OT: Coronavirus XXVII: Two Vaccines Are 90%+ Effective, How Safe Are They?

[Senor Catface]

I agree, it’s not the common cold. It’s a pandemic, which will kill people who don’t need to die right now. However measures that don’t need to be taken will have their toll also. And those are preventable.

I think it's prudent/necessary to look at long lasting effects things like lockdown and restrictions will have on the economy, mental and physical health and everything brought up often in here.

I'm not sure what the right course is in regards to lockdowns. I just want people to be mindful of potential long-lasting effects of the disease. I would rather people not think it's just a cold, get sick, and have these issues follow them for a long time.

 

[Dorian2]

The issue isn't the greek fundamentals of this. Its the source that the poster quoted and what that source fully advocates, and what he believes, and the zeitgeist of that co-opted belief system, that runs so totally counter to ours that is so highly controversial within Western world realm.

I mean I believe in reduced things, possessions, less consumerism, thats one thing. I don't believe in overthrow.

nuff said

Last I'll state on this.

I totally agree. That's why I questioned posting the offensive article. Hell, I hadn't even heard of eudemonics before I read the back story of that source. Just thought I'd post the article to show where I got some info from on the actual concept.

 

[GretzkytoKurri9917]

 

[Drivesaitl]

I totally agree. That's why I questioned posting the offensive article. Hell, I hadn't even heard of eudemonics before I read the back story of that source. Just thought I'd post the article to show where I got some info from on the actual concept.

Its all good. Glad we agree. HK prob didn't read it though. The title enticed him.

 

[Drivesaitl]

I agree, it’s not the common cold. It’s a pandemic, which will kill people who don’t need to die right now. However measures that don’t need to be taken will have their toll also. And those are preventable.

What a reasonable exchange. A wish for more of that. We can do it. We can fight Covid fighting.

 

[yukoner88]

Shops like a mother..!

and that mother's voice sounds like she smokes like a chimney

 

[Dorian2]

Its all good. Glad we agree. HK prob didn't read it though. The title enticed him.

Could be. Maybe he'd like to chime in on WTF the thinking was posting it in this Covid context. I initially read the title when it was posted and just brushed it off as not worth reading. Then I made the mistake of going back and actually clicking on it. It's like the author took a sound and very relevant theory and turned it into an offensive anti western POV on ethics. Blatant trash talk is what I got from it.

 

[Drivesaitl]

More perspective (can this be me?) heh

Alberta numbers very misunderstood because people are looking specifically at just count numbers instead of relative rates. When Manitoba or Sask are getting 450 cases in a day or 500 cases in a day, that is WORSE than Alberta due to population disparity. For instance Alberta has 4X the population of Sask. So them seeing 450 cases on Friday was WORSE than ANYTHING we've seen here on a case 100K basis. Next, Sask set a record high doing 4500 tests that day making there positives around 10% and of course not even a quarter of the testing we did on our highest day. Factor in the population disparity, and the testing disparity and Saskatchewan is doing possibly worse.

Manitoba is saying to both, hold my beer, with their testing and exploding numbers its worse than either other prairie province. people think its Alberta doing the worst in the Prairies. Just a hell of a lot more people live here.

This being why people should not get caught up in "count" numbers and especially in doing comparisons.

Factor in that BOTH major Cities in Alberta have 5-6X the population of the respective Sask Cities. Bigger Cities usually tend to get much bigger Covid outbreaks. I mean Red Deer is a much closer comparable to either Sask City (sorry, not trying to be glib with that, its just a population fact. I mean Red Deer has 120 active cases now, but for much of the pandemic had very few.

Yeah, if we had really small cities, only, we'd have a shitload less cases. To be exact 38K less cases through the pandemic. The rest of the province has had around 8K. With Alberta having several smaller cities that would be among the highest pop Centers in Sask. Fact is you could entirely subtract Edmonton and CAlgary populations from Alberta total and we STILL have way more population than Saskatchewan.

Also this;

Coronavirus: 387 new cases, 10 deaths in Manitoba Saturday | CTV News

Manitoba, with only 30% of the pop of Alberta come in with 10 deaths in one day. our high is 20.

Their positive rate on tests is 14%. people are up in arms here in Alberta about our highest being 8%.

All kinds of comparison to ponder.

 

[KingKhron]

Good thing I’m an introvert with a video game addiction. I could do this lockdown stuff for years.

I’m going pro in Rocket League by the time this is done with.

 

[Ritchie Valens]

I thought this Q & A type of article was interesting, especially the part (in red) about the mutation and this mutated strain is now the more prevalent strain. It seems to be more easily spread and the vast number of new cases sure seem to support this. It's about a month old, but a good read.

