covid-19

[Westerly 61]

1 hour ago, billvon said:

Because no vaccine is 100% safe. 

 

Yes, but the alternative is a firm guarantee of at least another 200,000 deaths by Covid over the next 365 days until the vaccine comes out. So which is more dangerous, guaranteed deaths by Covid or some small risk of damage from a vaccine that's already cleared by the FDA to begin trials in groups of tens of thousands anyway? I think the answer is pretty clear. The FDA wouldent let this drug go out to tens of thousands of people if they thought there was any serious risk.

Edited August 13, 2020 by Westerly

[SkyDekker 1,121]

40 minutes ago, Westerly said:

The FDA wouldent let this drug go out to tens of thousands of people if they thought there was any serious risk.

Don't think that is a true statement either.

[yoink 321]

19 minutes ago, SkyDekker said:

Don't think that is a true statement either.

I remember reading an FDA paper in 2017 comparing 22 phase 3 trials. I think 9 or 10 of them had serious safety issues that were found in that phase.
 

edit: my wife was working in pharma at the time and we had this exact discussion about the protracted nature of clinical trials.

Edited August 13, 2020 by yoink

[nigel99 143]

I’m not sure if the accuracy as some of my aunts news sources can be dubious...

Seems Covid might have released a new upgraded version

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1307599/china-disease-news-coronavirus-death-cases-latest-Kazakhstan

[Westerly 61]

22 minutes ago, yoink said:

I remember reading an FDA paper in 2017 comparing 22 phase 3 trials. I think 9 or 10 of them had serious safety issues that were found in that phase.
 

edit: my wife was working in pharma at the time and we had this exact discussion about the protracted nature of clinical trials.

Again, it's a means test here. Will releasing the vaccine early save more lives than it will take? I think the answer is a resounding yes. No matter what currently unknown effects may be present with the vaccine at this point, they are minor enough that the damage caused by continuing to not have a vaccine is far more damaging to national health than using an experimental vaccine ever will be.

[mistercwood 287]

2 minutes ago, Westerly said:

Again, it's a means test here. Will releasing the vaccine early save more lives than it will take? I think the answer is a resounding yes. No matter what currently unknown effects may be present with the vaccine at this point, they are minor enough that the damage caused by continuing to not have a vaccine is far more damaging to national health than using an experimental vaccine ever will be.

There's an issue with this approach that I think is being overlooked.

Let's say we go ahead with the vaccine release asap, and that you get a good number of the public receiving it without panicking about Bill Gates and microchips. You're going to get a massive push at the same time to open things up in full, since hey, we've got a vaccine now right? And you're not going to be able to deny people from opening up, because the line almost from the start has been that a vaccine is what's needed to return to normalcy.

Most people aren't going to bother with any nuance from here, it's just going to be, "I got the shot, I can live my life again like from before".

Now what happens if that vaccine is only 10% effective. Everyone walking around like they've got a bulletproof vest on that isn't doing shit.

Will releasing the vaccine early save more lives than it will take? I think the answer is that it's an enormous gamble that has a terrible risk.

 

[turtlespeed 212]

2 hours ago, billvon said:

Because no vaccine is 100% safe.  Heck, you could inject a million people with pure saline and a very small percentage would get serious infections from the injection, or a careless healthcare worker would administer the wrong injection.  So they have to show that the benefit exceeds the (small) risk.

However, once a vaccine does demonstrate (some) effectiveness, I agree.

 

What is an exceptable loss of life with the new vaccine?

20 in 10000

[gowlerk 1,904]

3 hours ago, Westerly said:

While the Russian vaccine might be bullshit, the general premise of what they are doing is not and the USA should follow suit. Hear me out.

Hmmmm..... I'll go with the WHO, the FDA, and The Canadian Health agency and how they have balanced the risk/reward ratio. Thanks anyway.

[Westerly 61]

1 hour ago, gowlerk said:

Hmmmm..... I'll go with the WHO, the FDA, and The Canadian Health agency and how they have balanced the risk/reward ratio. Thanks anyway.

Yea, because the government has done such an exceedingly exemplary job managing Covid in the USA. Thanks for reminding me how good we're doing.

