***NON-POLITICAL COVID-19 Discussion Thread***

[JakeF]

A couple of reminders...

Originally Posted by Bwana

Once again, don't come in this thread with some kind of political agenda, or you will be shown the door. If you want to go that route, there is a thread about this in DC.

Originally Posted by Dartgod

People, there is a lot of good information in this thread, let's try to keep the petty bickering to a minimum.

We all have varying opinions about the impact of this, the numbers, etc. We will all never agree with each other. But we can all keep it civil.

Thanks!

Click here for the original OP:

Spoiler!

Apparently the CoronaVirus can survive on a inanimate objects, such as door knobs, for 9 days.

California coronavirus case could be first spread within U.S. community, CDC says
By SOUMYA KARLAMANGLA, JACLYN COSGROVE
FEB. 26, 2020 8:04 PM

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating what could be the first case of novel coronavirus in the United States involving a patient in California who neither recently traveled out of the country nor was in contact with someone who did.

“At this time, the patient’s exposure is unknown. It’s possible this could be an instance of community spread of COVID-19, which would be the first time this has happened in the United States,” the CDC said in a statement. “Community spread means spread of an illness for which the source of infection is unknown. It’s also possible, however, that the patient may have been exposed to a returned traveler who was infected.”

The individual is a resident of Solano County and is receiving medical care in Sacramento County, according to the state Department of Public Health.

The CDC said the “case was detected through the U.S. public health system — picked up by astute clinicians.”

Officials at UC Davis Medical Center expanded on what the federal agency might have meant by that in an email sent Wednesday, as reported by the Davis Enterprise newspaper.

The patient arrived at UC Davis Medical Center from another hospital Feb. 19 and “had already been intubated, was on a ventilator, and given droplet protection orders because of an undiagnosed and suspected viral condition,” according to an email sent by UC Davis officials that was obtained by the Davis Enterprise.

The staff at UC Davis requested COVID-19 testing by the CDC, but because the patient didn’t fit the CDC’s existing criteria for the virus, a test wasn’t immediately administered, according to the email. The CDC then ordered the test Sunday, and results were announced Wednesday. Hospital administrators reportedly said in the email that despite these issues, there has been minimal exposure at the hospital because of safety protocols they have in place.

A UC Davis Health spokesperson declined Wednesday evening to share the email with The Times.

Since Feb. 2, more than 8,400 returning travelers from China have entered California, according to the state health department. They have been advised to self-quarantine for 14 days and limit interactions with others as much as possible, officials said.

“This is a new virus, and while we are still learning about it, there is a lot we already know,” Dr. Sonia Angell, director of the California Department of Public Health, said in a statement. “We have been anticipating the potential for such a case in the U.S., and given our close familial, social and business relationships with China, it is not unexpected that the first case in the U.S. would be in California.”

It is not clear how the person became infected, but public health workers could not identify any contacts with people who had traveled to China or other areas where the virus is widespread. That raises concern that the virus is spreading in the United States, creating a challenge for public health officials, experts say.

“It’s the first signal that we could be having silent transmission in the community,” said Lawrence Gostin, director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law. “It probably means there are many more cases out there, and it probably means this individual has infected others, and now it’s a race to try to find out who that person has infected.”

On Tuesday, the CDC offered its most serious warning to date that the United States should expect and prepare for the coronavirus to become a more widespread health issue.

“Ultimately, we expect we will see coronavirus spread in this country,” said Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. “It’s not so much a question of if, but a question of when.”

According to the CDC’s latest count Wednesday morning, 59 U.S. residents have tested positive for the new strain of coronavirus — 42 of whom are repatriated citizens from a Diamond Princess cruise. That number has grown by two since Messonnier’s last count Tuesday, although the CDC was not immediately available to offer details on the additional cases.

More than 82,000 cases of coronavirus have been reported globally, and more than 2,700 people have died, with the majority in mainland China, the epicenter of the outbreak.

