Coronavirus

[Investor20]

By minimizing the impact of the disease, discouraging people from wearing masks and other preventative measures, and generally helping the virus along, he's helped the number of cases to explode.

 

Richard what evidence is there regarding this statement?

 

You and I both know that you don't care at all about the answer to this question, because the answer's obvious to everyone who's followed American pandemic news even the tiniest bit for the past 9 months. One doesn't need to provide supporting evidence to say that the sky is blue, ice is cold, and the sun rises in the east.

 

So, I'm just going to save us both time, and not bother with an answer.

 

I do care about the answer. 

 

And see? You don't care about any of this. That's what I mean by it being as obvious as the sky is blue. And it's equally as obvious that you don't actually care to have an accurate view of how the actions of the President of the United States may have contributed to the explosion of cases during the worse pandemic in the USA in 100 years.

 

That's why it's a waste of both our time.

 

By the end of JULY there was 26 million people who attended BLM rallies and protests crossing state lines. Since then that number is likely about 50%+ more. It was the largest event in US history. You can take all of Trumps rallies and its population total is a drop in the bucket compared to GLM rallies, protests and riots.

 

Rule for thee, but not for me.

 

The fact is all of these behaviors likely influenced the spread rate....plenty of foolishness to go around.

 

Attached is 7 day rolling daily deaths of US vs European union from our world in data. Below is link. Europe 7.94 vs US 5.55 deaths per million last week.  Did Trump do rallies in Europe too?

 

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&country=USA~EuropeanUnion&region=World&deathsMetric=true&interval=smoothed&perCapita=true&smoothing=7&pickerMetric=new_cases_per_million&pickerSort=desc

[ERICOPOLY]

Rule for thee, but not for me.

 

He's the leader of the country Castanza.  One would think he'd get with the program and not scapegoat his behavior.

[RichardGibbons]

Attached is 7 day rolling daily deaths of US vs European union from our world in data. Below is link. Europe 7.94 vs US 5.55 deaths per million last week.  Did Trump do rallies in Europe too?

 

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&country=USA~EuropeanUnion&region=World&deathsMetric=true&interval=smoothed&perCapita=true&smoothing=7&pickerMetric=new_cases_per_million&pickerSort=desc

 

As I said, you don't care about the answer to the extent that you didn't respond to a single one of the, what, 50 data points?  You made me waste 3 minutes of my life by pretending that you did care.

[samwise]

Before moving to the 'curiosity' part, on a net basis and perhaps in addition to short term opportunities that may be spotted based on short term issues, the coronavirus impact will end up being positive for markets. You also have to assess the host but that's another story.

....

It would be interesting to read a diversity of opinions. i'm 90-95% retired but have some experience ranging from on-the-ground to decisional, and just finished a conference call. In my area, media will announce later on today that 50% of regular hospital activity will be curtailed across the board until further notice which means likely well into 2021..This too shall pass and all this is no big deal for investments but it is a true humanitarian crisis. At the end of the call, it was announced that the topic next Monday would be a review of end of life care decisions..

 

Thanks CB for the detailed reply. Very interesting perspective for those of us not involved in running hospitals.

[Investor20]

Attached is 7 day rolling daily deaths of US vs European union from our world in data. Below is link. Europe 7.94 vs US 5.55 deaths per million last week.  Did Trump do rallies in Europe too?

 

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&country=USA~EuropeanUnion&region=World&deathsMetric=true&interval=smoothed&perCapita=true&smoothing=7&pickerMetric=new_cases_per_million&pickerSort=desc

 

As I said, you don't care about the answer to the extent that you didn't respond to a single one of the, what, 50 data points?  You made me waste 3 minutes of my life by pretending that you did care.

 

Your fifty points started in January and ended in April included House sending impeachment articles to Senate which I fail to see relevance to the present situation.

 

Countries like Japan, India also had spurts long after April.  But they have it in control.

 

Even between European Union and US in above link I posted

 

Daily deaths per million

Sep 1: EU 0.69; US: 2.69 (US has lot more on Sep 1st)

Dec 6: EU: 7.8; US: 6.53 (EU has more now)

 

So the status on who has more deaths between EU & US from Sep 1 has switched to present situation.