[Westerly 61]

2 hours ago, mistercwood said:

Will releasing the vaccine early save more lives than it will take? I think the answer is that it's an enormous gamble that has a terrible risk.

 

But it's not that much of a gamble. These vaccines are not just random jello mystery shots you found in the fridge from last week's party. They have already been tested on around a thousand people so far and proven to be effective in the short term. Some of these vaccines are developing antibodies that are 4x more concentrated than people who had the actual virus. So I'd agree if it was a mystery guess it would be too much of a risk. But it's not a guess at all.

As far as people going back to normal too soon, have you actually gone outside recently? No one is doing jack for protective measures. Half the country isint even wearing a mask. We're at normal. We have been back to normal for a long time already. Not many people are taking the virus very seriously anymore and those who are taking it seriously probably will continue to do so regardless if a vaccine comes out or not. In any case, it's common knowledge that vaccines are not guarantees. Anyone who has ever had the flu shot and still gotten sick knows this. They reduce, not eliminate, risk. The type of person who is not smart enough to already know this is the type of person who probably thinks Covid is all BS fake news anyway and so them getting a vaccine wont change much as they never changed their behaviors in the first place.

Edited August 14, 2020 by Westerly

[gowlerk 1,904]

12 minutes ago, Westerly said:

Yea, because the government has done such an exceedingly exemplary job managing Covid in the USA. Thanks for reminding me how good we're doing.

You will note that I did not say I would depend on the USA FDA alone....

[gowlerk 1,904]

8 minutes ago, Westerly said:

As far as people going back to normal too soon, have you actually gone outside recently? No one is doing jack for protective measures. Half the country isint even wearing a mask.

 

This is largely true. I've delivered and picked up at a couple pretty large companies this week. Mask wearing is down to near zero.

[JerryBaumchen 1,047]

1 minute ago, gowlerk said:

This is largely true. I've delivered and picked up at a couple pretty large companies this week. Mask wearing is down to near zero.

Hi Ken,

Not here is Oregon.  Our governor has been more pro-active than some others.  Not as pro-active as Inslee in Washington state but she's getting there.

That does not mean that I think they are masking-up everywhere; as according to my tv news, they aren't in a lot of places.

Jerry Baumchen

[gowlerk 1,904]

2 minutes ago, JerryBaumchen said:

Hi Ken,

Not here is Oregon.  Our governor has been more pro-active than some others.  Not as pro-active as Inslee in Washington state but she's getting there.

That does not mean that I think they are masking-up everywhere; as according to my tv news, they aren't in a lot of places.

Jerry Baumchen

I'm in Omaha and the mid-west in general this week.

[jakee 1,254]

9 hours ago, Westerly said:

. So why not bypass phase 3 entirely and just offer it to anyone who wants it? Worst case it doesent work, in which you mostly just wasted money.

I don’t think you understand people.

Worst case is it doesn’t work, all the millions of people who think they’ve been inoculated abandon social distancing and any other efforts at keeping the R number down, and infections reach a brand new high.

[kallend 1,623]

12 hours ago, turtlespeed said:

What is an exceptable loss of life with the new vaccine?

20 in 10000

I don't think "exceptable"

is what you mean.

Edited August 14, 2020 by kallend

[kallend 1,623]

16 hours ago, tonyhays said:

Burden of proof lies with the one making the claim

He already posted a link where the data are to be found.  He just chose to ignore the word 'currently'.

It's not like the data are hard to find.  You can look it up by nation, by state, by county - whatever takes your fancy.

[turtlespeed 212]

2 hours ago, kallend said:

I don't think "exceptable"

is what you mean.

Nope - typo.  Good catch.

[billvon 2,393]

17 hours ago, Westerly said:

Yes, but the alternative is a firm guarantee of at least another 200,000 deaths by Covid over the next 365 days until the vaccine comes out. So which is more dangerous, guaranteed deaths by Covid or some small risk of damage from a vaccine that's already cleared by the FDA to begin trials in groups of tens of thousands anyway?

Let's say they release a vaccine prematurely.  Initially it prevents deaths.  It also kills 1000 people.  "No problem!" some people say.  "It will still save more people than it kills."