But public health leaders have repeatedly reminded residents that the health risk from the novel coronavirus to the general public remains low.

“While COVID-19 has a high transmission rate, it has a low mortality rate,” the state Department of Public Health said in a statement Wednesday. “From the international data we have, of those who have tested positive for COVID-19, approximately 80% do not exhibit symptoms that would require hospitalization. There have been no confirmed deaths related to COVID-19 in the United States to date.”

CDC officials have also warned that although the virus is likely to spread in U.S. communities, the flu still poses a greater risk.

Gostin said the news of potential silent transmission does not eliminate the possibility of containing the virus in the U.S. and preventing an outbreak.

“There are few enough cases that we should at least try,” he said. “Most of us are not optimistic that that will be successful, but we’re still in the position to try.”

[ChiliConCarnage]

Novavax has phase 3 trials going in the UK, Mexico, and the US now.

It's a new vaccine type too. Says it'll be safer, better efficacy, and may create an ultimate vaccine for the flu due to dealing with antigen shift better. Sounds great!

Then I read this and I feel less excited. I don't know the science and maybe this is no big deal but it sounds like something out of a Sci-Fi show to me.

NVX-CoV2373 was created using Novavax’ recombinant nanoparticle technology to generate antigen derived from the coronavirus spike (S) protein adjuvanted with Novavax’ patented saponin-based Matrix-M™ to enhance the immune response and stimulate high levels of neutralizing antibodies.

[DaFace]

Originally Posted by ChiliConCarnage

Then I read this and I feel less excited. I don't know the science and maybe this is no big deal but it sounds like something out of a Sci-Fi show to me.

Isn't that pretty much all modern medicine? It's all crazy technology that few people really understand.

[O.city]

Originally Posted by DaFace

Isn't that pretty much all modern medicine? It's all crazy technology that few people really understand.

Maybe for you Non geniuses

[neech]

Originally Posted by ChiliConCarnage

Novavax has phase 3 trials going in the UK, Mexico, and the US now.

It's a new vaccine type too. Says it'll be safer, better efficacy, and may create an ultimate vaccine for the flu due to dealing with antigen shift better. Sounds great!

Then I read this and I feel less excited. I don't know the science and maybe this is no big deal but it sounds like something out of a Sci-Fi show to me.

I'm apprehensive about injecting something into my body when you don't know the long term side affects of it.

[louie aguiar]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/broader...ay-11607696740

Sanofi-GSK Covid-19 Vaccine Is Set Back by Lab Mistake

Scientists will have to fix the problem, with the goal of restarting clinical trials in February, and potentially securing regulatory authorizations late next year

PARIS—A laboratory mistake has set back development of Sanofi SA SNY +1.39% and GlaxoSmithKline GSK +0.53% PLC’s Covid-19 vaccine, delaying potential authorization by several months and complicating plans in the U.S. and Europe to quickly inoculate swaths of their populations next year.

Volunteers were accidentally given lower doses than intended in initial clinical trials due to a miscalculation in the manufacturing process, said Thomas Triomphe, Sanofi’s executive vice president for vaccines.

Sanofi scientists, he said, will have to reformulate the vaccine to fix the problem with the goal of restarting clinical trials in February, and potentially securing regulatory authorizations in the fourth quarter of next year.

“It’s a sad setback,” Mr. Triomphe said in an interview. He estimated a delay of four months to five months. But “we prefer to take a step back, let the science work and come back with a product that is very efficacious in addition to being safe....You don’t want to do compromises there.”

U.S. and European public-health officials had high hopes that the vaccine could be developed in time to start distributing it to patients next year, a key part of their strategies to maximize vaccine supply.

Sanofi and Glaxo previously aimed for regulatory authorizations in the first half of 2021, but on Friday the companies pushed back that timeline to the fourth quarter.

