OT: Corona virus

[Alfred]

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

ORIGINAL: Mikawa

Of all the different pharma companies researching a vaccine, who has the best chance of finding an effective one? There are several trying now

Can it be done by early next year?

A new question has arisen along these lines. Generally, you first do relatively large scale safety trials. Then you do a placebo controlled efficacy study which would take many, many months.

Some are now advocating a COVID CHALLENGE test of a vaccine. You sign up a couple of hundred volunteers and then you give them the vaccine..wait two weeks or so and then you DELIBERATELY expose them to the virus in a method highly likely to effect transmission under normal circumstances (for example, intranasal instillation of the the virus). Given that 95% of those who become ill after exposure to a sick person become ill by 11.5 days, you could have meaningful results in 3 weeks. Now, this is obviously ethically fraught because of the severe risk but 7,000 of your fellow human have SIGNED UP to do exactly that if needed.

Let's see ...

No HIV vaccine after some 35 years of intensive research

After decades, still no long term flu cure, only a limited prophylactic shot based on the previous years flu version

A cure for the common cold, still the El Dorado for all pharmaceutical companies


Only a fool would place their trust in an effective vaccine becoming widely available within 12 months. Within a 12 month timeframe, better treatment approaches maybe. A greater acceptance of living with the "collateral" damage imposed by the virus just so that society does not collapse, quite likely.

Alfred

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: Sammy5IsAlive

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

Quite interesting. The "quants" got it wrong. Even so, a model is only that. It's there to offer guidance for planning.

We may have to live with a "tabletop curve" for some time given the geographic immensity of the US.

LA had about 1600 new cases yesterday. Let's say you plan to do contact tracing as you begin to open up the economy. Suppose 20 contacts for EACH new case. That's calling in and testing 32,000 new contacts EVERY (a few less if there are overlaps). I have ZERO confidence LA County Public Health can pull that off. There are probably 4 million illegal aliens in LA County. They aren't going to come in for a test even if they have a cell phone. They are afraid they will be sent to quarantine or "La Migra". Contact tracing is impossible in a city like LA without a literal army of investigators (and dudes with guns)

The direction of travel in the UK seems to be more towards my understanding of the South Korean way forward (i.e. using mobile phone apps to identify likely contacts of a single positive test and tell those people to isolate without necessarily testing them) than my understanding of the German approach which was to do it all manually by tracing and testing contacts as well as 'source' individuals. Obviously that approach rests on the assumptions that a) a large enough proportion of the population has a phone capable of participating b) that people will download the app and c) that the contacts will comply when they are advised to isolate. In the UK at least all of those assumptions seem very optimistic. If they were met though do you think it could be effective?

We also have a multi-ethnic population, who although aren't probably as worried about their immigration status still may have differing levels of interest in either protecting themselves or others from this disease through tracing.

From my first hand experience living in a very diverse post code I see a lot of Eastern Europeans behaving almost as if nothing is happening; hanging out with friend on the street, talking closely, not distancing in local markets, etc. Some seem very responsible, but I can see there will be an issue with contact tracing.

In most big cities my feeling is this will continue to hit the poor, the ethnically diverse populations and those who work with the young and carefree segment of society, like me. Young people just don't have the developmental ability to quantify risk, especially in others around them.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

I highly doubt the Chinese deliberately did anything to ensure the virus got going in the US...

They banned ALL TRAVEL from Hubei province to the rest of China, but allowed international flights to continue leaving Wuhan/Hubei. That basically targeted the whole world in a very passive aggressive way.

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

ORIGINAL: Mikawa

Of all the different pharma companies researching a vaccine, who has the best chance of finding an effective one? There are several trying now

Can it be done by early next year?

A new question has arisen along these lines. Generally, you first do relatively large scale safety trials. Then you do a placebo controlled efficacy study which would take many, many months.

