SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)

Pogue Mahone said:
Ah. Ok. Got mixed up with the 10 days self isolation when you test positive.
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Yeah it's hard to keep up with all the different time scales and the app is slow as shite anyway as seen in her case! When my girlfriend tested positive she updated it in the app within 10 minutes yet I didn't get a notification for 3 days, obviously didn't matter as I knew anyway so was already isolating but if I hadn't have known then I'd have been going about as normal for a few days..
 
calodo2003 said:
Isn’t forgoing a Thanksgiving, a night out, or even a few months of staying in worth it in the long run?
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People did that already, and our Governments seemingly wasted that time by not getting the proper systems in place.
 
golden_blunder said:
Ah come on, whatever way you look at it, he’s personally made an obscene amount of money akin to a football agent transferring a top footballer. It’s a shocking misuse of public funds
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And if there wasn’t an economic incentive for him he probably wouldn’t have stopped doing whatever he was doing before the pandemic in order to do this.
 
New press release from Pfizer after gathering more data from the Phase III: https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-r...ntech-conclude-phase-3-study-covid-19-vaccine

Summary:
  • Primary efficacy analysis demonstrates BNT162b2 to be 95% effective against COVID-19 beginning 28 days after the first dose;170 confirmed cases of COVID-19 were evaluated, with 162 observed in the placebo group versus 8 in the vaccine group
  • Efficacy was consistent across age, gender, race and ethnicity demographics; observed efficacy in adults over 65 years of age was over 94%
  • Safety data milestone required by U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) has been achieved
  • Data demonstrate vaccine was well tolerated across all populations with over 43,000 participants enrolled; no serious safety concerns observed; the only Grade 3 adverse event greater than 2% in frequency was fatigue at 3.8% and headache at 2.0%
  • Companies plan to submit within days to the FDA for EUA and share data with other regulatory agencies around the globe
  • The companies expect to produce globally up to 50 million vaccine doses in 2020 and up to 1.3 billion doses by the end of 2021
  • Pfizer is confident in its vast experience, expertise and existing cold-chain infrastructure to distribute the vaccine around the world
Good news about efficacy in over 65s especially. Hope they hurry up and publish their results. Ten cases of severe covid observied in the trial; 9 in placebo group, 1 in the vaccine group.
 
Secondary school my fiance teaches in seems to be feeling the effects now. Huge chunks of year groups being sent home as well as teachers. She's just been asked to head home after being in contact with a colleague who has tested positive. Asked to take a same day test, decent chance we'll be in the flat for the next couple of weeks.
 
Tony Babangida said:
New press release from Pfizer after gathering more data from the Phase III: https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-r...ntech-conclude-phase-3-study-covid-19-vaccine

Summary:
  • Primary efficacy analysis demonstrates BNT162b2 to be 95% effective against COVID-19 beginning 28 days after the first dose;170 confirmed cases of COVID-19 were evaluated, with 162 observed in the placebo group versus 8 in the vaccine group
  • Efficacy was consistent across age, gender, race and ethnicity demographics; observed efficacy in adults over 65 years of age was over 94%
  • Safety data milestone required by U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) has been achieved
  • Data demonstrate vaccine was well tolerated across all populations with over 43,000 participants enrolled; no serious safety concerns observed; the only Grade 3 adverse event greater than 2% in frequency was fatigue at 3.8% and headache at 2.0%
  • Companies plan to submit within days to the FDA for EUA and share data with other regulatory agencies around the globe
  • The companies expect to produce globally up to 50 million vaccine doses in 2020 and up to 1.3 billion doses by the end of 2021
  • Pfizer is confident in its vast experience, expertise and existing cold-chain infrastructure to distribute the vaccine around the world
Good news about efficacy in over 65s especially. Hope they hurry up and publish their results. Ten cases of severe covid observied in the trial; 9 in placebo group, 1 in the vaccine group.
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Terrific news and seeing it expressed as 8 v 162 somehow makes the story feel even better :D

It's still early days of course, and this is based on people who were only recently vaccinated (so we don't know how long the immunity lasts) but it still starts to give some reassurance that there will be a vaccine that works and we just need to look after ourselves and each other until we get there.
 
Santos J said:
Nope, it's 14 days from last contact with the positive case
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Still seems like a weird burn to me. If it's 14 days from the day you last came into contact with someone who tested positive all that means is that 5 days ago she met someone who was later tested positive.. but no one knows if that person tested positive 5 days ago, yesterday or just 10 minutes ago, right?
 
