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Coronavirus COVID-19 Pandemic

Discussion in 'General' started by Biigoh, Mar 16, 2020.

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  1. LurkingInTheDeceit

    LurkingInTheDeceit “Brave” explorer treading “New” land

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    I mean, knowing your limitations and trusting those smarter than you isn’t a bad way to live your life, but you need to be at the very least selective about who you trust to know about each subject. Steven Hawking was also ‘a lot smarter’ than him, but he probably shouldn’t be getting his political, financial or sports related opinions from the guy.
     
    Prince Chrom, Dakkaface and evildice like this.
  2. alethiophile

    alethiophile Shadowed Philosopher Administrator

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    Also, there's the technical quibble that Elon Musk already had the virus (and recovered), so probably wouldn't take a vaccine anyway.
     
    LurkingInTheDeceit likes this.
  3. MadGreenSon

    MadGreenSon Verified Devil Tiger, The Childish Yandere

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    There's some evidence that recovery doesn't give immunity.
     
  4. evildice

    evildice (emotionally stable clown posse)

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    In the UK, they seem to treat their royalty like tabloid celebrities.

    In the USA, we seem to do the opposite.
     
  5. alethiophile

    alethiophile Shadowed Philosopher Administrator

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    So far it seems really unclear. There are a few known cases of reinfection, but given the attack rate we've seen in the US, if there were no immunity we should have many thousands right now and it'd be obvious. (Immunity is not binary; conventional immunity in this case might well be similar to one of the vaccines that are 95% effective but not 100%, say.) And there are some biochemical results suggesting that stuff like antibody count drops off a few months after recovery, but the degree to which this relates to actual immunity against infection isn't known.

    In any case, though, given the limited supply of vaccines and the evidence that recovery provides at least some immunity, people who have had it and recovered are going to be low on the vaccine priority list. So Musk probably won't be taking any vaccine for quite some time anyway.
     
    LurkingInTheDeceit likes this.
  6. Eisen

    Eisen Avant Garde

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    A fatality (as in died from the virus instead of the virus exacerbating existing issues) appeared in my neighborhood. The city is back into lockdown state, and yet as the end of the year arrives people began flocking to many places outside because reasons.

    This is making my head hurts.
     
  7. evildice

    evildice (emotionally stable clown posse)

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    My funny meme sources have stopped being funny.

    [​IMG]
     
  8. LurkingInTheDeceit

    LurkingInTheDeceit “Brave” explorer treading “New” land

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    Really puts it into perspective, more than anything else I’ve seen tbh.
     
  9. Rakdos92

    Rakdos92 Goosh Goosh

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    What are the sources for these numbers? Is this the reported number within a nation or worldwide? And do we even know if these people actually died of corona, rather than dying and getting reported of dying of the 'rona?
     
    Simonbob likes this.
  10. TotalAbsolutism

    TotalAbsolutism Magnificent Bastard Moderator

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    Get out.
     
  11. Aleh

    Aleh Destroyer of Faith in Humanity

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    Those of you who've been following the thread, and my posts in it, have probably noticed that I really, really object to the characterization of COVID as a "flu."

    I recently found an article on the subject that uses that characterization in a way that I don't have any problems with... and, because it's funny, I figured I might as well share it. Y'see, the second person in Britain to get the new COVID vaccine was a man named William Shakespeare... from Warwickshire.

    Predictably, the BBC had something of a field day with this. To collate some of the many, many puns:

    "Is this a needle which I see before me? Much ado about nothing? Two doses, both alike in quantity, and thus begins the taming of the flu. All's well that ends well, and with this a plague on neither of your houses."
     
  12. alethiophile

    alethiophile Shadowed Philosopher Administrator

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    This is actually great.
     
  13. Aleh

    Aleh Destroyer of Faith in Humanity

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    Isn't it just?
     
  14. Ragnarok

    Ragnarok Well worn.

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  15. Dnile

    Dnile Getting out there.

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    Today in the news, some enterprising fellows have decided to incorporate coronavirus with Christmas and create something neat. Some houses have set up their christmas lights display for their houses and synchronized it to the remix of the Victorian premiers coronavirus updates. I know I'll be doing my best to adhere to the message!
     
  16. rocket501

    rocket501 Versed in the lewd.

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    My mother received the vaccine today. She works admin at a healthcare facility and does COVID screening for patient intake as well. She wasn't on the primary list for today, but there was a waiting list in the event of no-shows and she ended up getting it. It's a relief both when it comes to her own safety and the chance of her bringing it back to the rest of the family.
     
    evildice, me-meboi, Aleh and 2 others like this.
  17. evildice

    evildice (emotionally stable clown posse)

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    I'm participating in a vaccine study. As part of that, I'm wearing an electronic monitoring device which uploads various vital statistics about how I'm doing over time.

    [​IMG]

    So yeah, it's basically an iPod without anything fun except the cyborg-themed blinking lights on the outside, which occasionally shine through my shirt and make me feel slightly cool.


    Anyway, the fun thing I'm here to say is that I technically got a tracking & monitoring chip with my vaccine shot.

    It's just huge and clunky and I voluntarily re-charge it every day.
     
  18. Biigoh

    Biigoh Primordial Tanuki Moderator

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    So, what you're saying is you got bagged and tagged by scientists.
     
  19. evildice

    evildice (emotionally stable clown posse)

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    Sometimes you bag the nurse, sometimes the nurse bags you.
     