Some are now advocating a COVID CHALLENGE test of a vaccine. You sign up a couple of hundred volunteers and then you give them the vaccine..wait two weeks or so and then you DELIBERATELY expose them to the virus in a method highly likely to effect transmission under normal circumstances (for example, intranasal instillation of the the virus). Given that 95% of those who become ill after exposure to a sick person become ill by 11.5 days, you could have meaningful results in 3 weeks. Now, this is obviously ethically fraught because of the severe risk but 7,000 of your fellow human have SIGNED UP to do exactly that if needed.

This group is already in the human testing phase. A bit of a head start. I'd seen this is the UK press last week but this NY Times piece seems to be the latest news on it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/27/worl ... xford.html

Most other teams have had to start with small clinical trials of a few hundred participants to demonstrate safety. But scientists at the university’s Jenner Institute had a head start on a vaccine, having proved in previous trials that similar inoculations — including one last year against an earlier coronavirus — were harmless to humans.

That has enabled them to leap ahead and schedule tests of their new coronavirus vaccine involving more than 6,000 people by the end of next month, hoping to show not only that it is safe, but also that it works.

The Oxford scientists now say that with an emergency approval from regulators, the first few million doses of their vaccine could be available by September — at least several months ahead of any of the other announced efforts — if it proves to be effective.

-------------

Scientists at the National Institutes of Health’s Rocky Mountain Laboratory in Montana last month inoculated six rhesus macaque monkeys with single doses of the Oxford vaccine. The animals were then exposed to heavy quantities of the virus that is causing the pandemic — exposure that had consistently sickened other monkeys in the lab. But more than 28 days later all six were healthy, said Vincent Munster, the researcher who conducted the test.

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If social distancing measures or other factors continue to slow the rate of new infections in Britain, he said, the trial might not be able to show that the vaccine makes a difference: Participants who received a placebo might not be infected any more frequently than those who have been given the vaccine. The scientists would have to try again elsewhere, a dilemma that every other vaccine effort will face as well.

-------------

Donors are currently spending tens of millions of dollars to start the manufacturing process at facilities in Britain and the Netherlands even before the vaccine is proven to work, said Sandy Douglas, 37, a doctor at Oxford overseeing vaccine production.
“There is no alternative,” he said.

But the team has not yet reached an agreement with a North American manufacturer, in part because the major pharmaceutical companies there typically demand exclusive worldwide rights before investing in a potential medicine.

-------------

The scientists would declare victory if as many as a dozen participants who are given a placebo become sick with Covid-19 compared with only one or two who receive the inoculation. “Then we have a party and tell the world,” Professor Hill said. Everyone who had received only the placebo would also be vaccinated immediately.

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: CaptBeefheart

Obvert: Thanks for that. This article tells me the virus can still last four hours on copper (versus 72 hours for plastic): Does copper kill germs? Yes, it's effective against COVID-19 within 4 hours

I suppose those Cu ion-covered plastic sheets are better than nothing, and whoever makes or sells them in Korea is making bank.

Cheers,
CB

I've heard it reduces the virus much more quickly than four hours. You will still find the virus after four hours, but it won't be viable much after a few minutes.

This is another quote from the Smithsonian article. As usual, perceived initial cost is a stumbling block as opposed to forward thinking future costs.

Harnessing Copper

Keevil and Schmidt have found that installing copper on just 10 percent of surfaces would prevent infections and save $1,176 a day (comparing the reduced cost of treating infections to the cost of installing copper). Yet hospitals have been slow to respond. "I've been surprised how slow it has been to be taken up by hospitals," Hinsa-Leasure adds. "A lot of it has to do with our healthcare system and funding to hospitals, which is very tight. When our hospital redid our emergency room, we installed copper alloys in key places. So it makes a lot of sense when you're doing a renovation or building something that's new. It's more expensive if you're just changing something that you already have."

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

Quite interesting. The "quants" got it wrong. Even so, a model is only that. It's there to offer guidance for planning.

We may have to live with a "tabletop curve" for some time given the geographic immensity of the US.

