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OT: Daily Covid thread 9/22

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Like weather, if coming to TKR is necessary for actual information gathering, then you’re doing it wrong.

this place is just for entertainment and should never be viewed otherwise.

Still the drama is compelling in a fun way...
I’ll call BS on that. The old threads were an excellent place for information-gathering regarding Covid. You got links and analysis from both sides of the aisle. There was more and more partisan bickering as time went on, but even towards the end it was still valuable.

We all have our biases, and therefore I very much enjoyed #’s postings, as well as ArminRU, RU-05, and others who lean left. HOWEVER, I also got good info/analysis from that thread from those who I believe to be right-leaning. Those posters included wisr, RUBOB, ashoskan (sp?), and more. Wisr was the best, imo, and certainly expanded my knowledge base and views.

Yes, I use a wide variety of other sources to get Covid news as well. Thanks to #’s, I now check Derek Lowe’s blog religiously. Ultimately, that thread did an excellent job consolidating/analyzing all Covid-specific news, and made all of us much, much more knowledgeable than the average Joe. To say this board can’t be a good place for information-gathering is just plain wrong.
 
This thread is a great idea to keep the CE crowd contained to none area so they stop ruining the standard, informative thread that RU numbers posts in.

The virus is fake and HCQ is the cure. Trump has done a great job with everything Covid related, etc etc.

And, go....
 
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You have issues

Sweden didnt wreck their economy and even had a week with no deaths

They are living normal. No masks..no anything

It would be a great place for you to go on vacation

Please refer to the Sweden FAQs in the other thread, thanks.
 
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Sweden isn't exactly the poster child here
Mexico will pass Sweden any day dropping Sweden to #14 in deaths per million. Still can’t believe doing nothing worked as well as it did. That would not be my choice if I were calling the shots.
1) They didn’t do nothing and social distanced better than most countries (including us)

2) It didn’t work well, their death rate is way higher than most countries, especially their neighbors

3) Their numbers have dropped and have remained very low since their initial phase. Most likely due to a combination of low population density, low imported cases, social distancing and their culture.
You have issues

Sweden didnt wreck their economy and even had a week with no deaths

They are living normal. No masks..no anything

It would be a great place for you to go on vacation
When you compare them with their contemporaries, it's not exactly something to crow about.

Rank - Country -- Deaths/Mil Population
03 --- Belgium ----- 858 --- 11,601,064
05 --- Spain ------- 656 --- 46,758,917
11 --- UK ---------- 615 --- 67,966,757
12 --- Italy ------- 591 --- 60,441,438
13 --- Sweden ------ 580 --- 10,113,497
16 --- France ------ 480 --- 65,306,406
19 --- Netherlands - 366 --- 17,143,507


What I would find interesting is comparing the rates against population density - no one has those numbers. I'd like to see it done with the US states.
 
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So far my well aged single malt scotch Covid prevention trial has been 100% effective.

According to my doctor(Goombatz), If you can taste and smell the scotch, you don't have Covid. He suggests performing the taste/smell test as many times as possible throughout the day just to make sure. 😄
 
Depends on where the cases are. If it’s in Madison due to back to school maybe not as worrisome. If it’s Kenosha where the looting and rioting took place and there are older, sicker people it could be an issue.
I disagree - I've been following spikes through a lot of states and countries, the lag is significant, but there's always a corresponding spike in deaths.

Here's the current data as of yesterday for Wisconsin:

IkyCX6f.jpg
 
I find it interesting how many of us react to the rise and fall of hot spots as valid measurements of how governments or geographic entities are performing. Everywhere, whether there have been lockdowns(New Zealand) or not(Sweden), have had case numbers rise and fall and rise and fall again ad nauseum.

The truth is that lockdowns and no lockdowns both work and do not work. Schrodinger's virus in more ways than one.
 
Well, figured the daily COVID threads haven't been that productive lately, so thought maybe if we try to discuss one really important COVID-related topic that is very much science-driven, perhaps we can keep this on topic, i.e., the science behind the vaccines, the status and progress of the ongoing clinical trials with regard to both safety and efficacy, and in what ways vaccine deployment can hopefully allow us to keep the novel coronavirus at bay, if not beat it into submission. The NY Times vaccine tracker is a great resource, as is the occasional update of the vaccine landscape and key breaking news for the major vaccines by Derek Lowe (In the Pipeline Blog). In addition from a more scientific perspective, the video below by noted virologist, Dr. Krammer, which is a little over a month old, is still one of the best resources out there on the science involved with each of the major vaccine candidates. Let's see how this experiment goes...

