These people are doing their part to keep Idaho in the dumbest state competition.
'Here fire, you hungry?' Idaho Covid protesters burn masks in front of capitol
Children encouraged to burn masks in state without mandate as other Republican-led states move to relax coronavirus restrictionswww.theguardian.com
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Weren't there some books around to burn as well? Oh....ha, ha.....books? In this part of Idaho?
These people don't own books (indoctrination ya know). Books might shed some light on how things like viruses spread, and we wouldn't want that.
I was able to sign up my parents in early sixties for vaccination on thursday next week. There were only 11 000 slots next week for whole country for age group 60-70 (about half million people I believe in this age group maybe less) so it was quite succes.I was similarly happy as I was when I managed to buy tickets for Prague NHL opening weekend or La Liga in Spain
Slovakia again changed the strategy for vaccinations. Next weeks it should be age restricted. 70+ Moderna, Pfizer and 60-70 AZ. I hope AZ will be efficient and my parents will have mild to non side effects. We dont want to wait for other vaccine than AZ in this situation with so strong epidemic here.
Congratulations on getting your parents signed up for the vaccination. I hope the AZ is effective for them. I think some of the age question with that one is not enough data. A friend of mine in France just got her first dose of the AZ as she had an opportunity to get that one and decided some protection was much better than waiting and hoping to get Pfizer.
I take back my earlier comment about having no side effects to the 1st Pfizer injection other than a sore arm. About 48 hrs after the injection I got hits pretty good like classic flu-like symptoms (headache, chills, body-ache) for about 24 hrs. Not nearly as bad as when I’ve actually had the flu, but bad enough to keep me on the couch much of the weekend. If side effects after the 2nd Pfizer shot are typically worse than after the 1st, then I’m not looking forward to that. But glad I’m getting it out of the way.
I have not found any more information on how long the vaccine keeps us protected. COVID will clearly still be circulating in some places next winter, will we need to redo the vaccines the way we do flu shots, perhaps with slightly altered formulas to account for variants?
I have not found any more information on how long the vaccine keeps us protected. COVID will clearly still be circulating in some places next winter, will we need to redo the vaccines the way we do flu shots, perhaps with slightly altered formulas to account for variants?
We're at about 1 year from the phase one trial having started for Moderna, so I suspect they should have some of that information in the two or so months. I do remember hearing that both Pfizer and Moderna had enough evidence that their vaccines would work at minimum of 9 months.
Sorry you had worse side effects to the first dose of Pfizer. 3 days out and the only side effect I ended up with from the first dose of Moderna was some soreness in my arm and hadn't noticed that until I went to bed and tried to lay on that side.
Thanks for the info. Will be keeping an eye out for those trial results. The fact that the CVD vaccine protection lasts longer than the 3 months of coverage we typically get with a flu shot is a good sign.
My elderly folks got their first jab of the Pfizer vaccine a couple of weeks ago, there were no real signs/symptoms that they themselves could verbalize, at any rate. (Dad has dementia, mom is a hypochondriac, so mom has had every possible disease written in the books already.) I kept an eye on them by taking their temps regularly and whatnot, they've been doing ok. But I am a bit nervous about their second jab coming up next weekend, supposedly.
Anyhoo, I'll take my first jab of whatever comes first my way, should be around beginning of May for my group. Will let you know how it goes.
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In France, there's no escape from Covid vaccine sceptics. What would Pasteur think?
As the rumour and disinformation mills go into overdrive, GPs are having to drum up patients to use up their allocation of jabs
That seems pretty consistent with activation of a pre-existing memory response. In general, a primary immune response is just not that rapid. There has been speculation that people with that type of reaction to a first dose already had been infected. Incidentally, that is why there was some interest in antibody testing people before vaccination as there are a lot of doctors who are pushing for people with known prior infection to only get a single dose as that would effectively be the 'boost'. But it is just not feasible to add a blood testing component to the mass vaccination programs. There will be informal decisions made on an individual basis no doubt.
SARS CoV2 does not mutate as rapidly as flu, so it is not likely to require yearly boosters. But as noted by Koronin, the duration of protection is still to be determined. All of the approved vaccines can be effectively altered to match whatever prevailing strain is circulating and there is already work on the newer variants. There are regulatory decisions to be made about how exactly to expedite the approve the new formulations without new large scale clinical trials, but the science is not hard to do.
My arm was sore for the first 48 hr, but that was my only response to my first dose with the Pfizer vaccine.