Tony Babangida said:
New press release from Pfizer after gathering more data from the Phase III: https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-r...ntech-conclude-phase-3-study-covid-19-vaccine

Summary:
  • Primary efficacy analysis demonstrates BNT162b2 to be 95% effective against COVID-19 beginning 28 days after the first dose;170 confirmed cases of COVID-19 were evaluated, with 162 observed in the placebo group versus 8 in the vaccine group
  • Efficacy was consistent across age, gender, race and ethnicity demographics; observed efficacy in adults over 65 years of age was over 94%
  • Safety data milestone required by U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) has been achieved
  • Data demonstrate vaccine was well tolerated across all populations with over 43,000 participants enrolled; no serious safety concerns observed; the only Grade 3 adverse event greater than 2% in frequency was fatigue at 3.8% and headache at 2.0%
  • Companies plan to submit within days to the FDA for EUA and share data with other regulatory agencies around the globe
  • The companies expect to produce globally up to 50 million vaccine doses in 2020 and up to 1.3 billion doses by the end of 2021
  • Pfizer is confident in its vast experience, expertise and existing cold-chain infrastructure to distribute the vaccine around the world
Good news about efficacy in over 65s especially. Hope they hurry up and publish their results. Ten cases of severe covid observied in the trial; 9 in placebo group, 1 in the vaccine group.
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First time I’ve seen mention of the study recruiting people who might have had a prior infection to include as a second primary endpoint.

From press release:

Analysis of the data indicates a vaccine efficacy rate of 95% (p<0.0001) in participants without prior SARS-CoV-2 infection (first primary objective) and also in participants with and without prior SARS-CoV-2 infection (second primary objective), in each case measured from 28 days after the first dose, 7 days after the second dose.
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There’s also some waffle in there about how they hope to overcome the very cold storage requirements.
 
legolegs said:
Still seems like a weird burn to me. If it's 14 days from the day you last came into contact with someone who tested positive all that means is that 5 days ago she met someone who was later tested positive.. but no one knows if that person tested positive 5 days ago, yesterday or just 10 minutes ago, right?
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It alerts people you had "close contact" with in the 48 hours prior to symptoms/test so 9 days is still a poor show really all things considered. If you had contact with someone Monday who then got tested Tuesday evening/Wednesday morning, it shouldn't take until Saturday for you to be told to isolate if needed.
 
legolegs said:
Still seems like a weird burn to me. If it's 14 days from the day you last came into contact with someone who tested positive all that means is that 5 days ago she met someone who was later tested positive.. but no one knows if that person tested positive 5 days ago, yesterday or just 10 minutes ago, right?
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I think so too.

The better point of analysis is whether all of her contacts are notified that they have came into contact with someone that’s isolating.

I think not. But that second degree of messaging to give that second tier a heads up to be more cautious and wary, would probably add value.

I also think that anyone that gets an isolation alert should get tested. If Dido tested yesterday then all of her contacts should be given that result as quickly as possible.
 
I'm not following this that closely anymore so i could be lazy and enquire with you good people, any progress or signs of UK cases starting to level off at all?
 
gormless said:
Hypothetically, if the vaccine has mutated to not have an S protein and this was then found in a small percentage of people, would this be an absolute disaster for the vaccines?
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not a virus expert, but in bacterial/animal biology a mutation leading to the total removal of an important protein (like the S protein) is both very rare and very very very unlikely to lead to a viable virus - i.e. a virus without that protein would not be able to do its usual functions, and would likely "die" (whether viruses are living in the first place is itself a question).

mutations, especially on the short time-scale we are dealing with here, usually change the sequences of the genomic material, some change the compositon of a protein and fewer still change the structure of a protein. most mutations that affect a protein are basically DOA - they create some problem with the protein that kills off that virus and the mutation disappears from the population.

so, the few mutations that do affect protein structures without destroying its function totally are the ones relevant to a virus escaping vaccine-delivered immunity. i think this is more of a problem for antigen-based viruses and less for RNA ones, since the vaccine RNA sequence is relatively easy to change if needed.
 
UK Data:

17th: 598 deaths / 20k
18th: 529 / 19k cases

If by 2nd December, let's say the R rate is between 0.8-1.0 - with a guess of 15k cases a day, and the reopening sprint to the shops that will last until Xmas Eve...I really don't see how they will then be able to allow a normal Xmas?

Either this lockdown gets extended by another 10-14 days, or, we go back into lockdown from early Jan?
 
