Mega-Thread: Coronavirus Pandemic

[PACOX]

Pfizer and BioNTech are not playing and plan on releasing an antiviral specifically for COVID19.

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/950113

Gotta hurry back to slanging opioids (/s)

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Interesting results from a UC Riverside large scale study.


I guess I won't be turning into a brain-eating zombie.

The article didn't say that you wouldn't turn into a brain eating zombie, though.

We're really living in the future if mRNA tech works as effectively with other pathogens.

[Forogil]

Just when you think peak stupidity has been reached you get surprised. Saw one of those freedum anti-vaxx nutjobs claim that it is illegal to try and eradicate the virus here because of Australia's biodiversity security Act. I think they must have been one of those just open everything up and learn to live with the virus types.

For fun I tried to check that claim and apart from being out of their mind they are also completely wrong.

That act https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2021C00182 is primarily about protecting native species, not imported species, and even then there is a specific exception for "Species posing a serious threat to human health".

[Gaidax]

For fun I tried to check that claim and apart from being out of their mind they are also completely wrong.

That act https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2021C00182 is primarily about protecting native species, not imported species, and even then there is a specific exception for "Species posing a serious threat to human health".

But it's just mild flu...

Kekwhands

[Felya]

We're really living in the future if mRNA tech works as effectively with other pathogens.

The new malaria vaccine is a total game changer
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2...hild-mortality

[Witchblade77]

Our locally grown West Coast Variants, which are currently dominant, seem to be outcompeting the other even more dangerous strains of the virus and preventing those strains from gaining a foothold in California. Crazy roll of the dice.

At the current rate of vaccination, CA should hit herd immunity of around 80 - 90% fully vaccinated by mid-June.

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Interesting results from a UC Riverside large scale study.

according to the study itself, it has not been peer reviewed yet, but it does sound promising and i'm looking forward to both peer reviews and studies verifying the results of this one.

mRNA vaccine technology is relatively new (about a decade or so as far as I know) so I'm really hoping it is as promising for the future of vaccines in general as it seems to be. I'd like to see more studies though.

(I AM getting vaccinated, have an appointment for first shot this coming monday for moderna last i checked, so I'm not being an anti-vaxer here, I just want to see more corroborating studies before getting excited, you know?)

[Gaidax]

Despite mRNA seeming to be effective, there is truth in that it needs to be studied over long period time. Who knows what negative impact it might actually have in the long term.

I myself have Phizer done and ran to do it immediately it was available, but there is some merit in questions what impact it has down the road. There were plenty miracle medicines, treatments and solutions that worked wonders, but then decades later there were discovered links between these conditions and seemingly unrelated diseases or conditions.

So I'd temper the excitement down a tad. We use it because we must, but new technology is new in everything, including our knowledge about all of its effects.

[PACOX]

mRNA is newish but isn't brand new. It's been used in clinical trials for some time, it's just its never matured to the stage of widespread use in normal circumstances - circumstances that take years for anything to be approved. The mRNA vaccines came about quickly because of the researchers had already been crafting mRNA vaccines before anyone knew what COVID19 was.

Adenovirus vaccines are also relatively new and for some reason haven't received the same amount of scrutiny despite adenovirus vaccines having known complications in the past and now (JJ/AZ/one of the Chinese shots that I don't feel like looking up right now). I'll head my bets on tech that doesn't require host cells outside of my own body to produce a response.

Now that most people can receive a vaccine, the emerging trend seems to be people not getting their second shot or dragging their feet to get the first one since "everyone else has it". 92% of people who got one shot got their 2nd, but that was among the most the elderly or people who required it for work - people who were more than eager to get their shots. That 92% figure is probably going to drop as the general population brings down the average. We may just see how effective one dose is in shot time...

[Witchblade77]

mRNA is newish but isn't brand new. It's been used in clinical trials for some time, it's just its never matured to the stage of widespread use in normal circumstances - circumstances that take years for anything to be approved. The mRNA vaccines came about quickly because of the researchers had already been crafting mRNA vaccines before anyone knew what COVID19 was.

Adenovirus vaccines are also relatively new and for some reason haven't received the same amount of scrutiny despite adenovirus vaccines having known complications in the past and now (JJ/AZ/one of the Chinese shots that I don't feel like looking up right now). I'll head my bets on tech that doesn't require host cells outside of my own body to produce a response.

Now that most people can receive a vaccine, the emerging trend seems to be people not getting their second shot or dragging their feet to get the first one since "everyone else has it". 92% of people who got one shot got their 2nd, but that was among the most the elderly or people who required it for work - people who were more than eager to get their shots. That 92% figure is probably going to drop as the general population brings down the average. We may just see how effective one dose is in shot time...

it isn't brand new, true, but 10 or so years is still relatively new when it comes to technologies like that. so... yeah... I'm cautiously optimistic, but not jumping into "this is a gamechanger" hype just yet.

that said, i would have gotten my shots sooner, but they only just opened up appointments to everyone few weeks ago and while they did start having no appointment needed drives, I really do not want to go in to stay in potentially crowded line lord knows for how long, upping my exposure risk. so I made an appointment the moment they became available and if it meant waiting an extra week... ah well. I just feel safer when its a specific time slot, you know?