But then you discover that no one else is willing to take it - because the news is covering nothing except the 12 year old girl who died from Bill Gates' Deadly Vaccine.  And Bill Gates has stated he wants to reduce the world's population!  Did you know that?

So then you get the next vaccine out - "but this one really IS perfectly safe!"  And again no one is willing to take it because you said something similar about the last one.

Doctors operate under a principle of "do no harm" - in other words, do not employ treatments that have a significant risk of injury or death.  If this disease was 100% fatal (or even 25% fatal) then the level of risk we'd be willing to accept in a vaccine would be high indeed.  But it's not.  It's between .05% and .2% fatal depending on which group you are looking at.

So the trials will have to continue until we can demonstrate a vaccine that is both effective and safe.  Fortunately that process is going very quickly, and it's likely we'll have something within 6-9 months.  If we can keep deaths down in the meantime by distancing, masks, hygiene and tracing, then we could see less than 50,000 additional deaths.  Of course lots of people are going to refuse to do that so we will see another 150,000 or so.

[SkyDekker 1,121]

23 minutes ago, billvon said:

It's between .05% and .2% fatal depending on which group you are looking at.

I have an off-topic question here. How is this calculated? I can find stats of those cases where there is an outcome, but when I look at that group 5% of cases with an outcome is death.

Does that group not eventually capture all those diagnosed?

[headoverheels 291]

55 minutes ago, billvon said:

 If this disease was 100% fatal (or even 25% fatal) then the level of risk we'd be willing to accept in a vaccine would be high indeed.  But it's not.  It's between .05% and .2% fatal depending on which group you are looking at.

If everyone in the U.S. got the virus, that would mean between 165,000 and 660,000 deaths.  Seems low to me, considering the current number.  Queens, NY has already lost 0.22% of its total population.

 

[kallend 1,623]

For the deniers. Covid-19 deaths July 31 - Aug 13.

Source https://news.google.com/covid19/map?hl=en-US&mid=%2Fm%2F09c7w0&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen

USA 14,734

Florida 2,327

Texas 2,891

Georgia 844

SC 519

Louisiana 477

Alabama 325

 

UK 745

Spain 62

Italy 93

Sweden 21

Norway 1

Denmark 2

 

Canada 86

Australia 179

New Zealand 0

South Africa 3,458

Well, we look better than South Africa if we just look at individual states.

Edited August 14, 2020 by kallend

[Westerly 61]

18 hours ago, jakee said:

 

all the millions of people who think they’ve been inoculated abandon social distancing and any other efforts at keeping the R number down

You mean like exactly what we have already been doing for the last two months? No one is doing jack for social distancing or much of anything anymore. At most, some people are wearing a mask which is only marginally effective in itself. The fact that just about every DZ in America is open, which is not even remotely a social-distancing-friendly activity, kind of supports my argument. At this point, most Americans have adopted the attitude of 'it is what it is' and they have decided to take their chances with luck. Beyond that they dont want to be bothered with Covid-anything.

Remember the whole 'flatten the curve' thing? Well the current daily infection rates are higher than the highest 7-day average during that time of the virus, but I havent heard of anyone even mention that phrase anymore. Most have just given up at this point and decided to return to normal life.

Edited August 15, 2020 by Westerly

[ScottishJohn 25]

17 hours ago, billvon said:

So the trials will have to continue until we can demonstrate a vaccine that is both effective and safe.  

Putin has taken the vaccine and declared that there are no side effects

 

Edited August 15, 2020 by ScottishJohn

[Phil1111 910]

Test less and Covid vanishes! News flash: by election the US is Covid free. No vaccines needed.

Hey Turtle, trump was right! You don't have to be a centrist anymore!!. Covid is dropping in America! For the first time during the pandemic, the United States saw a downward trend in the number of coronavirus tests conducted each day.

"Reported daily tests trended downward for much of the last two weeks, essentially stalling the nation’s testing response. Some 733,000 people have been tested each day this month on average, down from nearly 750,000 in July, according to the COVID Tracking Project. The seven-day test average dropped to 709,000 on Monday, the lowest in nearly a month, before ticking upward again at week’s end."

Everyone can rest easy and party it up.