Tell me what countries other than the mountain people in northern Thailand , maybe Taiwan or New Zealand (?) Samoa , Fiji? I forgot ....the Great Initiator China .
OT: COVID Science - Pfizer/Moderna vaccines >90% effective; Regeneron antibody cocktail looks very promising in phase II/III trial and more
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Take your nonsense to the CE board.
I do't tell people how to behave or wear their masks. But I made a choice for myself not to frequent their business.
No big deal but I also realize that if masks are worn that way they are ineffective
It's astonishing to me too. Like wearing a mask is such a damn hardship when it could save lives.
I wonder if there was such a disagreement as to mask-wearing back in 1918 during the Great Flu Pandemic ?
So where are they getting it from...is it floating in the air
If everyone is wearing masks at work and stores then who is spreading it
Ask your local landscaper. He should know.
People who go to parties, gatherings, bars, restaurants, etc where masks are not worn. Then they infect other people, who infect people at home who wear masks in public but not at home. It's like that old shampoo commercial.
While I agree with you...can we please just keep this to the developments with vaccines and treatments? No point in arguing over this with the usual suspects...it'll just get the thread shut down.People who go to parties, gatherings, bars, restaurants, etc where masks are not worn. Then they infect other people, who infect people at home who wear masks in public but not at home. It's like that old shampoo commercial.
Yep, you were always optimistic on mRNA, while I was always skeptical on the mRNA approach, based on it never having resulted in an approved vaccine before, but great to see the good data! I have been on record saying we'd have commercially available vaccines by the end of the year since late March, iirc, which most did not agree with (including the CEO of my old company, lol).
Well our” educated one “ what countries are Covid free? When you check with your fans get back to us. Nonsense is your rhythmic daily updates on a vaccine which may not be out for the general population ( says maybe 2nd quarter of 2021... how about 2 nd quarter of 2022. See you guys live off this stuff and attempt to be soothsayers of the Rutgers board. Most medical professionals though quite hopeful temper what they tell their patients simply because hope is nice but results are much better. Take your nonsense to the Rutgers readers some of whom have a significant difference of opinion on this subject.
“old man” masks are hopefully a good thing but what really caused the revolt against masks was the contradictory information initially by Fauci, Redfield ,Birx, Adams ,WHO, CDC NIHI, scientists and leaders of most modern countries countries. So why then in places which have been staunch in mask protocols has the virus manifested itself no different than in the US ? People other than myself on this “ special “ board have also asked and are shunned and sometimes ridiculed by the same idiots that were against things which also protected the citizens in this country.
Just bustin' ya, but this seems like the Happy Days episode when Fonzie admitted he was wrong. The more vaccines the merrier, correct?
For a guy who pretends to know it all I can't believe you actually wrote that. There are numerous studies that they're borderline useless. They might limit some respiratory droplets but they're not stopping COVID unless you have an N-95 and even then it's not bulletproof.
Everyone everywhere is wearing masks and you guys keep saying that's the key. Europe followed what you wanted for 3 months. They cratered their economy, locked everyone away and cases per capita are even higher than us.
Lol so much wrong with your post. Your "Studies" don't exist. USA is doing worse than Europe both economically and deaths per capita, and your Sweden is even placing limits on gatherings.
Well thankfully it looks like you were incorrect in assessing the mRNA approach ... It just shows that as smart as the human species is it has a larger ego which prevents us from understanding why others are disbelieving or more concerned with actual finalized proof of success. So someone ( perhaps not as involved in the “science” ) actually has an opinion in opposition to what was being touted over the past 10 months were pigeonholed by a select few educated in the sciences ...many who disputed the information being given out by the so called experts were ignorant , stupid , dumb , causing trouble on their special science group chat...BTW: Could you post the link when you claimed back in March we would have a vaccine by end of this year... You were hopeful but I don’t remember that specific claim. If I’m wrong my apologies . Nobody would make that claim except your buddy in the White House.Now he actually made that claim.
Were any of the Vaccine trials thus far including a "human challenge" element to them? I know that was debated early on as to the morality of it, but I would feel much more convinced of their efficacy if the people who received the vaccine were definitely exposed to the virus. I'm also curious as to what other variables are at play - were participants told to wear masks and social distance still? If so, seems like its hard to control for those variables.
