2019 - nCoV (novel coronavirus originating in Wuhan, China)

[Grumpy]

"Few diseases have inspired more fear than polio. During the first half of the twentieth century, summertime polio epidemics left wakes of paralysis and death behind them, forcing summer camps, movie theatres, and public pools to close. Newspapers regularly featured horrific images of children struggling to walk or breathe. Adults also suffered: after contracting the virus in 1921, when he was thirty-nine, Franklin D. Roosevelt was forced to use a wheelchair or leg braces for the rest of his life."

http://www.newyorker.com/science/annals-of-medicine/the-last-time-a-vaccine-saved-america?itm_content=footer-recirc

People were more enthusiastic about vaccines when I was a kid.

[BillyB]

If one doesn't want to take the vaccine now, they can take it next year. Moderna CEO said they are making a billion doses this year and 1.4 billion next year.

Or one can allow their own natural immunity to handle the virus. One thing not talked about is we've come a long way in therapeutics. If ones immunity system struggles to beat the virus, there are medicines to help.

Looking at Moderna's pipeline of vaccines again, I see they have a few for cancer stuck in phases 1 and 2 trials. If anything must be rushed, why not rush those vaccines? Much more people dying from cancer than COVID right now. 1 out of every 6 deaths in the world is due to cancer. When a person has cancer, it destroys their organs and their quality of life diminishes even if they survive cancer.

http://ourworldindata.org/cancer#:~:text=Almost%20ten%20million%20people%20die,cause%20of%20every%20sixth%20death.

[Gator]

People were more enthusiastic about vaccines when I was a kid.

I lived those days.  My 7-yo girlfriend (no age gap)  got polio and survived.  I recall it frightened my parents, which thus frightened me.  The world wanted protection.   

In the 50s having just won a world war and facing a rising global wave of communism, the nation was less divided, certainly more patriotic.    News sources were consistent, more supportive of the government.  Most reported fake stories originated from the government.   And now we know it worked with regard to polio and some other diseases

I don't understand the fear of the mRNA vaccines.  The injected material is assimilated (undetectable) after 48 hours,  More important,. it does not attach to DNA. 

[Grumpy]

Pfizer has new drug for treatment of covid.
The drug is part of a class of medicines called protease inhibitors and works by inhibiting an enzyme that the virus needs to replicate in human cells.

Protease inhibitors are used to treat other viral pathogens such as HIV and hepatitis C.

If clinical trials go well and the Food and Drug Administration approves it, the drug could be distributed across the U.S. by the end of the year, Bourla told CNBC's "Squawk Box."

Health experts say the drug, taken by mouth, could be a game changer because people newly infected with the virus could use it outside of hospitals. Researchers hope the medication will keep the disease from progressing and prevent hospital trips.


http://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/27/pfizer-at-home-covid-pill-could-be-available-by-year-end-ceo-albert-bourla-says.html

In addition to the drug, Pfizer is still testing its vaccine in 6-month to 11-year-old children. Vaccinating children is crucial to ending the coronavirus pandemic, public health officials and infectious disease experts say.

Earlier this month, the company asked the FDA to expand its vaccine authorization to adolescents ages 12 to 15 after the shot was found to be 100% effective in a study.

Bourla told CNBC on Tuesday he is "very optimistic" that the FDA will approve use of the shot in adolescents.

[BillyB]

I don't understand the fear of the mRNA vaccines.  The injected material is assimilated (undetectable) after 48 hours,  More important,. it does not attach to DNA.
 

Simply put, long term studies on the mRNA vaccines have not been completed and two very accomplished experts on vaccines have come out and said it's possible our current vaccination program could lead to dysfunctional natural immune systems which in turn could lead to mass depopulation. One expert was once the senior project manager for epidemics at the Bill Gates Foundation and the other was an ex senior VP and chief science officer at Pfizer. Both are accomplished and qualified to lead teams of medical scientists. I've read a lot of stuff from independent doctors but won't post it here because it's easy to find doctors on either side of the fence. I do trust those two guys because of their credentials and they've been there, done that.

[ML]

Some medical doctors are rather strange folks, given their training.

Especially those that smoke and refuse vaccination.

[BillyB]

I don't understand the fear of the mRNA vaccines.

I want to add one more thing. There is a huge distrust of government right now. There are a lot of conspiracy theories floating around because of it. The government's failure to be honest and transparent on a variety of issues has built up a resistance to anything they say. The government can only blame themselves if they fail to get enough people to take a vaccine.


We don't need 100% of the people to take the vaccine anyway. What was last years estimation of the percent of the population needed to achieve immunity so that we get herd immunity? 60-70% I recall.

[BillyB]

CDC put out a new commercial. A new side effect been discovered that affects only males. For the males here that had the vaccine, has your sex life been affected for better or worse?

[GQBlues]

So wifey got her Pfizer shot earlier this morning. She said she never even got out of the car as they greeted them at the gate and had them line up in between the cones, then one by one was instructed to advance to the vaccination stations (10 minutes). Once she got the shot, they had her park in a spot, and they had personnel waiting for them to engage them to talk, monitor, and overall get them relax a bit as apparently anxiety strikes everyone after the jab (15 minutes).