Getting the AZ vaccine now also does not prevent someone from getting a different one later in the year either. I would've made the same decision if I was in her shoes. AZ gambled with their vaccine target and it is pretty apparent that they choose a less effective spike conformation. It will be interesting to see if they can survive competition now that better vaccines are approved. J&J would seem to occupy a similar lane being relatively cheap and easier to distribute to less advanced countries than Pfizer and Moderna.
With all the talk about the variants, it is possible that the virus can't become much worse than what is already has become and existing vaccines are still effective against them. That is the gist of this article. Maximizing binding to the receptor and evading antibody responses is not always possible simultaneously. That is the central tradeoff for the virus. Flu is a grandmaster at this, but CoV does not seem as adept at this point.
View: https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/1368925621515091973
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I thought this was an interesting site to monitor mobility tracking in the USA. It shows that contacts dipped to around 25% of normal this time last year and have been pretty steady since last June with about a 50% reduction in contacts, inching slowly up to 60% of normal in more recent days. There were spikes around Thanksgiving, Xmas, and New Year's, so that seems consistent with reality. You can look at individual states and, unsurprisingly, places like South Dakota were back up to 100% during their summer, laying the groundwork for their fall disaster. Looking at different states and it is apparent that the people acted on the ground very similarly across the country despite vastly different local policy. Peaks in virus led to decreased contacts no matter where you were and everybody bunkered down last spring no matter if there was a shutdown order or not. Looking at CO, and it fits Nomad's observation that people have been more normal there recently. Overall, it also illustrates that many people have settled into pandemic routines that will be slow to break, similar to the use of PPE IMO. There will be people who will flip on a dime as noted above, but socializing will not immediately bounce back for many.
ETA. One last observation. Florida went up to 100% right before their summer surge. Then they went back down and have tracked the national average since then. Even now, they are at about 60% of normal. It seems like a lot of people learned from their summer experience. Again, another example where the policy and the execution are not in lockstep. Florida is supposed to be open and normal, but the data tells a different story.
covid19.gleamproject.org
ETA. One last observation. Florida went up to 100% right before their summer surge. Then they went back down and have tracked the national average since then. Even now, they are at about 60% of normal. It seems like a lot of people learned from their summer experience. Again, another example where the policy and the execution are not in lockstep. Florida is supposed to be open and normal, but the data tells a different story.
COVID-19 MODELING
covid19.gleamproject.org
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In response to the J&J vaccine, they are still in the middle of a phase 3 2 dose trial. That one is 2 doses two months apart. That may prove more effective than the single dose and if it dose, it's likely that people who have gotten the first dose will be asked to come back for a second dose.
On another note, the CDC has updated guidance for fully vaccinated people. Basically you can get together with other fully vaccinated people with no masks and no physical/social distancing. You can also visit with people who are low risk for severe Covid and not vaccinated as long as it's a single household. Also fully vaccinated and exposed to someone with Covid no quarantine unless you have symptoms.
It may have been forgotten, but a topic of discussion here for a while was whether the 'light inside the body' treatment had any hope of success. This study has now been submitted for publication. One obvious problem is that they did not use a control group to tell whether their treatment was effective, but thought some people might be interested.
www.medrxiv.org
Endotracheal application of ultraviolet A light in critically ill severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 patients: A first-in-human study
Background Promising preclinical experiments show that, under specific and monitored conditions, ultraviolet-A (UVA) exposure reduces certain bacteria, fungi, and viruses including coronavirus-229E without harming mammalian columnar epithelial cells. We aimed to evaluate the safety and effects...
This is some hopeful news on the treatment side of things.
www.wsoctv.com
This website is unavailable in your location. – WSOC TV
Here's some hopeful news:
On a hopeful note a friend called about a pharmacy on the island where he lives possibly having an opening. I jumped on the eligibility site and got an appointment for first shot tomorrow morning; the only available day in March! Second dose on April 1....Talk about good friends and luck!
Back to Japan's vaccination situation: worse than I realized! Looks like I might have to adjust my jab prediction at least a few months later, maybe by Christmas if I'm lucky....?!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...0248cc-7b65-11eb-8c5e-32e47b42b51b_story.html
Concern seems to be about the possibility of new variants developing (15% of the infections in Kansai now) while the vaccine rollout is so slow.
(might be a paywall so I cut and paste text below)
With vaccine program in disarray, Japan faces new battle to contain variants
Simon Denyer
TOKYO — Japan's coronavirus vaccination program is in disarray — mostly from self-inflicted wounds.