Tibs said:
UK Data:

17th: 598 deaths / 20k
18th: 529 / 19k cases

If by 2nd December, let's say the R rate is between 0.8-1.0 - with a guess of 15k cases a day, and the reopening sprint to the shops that will last until Xmas Eve...I really don't see how they will then be able to allow a normal Xmas?

Either this lockdown gets extended by another 10-14 days, or, we go back into lockdown from early Jan?
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I'd expect both to happen, but not a full lockdown in either case (e.g. non-essential shops open pre-christmas but closed early Jan)
 
Tibs said:
UK Data:

17th: 598 deaths / 20k
18th: 529 / 19k cases

If by 2nd December, let's say the R rate is between 0.8-1.0 - with a guess of 15k cases a day, and the reopening sprint to the shops that will last until Xmas Eve...I really don't see how they will then be able to allow a normal Xmas?

Either this lockdown gets extended by another 10-14 days, or, we go back into lockdown from early Jan?
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We're not in lockdown, I hate to keep saying it but we're just on restrictions of movement. We'll just have a restriction of numbers gathering/household mixing I feel in early December, schools closing for the Christmas period will give some slack in the R rate for other things to open up. Mid-Late Jan I expect the last restrictions put in place, before they make a call on the success of any vaccine rollout in the vulnerable groups.
 
Smores said:
I'm not following this that closely anymore so i could be lazy and enquire with you good people, any progress or signs of UK cases starting to level off at all?
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Think it varies locally
Not having a good time of it in Leicester. As of today, medics in the city’s three main hospitals are treating 260 people who have tested positive for COVID.
At its peak in April we treated 204 at one point. Have had high daily case confirmation numbers recently but drop in new case numbers for 2nd day in a row.

I don't believe we will get it down to safe enough levels for restrictions to be lifted circa Christmas holidays but they'll be lifted regardless I think, socio-political pressure will be too great not to at that stage.
 
golden_blunder said:
Wow! Proper lockdown.
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They have learned lessons from Victoria's outbreak and want to stamp it out fast.

Edit: despite large scale testing no new cases overnight. I'm sure there might be more than the 23 identified linked cases yet but this is very good news. Hopefully they can kill it dad with this extreme 6 day lockdown followed by a gradual reversal of restrictions. Yet again State Premiers have taken bold but necessary decisions.
 
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https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/18/politics/new-york-covid-religious-rules/index.html



While incidences of Covid spike across the country, the Supreme Court is once again considering arguments from houses of worship that say pandemic-related restrictions are violating their religious freedom rights.
The two latest cases arise out of New York as a Roman Catholic Diocese in Brooklyn and a group of Orthodox synagogues are challenging Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo's executive order limiting in-person attendance at houses of worship to 10 or 25 people in geographic "red" and "orange" zones.
 
Thought this was interesting.

At Hong Kong’s deserted airport, cleaning crews constantly spray baggage trolleys, elevator buttons and check-in counters with antimicrobial solutions. In New York City, workers continually disinfect surfaces on buses and subways. In London, many pubs spent lots of money on intensive surface cleaning to reopen after lockdown — before closing again in November.

All over the world, workers are soaping, wiping and fumigating surfaces with an urgent sense of purpose: to fight the coronavirus. But scientists increasingly say that there is little to no evidence that contaminated surfaces can spread the virus. In crowded indoor spaces like airports, they say, the virus that is exhaled by infected people and that lingers in the air is a much greater threat.

Hand washing with soap and water for 20 seconds — or sanitizer in the absence of soap — is still encouraged to stop the virus’s spread. But scrubbing surfaces does little to mitigate the virus threat indoors, experts say, and health officials are being urged to focus instead on improving ventilation and filtration of indoor air.

“In my opinion, a lot of time, energy and money is being wasted on surface disinfection and, more importantly, diverting attention and resources away from preventing airborne transmission,” said Dr. Kevin P. Fennelly, a respiratory infection specialist with the United States National Institutes of Health.

The Hong Kong Airport Authority has used a phone-booth-like “full-body disinfection channel” to spritz airport staff members in quarantine areas. The booth — which the airport says is the first in the world and is being used in trials only on its staff — is part of an all-out effort to make the facility a “safe environment for all users.”

Such displays can be comforting to the public because they seem to show that local officials are taking the fight to Covid-19. But Shelly Miller, an expert on aerosols at the University of Colorado Boulder, said that the booth made no practical sense from an infection-control standpoint.

Viruses are emitted through activities that spray respiratory droplets — talking, breathing, yelling, coughing, singing and sneezing. And disinfecting sprays are often made from toxic chemicals that can significantly affect indoor air quality and human health, Dr. Miller said.