In less than 30 minutes, she was off and running. I asked her if they told her when can she expect the tail to start growing? My poor darling...

[ML]

get them relax a bit as apparently anxiety strikes everyone after the jab (15 minutes).

Never heard any talk about the anxiety thing here in my area.

Neither wife nor I had any anxiety before or after.

Wife now past the two week mark after second shot.

We will think about going to restaurant for first time since . . . forever.

[Gator]

We will think about going to restaurant for first time since . . . forever.

Gawd, your state was indeed shut down.  The restaurants in FL stayed open, yet restricted.  Wife was anxious, yet went along, even in the days when she washed and sprayed the groceries before bringing them into the house

[GQBlues]

Never heard any talk about the anxiety thing here in my area.

Neither wife nor I had any anxiety before or after.

Wife now past the two week mark after second shot.

We will think about going to restaurant for first time since . . . forever.

Most folks tell me they had a one day fever after the second shot. I think the whole 'anxiety' observation/chat is a safe cap in case there's a reaction to the vaccine.


You said..We will think about.., you mean you're still in the deliberation state even after both of you had your vaccinations?   


We did have a good time being one of the first to reserve our tickets when AMC opened 2-3 weeks ago. I can't believe how something so trivial seemed so significant all of the sudden.
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[ML]

Gawd, your state was indeed shut down.  The restaurants in FL stayed open, yet restricted.  Wife was anxious, yet went along, even in the days when she washed and sprayed the groceries before bringing them into the house

Restaurants have been open off and on with restrictions.
We just never went.
Wife is still disinfecting all items than come into the house from stores.
A big job, but she is very energetic . . . probably because she is a 'little bit' younger than me.

[ML]

You said..We will think about.., you mean you're still in the deliberation state even after both of you had your vaccinations?   

Wife is super cautious type.
But there are a couple of valid considerations.
1) We know the vaccinations are less than 100% effective.
2) Uncertain whether the Pfizer (and others) are effective at all against the variations.

[GQBlues]

Unsure why this is a newsflash, if true. Good ol’ Bill is a liberal.

[BillyB]

Biden placed travel bans on dozens of countries with the latest being India. Biden acts because he cares. When Trump did travel bans last year, he did it because he was racist and never listens to medical experts and WHO who say travel bans don't work.

http://www.reuters.com/world/us/exclusive-biden-set-ban-most-travel-us-india-limit-covid-19-spread-2021-04-30/


Couple of interesting sites. First site shows countries with highest amount of population vaccinated. USA #3. Remember when Trump was criticized for hogging up the vaccine rights and attempting to purchase foreign companies that manufacture vaccines? Second site shows all nations data pertaining to vaccination. FSU nations doing poorly. China doesn't report but then again, looking at worldometers, nations with a few hundred thousand people have more COVID issues than China, a nation of 1.4 billion people.

http://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations

http://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/vaccination-rollout-and-access/


Report says Pfizer vaccine may cause neurological problems and diabetes.

http://nationalfile.com/report-pfizer-vaccine-confirmed-to-cause-neurodegenerative-diseases/

http://scivisionpub.com/pdfs/covid19-rna-based-vaccines-and-the-risk-of-prion-disease-1503.pdf


Someone found this 60 Minutes hosted by Mike Wallace oldie. 1976 America had a swine flu problem and the government rushed vaccines. Thousands of people got neurological diseases eroding public confidence in vaccines.

[BillyB]

Unsure why this is a newsflash, if true. Good ol’ Bill is a liberal.

Krystal Ball is a liberal too but I don't think she completely understands Bill Gates. We can't just take high tech vaccines and make them in India in a sweat shop on a whim. It takes high tech facilities to make those vaccines. Even in America, we had to throw out millions of vaccines due to manufacture error. In other countries, no problem. If a mistake happens, don't tell anyone and sell the defective vaccine instead of throwing it away. The cure becomes worse than the problem.


Protecting intellectual property was talked about in the video. One thing not talked about is that mRNA technology can be used as a biological weapon. Just as easily as it can program our bodies to fight and defeat cancer, it can program our bodies to initiate organ failure after a few months. So if we hand off the manufacturing process to India to help get their people vaccinated, I'm sure China, Iran and Russia will offer a few million dollars to an Indian medical scientist to get the blueprints.

[BC]

Even in America, we had to throw out millions of vaccines due to manufacture error.

Hardly 'sweat shop' BillyB.  The EMA and FDA regularly inspect facilities in all countries that export pharmaceuticals to the US and EU.

[BillyB]

Hardly 'sweat shop' BillyB.  The EMA and FDA regularly inspect facilities in all countries that export pharmaceuticals to the US and EU.