The vaccine constitutes 10% of total global coronavirus vaccine doses that were expected from Western pharmaceutical companies next year, according to U.S. investment bank Jefferies Group.

European and U.S. health authorities have said they ordered more vaccines than their countries needed in the event some candidates failed.

Sanofi and GSK received a $2.1 billion contract from Operation Warp Speed, the U.S. government’s coronavirus vaccine program, to accelerate the development and distribution of the vaccine—the biggest contract handed out by the U.S. program.

That deal called for the companies to supply the U.S. with 100 million doses and gave the government an option to order an additional 500 million. The European Union ordered 300 million doses, and the U.K. another 60 million.

Sanofi and Glaxo are two of the largest vaccine manufacturers in the world by revenue. Though usually fierce rivals, they teamed up this year in an unusual collaboration to jointly develop a vaccine, betting that by combining their scientific expertise and global operations reach they could move faster than by working alone.

Their vaccine combines a Sanofi-owned antigen—a protein from the coronavirus that triggers immunity—and a Glaxo-owned adjuvant, a molecule used in some vaccines to enhance the immune response.

Friday’s setback highlights the high-wire act of vaccine development in a pandemic, where even relatively mundane lab mishaps can have global consequences for public health.

“This shows what we know, that it is not always easy to develop a new vaccine to the point of being used to prevent the disease,” said Stephen Evans, a professor of pharmacoepidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. “It is possible that adjustment of doses and constituents of the vaccine could improve responses in the elderly, but again, that is not guaranteed.”

Mr. Triomphe said that the mistake occurred because of faulty lab materials, called reagents, that scientists were using to measure the potency of their antigen.

Sanofi used two different reagents made by separate manufacturers, but both wound up providing inaccurate measurements, Mr. Triomphe said.

“These reagents were not of high-enough quality or pure enough,” said Mr. Triomphe. “The good news is that we can fix that.”

Mr. Triomphe declined to name the manufacturers that produced the reagents.

The companies said that despite the dosing error, the vaccine showed encouraging results in volunteers age 18 years to 49 years. Yet it produced a weak immune response in people older than 50 years, a key demographic because they are more vulnerable to Covid-19.

Sanofi’s reagent mishap is the second laboratory snafu in recent months to raise questions about the prospects of a leading vaccine candidate.

In November, AstraZeneca PLC and the University of Oxford said that a manufacturing error led to some patients receiving a lower-than-intended vaccine dose in clinical trials. In that case, the partners said the mistake may have been a happy accident because the lower dose showed greater effectiveness, though some experts have questioned whether the result will hold up after further testing.

One risk of the kind of vaccine technology used by Sanofi-GSK is that it was known going into the trial to produce weaker immune responses in older patients, said Penny Ward, visiting professor in Pharmaceutical Medicine at King’s College London.

France was planning to begin its vaccination campaign this winter with the compound produced by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE, the first coronavirus vaccine to be approved by regulators in the West, targeting nursing-home residents. France was planning to use the Sanofi-GSK vaccine as it starts inoculating the general public in the spring.

The Sanofi-Glaxo vaccine was expected to help ease the logistical challenges of mass vaccination since it can be stored at nonfreezing temperatures, unlike the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which requires costly ultracold storage facilities.

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by louie aguiar

https://www.wsj.com/articles/broader...ay-11607696740

Sanofi-GSK Covid-19 Vaccine Is Set Back by Lab Mistake

Scientists will have to fix the problem, with the goal of restarting clinical trials in February, and potentially securing regulatory authorizations late next year

PARIS—A laboratory mistake has set back development of Sanofi SA SNY +1.39% and GlaxoSmithKline GSK +0.53% PLC’s Covid-19 vaccine, delaying potential authorization by several months and complicating plans in the U.S. and Europe to quickly inoculate swaths of their populations next year.

Volunteers were accidentally given lower doses than intended in initial clinical trials due to a miscalculation in the manufacturing process, said Thomas Triomphe, Sanofi’s executive vice president for vaccines.

