2019 Novel Coronavirus Covid-19 Discussion

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#2612994 30-Nov-2020 07:35

I don't think we'll ever know the real answer as to whether the virus originated. In the modern connected world where you can travel between any two points in under 24 hours it's going to be near impossible.

Many of the reports and studies (such as the Italian one) showing very early spread are not definitive, but what is pretty clear now however is that Covid was spreading in Europe (and almost certainly North America) in December. By mid December the UK was facing an influenza pandemic (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/flu-deaths-hospital-ill-patient-gps-vaccine-phe-a9244201.html) and a big increase in deaths. Was this really Covid? We'll probably never know.

We do know that the "mystery cough" was present in the UK long before official Covid cases were reported. https://www.bbc.com/news/health-52589449

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#2612997 30-Nov-2020 07:43

while we do not know the exact origin of the sars-cov2 i think we can safely say the pandemic began in Wuhan.

something happened there and it's almost like IF the virus has been around prior, it was struggling to infect the masses but then in wuhan no question it was highly contagious and

exponential spread certainly began in Wuhan -> whole of China -> Europe -> rest of the world

we saw that timeline very clearly in Jan -> April 2020

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#2612999 30-Nov-2020 07:51

It can start anywhere, as others have. In this case highly likely China, in the next one Covid or another, anywhere.

DS248

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#2613001 30-Nov-2020 08:09

Tinkerisk: Here we go -> Preparation target date for Covid-19 public vaccination readiness: Dec, 15th 2020

(remark: this is for DE, for NZ I have no idea)

Possibly as early as next week in the UK, according to this Bloomberg sourced report

https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/europe/300170368/covid19-uk-poised-to-be-first-to-approve-pfizerbiontech-vaccine

(Bloomberg report itself is behind a paywall)

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#2613047 30-Nov-2020 09:23

It's interesting how all the vaccines got to the same point within a few days of each other

tdgeek

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#2613061 30-Nov-2020 09:37

Batman: It's interesting how all the vaccines got to the same point within a few days of each other

Would they be sharing data? I vaguely recall there was a drive to do that. If one got a clue from another then they can catch up, the goal to be sooner than later.

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#2613100 30-Nov-2020 10:20

Batman: It's interesting how all the vaccines got to the same point within a few days of each other

It's actually fairly normal. It's called "technological convergence" and it often causes patent problems.

The radio is a classic example. Marconi is usually cited as the radio inventor, but many, many people worked in radio.

We can't even say Marconi got the first patent regarding wireless transmission, or even the first to demonstrate wireless transmission.

Many people came up with the same ideas at the same time, often within days of each other

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#2613130 30-Nov-2020 10:58

Same problem in publishing. It creates all kinds of copyright grief.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

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#2613169 30-Nov-2020 11:42

tdgeek:

Batman: It's interesting how all the vaccines got to the same point within a few days of each other

Would they be sharing data? I vaguely recall there was a drive to do that. If one got a clue from another then they can catch up, the goal to be sooner than later.

at the start of the pandemic yes, to share ideas of how to make a successful vaccine. but once a vaccine gets developed it becomes commercially sensitive intellectual property i would have thought

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#2613265 30-Nov-2020 12:55

Price and time are the key considerations.

While a company could invent a trillion dollar device that might take years to build, no one would. Competing companies could come up with a "good-enough" quick solution.

Much cheaper and faster to use off-the-shelf parts and ideas as much as possible

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#2613355 30-Nov-2020 13:49

I suppose Alabama has a similar problem to ours; regions with a lot of poor, under-educated, and under-employed are going to have slower uptake of vaccinations.

At least we don't have as many vocal anti-science leaders.

Washington Post: Mass vaccinations against covid-19 will be ‘mind-blowing’ challenge for Alabama, other poor, rural US states

Overcoming distrust of a covid-19 vaccine is about “survival instincts” for Shane Lee, a family physician in Perry County, Alabama, a rural, mostly African American community of about 9,000 where more than a third of people live in poverty.

When the outbreak erupted in Alabama’s Black Belt in the summer and “swept through hospitals and nursing homes like a grass fire,” the 59-year-old doctor, a retired Army general, became infected. His heart muscle grew inflamed. Months later, he is still short of breath.

The lone doctor at his clinic in Marion, the county seat, Lee watched his two nurse practitioners leave during the pandemic in search of less grueling work. An X-ray technician also quit.

“I will take the first vaccine that hits the street,” he said.

Lee is among the Americans expected to have priority access to a coronavirus vaccine that could become available as soon as next month. But as for when the vaccine will reach Perry County — and whether the rest of the community will agree to take it — the doctor would not hazard a guess.

Under its Operation Warp Speed initiative, the Trump administration has promised simultaneous distribution of vaccines to “all of America.” The soaring ambition, however, is set to run headlong into the barriers to health care and mistrust of speedily developed vaccines that mark Perry County and other rural, impoverished parts of America. Residents of these places are especially vulnerable to the virus because of their poor health status and often precarious employment in low-wage service industries. Responsibility for their inoculation, meanwhile, will fall to a public health system maimed by budget cuts and riven by racial and other inequities. The day-to-day delivery of shots, without reinforcements, will play out at understaffed clinics, overwhelmed pharmacies and beleaguered long-term care facilities.