I can't imagine there was a human challenge element if there is a placebo involved, but I know nothing about clinical trials so I should zip it at this point. Curious what the experts could add.
I can't imagine there was a human challenge element if there is a placebo involved, but I know nothing about clinical trials so I should zip it at this point. Curious what the experts could add.
That sounds stricter than rules around the US. So much for wide open Sweden just crushing the game!
No and you're right, if there's a placebo, it's not a human challenge study, since those involve controlled exposures to the virus for healthy volunteers so that the efficacy/safety can be directly assessed. I always liked the idea of the human challenges, as they could have cut a few months off of development, but that's not the way anyone went (other than in the UK where they're still talking about trying it).
From what I've read, the placebo and treatment groups were essentially told to live their lives as if they weren't in a trial, i.e., to assume they didn't get the actual vaccine (or placebo). No guidance was given on masks/not masks or anything else.
You would know better than me.
Could a local pharmacy store the vaccine at 90 below zero?
I'd say very minor concern in the US, as people in very rural areas will likely need to travel 50 miles or more to the nearest location that has the ability to keep the vaccines under cryo conditions. Not a big deal, IMO, but it adds a bit of effort on their part.
So does that throw the numbers off? If the claim is 95% successful but not everyone in the control group was exposed or did things like wear a proper mask and social distance but the placebo group was more reckless does that impact the results?
Efficacy wasn't the only good news to come out of the Moderna news. According to them, they reformulated and can now store their vaccines at freezer temps (2C?) for shipping purposes and at room temp for up to 24 hours.
Pfizer I think is -80C storage or something crazy like that.
Can you cheap effers please pay TKR for premium and take the bickering to the CE? Some of us want this thread to stay open without your incessant political garbage.
Awwwwwwww you don’t understand 1/3 of what is being posted on Covid vs the incompetent one in Trenton.
Yep, I highlighted the temp differences in my first post. Pfizer is -70C/-94F cryo conditions for long term storage, while Moderna is -20C/-4F for long term storage, i.e., standard freezer conditions. Moderna did add new data that their formuation is stable for up to 30 days at standard refrigeration conditions (4C/39F), but I didn't highlight that as it doesn't really impact anything, since every location for vaccine distribution will have standard freezers available, as many drugs require -20C/-4F.
It's still even better news that 30-day refrigeration is good as opposed to Pfizer, where the dry ice will need to be replenished within 24 hours of receipt of a cooler box full of vaccine (assuming the location has no cryo freezer and most don't) and they can hold it that way for 15 days - their expectation is that the vaccines will be used in those 15 days. However, as I said to T2K, the cryo requirements will likely mean people in very rural areas will need to drive to larger distrubution/vaccination locations. Links to info on both supply chains are below.
https://www.supplychaindive.com/news/pfizer-vaccine-supply-chain-BioNTech-fedex-ups-dhl/588784/
https://www.supplychaindive.com/new...bution-supply-chain-cold-refrigerated/589086/
I'm really not into fantasy fiction, so I try to ignore what you have to say, but I don't always look at the author before I read the post, so occasionally I subject myself to drivel. In a thread about the preliminary results of vaccine and treating clinical trials against SARS-CoV-2, the politics of a border wall or what the guy in Trenton is doing has no relevance. It doesn't even have anything to do with mask-wearing, but somehow you need to insert your politicized views.
It’s all politics and has been since January 13,2020. I didn’t make it political in nature that was done by a number of people on here who attempted to feed a false narrative to others who had a different viewpoint on the virus, where it originated , how it spread and what should be done to combat the virus. The mask issue became a counter subject based on the misinformation . Because it doesn’t fit into your thought process you immediately attempt to make that it isn’t part of the current vaccine topic. The guy you probably voted for as our governor is proving more and more that an education doesn’t guarantee an ability to rationalize or reason ...similar to your inability and several others to understand because someone expresses an opposite opinion you write them off. You need some serious re thinking about fiction vs. non fiction ...