“I can’t understand why anyone would think that disinfecting a whole person would reduce the risk of transmitting virus,” she said

A range of respiratory ailments, including the common cold and influenza, are caused by germs that can spread from contaminated surfaces. So when the coronavirus outbreak emerged last winter in the Chinese mainland, it seemed logical to assume that these so-called fomites were a primary means for the pathogen to spread.

Studies soon found that the virus seemed to survive on some surfaces, including plastic and steel, for up to three days. (Studies later showed that much of this is likely to be dead fragments of the virus that are not infectious.) The World Health Organization also emphasized surface transmission as a risk, and said that airborne spread was a concern only when health care workers were engaged in certain medical procedures that produce aerosols.

But scientific evidence was growing that the virus could stay aloft for hours in tiny droplets in stagnant air, infecting people as they inhaled — particularly in crowded indoor spaces with poor ventilation.

In July, an essay in The Lancet medical journal argued that some scientists had exaggerated the risk of coronavirus infection from surfaces without considering evidence from studies of its closely related cousins, including SARS-CoV, the driver of the 2002-03 SARS epidemic.

“This is extremely strong evidence that at least for the original SARS virus, fomite transmission was very minor at most,” the essay’s author, the microbiologist Emanuel Goldman of Rutgers University, said in an email. “There is no reason to expect that the close relative SARS-CoV-2 would behave significantly different in this kind of experiment,” he added, referring to the new coronavirus.

A few days after Dr. Goldman’s Lancet essay appeared, more than 200 scientists called on the W.H.O. to acknowledge that the coronavirus could spread by air in any indoor setting. Bowing to enormous public pressure over the issue, the agency acknowledged that indoor aerosol transmission could lead to outbreaks in poorly ventilated indoor places like restaurants, nightclubs, offices and places of worship.

By October, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which had maintained since May that surfaces are “not the primary way the virus spreads,” was saying that transmission of infectious respiratory droplets was the “principal mode” through which it does.

But by then, paranoia about touching anything from handrails to grocery bags had taken off. And the instinct to scrub surfaces as a Covid precaution — “hygiene theater,” as The Atlantic magazine called it — was already deeply ingrained.
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Brwned said:
Thought this was interesting.
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I think surface transmission is probably relatively rare but they seem to think South Australia's outbreak was due to surface transmission. No idea what the evidence for that is (if any).

Edit: wasn't contact infection - someone lied to the contact tracers
 
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Wibble said:
I think surface transmission is probably relatively rare but they seem to think South Australia's outbreak was due to surface transmission. No idea what the evidence for that is (if any).
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They're also talking about a new less virulent strain in SA. Seems way too early to be saying stuff like that without any decent evidence.
 
sglowrider said:
I have a friend on the frontline in Singapore -- they are decked out in a full kit -- from shoe covers to N95s to face shields, aprons etc every time they see a potential patient.

If they have to pee then they have to remove everything and replace it all. The Health Minister told them that they will not cut any corners to protect the healthcare workers. Lessons learnt from the previous epidemic, SARs.

So she could potentially change a full kit four times per shift -- and the supervisors will not blink an eyelid.
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I have still yet to understand what all the body cover is for. I could understand it in the beginning, but with all we've learned the past 6 months, us still using the same PPE we were using in March seems like an insane waste of plastic/money. It's also draining and tiring to work in those things, so it's not like there aren't any negative trade-offs to it. Not being able to pee means you can't hydrate properly either.
 
Arruda said:
I have still yet to understand what all the body cover is for. I could understand it in the beginning, but with all we've learned the past 6 months, us still using the same PPE we were using in March seems like an insane waste of plastic/money. It's also draining and tiring to work in those things, so it's not like there aren't any negative trade-offs to it.
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Its hot too. Traps all the moisture and then when you take it off, its soaked on the inside.
 
Just applied for a job to be a covid-19 lab assistant. Got no biology background but 4 years lab experience from engineering based work...so fingers crossed?
 
Surely Zoo's could have stayed open? The outside parts if nothing else.

Not quite up there with the insanity of banning golf and tennis but a blanket shut down of Zoo's is surely overkill.
 
Dancfc said:
Surely Zoo's could have stayed open? The outside parts if nothing else.

Not quite up there with the insanity of banning golf and tennis but a blanket shut down of Zoo's is surely overkill.
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I went to one at the end of October and like you say, the indoor parts were closed, but there was no issues anywhere else. I guess it’s having to draw that line somewhere though.
 
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