widespread testing that would have been done to prevent the NYC metro disaster had the government scientists and health official running the CDC lab not failed. How many test kits would have been manufactured and available in NYC metro in Feb? Do we have any stats on patients reporting chicomvirus symptoms during Feb in NY/NJ/CT? Let's not forget all the health officials including the WHO were saying that asymptomatic people with chicomvirus weren't spreaders so I'm not sure there would've been this widespread testing you assume. We also know that hospitalization case counts inexplicably---to me anyway----can take 2,3 ,4 weeks to even be validated.
Sure everyone wishes the CDC would not have failed initially, but I'm a skeptical about your premise that the NYC metro disaster could've been mostly avoided if the CDC test was ready as planned. Trump was "flying blind" too when he stopped China travel. Yet NY Dems played it their way promoting mass gatherings in defiance. They should have been more conservative. How did LA County handle their early covid hits better "flying blind"?
I live in Montgomery County, Maryland. Population 1.05M. Median household income $106,054. It is the largest school system in Maryland and 16th largest school system in the country. Announced today that K-12 students will not return to school until November the earliest. I don’t think we will be alone .
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Is there a new Horowitz article about AZ? Feel free to link "Greg". Sorry you missed the civil conversation RU-05 and I had about that article I linked weeks ago. Did you read any reports back then about 3-4 week delays in reporting hospital counts? Oh, now I see today a report the AZ chicomvirus mutated to an even more infectious strain. Looks like it's time for the adults to discuss. Nap time for "Greg".
https://www.azcentral.com/story/new...oronavirus-strain-more-infectious/5410710002/
We all told you the deaths there would rise and the hospitalizations were rising due to Corona you posted from Horowitz that it wasn't so bad, and that we didn't know what we were talking about. The state of Arizona admits it's a disaster there now.
The AZ dashboard showed differently, and I'll wait for your receipts for any reports at the time warning about 3-4 week delays in hospitals reporting daily case counts. Also show me where I disputed lags in deaths from cases. I bet CuomoDomo and Murph wished they had the "disastrous" stats of AZ's 295 fatality rate vs. over 1,700.
You have some work to do "Greg". Go!
I think if you are sending your kid to school you are accepting the risk, and at this point people should be aware of what the risks are.
I agree, confirmed is preferable.
And really at this point 13K or 15K does it really matter what the exact total is? We know it's a big ass number.
Atlanta will open virtual school August 24 and will go back to class 9 weeks later around October 26, one week before the November election. Trump is going to be pissed. I think a significant part of the country will open later than normal in October.
I'm not going to re-explain this to you for the 5th or 6th time, since you're clearly incapable of understanding simple math and supply chain logistics - feel free to look up my posts on testing. I'll leave you with this thought though: how was South Korea able to do all this weeks before we were? Maybe read up on that.
Exactly. Just for assurances though I would have no problem signing something to waive my rights to sue just like I did for my son to play little league. You have to weigh the risks, but to your point everyone knows what the risks are at this point.
Except it is illegal to not send your children to school, and if schools don't provide an online option in addition to in person schooling what choice are you left with?
As numbers says, your schtick is old. We all knew about the lags. Anyone who has a clue knows. We know you don't. Tell the people of Arizona it's not a disaster right now. Scream Cuomo and Murphy all you want, Arizona had 3 months of advanced notice. I won't be responding further to your posts, as it is clear you just don't get it.
I'll stick with the reality, how do you explain all the excess deaths? Doctors and coronors have said they believe these people died of Corona. I will listen to the professionals all day everyday.
Same here. This is a shitty situation all around for students, parents and teachers/staff. It also doesn't help when government leaders are so clueless, as per TX Sen Cronyn's comments on Thursday, where he said that it’s unclear whether children can get and transmit COVID-19 on the same day that Texas reported more than 550 COVID infections in children 9 and younger.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/po...ovid-texas-cases-coronavirus-gop-15399723.php
I saw this long FB post, below, supposedly from a woman who's a doctor in a COVID hospital at Duke, as well as a wife/mother who has decided to home-school her kids. I have no idea of the veracity of the source, but regardless, I think the following contains some pretty insightful thoughts on the various issues and options. As she said in her last line, it's really a nearly impossible situation. I'm pretty sure we would have chosen home schooling if our son were school age right now, as we had that luxury and that's one less person to add to the risk of transmission in the schools (especially for older teachers/staff, who will be at the greatest risk), since many won't have that luxury and will send their kids to school or daycare so they can work. Shitty situation.