First off - I agree with @RUSK97 - it would make the thread better if you and @Greg2020 (and a few others) didn't get into hard core bickering over masks - plenty of CE board threads to do that in. Thank you.
I will respond to your post above, though, as I think you might be confused. My having an opinion on mRNA vaccines working or not working (and on when we'd have vaccines available) was merely an academic issue, as it affected nothing or anybody else. And many in the scientific community shared that opinion (which was the basis, largely of my opinion, especially the opinion of a couple of virology experts I have high opinions of). There also wasn't any data available to "know" if they were going to work or not. It wasn't until the early phase I/II clinical trials that we had some inkling the mRNA vaccines would work - and after that data became available, I obviously changed my mind, as that was new, important information - and was thankfully confirmed in the larger phase III trials (so far).
On the other hand, the science around masking or fomite (surface) transmission, for example, has been rapidly evolving over many months as new and sometimes conflicting data came in. The problem here is we don't have and will never have the kind of nearly absolute confidence we now have in vaccines, because it's unethical to test mask efficacy or surface transmission (with or without masks) with the actual virus, so the assessments of the science can only be done indirectly by inference by comparison to other viruses and/or by analysis of transmission chains retrospectively (epidemiology), which is much more error prone and with higher uncertainty.
While I was convinced of the effectiveness of masks by early March, partly because I've actually done direct research of filtration/removal from air, via masks, of pathogens and particulates in the work setting (unpublished work that companies rarely share), it took CDC/WHO longer than it should have to come out in favor of masks, IMO. Bodies like that are often slow to change what they believe is "known," as most experts generally thought masks were great for "keeping the virus in" but not so great for "keeping the virus out." We can all debate whether they should've moved sooner, but certainly by early April it was clear how important masking was and it was becoming clear that surface transmission was a very minor route. These things sometimes take time. Having said that, though, once there was consensus on these things, IMO, people saying "masks don't work" were doing so based on feelings and not science.
With respect to my comment on vaccines being ready by the end of the year, I thought I had posted about that in late March/early April, but the first post I can find on that is linked below, which was in late April. I know early on I had been thinking February, but that moved earlier as we started to see some really good pre-clinical data in March/April. Looks like our CEO will be wrong on this (he thought 2Q/3Q for commercially available vaccines) - maybe I should send him an email, lol.
https://rutgers.forums.rivals.com/t...es-interventions-and-more.191275/post-4530396
With regard to wearing masks to prevent infected people from transmitting the virus (even asymptomatic ones), my post on 3/14 is below, whereas it took CDC until early April to recommend masks for infected people (including possible asymptomatics). With regard to masks being protective for the wearer, too, the 2nd link is to a 5/21 post on the effectiveness of various mask materials and it quotes a post from that same day on the elegant hamster experiment showing mask materials greatly reduced transmissions. Why it took the CDC until recently to say that masks also protect the wearer is beyond me.
https://rutgers.forums.rivals.com/t...es-interventions-and-more.191275/post-4450962
https://rutgers.forums.rivals.com/t...es-interventions-and-more.191275/post-4571736
For what it's worth, I also dismissed HCQ fairly early on, which was the right call and said remdesivir was likely to only be modestly effective, at best, which has turned out to be accurate. I was fairly optimistic on convalescent plasma, but the jury is still out on that, as the focus ended up being on emergency use, not randomized, controlled trials (which still annoys me), but was very optimistic about the engineered antibody cocktails and both Regeneron and Lilly should get emergency use authorizations on those shortly (clinical data look great on mild/moderately ill patients), but ~2 months later than I expected in March, due to slow enrollment. Predicting science is hard and I think I did ok.
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It's a fair question, but I assume that's why there are 30K+ people in these trials. A big part of that is to try to randomize people to placebo or vaccine in a way that hopefully wouldn't have skewed behaviors for one group or the other - the thought is the groups are large enough to probably contain people who are representative of the larger population in each group. I don't actually know if they used surveys to help do that, but I would have if I had been in charge.
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Thanks for the explanation. I appreciate you and the others sharing your expertise.
You're welcome and I always enjoy thought-provoking questions/dialogue from you and others.