Sanofi scientists, he said, will have to reformulate the vaccine to fix the problem with the goal of restarting clinical trials in February, and potentially securing regulatory authorizations in the fourth quarter of next year.

How in the actual **** do you not test post-manufactured vaccines? That you are producing what was intended? They do that for baby yoda dolls. No thanks to this individual vaccine.

[DaFace]

Closest hit to home for me. My cousin is in the hospital due to COVID issues. While I know we all have varying levels of concern about the virus, I just wish people would be a TINY bit conservative about it. Don't want to wear a mask? I think it's a silly take, but if you have zero symptoms, I get it. But when you have good reason to isolate...just do it already.

In this situation, my cousin's boss's wife tested positive for COVID. His boss went to work anyway because he felt fine, and he infected half of their employees (including my cousin). Separately, my aunt and uncle decided to visit my cousin a week ago, and when they got there he was fighting a "cold" (without knowing it was COVID). They stayed for the visit, but he went to get tested shortly after they left to drive home (12 hour drive). Just prior to them arriving home, he called them to tell them he was positive.

My aunt and uncle are the caregivers for my grandparents who are in their 90s, and normally they would have immediately gone over there when they got home to check on them. If the phone call had come in an hour later, there's a good chance that my 93-year-old grandpa who is on oxygen 100% of the time would now be fighting for his life.

As it is, my cousin (ex firefighter in his 40s who has asthma) is in the hospital, and my aunt and uncle are both severely lethargic. Separately (non-covid), their brother-in-law has been put into hospice, and they can't visit him in his final days.

My grandparents are fine for the time being, but there's no one to come over and help with chores. Small issue, but still.

If someone around you tests positive, just stay home for chrissakes. And if you feel like you're fighting off a cold, maybe don't have a big family gathering?

[Marcellus]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

How in the actual **** do you not test post-manufactured vaccines? That you are producing what was intended? They do that for baby yoda dolls. No thanks to this individual vaccine.

First off thats kind of an old story.

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by Marcellus

First off thats kind of an old story.

old story or not, it seems to me that checking your product post manufacturing is something that should happen. Maybe I just don't understand how manufacturing a product is supposed to work.

[Donger]

200,000 new cases and 3,000 deaths reported yesterday. Still clearing out the Thanksgiving backlog, I guess.

[O.city]

Originally Posted by DaFace

Closest hit to home for me. My cousin is in the hospital due to COVID issues. While I know we all have varying levels of concern about the virus, I just wish people would be a TINY bit conservative about it. Don't want to wear a mask? I think it's a silly take, but if you have zero symptoms, I get it. But when you have good reason to isolate...just do it already.

In this situation, my cousin's boss's wife tested positive for COVID. His boss went to work anyway because he felt fine, and he infected half of their employees (including my cousin). Separately, my aunt and uncle decided to visit my cousin a week ago, and when they got there he was fighting a "cold" (without knowing it was COVID). They stayed for the visit, but he went to get tested shortly after they left to drive home (12 hour drive). Just prior to them arriving home, he called them to tell them he was positive.

My aunt and uncle are the caregivers for my grandparents who are in their 90s, and normally they would have immediately gone over there when they got home to check on them. If the phone call had come in an hour later, there's a good chance that my 93-year-old grandpa who is on oxygen 100% of the time would now be fighting for his life.

As it is, my cousin (ex firefighter in his 40s who has asthma) is in the hospital, and my aunt and uncle are both severely lethargic. Separately (non-covid), their brother-in-law has been put into hospice, and they can't visit him in his final days.

My grandparents are fine for the time being, but there's no one to come over and help with chores. Small issue, but still.

If someone around you tests positive, just stay home for chrissakes. And if you feel like you're fighting off a cold, maybe don't have a big family gathering?

Man that sucks. I know what you’re going thru. Will keep you and yours I’m my thoughts.