There has been much discussion and debate about what school will look like next year. Today, Wake county announced that they will have kids in a rotation of 1 week in person/ 2 weeks remote. I expect Chapel hill will shortly follow suit,
Or have some similar hybrid plan. I keep getting asked this question repeatedly from friends — “well, you are a COVID Doctor. What do YOU think about sending your kids back to school”. My answer is my own, deeply personal, and not reflective of my employer. And I recognize and appreciate that many of my colleagues in the same position as me have different views. BUT. Since so many keep asking me, here is my answer, as both a parent and a frontline covid doctor. Do with it as you choose:
My family is electing to remote school next year. The reasons for this are multi-factorial:
-this disease scares the shit out of me. After 4 months caring for covid patients, we certainly know a lot more. But a lot of it isn’t reassuring. Covid is now known to cause lung, heart, kidney, brain, and clotting system complications. And that’s just what we know about the immediate effects. We have no idea — NONE — what the longer term effects might be. I am not willling to risk the health and vitality of my kids to find out what those long term side effects might be
-morbidity vs mortality. I’ve talked about this in prior posts. Yes, very few children actually die of covid. BUT many young people still get very very sick. Intubated. Put on ecmo. Pediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome. Kawasaki-like illness with coronary artery aneurysms. These are serious issues with long term effects. Just because covid doesnt kill you; it doesn’t mean you will ever be quite the same either.
-the teachers and staff. My god, how can we ask this of them? After cautiously sheltering in place for months, we are now asking them to basically jump into the lions den and interact with hundreds of children with thousands of household contacts. The more exposure you have, the more risk you have. Trust me, we WILL see teachers and bus drivers and cafeteria workers and other staff — and their family members— who get sick and die.
-I want to continue having my parents involved in my kids life. If we strictly isolate, I feel safe doing so. But If the kids go back to school and interact with dozens of kids from dozens of homes, the risk to my parents increases exponentially.
-I do strongly believe that since we CAN keep our kids home without significant detrimental effects, we SHOULD. There are so, so many people in our community whose lives and careers and finances will be devastated by having to do remote learning. We will not be. We can do so for a year without undue harm to my kids or our careers or our finances. I choose to keep my kids home so that families who absolutely cannot do so have just a little bit more safety at school.
I acknowledge that we are EXTREMELY privileged for me to only work part-time clinically and am able to do my non-clinical work remotely and help home school. And my parents live here and are willing and fully engaged to help us home school during the weeks I absolutely have to be in the hospital.
This seems like a goddamn nightmare for any family with a single parent, two working parents who cannot work from home, families with out extended family support, and families with ESL, kids with IEPs, exceptional children, etc etc.
I have zero answers as to how to make it better. Zero. I don’t want kids falling behind disproportionally because their parents cannot afford to home school or hire tutors. I also don’t want to see kids sick from covid and dead teachers.
Any plan than is less than 100% not in-person seems doomed to only worsen and exacerbate the achievement gap between the haves/have nots.
But — Any plan that involves more in person time also puts kids and teachers more at risk. And these teachers quite frankly do not get paid enough to risk their and their families lives.
I have no answer. It is impossible.
Nursing home mismgmt and keeping the trains and busses running to and from NYC for so long are the two main reasons why NJ has the highest death rate in the country, still, with only NY even close.
It's quite possible this will continue to be the case. But other states are ready to have their time in the spotlight.
It is unfortunate that NJ and NYC were hit so early in the timeline.
I would argue that a better demarcation is around 6/15, which looks to be close to an inflection point in the case curve. From 6/2 to 6/15 the new cases/day (on a 7-day moving avg) went from 742 to 1774 (about 2.4X), which is certainly an increase, but much less of an increase than from 6/15 to today (1774 to 8434, about 4.8X). I would've expected a modest (1.5-2.0X?) increase in deaths as a response to the initial rise and we only saw deaths go up by maybe 1.3X through now. But that's a minor point, really.