 

It switched on Oct 27th when EU started having more deaths than US. Why would I want to go back to Jan to April?

 

 

[RichardGibbons]

Why would I want to go back to Jan to April?

 

Because remember that you were pretending to care about evidence that Trump had contributed to the pandemic? That's why. 

 

But, as I said, you don't actually care about the thing you were pretending to care about. So, from the perspective of someone who doesn't care at all about the original question, it doesn't make any sense at all.

[Investor20]

https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/jmm/10.1099/jmm.0.001250

Zinc sulfate in combination with a zinc ionophore may improve outcomes in hospitalized COVID-19 patients

 

Affiliations

1New York University Grossman School of Medicine, Department of Medicine, New York, NY, USA.

2New York University Langone Health, Department of Pharmacy, New York, NY, USA.

3NYU Langone Health, New York, NY, USA.

4Center for Healthcare Innovation and Delivery Science, NYU Langone Health, New York, NY, USA.

5Division of Healthcare Delivery Science, Department of Population Health, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA.

 

Patients taking zinc sulphate in addition to hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin (n=411) and patients taking hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin alone (n=521) did not differ in age, race, sex, tobacco use or relevant comorbidities. The addition of zinc sulphate did not impact the length of hospitalization, duration of ventilation or intensive care unit (ICU) duration. In univariate analyses, zinc sulphate increased the frequency of patients being discharged home, and decreased the need for ventilation, admission to the ICU and mortality or transfer to hospice for patients who were never admitted to the ICU. After adjusting for the time at which zinc sulphate was added to our protocol, an increased frequency of being discharged home (OR 1.53, 95 % CI 1.12-2.09) and reduction in mortality or transfer to hospice among patients who did not require ICU level of care remained significant (OR 0.449, 95 % CI 0.271-0.744).

 

Conclusion. This study provides the first in vivo evidence that zinc sulphate may play a role in therapeutic management for COVID-19.

......................................

 

Review of this article on youtube. I didnt go through the article.  Listened only to this video review.

 

Many HCQ studies dont have Zinc while many doctors who use HCQ insist HCQ + Zinc go together.  This article gives results of a study using Zinc as the active and having HCQ & Azithromycin on both arms.

This is still a hospital study while many doctors say they use this early. 

 

From Dr. Fareed testimony in Senate:

We have always used a triple HCQ cocktail: HCQ (3200 mg over 5 days), azithromycin or doxycycline and especially zinc, which is often left out in the studies. The cocktail is best given early within the first 5 to 7 days while the patient is in the flu stage ( I have had success treating even as late as 14 days when patients have been sent home untreated from the ER).  The timing of the drug is when the virus is in the period of maximal replication in the upper respiratory tract  My goal is to prevent hospitalization which was achieved by reevaluating high risk patients every 2-3 days.

.....

I have seen very few hospitalizations, and only a few deaths in patients that were sick to begin with and received the medication late while hospitalized

https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Testimony-Fareed-2020-11-19.pdf

 

This is for discussion only. Not suggesting any treatment. Please consult your doctor for any treatment.

[patience_and_focus]

Covid-19 vaccine: First person receives Pfizer jab in UK

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-55227325

 

"Second in line for the jab at University Hospital in Coventry was 81-year-old William Shakespeare from Warwickshire."

 

Not sure if he was deliberately selected to make a splash. But it sure did.

[DocSnowball]

FDA meeting and presentation link for Thursday (Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine review)

https://www.fda.gov/advisory-committees/advisory-committee-calendar/vaccines-and-related-biological-products-advisory-committee-december-10-2020-meeting-announcement#event-information

 

Edit: full documents are at the bottom of the page

 

3. Topics for VRBPAC Discussion

The Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee will convene on December 10, 2020, to discuss and provide recommendations on whether:

• based on the totality of scientific evidence available, it is reasonable to believe that the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine may be effective in preventing COVID-19 in individuals 16 years of age and older, and

• the known and potential benefits of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine outweigh its known and potential risks for use in individuals 16 years of age and older.

