Coronavirus

[cubsfan]

I'm generally just having some fun with this. I do think the politicians are pieces of shit.

 

Well, good point really: the more power you give politicians in this Covid situation, the more they ignore the real problems of our country:

 

https://amgreatness.com/2020/12/21/overdose-outnumber-coronavirus-deaths-in-san-francisco/

 

621 people have died in San Francisco of drug overdoses – that equates to nearly four times as many as have been killed by COVID-19.

 

The most recent data released on Thursday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) indicates that approximately 81,230 drug overdose deaths occurred in the United States in the 12-months ending in May 2020, a new record.

“The increases in drug overdose deaths appear to have accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic,” the CDC noted.

[Gregmal]

^ I haven't really been in touch with what grade school and above kids are doing bc I dont have kids that age. But I was shocked to learn from a tenant that these kids legit are sitting in front of a computer from 8-2 everyday. Personally, I never would have made it through grade school if I had to do the same. Would have lost my mind listening to all that boring stuff with no interaction or break.

[Spekulatius]

I'm generally just having some fun with this. I do think the politicians are pieces of shit.

 

Well, good point really: the more power you give politicians in this Covid situation, the more they ignore the real problems of our country:

 

https://amgreatness.com/2020/12/21/overdose-outnumber-coronavirus-deaths-in-san-francisco/

 

621 people have died in San Francisco of drug overdoses – that equates to nearly four times as many as have been killed by COVID-19.

 

The most recent data released on Thursday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) indicates that approximately 81,230 drug overdose deaths occurred in the United States in the 12-months ending in May 2020, a new record.

“The increases in drug overdose deaths appear to have accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic,” the CDC noted.

 

81k death is an increase of 12k over the 69k overdosing death in 2019. 12K<<326k incremental death due to COVID-19 so it is not “the real problem” by a wide margin.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/podcasts/20190911/20190911.htm

[beerbaron]

I'd add that overdose death was trending up big time pre COVID.  COVID does not help... but doing A-B is a bit misleading.

COVID did not slow the opioids, I'd probably attribute 10-15% increase du to COVID, similar to alcohol usage.

I remember a year ago there was a thread talking about opioids epidemics... before COVID.

 

BeerBaron

 

 

[Liberty]

https://vitamindforall.org/letter.html

[StubbleJumper]

https://vitamindforall.org/letter.html

 

 

Let's give Dr. Dalal a bit of credit here.  He brought the vitamin D issue to this forum back in the spring.  I thank both you and Dr. Dalal for that insight.  As I have suggested in the past, it's a classic application of Pascal's Wager.  Spend $10 on 300 tablets of vitamin D, at worst you've wasted your money and there's no harm, at best it might save your life or at least reduce the significance of a covid episode.  Muscleman also brought this forward a number of months ago, so thanks to him too.

 

 

SJ

[KCLarkin]

https://vitamindforall.org/letter.html

 

 

Let's give Dr. Dalal a bit of credit here.  He brought the vitamin D issue to this forum back in the spring.  I thank both you and Dr. Dalal for that insight.  As I have suggested in the past, it's a classic application of Pascal's Wager.  Spend $10 on 300 tablets of vitamin D, at worst you've wasted your money and there's no harm, at best it might save your life or at least reduce the significance of a covid episode.  Muscleman also brought this forward a number of months ago, so thanks to him too.

 

 

SJ

 

I generally agree with this, but the studies I've seen suggest that Vitamin D might be a marker rather than the protective agent. This letter doesn't seem to address this issue? I only see a tiny pilot study.

 

I'm shocked that Vitamin D hasn't been studied more since the correlation is so strong.

 

[Cardboard]

So useless:

 

WHO chief scientist warns against Covid complacency, says herd immunity unlikely until end-2021

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/23/who-some-level-of-herd-immunity-may-be-reached-by-end-2021-.html

 

Why do we need these morons? Unbelievable that tax payers have to pay for so many people to give their opinions and who provide zero cure, zero relief, zero PPE and certainly not any kind of useful guidelines as they screwed up:

 

1- Calling it a pandemic: was done well after any common mortal knew.

2- Kept telling for a long time that masks were no good.

3- Played around with testing results creating false positives now adjusting which will show vaccines as more effective than they are.

 

Yet we still have a lot of people on this website who you would think should be rational still begging for more of these leeches. More of what I would call fake scientists. Crazy!

 

Unless of course it is the kind of "service" that they provide for a living with fat salaries and pensions to show up to work 35 max hours per week.

 

Watch the incentives as would say Charlie Munger. Yup!

 

Cardboard

[Spekulatius]

My wife just got the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine today. So far, so good.

 

Some unrelated stuff:

My wife talked with an ICU nurse at the hospital and she mentioned they that generally don’t administer Remdesivir for COVID-19 cases any more. Frontline treatment are steroids and often it is just that.