As we and others have been saying, with younger people being infected in FL and cases being caught earlier and improved medical procedures and treatments, deaths, relatively would be expected to be less per capita than they were in March/April. In the attached story, it shows the median age of Florida's cases has dropped from the low 60s to the mid/upper 30s, which is a huge difference and they show the % of cases for each age group to date, but to do any estimating of what the death rates might be would require the age distribution from March-May vs. June, which I haven't seen broken down anywhere. Could probably get it by difference if we had the breakdowns through May, but I'm not that motivated to figure it out - maybe somebody else will.
To your point on relative hospitalization rates vs. cases, in NJ, at its peak NJ had about 3600 new cases per day and the peak hospitalization rate ended up being about 400 new ones per day for a ratio of 0.11X. Florida in April had a ratio of roughly 1000 cases/day over a long steady "peak" vs. about 170 new hospitalizations per day for a ratio of about 0.17X, so FL back then had a ~50% higher hospitalization to case rate than NJ. Right now, though, we're seeing a FL peak which should be at least 8000 cases/day and even if they "only" had NJ's 0.11X ratio one would expect 880 hospitalizations per day vs. the ~250/day we're hitting now (0.03X), although hospitalizations surely haven't peaked while cases could be peaking now. Even if hospitalizations doubled from now to a peak of ~500/day, that would still be a ratio of 0.06X, which is only have half of NJ's at the peak. Maybe it'll be lower or higher - no idea.
https://www.nj.gov/health/cd/documents/topics/NCOV/COVID_Confirmed_Case_Summary.pdf
If FL's peak ended up being only half the hospitalizations of NJ's (vs. cases) and death rates per hospitalization were a constant, then FL would likely have half the death rate of NJ's, per capita, but if we factor in improved medical procedures and treatments now vs. 2 months ago, that could cut another 30%(?), leaving FL's peak death rate at only 1/3 of NJ's peak, per capita. My "guesstimate" from 4 days ago was that death rates per capita for the newly peaking states (FL/TX/CA/GA/AZ etc.) would be 1/2-2/3 of those in NY/NJ. FL having only 1/3 of NJ's per capita death rate would be even lower than my 1/2-2/3 guesstimate obviously (which would be fantastic...my dad is 86 and living in Vero), but that depends on FL maintaining the huge case age drop they've seen - in April, their median case age was around 60 and now it's in the mid-30s.
https://rutgers.forums.rivals.com/t...rventions-and-more.198855/page-5#post-4623771
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/cor...0200704-e5lqdwvuhrcb5f2ynyplzprtrq-story.html
A lot depends on FL government and citizens, themselves, keeping the younger, infected people away from the older people, given that FL is the 2nd oldest state in the US (slightly behind Maine, surprisingly), especially those in nursing homes and socially active retirement communities. That might be easier in FL vs. NJ, since many more older people in FL only have contact with other older people (or medical professionals/staff), whereas the elderly in NJ are more likely to be visited by nearby family - this is a bit of a guess, though. Also, in NY/NJ, there was simply no real warning of the exponentially growing outbreak, given the lack of testing until about mid-March, so keeping the old protected from their own families and medical professionals/staff was much harder. The FL/NJ graphics on cases, hospitalizations, and deaths per day are below.
https://www.prb.org/which-us-states-are-the-oldest/
FYI, FL has 21.5MM people and NJ has 8.9MM (2.4X), so given NJ's long death peak of ~300/day, the equivalent rate would be ~720/day in FL and 1/3 of that would be ~240/day (vs. ~45/day now). Well, IMO, we should see the death rate rise substantially by the end of this coming week and we'll know where we end up in several weeks. Let's hope the rates stay lower than expected. TX/AZ/CA/GA et al have also seen a lot more younger people infected than before, but it's really hard to find apples to apples data on ages now vs. April and consistent case and hospitalization data (TX reports total currently hospitalized, while FL reports cumulative ever hospitalized and new hospitalized per day, for example) So for FL and these other states, take these "guesstimates" with a large grain of salt given the inconsistent data at times.
Revisiting the Florida vs. New Jersey comparison from Monday. Been guessing the newly spiking states might end up with 1/2-2/3 the death rates per capita as NJ, given the much younger profile of those infected, earlier detection of cases (since we have testing now, but didn't have it available except for the worst cases for most of the exponential growth in NJ), and improved medical procedures and treatments vs. March/April. Let's see how we've progressed in case rates, hospitalization rates and death rates per capita for FL vs. NJ. I decided to use the Worldometers NJ graphics for cases/deaths vs. the NJDOH ones in the quoted post, since these provide 7-day moving averages (7-DMA); these include about 2000 provisional deaths while the NJDOH chart does not, although that doesn't change the analysis much.