The committee will also discuss what additional studies should be conducted by the vaccine manufacturer following issuance of the EUA to gather further data on the safety and effectiveness of this vaccine.

[Gregmal]

Meanwhile how many other countries have started vaccinations?

 

There is one area where the US is not resembling a first world country...

 

https://www.thepharmaletter.com/in-brief/brief-fda-slammed-for-operation-turtle-speed-over-covid-1-vaccine-approval

 

On one hand, the virus is oh sooo deadly we need to commandeer peoples lives and livelihoods, suspend common sense so we can cater to these clown scientists....and on the other, we're letting the bureaucrats and academics sit on their asses for 3 weeks and letting guys like Fauci criticize others for "rushing" LOL. You cant even make this kind of shit up....

 

Last time I checked, urgent, and rush, kind of go together. Instead, lets let everyone else vaccinate first while we sit around exercising our rights to be academics! What a total joke.

[ERICOPOLY]

Covid-19 vaccine: First person receives Pfizer jab in UK

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-55227325

 

"Second in line for the jab at University Hospital in Coventry was 81-year-old William Shakespeare from Warwickshire."

 

Not sure if he was deliberately selected to make a splash. But it sure did.

 

The first patient to get the vaccine was patient 1a.  The second patient to get the vaccine was patient 2b or not 2b.

 

Credit: CapCities Radio

[StubbleJumper]

Meanwhile how many other countries have started vaccinations?

 

There is one area where the US is not resembling a first world country...

 

https://www.thepharmaletter.com/in-brief/brief-fda-slammed-for-operation-turtle-speed-over-covid-1-vaccine-approval

 

On one hand, the virus is oh sooo deadly we need to commandeer peoples lives and livelihoods, suspend common sense so we can cater to these clown scientists....and on the other, we're letting the bureaucrats and academics sit on their asses for 3 weeks and letting guys like Fauci criticize others for "rushing" LOL. You cant even make this kind of shit up....

 

Last time I checked, urgent, and rush, kind of go together. Instead, lets let everyone else vaccinate first while we sit around exercising our rights to be academics! What a total joke.

 

 

Oh, it's even better than that.  Here's a link to an interesting article in New York Mag which notes that we've had the vaccine available since last January, and we elected to not use it:  https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/12/moderna-covid-19-vaccine-design.html

 

So, what's interesting is that the outbreak in NYC showed a 19% Infection Fatality Rate for people 75 years and older during the outbreak last spring.  Despite the fact that regulators knew very well that the IFR was ridiculous for that age group, there didn't seem to be much of an effort to seek volunteers from the highest risk groups to take an untested vaccine when regulators knew very well how lethal the virus was for them.  In fact, they were operating under the assumption that ~60% of people would eventually catch it unless a vaccine were available, which tells me that they were completely comfortable with the notion of tossing under the bus 19% of 60% of people who were 75+ years of age. 

 

Fast forward to November 16, when the Moderna vaccine was announced, and they still don't seem to be in a big rush.  On Nov 16, the US had a total of 11.5m cases and yesterday there were 15.4m.  Cases have grown by nearly 4 million since the vaccine announcement.  Plug in whatever population level IFR you think is correct -- maybe 0.4%?  So, they've basically sat back and watched 16k additional Americans die since that announcement, and most of those will be concentrated in the oldest 10% or 15% of the population.  They imposed a population wide risk preference on a sub-group that is at demonstrably higher risk.

 

If they give it another week, maybe there will be another 1 million new cases and there will be another 4k deaths baked into the numbers.

 

 

SJ

[Investor20]

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq8SXOBy-4w

Opening statement on Senate hearing on early treatment by Ivermectin by Dr. Kory; profile below.

https://www.healthcare4ppl.com/physician/wisconsin/milwaukee/pierre-d-kory-1073709796.html

Dr. Pierre D Kory is a Critical Care (intensivists) Specialist in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He graduated with honors in 2002. Having more than 18 years of diverse experiences, especially in CRITICAL CARE (INTENSIVISTS), PULMONARY DISEASE, Dr. Pierre D Kory affiliates with many hospitals including Mount Sinai Beth Israel, University Of Wi Hospitals & Clinics

 

Full hearing at:

https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/early-outpatient-treatment-an-essential-part-of-a-covid-19-solution-part-ii

 

From Dr. Kory testimony:

"In the last 3-4 months, emerging publications provide conclusive data on the profound efficacy of the anti-parasite, anti-viral drug, anti-inflammatory agent called ivermectin in all stages of the disease. Our protocol was created only recently, after we identified these data. Nearly all studies are demonstrating the therapeutic potency and safety of ivermectin in preventing transmission and progression of illness in nearly all who take the drug."