Thank you, very helpful info! I find the 95% effective claims slightly more dubious to this admittedly uneducated person after your explanation. I suppose the huge sample size eliminates that likelihood of the placebo group being reckless folks compared to the vaccinated group. But a human challenge trial showing 95% effectiveness, with severity of illness for the 5%, would be a home run of Ruthian proportions for humanity. If you paid me $10K tax free I'd happily try a human challenge, for the good of humanity 😇
Listen “ The Great Re Set@ you should read that book... You look at yourse
The Great Re-Set ... such an interesting read... Numbers as I have told you before the articles you post are invaluable but they also have led to many other posters questioning their validity and actual honesty and truths. I have not seen much more on plasma therapy now for several months. It always seemed to make sense to the layman. There are several on the board who look down their nose at others hypocritical snobs. Supposedly academic smarts but lacking in anything close to being humble in life. Not all ...a few. I give you credit on some of the things you were spot on with but to defend the governmental agencies which gave misleading direction is wrong no matter what your personal feelings and research showed. It is disturbing that supposed educated people don’t really care about Covid 19 which has a 99.8% rate of recovery but are looking to reimagine the actual system we have had for many , many years. Not everyone who agrees with that theory will reap the rewards of political change.
I am much more bullish on moderna. better study overall without the nightmare of storage, distribution in a practical sense.
efficacy does not equal effectiveness. the media loves to use these terms interchangeably. you can have an extremely efficacious vaccine in animal and human early trials but effectiveness in my world is measured by keeping vulnerable out of the hospital and ultimately dying on the vent, clotting and bleeding, children getting inflammatory syndromes. I'm still not entirely convinced that the side effect profile, short or long term, in expecting crabby old people or young people (no offense to anyone here) to come back for a second shot after feeling shitty, their arm hurting etc is going to be all that easy of a sell. some scream on like Tarzan with a flu shot or a blood draw. I've already borrowed the prep of telling patients that the more your arm hurts the better the vax is working. with all the young docs dropping like flies from getting infected from their small gatherings, we are probably going to have to hand out white coats to the Scarlet Nation bulletin board peeps. I'm not in danger since I threw my kids out of the house and I have no friends anyway. thank God for the real heroes which are the nurses and other ancillary staff and respiratory therapists. doctors are wusses compared to them.
early use of convalescent serum was always a shot in the dark-too many variables - timing and the variable unmeasurable titers in the donation and the variable unmeasurable titers in the recipient. worth a shot since desperation was in full force and history of its use in it's covid, flu like relatives. the full spectrum of this disease is still a mystery and much work needs to be done. this is a really immunologically driven disease, more autoimmune like,more in some than others, and it's unlike other diseases that you can follow a logical sequence of innoculation, innate and adaptive defenses kick in and effectuate a positive predictable clinical response.
efficacy does not equal effectiveness. the media loves to use these terms interchangeably. you can have an extremely efficacious vaccine in animal and human early trials but effectiveness in my world is measured by keeping vulnerable out of the hospital and ultimately dying on the vent, clotting and bleeding, children getting inflammatory syndromes. I'm still not entirely convinced that the side effect profile, short or long term, in expecting crabby old people or young people (no offense to anyone here) to come back for a second shot after feeling shitty, their arm hurting etc is going to be all that easy of a sell. some scream on like Tarzan with a flu shot or a blood draw. I've already borrowed the prep of telling patients that the more your arm hurts the better the vax is working. with all the young docs dropping like flies from getting infected from their small gatherings, we are probably going to have to hand out white coats to the Scarlet Nation bulletin board peeps. I'm not in danger since I threw my kids out of the house and I have no friends anyway. thank God for the real heroes which are the nurses and other ancillary staff and respiratory therapists. doctors are wusses compared to them.
early use of convalescent serum was always a shot in the dark-too many variables - timing and the variable unmeasurable titers in the donation and the variable unmeasurable titers in the recipient. worth a shot since desperation was in full force and history of its use in it's covid, flu like relatives. the full spectrum of this disease is still a mystery and much work needs to be done. this is a really immunologically driven disease, more autoimmune like,more in some than others, and it's unlike other diseases that you can follow a logical sequence of innoculation, innate and adaptive defenses kick in and effectuate a positive predictable clinical response.
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