Vaccinations are at a crawl, upending hopeful predictions that life could start to return to normal by the summer. Even before a third wave of infections is under control, many health experts are predicting another possible surge ahead of this summer's Olympics.
Japan’s government boasts of its success in containing the worst of the pandemic. But medical experts tell a different story — a failure to meet the moment, and of a slow-moving government and bureaucracy struggling to adapt to a fast-moving pandemic.
It adds up to a jolting contrast as many other wealthy nations have their feet on the gas to accelerate and expand vaccinations. Japan’s very slow rollout also is likely to undermine support for beleaguered Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and delay Japan’s economic recovery.
“I’m almost convinced a so-called fourth wave will come,” said Kentaro Iwata, a leading infectious-disease expert at Kobe University.
Vaccines developed by Oxford-AstraZeneca and Moderna are still not approved for use in Japan, leaving the country dependent on a trickle of deliveries from Pfizer.
Two weeks into Japan’s vaccine campaign, only about 40,000 health workers have received a single dose of the vaccine, while vaccinations for those over 65 years old, initially scheduled to start next month, will not meaningfully get underway before May.
Confident predictions that the country would have secured enough doses to cover the entire population by the middle of this year — and in time for the Olympics opening ceremony in July — have given way to vague hopes that medical workers and the elderly might be vaccinated by then.
“If the general public [in Japan] get vaccinated toward the end of this year, they’ll be lucky,” said Kenji Shibuya, director of the Institute for Population Health at King’s College London.
What worries Shibuya and Iwata is that new virus variants first spotted in Britain and Brazil have already entered Japan, with 15 percent of newly infected people in the western city of Kobe in mid-February found to have a variant.
Scientists at Keio University said last week that a variant thought to have some resistance against vaccines may have originated in Japan.
At the same time, the government’s contact-tracing efforts have already been overwhelmed. The public, meanwhile, has grown extremely weary of life under restrictions, and the government is unwilling to impose the sort of lockdown that might make a real difference.
On Friday, Suga extended by another two weeks a state of emergency in the greater Tokyo area.
The restrictions mean restaurants are asked to close at 8 p.m. But Tokyo’s famously packed subway trains are full during rush hour, and sports events still admit some fans.
Widespread mask use has helped dampen the impact of the pandemic here. Yet it has still been felt in many other ways. Japan’s economy contracted 4.8 percent last year and suicides are rising, especially among young women.
A third wave of the virus has already seen total covid-19-related deaths more than double this year to nearly 8,000.
Iwata fears that the state of emergency will be relaxed later this month, just in time for the office-party season at the end of the fiscal year, and also in time for cherry blossom season.
It is all a far cry from last summer, when outgoing Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced that Japan had secured a promise of 120 million doses from Pfizer by midyear, a similar amount from AstraZeneca and 50 million from Moderna, easily enough to cover its entire population.
But Abe had overpromised. In fact, Pfizer had not made a firm commitment to the midyear deadline. When it came time to actually negotiate a contract, Pfizer delayed the delivery deadline to the end of the year.
Meanwhile, Japan’s Health Ministry erected barriers in the way of vaccine suppliers by demanding they conduct clinical trials inside Japan. Those trials, of about 160 to 200 people for each vaccine, are so small as to be scientifically meaningless but have slowed down the approval process, experts say.
Japan’s government says it is proceeding cautiously because of the need to convince a skeptical public about vaccine safety, and many people in Japan are in no rush to get vaccinated.
Japan’s government retreated into its shell after a number of vaccine scares in recent decades.
Instead of defending vaccine safety, it decided it didn’t want to be blamed for possible side effects and left the decision about whether to be vaccinated up to individuals. That reluctance to take responsibility had a knock-on effect on Japan’s vaccine industry, and the country became something of a vaccine backwater.
Out of 76 vaccines undergoing clinical trials around the world, just one is from Japan, according to the World Health Organization, despite it having one of the largest pharmaceutical industries in the world.
“This is not the usual routine bureaucratic process, this is national security,” said Shibuya. “I can’t only blame bureaucrats because this shows a lack of true leadership in a time of crisis. This is really a lack of political leadership and the vision to tackle this.”
In an attempt to reassure people about vaccine safety, Japanese doctors based domestically and in the United States, Britain and France have launched a chatbot on the popular Line messaging service to educate people about the coronavirus vaccines and counter alarmist rumors.