First, note that FL has 21.5MM people and NJ has 8.9MM (2.4X), so given NJ's peak case rate of about 3500 cases per day over about a 3-week long plateau on the 7-day moving average, that would translate to a FL peak of 8400 cases per day and FL, right now, has a case rate that's growing more slowly, but is already around 9200 cases/day, which is 2.6X NJ's peak. Nobody knows if FL has peaked (it likely is close) yet or if the peak will be long and sustained like NJ's or a shorter, sharper peak - the answer will obviously affect hospitalizations and deaths.
Second, with regard to relative hospitalization rates, at its peak NJ had a daily new hospitalization case rate of about 400-450 new ones per day; Florida would be expected to have a peak 2.4X that if the states had identical outbreaks, which would correspond to around 1000 per day for FL at its peak. Florida's hospitalizations per day are now over 400 per day for the past few days, although their 7-day moving average is still only about 325 per day (it's catching up). So, for now, FL is still at less than half of NJ's per capita hospitalization rate, despite being slightly above NJ's peak case rate, but the FL rate is still climbing rapidly (and their data has been questionable). If I had to guess, FL will at least reach 2/3 of NJ's peak per capita hospitalization rate, which would be about 675 per day. - but that's a WAG.
Third, for argument's sake, let's assume FL reaches 2/3 of NJ's per capita peak hospitalization rate (~675/day in FL). Without any improved procedures and treatments, we'd likely expect similar deaths per hospitalizations, assuming patients admitted to hospitals were at a similar seriousness level as they were in NJ. However, as I said last week, I'd guess we might see maybe a 25-30% reduction in mortality rates vs. what we saw in NJ (could be 50% if plasma is working as well as I expect it is and is used enough - but those data aren't available), which would then translate to a FL death rate of about 1/2 what NJ's was per capita )or maybe even as low as 1/3 of NJ's) - and NJ's peak death rate was about 300/day (7-DMA) for about a 3-week period in mid/late April (equivalent to FL having 720 deaths/day at its peak).
However, if the FL peak death rate of 720/day, were reduced by 1/2, that would be 360/day (reduced to 1/3 would be 240/day). FL's death rate is just starting to climb and has averaged ~100/day for the last three days, but the 7-DMA is still only about 70. If FL's death rate curve is similar to NJ's, it'll take roughly 12 more days to go from the inflection point in the growth curve (which was 7/6) to the plateau of the peak 17 days after the inflection point (as seen in NJ) - this involves a huge amount of extrapolation on my part, though, and could easily be significantly off, especially since NJ's case rise was a bit steeper than FL's, so perhaps the death curves will be different too. It would be fantastic if FL's (and other peaking states) had death rates a fair amount lower than we had, but there is one huge assumption in this: much depends on FL maintaining the huge case age drop they've seen - in April, their median case age was around 60 and now it's in the mid-30s - if somehow their elderly population (they're the 2nd oldest state) starts getting seriously infected, then death rates could go up a lot.
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Regarding cases it should be noted that NJ was not catching anywhere near the % of actual infected that Florida now is.Revisiting the Florida vs. New Jersey comparison from Monday. Been guessing the newly spiking states might end up with 1/2-2/3 the death rates per capita as NJ, given the much younger profile of those infected, earlier detection of cases (since we have testing now, but didn't have it available except for the worst cases for most of the exponential growth in NJ), and improved medical procedures and treatments vs. March/April. Let's see how we've progressed in case rates, hospitalization rates and death rates per capita for FL vs. NJ. I decided to use the Worldometers NJ graphics for cases/deaths vs. the NJDOH ones in the quoted post, since these provide 7-day moving averages (7-DMA); these include about 2000 provisional deaths while the NJDOH chart does not, although that doesn't change the analysis much.
First, note that FL has 21.5MM people and NJ has 8.9MM (2.4X), so given NJ's peak case rate of about 3500 cases per day over about a 3-week long plateau on the 7-day moving average, that would translate to a FL peak of 8400 cases per day and FL, right now, has a case rate that's growing more slowly, but is already around 9200 cases/day, which is 2.6X NJ's peak. Nobody knows if FL has peaked (it likely is close) yet or if the peak will be long and sustained like NJ's or a shorter, sharper peak - the answer will obviously affect hospitalizations and deaths.