LA had about 1600 new cases yesterday. Let's say you plan to do contact tracing as you begin to open up the economy. Suppose 20 contacts for EACH new case. That's calling in and testing 32,000 new contacts EVERY (a few less if there are overlaps). I have ZERO confidence LA County Public Health can pull that off. There are probably 4 million illegal aliens in LA County. They aren't going to come in for a test even if they have a cell phone. They are afraid they will be sent to quarantine or "La Migra". Contact tracing is impossible in a city like LA without a literal army of investigators (and dudes with guns)

This quote sums it up. He said in an earlier interview I read that it's not scentists getting it wrong, it's scientists putting information out quickly without proper information about it's intended use, it's limitations or it's parameters.

So for the IHME models, they are designed for specific regions, not the entire country, and within parameters of measures being in place.

The IHME model essentially assumes that the the speed at which death rates in some states ramp up is roughly the same speed at which they will ramp down. So if it took a month to get from no Covid-19 deaths to peak deaths, the model predicts it will also take about month to get from the peak to zero fatalities, Bergstrom explained. “I don’t think it was a bad thing to do to try to model that specific situation,” he said. “I just wish [they] would be clearer about its limitations.”

But one of the biggest things that people [in the media] could do to improve would be to recognize that scientific studies, especially in a fast-moving situation like this, are provisional. That’s the nature of science. Anything can be corrected. There’s no absolute truth there. Each model, each finding is just adding to a weight of evidence in one direction or another.

The key thing, and this goes for scientists as well as non-scientists, is that people are not doing a very good job thinking about what the purpose of different models are, how the purposes of different models vary, and then what the scope of their value is. When these models get treated as if they’re oracles, then people both over-rely on them and treat them too seriously – and then turn around and slam them too hard for not being perfect at everything.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Mikawa

Of all the different pharma companies researching a vaccine, who has the best chance of finding an effective one? There are several trying now

Can it be done by early next year?

Hi Mikawa,

I posted a blog summary on this thread yesterday or the day before that was an excellent review of the 150+ vaccine efforts underway. It described in detail who was a contender and who was a 'pretender' as well as their likely time to market, strengths and weaknesses of their approaches and so forth. Check it out.

ETA: Post #6037

[fcooke]

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

ORIGINAL: fcooke

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

Dog fetus: "I wonder if I am a Golden Retriever or a Labrador? God, please let me not be a Pug! I can't feel my face! It's too damned crowded in here!"

That hurts - my first 4 were Pugs.....

[;)] I am pretty sure dogs don't care what they look like. The question is...did YOU love them?[:)]

Pretty much have never met a dog I didn't like/love. Even like cats, though not quite as much. Once took in a kitty who was wandering the street and had a way too tight collar on. She tortured the dogs for about a month but then got some love and adoption from a friend's mother who had just lost a cat. The mother a couple of years later fell and broke her hip. The cat stayed by her her and made mewow noises until neighbors came. Humans on the other hand....more variable.

[obvert]

The Fog of War is lifting, says a new article from Forbes. It again features some positive news and one John Ioannidis.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/ ... 3f2e0cb420

If the patterns hold, models such as the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation’s "Murray Model" are likely underestimating the spread of infection (likely due to its asymptomatic nature among large sections of the population) and its severity in those under 65 and without co-morbidities.

The data gives policy makers something more to chew on.

Ioannidis is not anti-quarantine, or anti-mask. He’s not wearing MAGA hats and attending rallies waving American flags. He believes in science. He believes the Earth is round. He says the initial decisions to go into economic lockdown were "fully justified."

being Forbes, it's focused on the economy, and offered this interesting quick take on the Curren state of the Chinese economy.

Bloomberg data late last week pointed out that its aggregate indicator for China is showing a stalled economy in April. That make sense considering China’s main trading partners — Europe and the U.S. — all caught the coronavirus, first discovered in Wuhan in December.

Also that the economy might not take year(s) to recover.

“There’s going to be more volatility for weeks and months to come especially as we get more economic data, and more information about the disease,” says Elizabeth Evans, managing partner of Evans May Wealth. “We likely saw the bottom of the equity market this year, but all that hinges on the assumptions we don’t get a second round of shutdowns in states that are starting to re-open,” she says, adding. “There’s are a lot of things to be optimistic about. The pandemic is stabilizing here. I’m optimistic about biotech companies. I’m optimistic about the government working with state and local leaders, and with industry leaders to get the best input on how to end quarantines safely.”