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by DaFace

Closest hit to home for me. My cousin is in the hospital due to COVID issues. While I know we all have varying levels of concern about the virus, I just wish people would be a TINY bit conservative about it. Don't want to wear a mask? I think it's a silly take, but if you have zero symptoms, I get it. But when you have good reason to isolate...just do it already.

In this situation, my cousin's boss's wife tested positive for COVID. His boss went to work anyway because he felt fine, and he infected half of their employees (including my cousin). Separately, my aunt and uncle decided to visit my cousin a week ago, and when they got there he was fighting a "cold" (without knowing it was COVID). They stayed for the visit, but he went to get tested shortly after they left to drive home (12 hour drive). Just prior to them arriving home, he called them to tell them he was positive.

My aunt and uncle are the caregivers for my grandparents who are in their 90s, and normally they would have immediately gone over there when they got home to check on them. If the phone call had come in an hour later, there's a good chance that my 93-year-old grandpa who is on oxygen 100% of the time would now be fighting for his life.

As it is, my cousin (ex firefighter in his 40s who has asthma) is in the hospital, and my aunt and uncle are both severely lethargic. Separately (non-covid), their brother-in-law has been put into hospice, and they can't visit him in his final days.

My grandparents are fine for the time being, but there's no one to come over and help with chores. Small issue, but still.

If someone around you tests positive, just stay home for chrissakes. And if you feel like you're fighting off a cold, maybe don't have a big family gathering?

Damn man that sucks. Positive thoughts heading your way.

[MahomesMagic]

Originally Posted by DaFace

Closest hit to home for me. My cousin is in the hospital due to COVID issues. While I know we all have varying levels of concern about the virus, I just wish people would be a TINY bit conservative about it. Don't want to wear a mask? I think it's a silly take, but if you have zero symptoms, I get it. But when you have good reason to isolate...just do it already.

In this situation, my cousin's boss's wife tested positive for COVID. His boss went to work anyway because he felt fine, and he infected half of their employees (including my cousin). Separately, my aunt and uncle decided to visit my cousin a week ago, and when they got there he was fighting a "cold" (without knowing it was COVID). They stayed for the visit, but he went to get tested shortly after they left to drive home (12 hour drive). Just prior to them arriving home, he called them to tell them he was positive.

My aunt and uncle are the caregivers for my grandparents who are in their 90s, and normally they would have immediately gone over there when they got home to check on them. If the phone call had come in an hour later, there's a good chance that my 93-year-old grandpa who is on oxygen 100% of the time would now be fighting for his life.

As it is, my cousin (ex firefighter in his 40s who has asthma) is in the hospital, and my aunt and uncle are both severely lethargic. Separately (non-covid), their brother-in-law has been put into hospice, and they can't visit him in his final days.

My grandparents are fine for the time being, but there's no one to come over and help with chores. Small issue, but still.

If someone around you tests positive, just stay home for chrissakes. And if you feel like you're fighting off a cold, maybe don't have a big family gathering?

I wish telling people to stay home if they were sick and providing money for people so they could do so was a top priority.

[petegz28]

Originally Posted by MahomesMagic

I wish telling people to stay home if they were sick and providing money for people so they could do so was a top priority.

Exactly. We need you to close\restrict\quarantine but **** your bills, food, car payment, mortgage.

You may end up starving and homeless but you won't have or have spread the Rona.


That being said if your Wife tests positive you need to isolate yourself until you know you don't have it.

[MahomesMagic]

Originally Posted by petegz28

Exactly. We need you to close\restrict\quarantine but **** your bills, food, car payment, mortgage.

You may end up starving and homeless but you won't have or have spread the Rona.


That being said if your Wife tests positive you need to isolate yourself until you know you don't have it.

Imagine a world where:

If you're sick, stay home

Always wash your hands

Just like every flu/cold season

Instead the entire world decided to copy China.