 

[boilermaker75]

My wife just got the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine today. So far, so good.

 

Some unrelated stuff:

My wife talked with an ICU nurse at the hospital and she mentioned they that generally don’t administer Remdesivir for COVID-19 cases any more. Frontline treatment are steroids and often it is just that.

 

Maybe why GILD is near a 52-week low?

[Spekulatius]

My wife just got the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine today. So far, so good.

 

Some unrelated stuff:

My wife talked with an ICU nurse at the hospital and she mentioned they that generally don’t administer Remdesivir for COVID-19 cases any more. Frontline treatment are steroids and often it is just that.

 

Maybe why GILD is near a 52-week low?

 

I owned GILD and sold during a spike due to Remdesivir news and it turned out the right decision. Remdesivir was never central to the thesis though, but the pipeline disappointments and continued issues with their Hep C franchise are putting a lid on the stock.

[Peregrine]

A good and balanced article on COVID politics: https://www.statnews.com/2020/12/23/put-straw-man-pandemic-denial-out-of-its-misery/

 

Hopeful that slowly and surely more balance is being brought to the public discussion.

[KCLarkin]

Dr. Fauci understands the difference between In Vitro and In Vivo. That's why he is a respected scientist and not an idiot on twitter.

[Investor20]

Dr. Fauci on herd immunity:

 

“When polls said only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70 to 75 percent,” he said.

 

“Then, when newer surveys said 60 percent or more would take it, I thought, ‘I can nudge this up a bit,’ so I went to 80, 85.”

 

“We really don’t know what the real number is,”

 

“I think the real range is somewhere between 70 to 90 percent. But, I’m not going to say 90 percent.”

 

Great - an health czar who determines herd immunity based on polls.

 

https://nypost.com/2020/12/24/fauci-covid-herd-immunity-requires-90-to-be-infected-or-vaccinated/

[Spekulatius]

Dr. Fauci on herd immunity:

 

“When polls said only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70 to 75 percent,” he said.

 

“Then, when newer surveys said 60 percent or more would take it, I thought, ‘I can nudge this up a bit,’ so I went to 80, 85.”

 

“We really don’t know what the real number is,”

 

“I think the real range is somewhere between 70 to 90 percent. But, I’m not going to say 90 percent.”

 

Great - an health czar who determines herd immunity based on polls.

 

https://nypost.com/2020/12/24/fauci-covid-herd-immunity-requires-90-to-be-infected-or-vaccinated/

 

It seems that other sources have a more nuanced recap what Fauci actually said. One thing is sure - if a more transmissible form of COVID-19 starts to dominate, the threshold for herd immunity will go up.

[Investor20]

Dr. Fauci on herd immunity:

 

“When polls said only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70 to 75 percent,” he said.

 

“Then, when newer surveys said 60 percent or more would take it, I thought, ‘I can nudge this up a bit,’ so I went to 80, 85.”

 

“We really don’t know what the real number is,”

 

“I think the real range is somewhere between 70 to 90 percent. But, I’m not going to say 90 percent.”

 

Great - an health czar who determines herd immunity based on polls.

 

https://nypost.com/2020/12/24/fauci-covid-herd-immunity-requires-90-to-be-infected-or-vaccinated/

 

It seems that other sources have a more nuanced recap what Fauci actually said. One thing is sure - if a more transmissible form of COVID-19 starts to dominate, the threshold for herd immunity will go up.

 

On other hand case fatality rates have been falling.  The deaths in UK per day are far lower today than in first wave.

 

That could be because of better medical care or the mutation.  However, new hospitalizations is also low and hardly any medicine is offered before hospitalization.

 

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/weekly-hospital-admissions-covid?tab=chart&stackMode=absolute&country=~GBR

 

Whether the vaccine would lead to herd immunity to a large extent depends on how much the vaccine reduces transmission, which they dont know, which is what Dr. Fauci should say, not cite polls.

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-9018547/Pfizer-CEO-not-certain-covid-shot-prevents-transmission.html

Pfizer CEO admits he is 'not certain' their COVID-19 shot will prevent vaccinated people from spreading the virus

[Investor20]

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X18305103?via%3Dihub

Influenza vaccination in the elderly: Is a trial on mortality ethically acceptable?

Accepted 11 April 2018

 

Highlights

 

  The effect of influenza vaccination in the elderly on mortality is not documented by direct evidence from randomized trials.

 

    It has been argued that new placebo-controlled trials are needed to resolve this uncertainty.

 

    A comprehensive review on the ethical challenges of such trials is lacking.

 

    Our analysis shows that such trials are both ethically and scientifically problematic.

 

    Proponents of new placebo-controlled influenza trials are invited to challenge the ethical analysis provided in this essay.

 

I thought this is interesting, now that there is a demand for RCT to use HCQ+Zinc or Ivermectin, etc during a pandemic.