[Gaidax]

it isn't brand new, true, but 10 or so years is still relatively new when it comes to technologies like that. so... yeah... I'm cautiously optimistic, but not jumping into "this is a gamechanger" hype just yet.

This is basically my drift. In these things, that's pretty damn new and not fully yet known.

[PhaelixWW]

mRNA vaccine technology is relatively new (about a decade or so as far as I know) so I'm really hoping it is as promising for the future of vaccines in general as it seems to be. I'd like to see more studies though.

Its use has been studied as far back as 30 years ago, though mostly for therapies and not specifically for vaccines.

[Forogil]

Its use has been studied as far back as 30 years ago, though mostly for therapies and not specifically for vaccines.

Going from basic research to actually use normally takes a bit of time, but in terms of long-term rare side-effects we will have to wait more; as it is hard to detect without very large human studies.

For comparison the history of viral vectors goes back 50 years, and still we didn't expect the side-effects from those vaccines.

[lonely zergling]

I'm beta testing if you can mix AstraZeneca with mRNA vaccines. Hope its safe and grants good protection.

[Easo]

I'm beta testing if you can mix AstraZeneca with mRNA vaccines. Hope its safe and grants good protection.

While I have seen plans about mixing vaccines (actually, AZ and Sputnik comes to mind, months ago, not sure where that went), what exactly do you mean?

[lonely zergling]

While I have seen plans about mixing vaccines (actually, AZ and Sputnik comes to mind, months ago, not sure where that went), what exactly do you mean?

I already got my first AZ shot in march and since then they stopped using it on people under 60 here (Germany). So now they recommend using biontech or moderna as the second dose for people like me.

[Easo]

I already got my first AZ shot in march and since then they stopped using it on people under 60 here (Germany). So now they recommend using biontech or moderna as the second dose for people like me.

Huh, that's new (the mixing). I wonder what the official position of the manufacturers is.

[Gaidax]

Huh, that's new (the mixing). I wonder what the official position of the manufacturers is.

Ofc manufacturers can't sign off shit like that. I have no clue what basis there is to do something like that, but not the first I heard of this mixology in attempt to somehow gap the supply issues.

[Forogil]

Ofc manufacturers can't sign off shit like that. I have no clue what basis there is to do something like that, but not the first I heard of this mixology in attempt to somehow gap the supply issues.

Yes, there are a number of studies of it - and the Russian Sputnik V is sort of slightly mixing different vaccines already.

Since all current vaccines sort of work against the Spike proteins it seems likely that it works at least as well as using the same vaccine, and no-one seems overly concerned about side-effects. (On the other hand if different vaccines targeted different part of the virus there might be a bigger advantage in mixing them.)

Trials are already ongoing in the uk https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00315-5 and in Spain https://news.yahoo.com/spain-mulls-d...092957642.html

That's important for the future since there are plans for booster shots against the different variants, and for technical reasons it's is bad to repeatedly use a viral-vector vaccine such as AstraZeneca for boosters so if mixing doesn't work we will have problems.

[Rasulis]

Going from basic research to actually use normally takes a bit of time, but in terms of long-term rare side-effects we will have to wait more; as it is hard to detect without very large human studies.

For comparison the history of viral vectors goes back 50 years, and still we didn't expect the side-effects from those vaccines.

Isn't that basically what we are doing right now? We are all test subjects in a petri dish. Those that refused to take the vaccine are basically the baseline subjects.

California update: With 400 tests per 100k, positivity rate for 7 day average is down to 0.85%. New cases 4.6 per 100k and death 1 per 100k. The number of available ICU beds went up by 74 in one day.

Los Angeles County, the largest and most populous county in CA, daily rate of new coronavirus cases fell low enough -- barely -- this Tuesday to qualify for a move to the least restrictive yellow tier of the state's economic-reopening blueprint, but the county must meet the threshold for another week before it can actually advance.

[Forogil]

Isn't that basically what we are doing right now? We are all test subjects in a petri dish.

Yes, and that's why we should be vigilant in case some problem appears, but still proceed.

Those that refused to take the vaccine are basically the baseline subjects.

But they are far from a random selection, so it will be difficult to draw any conclusion only based on them. However, we also have a baseline from previous years.

[Rasulis]

Yes, and that's why we should be vigilant in case some problem appears, but still proceed.


But they are far from a random selection, so it will be difficult to draw any conclusion only based on them. However, we also have a baseline from previous years.

They still make good baseline data. California recorded 1,379 COVIDs among people considered fully vaccinated out approximately 1.4 million new cases since the start of the vaccination program. No cases of serious illness. We should have a detailed breakdown by the type of vaccine and variant next week. Preliminary data shows that 25% were J&J vaccine recipients which accounted for 14% of the vaccination in CA.