  20. Aleh

    Aleh Destroyer of Faith in Humanity

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    So, some sick fuck of an antivaxxer in Wisconsin just deliberately destroyed 500+ doses of the Moderna vaccine.

    Just... ugh.
     
  21. Biigoh

    Biigoh Primordial Tanuki Moderator

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    Hopefully they hit that person to the full extent for "destroying company property".
     
  22. Aleh

    Aleh Destroyer of Faith in Humanity

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    According to USA Today, Aurora said it notified "appropriate authorities for further investigation," and "the incident is being investigated by the FBI and the Food and Drug Administration as well as Grafton police."

    The Philadelphia Inquirer confirms.
     
  23. vali

    vali I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    My grandpa died of covid a couple days ago.

    I'm mostly just relieved. About 40 years ago he suffered a great deal of brain damage and since then the only thing he's done is stare at the wall for 16 hours a day and mutter nonsense. I always thought he got that brain damage from a failed suicide attempt but later I was told that it was done by the Detroit crime family. I don't want to dox myself so I'll just say I did some digging and I find the claim credible. Supposedly the mob was trying to fake a suicide but by pure luck a neighbor wandered by and 'saved' grandpa. Everyone would have been happier if that neighbor came by either 10 minutes sooner before the damage was done or 10 minutes later when he was fully dead, but it is what it is.

    I'm not sure what hell on earth is like but I think being a mostly brain-dead zombie for four decades might qualify. Like Alzheimer's but for your entire adult life, and the impact on the people around you is this tragedy that just goes on and on and on with no end in sight.

    I can't really tell the rest of my family that I'm grateful that covid killed him, other than vague stuff like "he's finally at peace now". Maybe they feel the same way, but maybe they don't, and either way it's not socially acceptable. So this is something I can really only say anonymously here on the internet.

    Anyway that's my covid story.
     
    Jiven, Daytripper, Rakdos92 and 2 others like this.
  24. Aleh

    Aleh Destroyer of Faith in Humanity

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    The bastard has been arrested, on...
    He is also even more of a bastard than I previously thought, as he attempted to hide the destruction so that people would actually get the now-ineffective injections. I shit you not.

     
  25. LurkingInTheDeceit

    LurkingInTheDeceit “Brave” explorer treading “New” land

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    Wat

    Edit: I don’t really know how to feel about your habit of deleting your posts, but I’ll snip it anyway.
     
  26. Simonbob

    Simonbob Really? You don't say.

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    I have to admit, I'm a bit worried about these vaccines. Normally, vaccines go through a 10 year process, to make sure they work, and are safe. 96% fail, too.

    There's no way these ones can be as safe as all that.
     
    Guardian Box likes this.
  27. Aleh

    Aleh Destroyer of Faith in Humanity

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    ... where are you getting your numbers?
     
  28. Simonbob

    Simonbob Really? You don't say.

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    Guardian Box likes this.
  29. AllyDoodle

    AllyDoodle Lewd Cthulhu

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    Considering how bad it has gotten in America, I think this should be considered a terrorist act and prosecuted as such.
     
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  30. Aleh

    Aleh Destroyer of Faith in Humanity

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    Except neither of those links actually provide those numbers -- or your ten-year figure:
    If you actually look at either of those, you'll find that the ten-year figure was actually for the entire development process. Thus your ten-year figure is actually five.

    In this case, most of the work was originally done for COVID's somewhat less scary relative, SARS, back in 2002-2004. Because SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID) is closely related to SARS-CoV-1, most of that development work was still applicable, and we had a selection of vaccines (or, more technically, vaccine candidates) by mid-March.

    Then, of course, we get into time that can be cut by simply throwing resources at the problem and advancements in technology. In the trials for the Salk polio vaccine, for instance, simply analyzing the data took most of a year. Between computers and the sheer level of concentrated scientific focus (and thus available personnel), I guarantee you that the statistical analyses for the COVID trials took nowhere near that. That's also not taking into account how recruitment is typically spread out over a period of time, or how disease characteristics drive things.

    Y'see, the later (and longer-taking) trials aren't the ones that tell us if the vaccine is safe (although they continue to monitor for safety, and those trials tend to find any rare side effects that the earlier phases missed); they're the ones that tell us if the vaccine is effective -- i.e. that it works and protects against the disease.

    In this case, they took a fairly dramatic step and combined the Phase II and Phase III trials. That is, they said "fuck it, this is a crisis" and tested the things for safety and efficacy simultaneously. As such, you can effectively drop the year or two normally spent on Phase II trials from the timeline.

    (And no, that two years isn't monitoring time -- it's usually an artifact of recruitment time and adjustments to the vaccine's delivery schedule. Believe it or not, it can take a really long time to cycle a few hundred people through a clinic while carefully monitoring their health and immune systems.)

    So, in this case, that "ten year" figure is really closer to three or four... and that part is mostly spent seeing if the vaccine works, not seeing if it's safe.

    Oh, and...

    ... neither article you linked provides either number. As such, you appear to be essentially pulling it out of your ass.

    Edit: Oh, and I forgot to mention that the regulatory review of a new vaccine can easily take a year or two... and those ten-fifteen year timelines include that. So, yeah, cut that 3-4 year figure down even further... and the remainder still isn't decreased safety monitoring; I'd just have to get into statistics and effect size numbers to explain it.
     
    Last edited: Jan 2, 2021
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