Bill Gates spent billions a year ago working with established vaccine manufactures to build facilities to create vaccines. It takes time to build these facilities and get them inspected. Even if nobody was worried about intellectual property getting stolen, there's simply no facility in India that can do mRNA production at this time. Krystal Ball thinks it can happen instantly to help the people of India. Her heart is in the right place but what she proposes isn't practical. The best thing that we can do is build more facilities in America and ship the vaccines overseas. The cost of shipping will be high due to cold storage requirements but it'll protect intellectual rights. India should shoulder the blame for failing to secure vaccine rights for their people. Last year they had a few vaccines being worked on in their country. I assume none of their vaccines work.


http://www.wsj.com/articles/bill-gates-to-spend-billions-on-coronavirus-vaccine-development-11586124716

[Grumpy]

"Now, more than half of adults in the United States have been inoculated with at least one dose of a vaccine. But daily vaccination rates are slipping, and there is widespread consensus among scientists and public health experts that the herd immunity threshold is not attainable — at least not in the foreseeable future, and perhaps not ever.

Instead, they are coming to the conclusion that rather than making a long-promised exit, the virus will most likely become a manageable threat that will continue to circulate in the United States for years to come, still causing hospitalizations and deaths but in much smaller numbers.

How much smaller is uncertain and depends in part on how much of the nation, and the world, becomes vaccinated and how the coronavirus evolves. It is already clear, however, that the virus is changing too quickly, new variants are spreading too easily and vaccination is proceeding too slowly for herd immunity to be within reach anytime soon.

Continued immunizations, especially for people at highest risk because of age, exposure or health status, will be crucial to limiting the severity of outbreaks, if not their frequency, experts believe."

http://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/03/health/covid-herd-immunity-vaccine.html

[GQBlues]

"Now, more than half of adults in the United States have been inoculated with at least one dose of a vaccine. But daily vaccination rates are slipping, and there is widespread consensus among scientists and public health experts that the herd immunity threshold is not attainable — at least not in the foreseeable future, and perhaps not ever.

Instead, they are coming to the conclusion that rather than making a long-promised exit, the virus will most likely become a manageable threat that will continue to circulate in the United States for years to come, still causing hospitalizations and deaths but in much smaller numbers.

How much smaller is uncertain and depends in part on how much of the nation, and the world, becomes vaccinated and how the coronavirus evolves. It is already clear, however, that the virus is changing too quickly, new variants are spreading too easily and vaccination is proceeding too slowly for herd immunity to be within reach anytime soon.

Continued immunizations, especially for people at highest risk because of age, exposure or health status, will be crucial to limiting the severity of outbreaks, if not their frequency, experts believe."

http://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/03/health/covid-herd-immunity-vaccine.html

Curiously fascinating, isn't it?


While this article seem to suggest we're basically resigned to be doomed going forward, in Wuhan, ground zero for this doomsday mother-of-all-killer; seem to have kicked the virus as though it never really happened.

Things that make you go hhhmmm.

[Grumpy]

It appears Darwin may have to sort the mess out.

[BillyB]

Worldometers experts say 18-24 months till pandemic's end and need 60-70% immunity among population to get to herd immunity. Although less and less people are willing to take a vaccine, vaccinations aren't the only thing that can get a person immune. Your own immune system can do that too.



May 1 (GMT)
News

The Future of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Lessons Learned from Pandemic Influenza, by Moore, Lipsitch, Barry, Osterholm - COVID-19: The CIDRAP Viewpoint, April 30, 2020: [source pdf] [about]The length of the pandemic will likely be 18 to 24 months
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• Given the transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2, 60% to 70% of the population may need to be immune to reach a critical threshold of herd immunity to halt the pandemic

• This may be complicated by the fact that we don’t yet know the duration of immunity to natural SARS-CoV-2 infection. Based on seasonal coronaviruses, we can anticipate that even if immunity declines after exposure, there may still be some protection against disease severity and reduced contagiousness, but this remains to be assessed for SARS-CoV-2.

3 Scenarios following the first wave of COVID-19 in spring 2020:Scenario 1: a series of repetitive smaller waves that occur through the summer and then consistently over a 1-to 2-year period, gradually diminishing sometime in 2021

• Scenario 2:  a larger wave in the fall or winter of 2020 and one or more smaller subsequent waves in 2021

• Scenario 3:  a “slow burn” of ongoing transmission and case occurrence, but without a clear wave pattern.

Whichever scenario the pandemic follows (assuming at least some level of ongoing mitigation measures), we must be prepared for at least another 18 to 24 months of significant COVID-19 activity

[BillyB]

Well, more people are going to distrust everything the government says about the virus. When Biden is on tv with nobody around, he'll wear a mask. When he's walking outside, he'll wear two masks. When he's indoors with 96 yo Jimmy Carter and his 93 yo wife, Biden doesn't practice social distancing or wear a mask. Reminds me of 80+ yo Pelosi and Feinstein walking through airports without a mask and John Kerry sitting in an airplane without a mask. This photo is going viral.

http://twitter.com/CarterCenter/status/1389400596004970501

[BillyB]

Denmark bans the Johnson and Johnson vaccine.

http://www.businessinsider.com/johnson-and-johnson-vaccine-side-effects-denmark-bans-blood-clots-2021-5