The service, represented by a friendly cartoon dog mascot dressed in a white coat, has already been accessed by 57,000 people, 70 percent of whom are women.
In the medical profession, though, there is another anxiety emerging — that overburdened health-care workers will have to administer a mass vaccination program as they also treat a fresh upsurge in infections.
“Vaccinating residents widely across regions would be difficult amid a fourth wave,” Toshio Nakagawa, president of the Japan Medical Association, told reporters last month. “It will cause a large disruption in the health-care spaces.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...0248cc-7b65-11eb-8c5e-32e47b42b51b_story.html
Concern seems to be about the possibility of new variants developing (15% of the infections in Kansai now) while the vaccine rollout is so slow.
(might be a paywall so I cut and paste text below)
With vaccine program in disarray, Japan faces new battle to contain variants
Simon Denyer
TOKYO — Japan's coronavirus vaccination program is in disarray — mostly from self-inflicted wounds.
Vaccinations are at a crawl, upending hopeful predictions that life could start to return to normal by the summer. Even before a third wave of infections is under control, many health experts are predicting another possible surge ahead of this summer's Olympics.
Japan’s government boasts of its success in containing the worst of the pandemic. But medical experts tell a different story — a failure to meet the moment, and of a slow-moving government and bureaucracy struggling to adapt to a fast-moving pandemic.
It adds up to a jolting contrast as many other wealthy nations have their feet on the gas to accelerate and expand vaccinations. Japan’s very slow rollout also is likely to undermine support for beleaguered Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and delay Japan’s economic recovery.
“I’m almost convinced a so-called fourth wave will come,” said Kentaro Iwata, a leading infectious-disease expert at Kobe University.
Vaccines developed by Oxford-AstraZeneca and Moderna are still not approved for use in Japan, leaving the country dependent on a trickle of deliveries from Pfizer.
Two weeks into Japan’s vaccine campaign, only about 40,000 health workers have received a single dose of the vaccine, while vaccinations for those over 65 years old, initially scheduled to start next month, will not meaningfully get underway before May.
Confident predictions that the country would have secured enough doses to cover the entire population by the middle of this year — and in time for the Olympics opening ceremony in July — have given way to vague hopes that medical workers and the elderly might be vaccinated by then.
“If the general public [in Japan] get vaccinated toward the end of this year, they’ll be lucky,” said Kenji Shibuya, director of the Institute for Population Health at King’s College London.
What worries Shibuya and Iwata is that new virus variants first spotted in Britain and Brazil have already entered Japan, with 15 percent of newly infected people in the western city of Kobe in mid-February found to have a variant.
Scientists at Keio University said last week that a variant thought to have some resistance against vaccines may have originated in Japan.
At the same time, the government’s contact-tracing efforts have already been overwhelmed. The public, meanwhile, has grown extremely weary of life under restrictions, and the government is unwilling to impose the sort of lockdown that might make a real difference.
On Friday, Suga extended by another two weeks a state of emergency in the greater Tokyo area.
The restrictions mean restaurants are asked to close at 8 p.m. But Tokyo’s famously packed subway trains are full during rush hour, and sports events still admit some fans.
Widespread mask use has helped dampen the impact of the pandemic here. Yet it has still been felt in many other ways. Japan’s economy contracted 4.8 percent last year and suicides are rising, especially among young women.
A third wave of the virus has already seen total covid-19-related deaths more than double this year to nearly 8,000.
Iwata fears that the state of emergency will be relaxed later this month, just in time for the office-party season at the end of the fiscal year, and also in time for cherry blossom season.
It is all a far cry from last summer, when outgoing Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced that Japan had secured a promise of 120 million doses from Pfizer by midyear, a similar amount from AstraZeneca and 50 million from Moderna, easily enough to cover its entire population.
But Abe had overpromised. In fact, Pfizer had not made a firm commitment to the midyear deadline. When it came time to actually negotiate a contract, Pfizer delayed the delivery deadline to the end of the year.
Meanwhile, Japan’s Health Ministry erected barriers in the way of vaccine suppliers by demanding they conduct clinical trials inside Japan. Those trials, of about 160 to 200 people for each vaccine, are so small as to be scientifically meaningless but have slowed down the approval process, experts say.
Japan’s government says it is proceeding cautiously because of the need to convince a skeptical public about vaccine safety, and many people in Japan are in no rush to get vaccinated.
Japan’s government retreated into its shell after a number of vaccine scares in recent decades.