NY Times Vaccine Tracker
Derek Lowe's In The Pipeline Blog
Dr. Krammer's Video on Vaccines

In addition, I'm providing an updated (from a post of mine a few weeks ago) bulleted summary of the 9 vaccines that are currently in pivotal phase III clinical trials, which will determine the safety and efficacy of each vaccine candidate. We're really getting down to brass tacks soon, with the pivotal phase III trial results likely only about 6-12 weeks away and I'm still optimistic we'll have an approved vaccine by the end of the year; approvals before Thanksgiving seem very unlikely however, given how much data are being generated and how much there will be to review prior to approval. All of the vaccines had reasonably good safety profiles and implied efficacy (prompting good immune responses) in phase I/II, so far, meaning no major red flags, but these were obviously in smaller phase II trials w/o any data on conferring immunity yet.

Keep in mind that all of the vaccines in phase III right now will require an initial shot and then a booster shot (typically a month later) to achieve optimal immunity, with the exception of the J&J (Janssen) vaccine which is looking at a single shot. Some of the vaccines that are a few months behind the frontrunners, like Novavax (in phase II using proteins doped onto adjuvant nanoparticles, which is about to be approved for influenza) and the Merck/Themis vaccine (in phase I using the measles virus vector platform, which is proven) are looking at single shots and possibly greater immunity levels; there are dozens more than those two and the Times article does mention about 42 phase I/II vaccines in development. Also, remember that the FDA is saying a vaccine is "effective" if it can "prevent disease or decrease its severity in at least 50% of people who are vaccinated," so it's possible efficacy will look similar to the flu vaccine (although most experts expect much greater than 50% protection).
  • Moderna's mRNA vaccine; no mRNA vaccine has ever been approved before; requires -20C cold chain (freezers)
  • Pfizer/BioNTech's mRNA vaccine - requires -70C cold chain for stability of the formulation (dry ice storage typically - probably not a huge issue in first world countries, but a major issue elsewhere)
  • Astra Zeneca/Oxford's chimp adenovirus viral vector vaccine (only 1 vvv has been approved - Merck's Ebola vaccine). A hold was placed on this phase III trial to resolve 2 observations of transverse myelitis (spinal inflammation, not too dissimilar from Guillain-Barre Syndrome, which was a major issue with the Swine Flu vaccine in 1976) - the hold was released in most of the world, but not in the US.
  • CanSino's human adenovirus viral vector vaccine; human adenoviruses might have pre-existing immunity issues
  • J&J's human adenovirus viral vector vaccine (using an obscure human virus, hoping to avoid the pre-existing immunity issues); this one starts phase III any day now.
  • Russia's Gamaleya Institute's human adenovirus viral vector vaccine (already "approved" in Russia - a PR stunt)
  • There are three Chinese vaccines (one by Sinovac and two by SinoPharm) using "old school" deactivated actual coronavirus (most vaccines in use today use this approach, but it's much harder to scale and often less potent, but it works usually); two of these also have "emergency use approvals" without phase III data, which is also dumb.
  • The last one is an oddball. It's a trial of the existing Bacillus Calmette-Guerin vaccine for tuberculosis in Australia.
Note that the three front-runners in the US, Moderna, Pfizer/BioNTech, and Astra Zeneca/Oxford, all very recently published their phase III clinical trial protocols, which was a huge step forward with regard to transparency as these protocols lay out exactly how the trials are being run with how many people in each sub-population, as well as what the expected criteria for success are (how many infected in the treatment/placebo arms, as well as the severity of the infections and all the math behind calculating "vaccine effectiveness"). It's pretty complicated stuff that Derek Lowe covered really well today in his latest blog, so I refer you to that.

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/09/21/the-vaccine-protocols

In addition, here are a few more interesting links on some key issues for these vaccines. The first one is another Lowe blog entry, this time on what exactly "cold chain" means for vaccine stability, supply chains, and availability, especially in the 3rd world. The 2nd one is also a Lowe blog, on what can sound like a mundane topic, but it really isn't, as it's on things like ensuring there are enough glass vials or silica-coated vials for billions of doses and ensuring that the vials used are gas tight (a key for stability), which is no trivial task. I've done a lot of work in both of these areas over the years for new pharmaceuticals and they're not as "sexy" as the actual product, but if mishandled, they can derail an entire product launch.

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/08/31/cold-chain-and-colder-chain-distribution
https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/07/08/materials-and-gases-vials-and-vaccines

Haven’t been around much, but always a pleasure to read your science posts.
 
Sweden isn't exactly the poster child here



When you compare them with their contemporaries, it's not exactly something to crow about.

Rank - Country -- Deaths/Mil Population
03 --- Belgium ----- 858 --- 11,601,064
05 --- Spain ------- 656 --- 46,758,917
11 --- UK ---------- 615 --- 67,966,757
12 --- Italy ------- 591 --- 60,441,438
13 --- Sweden ------ 580 --- 10,113,497
16 --- France ------ 480 --- 65,306,406
19 --- Netherlands - 366 --- 17,143,507


What I would find interesting is comparing the rates against population density - no one has those numbers. I'd like to see it done with the US states.