...Some of the steepest obstacles involve doubt about scientific advances championed in Washington.

Distrust of the medical establishment permeates the state’s Black community, nearly a half-century after the revelation that syphilis patients in Tuskegee, Alabama, were deceived and had treatment withheld to study the natural course of the disease. The so-called Tuskegee experiment casts a long shadow.

Also threatening participation is the “unprecedented head wind of disinformation about the virus itself,” said Jim Carnes, policy director for Alabama Arise, an advocacy group for low-income residents. The swirl of falsehoods, Cares said, has led many ... to disregard medical guidance. “How are you going to get people to take a vaccine to fight a virus they don’t believe in?” he said...

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#2613541 30-Nov-2020 18:42

DS248:

Tinkerisk: Here we go -> Preparation target date for Covid-19 public vaccination readiness: Dec, 15th 2020

(remark: this is for DE, for NZ I have no idea)

Possibly as early as next week in the UK, according to this Bloomberg sourced report

https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/europe/300170368/covid19-uk-poised-to-be-first-to-approve-pfizerbiontech-vaccine

(Bloomberg report itself is behind a paywall)

The UK rollout is expected to begin on the 7th and their plans published a week or so ago are still to have the entire country vaccinated by April (first dose completed by the end of January). If this can be pulled off it's going to be one of the best logistics operations of all time!

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#2613672 1-Dec-2020 07:42

26.5% of New Zealanders are obese, a number only surpassed in the English-speaking world by the United States. The rate for the Pacific peoples were nearly triple the white average, while Māori reported nearly double the white rate.

Washington Post: Obese Americans could be prioritized for coronavirus vaccine

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisers will meet tomorrow to discuss who should get coronavirus vaccines first.

One population they may consider prioritizing: Americans who are obese — a major risk factor for severe covid-19 that some experts say has gone under-recognized.

“Obesity was ignored for the longest time and overweight was completely ignored,” said Barry Popkin, an obesity researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Now the CDC is talking about both, he said.

The agency has already laid out four groups that should be considered for priority: health-care personnel, workers in essential and critical industries, older adults, and people with certain underlying medical conditions — including “severe obesity.” But it’s unclear to what extent the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will prioritize this group...

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#2613837 1-Dec-2020 10:25

sbiddle:

The UK rollout is expected to begin on the 7th and their plans published a week or so ago are still to have the entire country vaccinated by April (first dose completed by the end of January). If this can be pulled off it's going to be one of the best logistics operations of all time!

I would be genuinely impressed with that, but given what a shambles the rest of the UK's response to covid appears to be I don't exactly have high hopes.

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#2614020 1-Dec-2020 15:03

re Moderna's claim of '100%' effectiveness in preventing severe cases of Covid-19.

According to a CNN article, the basis of Moderna's claim is as follows
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/30/health/moderna-vaccine-fda-eua-application/index.html

Among the approximately 15,000 people who received the vaccine, 11 developed Covid-19.
Among the approximately 15,000 people who received the placebo, 185 developed Covid-19.
...
None of the 11 people who received the vaccine became severely ill, but 30 of the 185 who received the placebo became severely ill, and one of them died.

*If* the expected conditional rate of severe disease is 30/185, expected severe cases in the 11 vaccinated people who contracted coronavirus would be 1.78 ...

So, the 100% claim is based on 0, rather than 1 or 2 vaccinated people becoming "severely ill" !!! (vs 1, in the case of the Pfizer vaccine). Not even the slightest possibility this was random chance?

How are they able to make such claims without being challenged?

Just two issues

Take 100 random draws of 11 from the pool of 185. Are they suggesting zero chance that none of the 100 samples of 11 would contain 0 "severely ill" people?
What exactly constitutes "severely ill"? 30/185 (16.2%) seems a very high proportion of cases becoming "severely ill". Would have to worry that the placebo was an aggravating factor.

The last 'reliable' figure I have for total hospitalisations due to Covid-19 in NZ was 96 up to 15 Aug. Plus possibly as many as half of the 22 who had died by then were never recorded as hospitalised, so make that ~107 total hospitalised or died without being 'hospitalised'. That is a hospitalisation rate of 6.7% for 1608 confirmed and probable cases in NZ to that date. Or more cautiously make it 6.9% of the 1562 confirmed and probable cases 14 days earlier (ignoring undercount of actual cases due to at times very restrictive testing criteria during the early stages).

So in NZ 7% cases hospitalised vs 16% of cases "severely ill" in the Moderna placebo group. At that rate, the US should have had over 2m severely ill cases so far.

The number admitted to ICU in NZ was much lower; perhaps a more realistic measure of 'became severely ill' might be 22 deaths + say 10 others admitted to ICU = ~2% of cases?

Even taking our ~7% of cases as a criteria, would expect only 1 in 11 cases to require hospitalisation, let alone become "severely ill"

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