Second, with regard to relative hospitalization rates, at its peak NJ had a daily new hospitalization case rate of about 400-450 new ones per day; Florida would be expected to have a peak 2.4X that if the states had identical outbreaks, which would correspond to around 1000 per day for FL at its peak. Florida's hospitalizations per day are now over 400 per day for the past few days, although their 7-day moving average is still only about 325 per day (it's catching up). So, for now, FL is still at less than half of NJ's per capita hospitalization rate, despite being slightly above NJ's peak case rate, but the FL rate is still climbing rapidly (and their data has been questionable). If I had to guess, FL will at least reach 2/3 of NJ's peak per capita hospitalization rate, which would be about 675 per day. - but that's a WAG.
Third, for argument's sake, let's assume FL reaches 2/3 of NJ's per capita peak hospitalization rate (~675/day in FL). Without any improved procedures and treatments, we'd likely expect similar deaths per hospitalizations, assuming patients admitted to hospitals were at a similar seriousness level as they were in NJ. However, as I said last week, I'd guess we might see maybe a 25-30% reduction in mortality rates vs. what we saw in NJ (could be 50% if plasma is working as well as I expect it is and is used enough - but those data aren't available), which would then translate to a FL death rate of about 1/2 what NJ's was per capita - and NJ's peak death rate was about 300/day (7-DMA) for about a 3-week period in mid/late April (equivalent to FL having 720 deaths/day at its peak).
However, if the FL peak death rate of 720/day, were reduced by 1/2, that would be 360/day. FL's death rate is just starting to climb and has averaged ~100/day for the last three days, but the 7-DMA is still only about 70. If FL's death rate curve is similar to NJ's, it'll take roughly 12 more days to go from the inflection point in the growth curve (which was 7/6) to the plateau of the peak 17 days after the inflection point (as seen in NJ) - this involves a huge amount of extrapolation on my part, though, and could easily be significantly off, especially since NJ's case rise was a bit steeper than FL's, so perhaps the death curves will be different too. It would be fantastic if FL's (and other peaking states) had death rates a fair amount lower than we had, but there is one huge assumption in this: much depends on FL maintaining the huge case age drop they've seen - in April, their median case age was around 60 and now it's in the mid-30s - if somehow their elderly population (they're the 2nd oldest state) starts getting seriously infected, then death rates could go up a lot.
So I think looking at hospitalizations(which you have) as a baseline provides for a better comparable. Granted in this case too I think NJ was taking in only the more serious cases while FL has been(although may not continue to be) able to take in less seriously infected. There is still the thought that even with expanded testing we are only catching a % of the actual cases, goes without saying that that % was much lower in March and April.
Though I've very much gotten in line with Fauci in terms of following the data, and not putting much weight into projections, I would like to see an graph of what we believe were and continue to be actual cases.
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I get it could be very difficult. But we are in the midst of a pandemic. There are risks everywhere and everyone should know this by now.
If you send your kid to situation where you know there are risks, to then potentially sue afterwards smells like BS to me.
Obviously if there is some gross negligence then that is a different story.
I guess it's the nature of US citizens to collect $$ by suing someone when something bad happens even if it's nobody's fault. Some of the responses on here are mind boggling. We are in a world wide pandemic and people think they can sue if they catch the virus. First off if you catch it there is no way to find out exactly when and where you got it. If you are in a group and someone tests positive later that just means they were the first one to test positive. It doesn't mean that person was the first in the group to have it. Secondly you can't file suit over natural disasters. Unless someone intentionally tries to make ill don't bother to call an ambulance chaser.
Q&A about those “long haulers” I’ve mentioned. Still a lot to learn on that front.
https://health.clevelandclinic.org/what-it-means-to-be-a-coronavirus-long-hauler/
https://health.clevelandclinic.org/what-it-means-to-be-a-coronavirus-long-hauler/
Go Pharma!