Instead of defending vaccine safety, it decided it didn’t want to be blamed for possible side effects and left the decision about whether to be vaccinated up to individuals. That reluctance to take responsibility had a knock-on effect on Japan’s vaccine industry, and the country became something of a vaccine backwater.
Out of 76 vaccines undergoing clinical trials around the world, just one is from Japan, according to the World Health Organization, despite it having one of the largest pharmaceutical industries in the world.
“This is not the usual routine bureaucratic process, this is national security,” said Shibuya. “I can’t only blame bureaucrats because this shows a lack of true leadership in a time of crisis. This is really a lack of political leadership and the vision to tackle this.”
In an attempt to reassure people about vaccine safety, Japanese doctors based domestically and in the United States, Britain and France have launched a chatbot on the popular Line messaging service to educate people about the coronavirus vaccines and counter alarmist rumors.
The service, represented by a friendly cartoon dog mascot dressed in a white coat, has already been accessed by 57,000 people, 70 percent of whom are women.
In the medical profession, though, there is another anxiety emerging — that overburdened health-care workers will have to administer a mass vaccination program as they also treat a fresh upsurge in infections.
“Vaccinating residents widely across regions would be difficult amid a fourth wave,” Toshio Nakagawa, president of the Japan Medical Association, told reporters last month. “It will cause a large disruption in the health-care spaces.”
So, J&J announced that it's possible they cannot meet the 55 million doses promised for the EU in April-June. Meanwhile, the criminals of AstraZeneca have managed to deliver 8 million of an originally promised 90 million before end of March to the EU. Moderna has been skipping deliveries without notice. Belgium has ordered 5.8 million Moderna vaccines, and have received 94800 so far, or 1.6%. It really is shambolic.
Two of the three vaccines approved in the US have been developed in the EU, but the US stops all exports. About the same amount of AstraZeneca vaccines delivered to the EU so far has been exported from the EU to the UK although the company had promised to build up stocks. From the UK, not a single vaccine has been exported to the EU.
Meanwhile, China and Russia are trying to buy goodwill from several 'vulnerable' countries with their vaccines. Is it a surprise it may be working with this stuff happening? Biden should be very aware of this.
Two of the three vaccines approved in the US have been developed in the EU, but the US stops all exports. About the same amount of AstraZeneca vaccines delivered to the EU so far has been exported from the EU to the UK although the company had promised to build up stocks. From the UK, not a single vaccine has been exported to the EU.
Meanwhile, China and Russia are trying to buy goodwill from several 'vulnerable' countries with their vaccines. Is it a surprise it may be working with this stuff happening? Biden should be very aware of this.
Distribution was always going to be inequitable. The production issues for a number of the vaccine makers has made this issue even more obvious. The US is going to announce a further purchase of 100m doses of the J&J vaccine. At this stage they have bought much more than can ever be used. I doubt that the 300m doses purchased from AZ are intended to be used here for example. Alaska is the first state to open vaccination to everyone over 16. Much of these purchases will be destined for overseas aid once domestic demand falters.
Just in time for St Patrick's day, MD has now lifted almost all restrictions on dining. Masks are still required.
Just in time for St Patrick's day, MD has now lifted almost all restrictions on dining. Masks are still required.
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Sobering statistic but really not surprising given the state of obesity in this country:
"CDC study finds about 78% of people hospitalized for Covid were overweight or obese:"
www.cnbc.com
"CDC study finds about 78% of people hospitalized for Covid were overweight or obese:"
CDC study finds about 78% of people hospitalized for Covid were overweight or obese
An overwhelming majority of people who have been hospitalized, needed a ventilator or died from Covid-19 have been overweight or obese, the CDC said.
Fascinating story:
"India Covid rates plummet, experts struggle to find explanation."
www.google.com
India has 1/10 the death rate of the U.S. while 1/5 of the country's 1.3 Billion live below the national poverty line. They have one of the poorest public healthcare systems in the world and yet they have one of the lowest deaths (114 deaths per one million population).
"India Covid rates plummet, experts struggle to find explanation."
India Covid rates plummet, experts struggle to find explanation
India’s Covid-19 infection rate plummeted, but experts still don’t know why. NBC News’ Janis Mackey Frayer explains the factors scientists are looking at in India’s comeback.
India has 1/10 the death rate of the U.S. while 1/5 of the country's 1.3 Billion live below the national poverty line. They have one of the poorest public healthcare systems in the world and yet they have one of the lowest deaths (114 deaths per one million population).
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