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: obvert



Ioannidis is not anti-quarantine, or anti-mask. He’s not wearing MAGA hats and attending rallies waving American flags. He believes in science. He believes the Earth is round. He says the initial decisions to go into economic lockdown were "fully justified."[/color]

An obvious attempt at portraying Trump supporters as idiots.

Are you EVER going to stop with the political hit jobs against conservatives?

Please stop working so hard to get the thread locked.

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: obvert

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

The idea of science not being a "democracy" - of respecting sincerely held minority views - is a noble one seldom accomplished. We don't want to get into climate change here, as that's off-topic and fairly incendiary, but climate-change "skeptics" are not respected. The majority feel that the science is settled and that the matter is too critical to entertain dissenting views. So the skeptics are marginalized, denied tenure, picked on, scorned, etc. by their comrades. There are other fields with similar patterns too. We would do well to learn to tolerate and accommodate but it's hard to avoid going down the "tyranny of the majority" pathway.

Dan, you just brought in climate change to make a point that doesn't necessarily need that to make it.

We had a long off forum discussion about climate change and I checked every single claim you made about those scientists being "mistreated." What I found was that many were proven to be incorrect in their findings by later studies, but held onto their thesis long after they were obsolete. Others had funding from think tanks with anti-climate change agendas and produced science that supported the goals of the institutions paying their wages. Some others had claims that showed very interesting findings, but that didn't necessarily debunk prevailing climate change consensus, and yet they and others claimed that they did.

So maybe keep climate change out to his thread please. No need to go there.

Simply can't let this one go. Have to come back to it again.

Are you seriously naive enough to believe that those seeking to disprove the THEORY are the only ones with an agenda?
Do you NOT recognize that those working for the UN in support of their paradigm are also pursuing an agenda?

By your logic, the very paradigm itself is invalid because those who created it did so with an agenda.

[RangerJoe]

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

ORIGINAL: fcooke

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

Dog fetus: "I wonder if I am a Golden Retriever or a Labrador? God, please let me not be a Pug! I can't feel my face! It's too damned crowded in here!"

That hurts - my first 4 were Pugs.....

[;)] I am pretty sure dogs don't care what they look like. The question is...did YOU love them?[:)]

It also depends upon how they taste and that depends upon what, if anything, that you put on them . . .

[Canoerebel]

Chickenboy, how is your aunt doing?

[RangerJoe]

ORIGINAL: Alfred

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

ORIGINAL: Mikawa

Of all the different pharma companies researching a vaccine, who has the best chance of finding an effective one? There are several trying now

Can it be done by early next year?

A new question has arisen along these lines. Generally, you first do relatively large scale safety trials. Then you do a placebo controlled efficacy study which would take many, many months.

Some are now advocating a COVID CHALLENGE test of a vaccine. You sign up a couple of hundred volunteers and then you give them the vaccine..wait two weeks or so and then you DELIBERATELY expose them to the virus in a method highly likely to effect transmission under normal circumstances (for example, intranasal instillation of the the virus). Given that 95% of those who become ill after exposure to a sick person become ill by 11.5 days, you could have meaningful results in 3 weeks. Now, this is obviously ethically fraught because of the severe risk but 7,000 of your fellow human have SIGNED UP to do exactly that if needed.

Let's see ...

No HIV vaccine after some 35 years of intensive research

After decades, still no long term flu cure, only a limited prophylactic shot based on the previous years flu version

A cure for the common cold, still the El Dorado for all pharmaceutical companies

Only a fool would place their trust in an effective vaccine becoming widely available within 12 months. Within a 12 month timeframe, better treatment approaches maybe. A greater acceptance of living with the "collateral" damage imposed by the virus just so that society does not collapse, quite likely.

Alfred

There was no real push for a universal influenza nor a corona virus vaccine. Now there may be one. Have a shot every 10 years or so for each one will do a lot to stop them. This was mentioned in an article that I posted about Dr. Fauci a while ago.