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla Raises Expectations That the Pharmaceutical Giant Can Deliver a COVID-19 Vaccine by Fall
https://time.com/5864690/pfizer-vaccine-coronavirus/
Pfizer is increasingly confident that its efforts to develop a coronavirus vaccine will be successful. In a July 7 interview with TIME, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said he believes that Food and Drug Administration approval could come as soon as October. On the basis of promising results in an early-stage trial released on July 1, Pfizer has dramatically increased the projections for the number of doses it will produce this year, from tens of millions to 100 million. Bourla also disclosed that the company has begun commercial talks with governments around the world about how many doses they will receive.
Bourla is so convinced his $52 billion global pharmaceutical giant is on the right track that he has decided Pfizer will start producing the vaccine before receiving approval from the FDA. It’s a move as risky as it is unorthodox. Pfizer’s vaccine, being developed with its German biotech partner BioNTech, uses a novel genetics-based approach called messenger RNA; Bourla acknowledges that no messenger-RNA vaccine has ever been approved to prevent infectious disease to date.
Some of the Q&A:
What did the data that Pfizer and BioNTech released on July 1 show?
That the vaccine in humans created the very robust immune responses in all individuals that received the vaccine. And those responses were also able to kill the virus. What we learned is that this vaccine can neutralize the virus.
So it was a big moment?
For me, it was the moment when I saw the data, plus many other data that we haven’t published yet, [that] made me say that until now I was thinking if we have a vaccine. Now I’m discussing when we’re going to have a vaccine.
Let’s talk timing. You said your reaction was not if but when. So when?
Well, let me be accurate and factual here. One, we will only know if the vaccine works when we have the final study. We have a lot of indications that make me feel that really it should make it … We should be able in the September time frame to have enough data to say if the vaccine works or not. And to submit that to the FDA. So for a potential approval in October, if we are lucky. It’s feasible.
And when will it be ready to be distributed?
The most interesting and important thing is that if the vaccine is successful, which means that if we are convinced about it, effective and safe, and the FDA is convinced about it, effective and safe, we will have already manufactured doses that will be readily available.
So have you ever done that before, started manufacturing pre–FDA approval to get it ready to ship?
No, never.
Are you currently manufacturing the possible vaccine itself or just the bottles and the containers it will go in?
Pretty soon we will start manufacturing actual vaccine. We may not bottle it yet because we are waiting, but there are a lot of stages.
You’ve invested more than $1 billion in this. What if the FDA rejects the vaccine?
We will just have to write it off and call it a day. We will throw it away. It’s only money we’re going to lose.
In terms of scale, if you got FDA approval in October, what kind of shipments do you anticipate?
We are planning to have up to a hundred million doses for this year. We’ll be fewer in October, a bit more in November, a bit more in December. And then we will have approximately 1.1-1.3 billion doses in 2021.
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla Raises Expectations That the Pharmaceutical Giant Can Deliver a COVID-19 Vaccine by Fall
https://time.com/5864690/pfizer-vaccine-coronavirus/
Pfizer is increasingly confident that its efforts to develop a coronavirus vaccine will be successful. In a July 7 interview with TIME, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said he believes that Food and Drug Administration approval could come as soon as October. On the basis of promising results in an early-stage trial released on July 1, Pfizer has dramatically increased the projections for the number of doses it will produce this year, from tens of millions to 100 million. Bourla also disclosed that the company has begun commercial talks with governments around the world about how many doses they will receive.
Bourla is so convinced his $52 billion global pharmaceutical giant is on the right track that he has decided Pfizer will start producing the vaccine before receiving approval from the FDA. It’s a move as risky as it is unorthodox. Pfizer’s vaccine, being developed with its German biotech partner BioNTech, uses a novel genetics-based approach called messenger RNA; Bourla acknowledges that no messenger-RNA vaccine has ever been approved to prevent infectious disease to date.
Some of the Q&A:
What did the data that Pfizer and BioNTech released on July 1 show?
That the vaccine in humans created the very robust immune responses in all individuals that received the vaccine. And those responses were also able to kill the virus. What we learned is that this vaccine can neutralize the virus.
So it was a big moment?
For me, it was the moment when I saw the data, plus many other data that we haven’t published yet, [that] made me say that until now I was thinking if we have a vaccine. Now I’m discussing when we’re going to have a vaccine.
Let’s talk timing. You said your reaction was not if but when. So when?