Spiking in Europe but not Sweden..very little deaths now and full open..no masks no restrictions and they didnt kill their economy like most of Europe

Like Blue state governors they made huge mistake by shoving elderly to die in nursing homes
 
Stop being such effing nerds. This is a Rutgers football board. Enough with this crap already. Go argue with your neighbor or kick your dog or something. Just stop being such nerds on this board
If it bothers you don't chime in !
 
Spiking in Europe but not Sweden..very little deaths now and full open..no masks no restrictions and they didnt kill their economy like most of Europe

Like Blue state governors they made huge mistake by shoving elderly to die in nursing homes
I thought this was all a plot to hurt Trump? Due to the spikes you just mentioned, big parts of Europe are shutting down again, including conservative governments. They’re all in on it too? How about India & Brazil with leaders who like Trump? Why did they join the conspiracy? Or maybe, just maybe, you’re nuts.
 
Cool paper released last week on spike proteins doped on virus-like protein nanoparticles eliciting a 10X increased immune response (i.e., neutralizing antibodies, plus a T-cell response was triggered) in mice with humanized immune systems vs. the standard spike proteins being used in most vaccines, so far, plus a nice overview of the technology from the Scripps (CA) Research Institute. This group hopes to start vaccine clinical trials by the beginning of 2021.

https://www.scripps.edu/news-and-events/press-room/2020/20200921-zhu-covid19.html
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.09.14.296715v1.full

The nanoparticle vaccine technology leverages a unique design that’s unlike the majority of other COVID-19 vaccine candidates now in clinical testing. Each “nanoparticle” in the vaccine mimics the natural ball-like shape of a virus, which the immune system is trained to immediately recognize, explains Zhu, associate professor in the Department of Integrative Structural and Computational Biology.

These microscopic spheres are then studded with spike proteins resembling those of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

“Spike proteins are the tools this virus uses to efficiently attach to and infect healthy cells, so we need the immune system to recognize them as the enemy,” Zhu says. “Our vaccine design enables immune cells to encounter these proteins in a more natural conformation—embedded on a spherical particle—so they’ll know what to do when they face the virus in real life.”

By contrast, most experimental COVID-19 vaccines rely on full-length spike proteins that have been modified to remain stable in the body as they interact with the immune system; they are not connected to a virus-like particle. Thus, they may not generate strong enough of an antibody response to prevent COVID-19, Zhu says.


FYI, this is not the same technology as the "nanobody" antiviral approach (using small fragments of the neutralizing antibodies that companies are using in their engineered antibody treatments) being pioneered at both UCSF and Pitt. If interested, links to posts (with links to the primary research) on those two efforts are below.


 
Sweden and United States are nowhere the same and comparison is ridiculous.
Exactly, and I don't know why people continue to make the comparison at all.
1. Sweden is a much healthier country than us and has universal healthcare
2. Sweden did not actually do a better job than their peer Scandanavian countries
3. People in Sweden are naturally spread out minus Stockholm and live much more remotely than us
We should be comparing ourselves to Germany and similar countries

Also, we've had 200000 deaths with shutting down for a period of time, mask wearing for much of the country and social distancing. Imagine how bad it would have been if we did nothing like them?
 
Sweden and United States are nowhere the same and comparison is ridiculous.

I disagree that there is nothing to learn from other countries handling of COVID where meaningful demographic and population differences exist. That said, many of Sweden‘s achievements are overstated or simply wrong. For example, Sweden did encourage their citizens to work from home if possible, and Swedes did. They discouraged use of public transportation, and Swedes avoided it for the most part. Large gatherings were prohibited, Social distancing was encouraged; again, Swedes complied. And their economy is expected to contract by 5% this year while unemployment at over 9% exceeds its Nordic neighbors. As previously noted, their death toll is not impressive. Sweden has also said these changes are not short term, but long term shifts in socialization and behavior,

In essence, Swedes listened to directions given by trustworthy leaders, and as such the government did not need to employ mandates. So be quite skeptical of those who hold Sweden up as some example where they did nothing and have achieved a better outcome with no economic cost. Thats simply not true
 
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Spiking in Europe but not Sweden..very little deaths now and full open..no masks no restrictions and they didnt kill their economy like most of Europe

Like Blue state governors they made huge mistake by shoving elderly to die in nursing homes

I dunno why everyone always focuses on Sweden. Norway and Finland performed better in terms of cases and deaths, currently have similar restrictions as Sweden, and their economies were impacted about the same as well.
 
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Article is from April. I remember reading about this though and was hoping for some news on one of the nasal spray treatments. Some of those trials have to be complete soon.
 
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