The current influenza vaccines for the Northern Hemisphere are made up of which strains they think will be prevalent based upon what is going around in the Southern Hemisphere as well as the equatorial regions. Either they are frequently wrong or the vaccines work and other strains become prominent.

Joe

[Wuffer]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

For those of you interested in a real dive into the nitty-gritty weeds of this thing, I found this blog to be very interesting:

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/a ... -prospects

Warning: Very technical.

Good link, thx

Here's a very nice overview explaining the technical aspects in a more graphical way

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01221-y

[Cap Mandrake]

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

ORIGINAL: obvert



Ioannidis is not anti-quarantine, or anti-mask. He’s not wearing MAGA hats and attending rallies waving American flags. He believes in science. He believes the Earth is round. He says the initial decisions to go into economic lockdown were "fully justified."[/color]

An obvious attempt at portraying Trump supporters as idiots.

Are you EVER going to stop with the political hit jobs against conservatives?

Please stop working so hard to get the thread locked.

Succinctly, the answer is no.

[fcooke]

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

ORIGINAL: fcooke



That hurts - my first 4 were Pugs.....

[;)] I am pretty sure dogs don't care what they look like. The question is...did YOU love them?[:)]

It also depends upon how they taste and that depends upon what, if anything, that you put on them . . .

mine are not chunky enough to make it worth the effort....that said, the reactions I get from my sister regarding eating Bambi (deer to be clear) is priceless. I almost fed her chili based on deer once, and relented at the last moment. Next time we are near cattle I will introduce her to Bessie.

All that said...I did recently imply her cat might make a nice stew....

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: fcooke

All that said...I did recently imply her cat might make a nice stew....

evil, evil, evil....EVIL [:@] [X(] [:@] [X(]

[Canoerebel]

The virus crisis unfolded at about the least disruptive time for my business. We're a quarterly publication, and the spring issue came out just before things got crazy here in the US. Since then, operations have continued pretty much as usual. Now, with the summer issue in design and due to be printed in a couple of weeks and distributed in about three weeks, things will get interesting. Yesterday, I learned that the company that generates the bar code for each issue is shuttered (I found one in New Zealand that can handle it). The printer is operating, as of the last report. I received confirmation today that the largest distributor is still operating. There's always the question of just how many subscribers may receive their next renewal notice and conclude, "Heck, in this time of uncertainty and economic turmoil, we really don't need a magazine." That's the one question that would keep me awake at night, if I let it. There are many questions, but so far business volume has been about normal. May will tell me a lot more.

[mind_messing]

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

ORIGINAL: obvert



Ioannidis is not anti-quarantine, or anti-mask. He’s not wearing MAGA hats and attending rallies waving American flags. He believes in science. He believes the Earth is round. He says the initial decisions to go into economic lockdown were "fully justified."[/color]

An obvious attempt at portraying Trump supporters as idiots.

Are you EVER going to stop with the political hit jobs against conservatives?

Please stop working so hard to get the thread locked.

Succinctly, the answer is no.

He's not wrong, however.

There is a well-documented association between education levels and liberal views, even if there are a lot of factors at play.

https://www.ifs.org.uk/caytpubs/schoon7.pdf

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

The virus crisis unfolded at about the least disruptive time for my business. We're a quarterly publication, and the spring issue came out just before things got crazy here in the US. Since then, operations have continued pretty much as usual. Now, with the summer issue in design and due to be printed in a couple of weeks and distributed in about three weeks, things will get interesting. Yesterday, I learned that the company that generates the bar code for each issue is shuttered (I found one in New Zealand that can handle it). The printer is operating, as of the last report. I received confirmation today that the largest distributor is still operating. There's always the question of just how many subscribers may receive their next renewal notice and conclude, "Heck, in this time of uncertainty and economic turmoil, we really don't need a magazine." That's the one question that would keep me awake at night, if I let it. There are many questions, but so far business volume has been about normal. May will tell me a lot more.

Unsure if you're already using an electronic/online distribution format, but now seems the perfect time to explore it.