Well, let me be accurate and factual here. One, we will only know if the vaccine works when we have the final study. We have a lot of indications that make me feel that really it should make it … We should be able in the September time frame to have enough data to say if the vaccine works or not. And to submit that to the FDA. So for a potential approval in October, if we are lucky. It’s feasible.
And when will it be ready to be distributed?
The most interesting and important thing is that if the vaccine is successful, which means that if we are convinced about it, effective and safe, and the FDA is convinced about it, effective and safe, we will have already manufactured doses that will be readily available.
So have you ever done that before, started manufacturing pre–FDA approval to get it ready to ship?
No, never.
Are you currently manufacturing the possible vaccine itself or just the bottles and the containers it will go in?
Pretty soon we will start manufacturing actual vaccine. We may not bottle it yet because we are waiting, but there are a lot of stages.
You’ve invested more than $1 billion in this. What if the FDA rejects the vaccine?
We will just have to write it off and call it a day. We will throw it away. It’s only money we’re going to lose.
In terms of scale, if you got FDA approval in October, what kind of shipments do you anticipate?
We are planning to have up to a hundred million doses for this year. We’ll be fewer in October, a bit more in November, a bit more in December. And then we will have approximately 1.1-1.3 billion doses in 2021.
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I'm sorry but this type of info gives a lot of false hope. Mostly these types of "announcements" by the company is to increase their stock price or get extra billions from the Goverment to pay for acceleration of production.
Pfizer doesn't need to hype anything, this is not a small company begging for attention or a start-up. When one of the biggies publicly express confidence, that's a damn good thing.
Sorry but very reputable companies are not beneath this. The make drugs to make money. They are seeing the billions being given out to their competitors. You seriously think they don't want their slice of the pie?
Besides since my dad past away from Alzheimer's. 21 years ago I generally pay attention to any news on any advance in finding a cure or dramatically slow it down. Countless times I've read about a new drug or treatment is just around the corner only to never hear of it again. Like malaria, aids, countless others there is no guarantees on a vaccine. To believe and pronouce one at this time is foolish.
https://www.texastribune.org/2020/07/10/texas-coronavirus-deaths-morgues-capacity/
https://www.abc15.com/news/coronavi...e-space-may-be-requesting-refrigerated-trucks
Texas and Arizona ordering up morgue trucks. I assume they expect the death rate to rise.
Unlike other states, Texas does not publicly report probable coronavirus deaths, which means patients who have died without testing positive for COVID-19 could go uncounted. More Houston residents are also dying at home before they can make it to a hospital. That means the death toll is likely higher than the state’s official count.
The rate of deaths in Texas has been accelerating. On Friday, the state surpassed 3,000 deaths 24 days after 2,000 deaths were reported. It took 53 days to get from the first death to 1,000 deaths and 39 days to get from 1,000 to 2,000 deaths.
Nearly 40% of Texas’ fatalities were residents of long-term care facilities, such as nursing homes or assisted living facilities. Other hotspots include prisons and meatpacking plants.
This might be one of the reasons why Texas, Florida death rate is low compared to New Jersey and New York.
https://www.abc15.com/news/coronavi...e-space-may-be-requesting-refrigerated-trucks
Texas and Arizona ordering up morgue trucks. I assume they expect the death rate to rise.
Unlike other states, Texas does not publicly report probable coronavirus deaths, which means patients who have died without testing positive for COVID-19 could go uncounted. More Houston residents are also dying at home before they can make it to a hospital. That means the death toll is likely higher than the state’s official count.
The rate of deaths in Texas has been accelerating. On Friday, the state surpassed 3,000 deaths 24 days after 2,000 deaths were reported. It took 53 days to get from the first death to 1,000 deaths and 39 days to get from 1,000 to 2,000 deaths.
Nearly 40% of Texas’ fatalities were residents of long-term care facilities, such as nursing homes or assisted living facilities. Other hotspots include prisons and meatpacking plants.
This might be one of the reasons why Texas, Florida death rate is low compared to New Jersey and New York.
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You are way too cynical. All you need to know is Pfizer is going to spend $1B to manufacture the vaccine candidate at risk prior to FDA approval. That proves their confidence is real. Read the Q&A.
Sorry, this reply makes no sense. Please reread. They are spending $1B to manufacture the vaccine now because they are confident it will be successful. If it is not successful/FDA approved, that investment will be 100% wasted. This financial risk proves their confidence is legit.
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