COVID-19 basics - Harvard Health

Like other viruses, the coronavirus responsible for COVID-19 — SARS-CoV-2 — cannot survive without a living cell in which to reproduce. Once it enters human cells, SARS-CoV-2 churns out copies of itself, which go on to infect other cells.
Sometimes, a mistake is made when the virus is replicating. This is called a mutation. A mutation of the original SARS-CoV-2 virus — the D614G variant — has quickly become the most prevalent form of the virus seen around the world.
This mutation occurred on the coronavirus's spike proteins, protrusions on the surface of the virus that open the host cell and allow the virus to enter. About 1,300 amino acids serve as building blocks for a spike protein. In the D614G variant, the genetic instructions for just one of the spike protein's amino acids — number 614 — switched in the new variant from a "D" (short for aspartic acid) to a "G" (short for glycine).
Evidence is building that the D614G strain may spread more easily than the original strain. Infected individuals with this strain appear to have more virus in their upper respiratory tracts, and therefore may be more likely to spread infection to others. So far, the mutated strain has NOT seemed to cause more severe disease.

 

[MaxR11]

What didn't happen on Friday seems like it might tomorrow as far as a lockdown or maybe Kenney's version of a "lockdown".

 

[GretzkytoKurri9917]

What didn't happen on Friday seems like it might tomorrow as far as a lockdown or maybe Kenney's version of a "lockdown".

 

[MaxR11]

More perspective (can this be me?) heh

Alberta numbers very misunderstood because people are looking specifically at just count numbers instead of relative rates. When Manitoba or Sask are getting 450 cases in a day or 500 cases in a day, that is WORSE than Alberta due to population disparity. For instance Alberta has 4X the population of Sask. So them seeing 450 cases on Friday was WORSE than ANYTHING we've seen here on a case 100K basis. Next, Sask set a record high doing 4500 tests that day making there positives around 10% and of course not even a quarter of the testing we did on our highest day. Factor in the population disparity, and the testing disparity and Saskatchewan is doing possibly worse.

Manitoba is saying to both, hold my beer, with their testing and exploding numbers its worse than either other prairie province. people think its Alberta doing the worst in the Prairies. Just a hell of a lot more people live here.

This being why people should not get caught up in "count" numbers and especially in doing comparisons.

Factor in that BOTH major Cities in Alberta have 5-6X the population of the respective Sask Cities. Bigger Cities usually tend to get much bigger Covid outbreaks. I mean Red Deer is a much closer comparable to either Sask City (sorry, not trying to be glib with that, its just a population fact. I mean Red Deer has 120 active cases now, but for much of the pandemic had very few.

Yeah, if we had really small cities, only, we'd have a shitload less cases. To be exact 38K less cases through the pandemic. The rest of the province has had around 8K. With Alberta having several smaller cities that would be among the highest pop Centers in Sask. Fact is you could entirely subtract Edmonton and CAlgary populations from Alberta total and we STILL have way more population than Saskatchewan.

Also this;

Coronavirus: 387 new cases, 10 deaths in Manitoba Saturday | CTV News

Manitoba, with only 30% of the pop of Alberta come in with 10 deaths in one day. our high is 20.

Their positive rate on tests is 14%. people are up in arms here in Alberta about our highest being 8%.

All kinds of comparison to ponder.

Convenient that you left out the comparisons to Toronto and Ontario and Quebec.

 

[KingKhron]

OT... played a few hundred hours of Warcraft but likely 100x that of StarCraft.

 

[LaGu]

AstraZeneca/Oxford group vaccine results from their large scale trials published.

Covid-19: Oxford University vaccine shows 70% protection

From the article:
- 70% effective, so not has high as either Pfizer/Moderna but much cheaper and easier to distribute. Also 70% effectiveness would have been seen as a triumph little over a month ago.
- Interesting regarding effectiveness, if two full doses are given the effectiveness was 62%, but if the first dose was reduced to half and the second was a normal full dose, the effectiveness was 90%.
- 4 million doses ready to go out in UK as soon as official approval is made.


edit: One more thing about this, even though it is not in this article. This is the vaccine from which they said that one side effect could be that you develop immunity against the common cold, sign me up for that!

 

[SK13]

Lots of murmuring from supposedly connected sources across other sites and Reddit that an AB lockdown is inbound this week.

The jumps in new cases and positivity are untenable.

 

[Fourier]

Thanks for the answer. I mistook from your wording that you had some more on why Alberta might currently be struggling.

The mask thing is overblown. The reason that the prov govt here didn't do a province wide mask mandate is that only Calgary and Edmonton regions were really seeing ample cases. For much of the other regions of the province it made no sense to have masks mandated as they had zero or negligible cases. Only recently has their been spread all around and my take is that was going to occur come fall fairly regardless as people return to indoor environments and understanding that people travel to work a lot in this province, outside of where they live. We're one of the most mobile provinces so its a factor in provincial spread, and due to our nature of economy we have to go where the work is.

