Coronavirus thread

[71 dB]

And from Mister Disinformation: Trump, with no evidence, says vaccines will be available for all by April

I certainly hope vaccines are available by April 2021! Should have been available last April! The real problem is will enough Americans take the vaccine so that the herd immunity gets on proper level? A lot of Americans are not cool with taking Bill Gate's microchips into their bodies even if you are Karl.  0:)

[drogulus]

     

A lot of Americans are not cool with taking Bill Gate's microchips into their bodies even if you are Karl.  0:)

     What I do is go for the mid priced one and upgrade more often.

     The numbers in Massachusetts are not looking so good, especially new cases. I think the long awaited second wave may have arrived.

[SimonNZ]

Thank God I never got into his music and this tells me to never even try! From now on he is not known as Van Morrison, but "One Morron." 

That wasn't why I posted it. And you should get into his music because some of it is brilliant. And he's said some questionable non-music stuff in the past, just doesn't usually put it on disc like that.

If you demand some level of moral purity or correctness from your artists then you wont have much to listen to.

[Daverz]

Thank God I never got into his music and this tells me to never even try! From now on he is not known as Van Morrison, but "One Morron." 

Well some of it is gorgeous stuff.  I still love Astral Weeks.  "Death of the Author" and all that. 

[Karl Henning]

I certainly hope vaccines are available by April 2021! Should have been available last April! The real problem is will enough Americans take the vaccine so that the herd immunity gets on proper level? A lot of Americans are not cool with taking Bill Gate's microchips into their bodies even if you are Karl.  0:)

You do say weird things, buddy.

[Jo498]

I think people are overestimating the effect of a vaccine. First of all, such a fast release would be almost unprecedented and the danger of side effects for most people more serious than Covid (recall for almost every healthy person below 60 Covid is not very dangerous). It's anyone's guess if there can be a vaccine next year that is not more dangerous than Covid.
Secondly, the efficiency of a vaccine is dubious, especially with a comparably harmless disease.
I recently looked up the history of Smallpox vaccination. Smallpox is officially eradicated in the wild (there are samples in labs as potential counter for the use of smallpox as a bioweapon). Apparently the result of vaccination was to reduce the lethality of smallpox from 20-30% to 2-3%. This is a factor of 10 but apparently some people still got smallpox and even with vaccination 5-10 times as many people died (with 19th century medical support) than from Covid. If one looks into influenza vaccination the effect is rather small. (It seems that many studies here are poorly designed and have been critized, for a layman it is hard to see what actually is the case without doing more research than I can be bothered to do. In any case the efficiency is sufficiently dubious that most health officials only recommend it for groups at special risk,)  And it is probably going to be similar with Covid. So the main point would probably be to protect medical personnel with vaccination. But after the chaos at the beginning, by now medical personnel already seems to be decently protected by the measures taken.

[prémont]

One of the problems with medical personel  is that they contract the disease at private events and bring it along to collegues and patients. This is why they ought to become vaccinated.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

I found this story to be quite interesting and inspiring.  I hadn't heard of this singer before, professional name of Gordi, but had heard of Bon Iver.  Many thanks to her for going back to her other life as a doctor and helping with the fight against Covid--and risking her own health in doing so.  Also includes her comments regarding mask-wearing.

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-54179877

PD

[Iota]

Downloaded the new NHS contact tracing app which was released today, just hope it achieves something in the attempt to gain some control of Covid.

What I haven't figured out yet is if a neighbour who tests positive is sitting the other side of a party wall, while somebody's sitting this side (within the specified 4 metres bluetooth range), whether I'll get an alert telling me I or whoever has to self isolate, because our phones have been close enough for long enough. Or indeed the same for a parked car outside.

[T. D.]

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/24/stanford-researchers-say-they-wont-be-silenced-after-criticizing-trumps-coronavirus-advisor-dr-scott-atlas.html

Straight from the Orange Pustule playbook: YOU'RE FIRED!!! I'M GONNA SUE!!! 

[André]

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/24/stanford-researchers-say-they-wont-be-silenced-after-criticizing-trumps-coronavirus-advisor-dr-scott-atlas.html

Straight from the Orange Pustule playbook: YOU'RE FIRED!!! I'M GONNA SUE!!! 

YOUREFIRED was the password Trump used for one of his media accounts before it was cracked by hackers. Given his limited ability to focus, it's likely it was his password on all his other accounts. Quite the password for the big red button, too 

[Karl Henning]

"Sweden, where a shutdown-free pandemic response prompted a global debate, is seeing another wave of covid-19 cases, with the country's state epidemiologist warning this week that it was heading in the "wrong direction" as winter approaches.

Sweden's public health body recorded 554 new covid-19 cases Thursday — the highest since early July — and 417 on Friday, according to its online tracking tool, capping off what epidemiologist Anders Tegnell had warned would be a "record week" for new cases.

"It is slowly but surely going in the wrong direction in Sweden, even if the situation is not as serious as in other parts of Europe," Tegnell said at a news briefing Thursday, according to the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet.

Unlike many other nations, Sweden has pursued a policy for containing the virus that avoided strict government measures such as school or restaurant closures. The success or failure of that policy is still being debated far beyond Sweden's borders, where most countries implemented some form of lockdown."

[Que]

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/24/stanford-researchers-say-they-wont-be-silenced-after-criticizing-trumps-coronavirus-advisor-dr-scott-atlas.html

Straight from the Orange Pustule playbook: YOU'RE FIRED!!! I'M GONNA SUE!!! 

White House advisor on coronavirus Dr. Atlas is not a virologist.... but a.... radiologist!   

Only in America.... 

Q

[Karl Henning]

Fewer than 1 in 10 Americans show signs of past coronavirus infection, large national study finds

[Florestan]

Fewer than 1 in 10 Americans show signs of past coronavirus infection, large national study finds

So?

[T. D.]

White House advisor on coronavirus Dr. Atlas is not a virologist.... but a.... radiologist!   

Only in America.... 

Q

Hey, at least he's a Doctor!
That makes him exceptionally (and almost uniquely) qualified for an Orange Pustule appointee. 
In fact, I'm shocked he's not a former Big Pharma lobbyist, which would be the norm for said appointees.
I'm almost certain that the selection process was "find the most respectable name who will publicly advocate the herd immunity approach".

[Karl Henning]

So?

waiting for herd immunity is not much of a "strategy."

[arpeggio]

White House advisor on coronavirus Dr. Atlas is not a virologist.... but a.... radiologist!   

Only in America.... 

Q

He may think x-rays will kill the buggers.

[T. D.]

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/30/appalachian-state-student-dies-from-coronavirus-complications-.html

[drogulus]

     The best available strategy is 1) transmission suppression 2) vaccine plus suppression 3) gradual development of herd immunity.

     Climate change and environmental destruction mean humans and animals will continue to migrate, creating more opportunities for unknown viruses to spread.