[Gregmal]

Absolutely hilarious.

 

 

 

[cubsfan]

^ Damn. Those pictures say it all!

[clutch]

Absolutely hilarious.

 

 

What's (not) funny is that I'd bet that those who argue for the strongest measures in a public forum like here all broke rules one way or another.

[Spekulatius]

Absolutely hilarious.

 

 

What's (not) funny is that I'd bet that those who argue for the strongest measures in a public forum like here all broke rules one way or another.

This guy blocked me, I have no idea why. I recall him being a TESLAQ fellow, but I am not exactly a bull. probably no big loss that I can‘t read his tweets.

[Spekulatius]

Study from Germany in the Munich area:

-about 3.3% have antibodies (2x the value from April)

- 0.47% derived IFR rate (which is a 2x the guesstimate from the CDC)

- 4250 samples

 

https://www.br.de/nachrichten/wissen/studie-rund-drei-prozent-der-muenchner-mit-corona-infiziert,SK3xCl6

The dark matter of undetected infection is way lower than it was during the first wave In March/ April due to more testing.

[Investor20]

Meta-analysis of Ivermectin for WHO

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOAh7GtvcOs

 

Dr. Andrews Hill's Ivermectin meta-analysis, from University of Liverpool, England, supported by The Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator. 

 

And look at the Conclusions slide at 10.55 minutes. 

 

This is a drug that is described by CDC for among other applications, for head lice:

 

"Given as a tablet in mass drug administrations, oral ivermectin has been used extensively and safely for over two decades in many countries to treat filarial worm infections. Although not FDA-approved for the treatment of lice, ivermectin tablets given in a single oral dose of 200 micrograms/kg or 400 micrograms/kg repeated in 9-10 days has been shown effective against head lice. It should not be used in children weighing less than 15 kg or in pregnant women."

https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/lice/head/treatment.html

 

GoodRx has Walmart price at 20$.

https://www.goodrx.com/ivermectin

 

Not a suggestion for treatment.  Please consult your physician for treatment.  Only for discussion

[Liberty]

"More than 186,000 Russians have died due to coronavirus, three times more than previously reported" ("Russia said on Monday that its coronavirus death toll was more than three times higher than it had previously reported")

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/28/russia-admits-to-world-third-worst-covid-19-death-toll-underreported

[Viking]

News on the vaccine front continues to get better. Every month moving forward the news should get better... more companies with approved options. Leading to more good news as bottle necks are removed and ‘estimated production capacity’ gets revised upwards. Amazing what can happen when government/business/people interests get aligned and money is readily available :-)

 

We have two ‘stars’ already approved; they just can’t produce enough doses for the globe:

1.) Pfizer-BioNTech

2.) Moderna

 

Looks like we will (March?) be able to add one more to the approved list (North America/Europe):

3.) Oxford/AstraZeneca

 

- https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/30/world/europe/uk-covid-19-vaccine-oxford-astrazeneca.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

 

...Britain on Wednesday became the first country to give emergency authorization to the coronavirus vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, clearing the path for a cheap and easy-to-store shot that much of the world will rely on to help end the pandemic.

 

....Britain’s two moves on Wednesday — authorizing an easy-to-make, easy-to-deliver vaccine, and delaying second vaccine doses — offered one blueprint for how to ramp up inoculation campaigns that have so far been entangled in logistical and manufacturing problems there and in much of the West.

 

The Oxford-AstraZeneca shot is poised to become the world’s dominant form of inoculation. At $3 to $4 a dose, it is a fraction of the cost of some other vaccines. And it can be shipped and stored in normal refrigerators for six months, rather than in the ultracold freezers required by its rivals, making it easier to administer to people in poorer and harder-to-reach areas.

 

....Instead of administering the two vaccine shots within a month as was originally planned, clinicians in Britain will wait as long as 12 weeks to give people second doses, the government said.

 

Clinical trials of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine had already subjected participants to delayed second doses, with most participants in the British trial being given the two doses at least nine weeks apart. British regulators said on Wednesday that the first dose of the vaccine had 70 percent efficacy in protecting against Covid-19 in the period between that shot taking effect and a second shot being administered, though those figures held for a limited subset of trial participants and have not been published.

 

...And Argentina quickly followed Britain in authorizing the Oxford-AstraZeneca shot, with India expected to do the same soon.

 

————————————-

Two other vaccine’s are also at the ‘in arm’ stage. The more options available the better.

 

4.) China

5.) Russia

 

...China said clinical trial results showed high efficacy for one of its vaccine candidates, an announcement that hastened the global rollout of hundreds of millions of doses of Chinese vaccines but was short on crucial details.

 

Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, long criticized for being introduced prematurely, also began use this week in Argentina, Belarus, Hungary and Serbia, the first other countries to begin injecting it en masse.