I should stress that throughout this the Prov govt fairly ignored the early fed advisories not to wear masks, and encouraged mask use all along. Hinshaw has been imploring people to wear masks throughout if in public places indoors, and City compliance in Alberta here has been extremely high with that throughout. So that its not really the masks that are resulting in so much spread. It is indoor gathering in private homes. Some of that would be partying by some irresponsible individuals. But a considerable amount is also due to many families in Edmonton and Calgary being multi generational packed homes that commonly have 10- 12 people living in one house. Its near impossible to keep the virus contained in those homes and its almost like care home spread in that regard. Once one person has it the spread in homes is insidious. Thats one main reason for Alberta suffering right now.

But in terms of avoiding higher death rates and severe outcomes Alberta certainly made the right moves in being all in as quick as possible on restrictiomulti-familyns and played that very well. While Ontario and Quebec were really suffering Alberta had this well in hand when rate lethality was much higher in the spring. Without strong Alberta actions in the spring our death totals are probably over 1K. AS it is 440. So far better work by the province of Alberta than generally given credit for. Alberta also distributed 40M free masks to its citizens. What other province did that. I mean in fairness, all told, Albertas mask response has been quite strong. Those are reasonable views.

I have already acknowledged that I thought Alberta's early response was very strong and this includes comments on masking. But it is not true that they were ahead of the curve on masking after that. My region had a mask mandate a month before either Edmonton or Calgary and we did not have the get out of jail free card that Edmonton. Alberta is still the only province without a provincial mandate. So while the messaging started earlier, depending on which side of the freedom/restriction debate you sit on, it is possible to argue that at a policy level they have been weak on the mask front. Listening to Hinshaw I have a sense, and of course I could be wrong, that she personally would favour a mandate but her boss does not want one.

As far as the issue being only Edmonton and Calgary, that is really no different than in Ontario. But Ford was eventually convinced that on this isuue a consistent message was prudent. Kenny has taken a different approach. Who''s right and who's wrong is certainly going to be different in the eyes of different people. For me personally, I would advocate for a province wide mask mandate as I think it is a minimally invasive measure that could have very positive impact. Others of course disagree, as we know very well.

I also think it is wrong to assume that in other provinces you don't have the multi-family/ density issues that you talk about in Alberta. This is an issue everywhere. Take a look at the stats in Tronoto for example. On a neighbourhood vs neighbourhood basis you can pretty much see the impact of this sort of housing situation. Alberta has a sighly higher average household size than Ontario, but Ontario has a higher percentage of multi-generational households than Alberta according to the 2016 census.

The reality on the ground is that right now Alberta is doing much worse than Ontario but better than a place like Manitoba, after doing much better early on. In two months from now who knows.

 

[Fourier]

AstraZeneca/Oxford group vaccine results from their large scale trials published.

Covid-19: Oxford University vaccine shows 70% protection

From the article:
- 70% effective, so not has high as either Pfizer/Moderna but much cheaper and easier to distribute. Also 70% effectiveness would have been seen as a triumph little of a month ago.
- Interesting regarding effectiveness, if two full doses are given the effectiveness was 62%, but if the first dose was reduced to half and the second was a normal full dose, the effectiveness was 90%.
- 4 million doses ready to go out in UK as soon as official approval is made.


edit: One more thing about this, even though it is not in this article. This is the vaccine from which they said that one side effect could be that you develop immunity against the common cold, sign me up for that!

I could see this being the early goto vaccine across Africa for example and also in remote areas of other continents, where 70% is still impactful but where the logistics of the higher efficacy mRNA vaccines make them difficlut to deliver.

 

[LaGu]

I could see this being the early goto vaccine across Africa for example and also in remote areas of other continents, where 70% is still impactful but where the logistics of the higher efficacy mRNA vaccines make them difficlut to deliver.

Definitely, also thanks to the relatively low cost per dose, $5, while Pfizer is at $20 and Moderna at $35.

In general it looks like AstraZeneca will be very fast. As I understood it they basically say they will manage to fulfill a meaningful chunk of the pre-orders before the end of this year and then all of them in the first quarter of 2020.
300M to US
100M to UK
400M to EU
300M to development countries.
Those are the pre-orders quoted in the press, but there are probably more of them.

edit: also since they are now counting on using the half-dose for the first shot it they will have quite a bit more vaccine available.

 

[SaltNPeca]

Lots of murmuring from supposedly connected sources across other sites and Reddit that an AB lockdown is inbound this week.

The jumps in new cases and positivity are untenable.

Any indication how a AB lockdown &/or rising case #'s would affect the WJC Schedule? I guess it might be delayed.. or is the bubble tight enough to ignore what happens locally?

 

[SK13]

Any indication how a AB lockdown &/or rising case #'s would affect the WJC Schedule? I guess it might be delayed.. or is the bubble tight enough to ignore what happens locally?

Can't really know that. It's entirely possible Edmonton and Calgary lockdown but rural AB and smaller cities stay open as they aren't nearly as bad as the cities. WJC camp is in Red Deer until after the 13th, and the WJC starts on boxing day IIRC, so a 28 day lockdown would end before the WJC starts.

 

[Gregsky99]

More perspective (can this be me?) heh

Alberta numbers very misunderstood because people are looking specifically at just count numbers instead of relative rates. When Manitoba or Sask are getting 450 cases in a day or 500 cases in a day, that is WORSE than Alberta due to population disparity. For instance Alberta has 4X the population of Sask. So them seeing 450 cases on Friday was WORSE than ANYTHING we've seen here on a case 100K basis. Next, Sask set a record high doing 4500 tests that day making there positives around 10% and of course not even a quarter of the testing we did on our highest day. Factor in the population disparity, and the testing disparity and Saskatchewan is doing possibly worse.

Manitoba is saying to both, hold my beer, with their testing and exploding numbers its worse than either other prairie province. people think its Alberta doing the worst in the Prairies. Just a hell of a lot more people live here.

This being why people should not get caught up in "count" numbers and especially in doing comparisons.

Factor in that BOTH major Cities in Alberta have 5-6X the population of the respective Sask Cities. Bigger Cities usually tend to get much bigger Covid outbreaks. I mean Red Deer is a much closer comparable to either Sask City (sorry, not trying to be glib with that, its just a population fact. I mean Red Deer has 120 active cases now, but for much of the pandemic had very few.

Yeah, if we had really small cities, only, we'd have a shitload less cases. To be exact 38K less cases through the pandemic. The rest of the province has had around 8K. With Alberta having several smaller cities that would be among the highest pop Centers in Sask. Fact is you could entirely subtract Edmonton and CAlgary populations from Alberta total and we STILL have way more population than Saskatchewan.

Also this;

Coronavirus: 387 new cases, 10 deaths in Manitoba Saturday | CTV News

Manitoba, with only 30% of the pop of Alberta come in with 10 deaths in one day. our high is 20.

Their positive rate on tests is 14%. people are up in arms here in Alberta about our highest being 8%.

All kinds of comparison to ponder.

Just a bit of context on that one day high case count. We knew that high number was coming. The previous days counts were 98-120 which the government said was low. Weather played a huge factor in delayed sampling getting to the labs. So really the counts should’ve been more like 200 per day for those 3 days. That large day was a one-off (for now). Not disagreeing with what you said, just providing some clarity that the 450ish day high number was more anomaly than norm (for now).

 

[Ritchie Valens]

AstraZeneca/Oxford group vaccine results from their large scale trials published.

Covid-19: Oxford University vaccine shows 70% protection

From the article:
- 70% effective, so not has high as either Pfizer/Moderna but much cheaper and easier to distribute. Also 70% effectiveness would have been seen as a triumph little over a month ago.
- Interesting regarding effectiveness, if two full doses are given the effectiveness was 62%, but if the first dose was reduced to half and the second was a normal full dose, the effectiveness was 90%.
- 4 million doses ready to go out in UK as soon as official approval is made.

edit: One more thing about this, even though it is not in this article. This is the vaccine from which they said that one side effect could be that you develop immunity against the common cold, sign me up for that!

How strange. The old adage of "sometimes less is more" applies here. Two theories from the article suggest if dose one is too large of a dose, the immune system rejects it and another is a smaller amount of covid invaders followed by a larger number better mimics a covid infection.

Safe storage at refrigerator temps will also allow much easier production, transportation and storage. Hopefully they can verify the small then large dose effectiveness around the 90% mark on a larger scale than 3,000 people. To compare the vaccines to letter grades, a C- is okay but I'd prefer to get an A- or an A .

 

[Ritchie Valens]

Any indication how a AB lockdown &/or rising case #'s would affect the WJC Schedule? I guess it might be delayed.. or is the bubble tight enough to ignore what happens locally?

The bubble has been popped unfortunately. Assistant coach Michael Dyck and goalie coach Jason LaBarbera (among others) are in quarantine after someone on the support staff tested positive. Sounds like no players are involved.

COVID-19 finds its way into Team Canada's world junior camp bubble | Edmonton Sun

 

[Sensmileletsgo]

What didn't happen on Friday seems like it might tomorrow as far as a lockdown or maybe Kenney's version of a "lockdown".

No more boys scouts in groups larger then 10 in orange zones?