 

.....

 

"Ivermectin is highly safe, widely available, and low cost.  Its discovery was awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine, and is  already included on the WHO’s “World’s List of Essential Medicines.” We now have data from over 20 well-designed clinical studies, ten of them randomized, controlled trials, with every study consistently reporting large magnitude and statistically significant benefits in decreasing transmission rates, shortening recovery times, decreasing hospitalizations, or large reductions in deaths. "

.......

https://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journal.pntd.0004051

We conservatively estimated that between 1995 and 2010, annual ivermectin mass treatment has cumulatively averted about 500 thousand DALYs from co-endemic STH infections, LF, and scabies.

...............................

Something to question ourselves (not suggesting any treatment), Ivermectin a drug that costs less than 20$, has been used for mass treatment already, the above doctor says " We now have data from over 20 well-designed clinical studies, ten of them randomized, controlled trials, with every study consistently reporting large magnitude and statistically significant benefits in decreasing transmission rates, shortening recovery times, decreasing hospitalizations, or large reductions in deaths. "

 

Not a suggestion for any treatment.  Please consult your doctor for any treatment. Only for discussion

 

[Cigarbutt]

...

There is one area where the US is not resembling a first world country...

On one hand, the virus is oh sooo deadly we need to commandeer peoples lives and livelihoods, suspend common sense so we can cater to these clown scientists....and on the other, we're letting the bureaucrats and academics sit on their asses for 3 weeks and letting guys like Fauci criticize others for "rushing" LOL. You cant even make this kind of shit up....

Last time I checked, urgent, and rush, kind of go together. Instead, lets let everyone else vaccinate first while we sit around exercising our rights to be academics! What a total joke.

Oh, it's even better than that.  Here's a link to an interesting article in New York Mag which notes that we've had the vaccine available since last January, and we elected to not use it:  https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/12/moderna-covid-19-vaccine-design.html

So, what's interesting is that the outbreak in NYC showed a 19% Infection Fatality Rate for people 75 years and older during the outbreak last spring.  Despite the fact that regulators knew very well that the IFR was ridiculous for that age group, there didn't seem to be much of an effort to seek volunteers from the highest risk groups to take an untested vaccine when regulators knew very well how lethal the virus was for them.  In fact, they were operating under the assumption that ~60% of people would eventually catch it unless a vaccine were available, which tells me that they were completely comfortable with the notion of tossing under the bus 19% of 60% of people who were 75+ years of age. 

Fast forward to November 16, when the Moderna vaccine was announced, and they still don't seem to be in a big rush.  On Nov 16, the US had a total of 11.5m cases and yesterday there were 15.4m.  Cases have grown by nearly 4 million since the vaccine announcement.  Plug in whatever population level IFR you think is correct -- maybe 0.4%?  So, they've basically sat back and watched 16k additional Americans die since that announcement, and most of those will be concentrated in the oldest 10% or 15% of the population.  They imposed a population wide risk preference on a sub-group that is at demonstrably higher risk.

If they give it another week, maybe there will be another 1 million new cases and there will be another 4k deaths baked into the numbers.

SJ

Sure, unnecessary delays and institutional inefficiencies should be prevented, identified and improved upon. But why do 'we' have institutions like the FDA?

Personal belief: The development of CV vaccines, overall, represents a great achievement and the result is some kind of a bipartisan (bipartisan in the sense of cost-effective collaboration and cooperation). Still, can 'we' do better? You bet.

@SJ

The assertion that a vaccine should have been used in March and April in the NYC area is interesting. Is it possible that this is a case of retrospective analysis gone too far? (Personal note: i'm still asked periodically to produce motivated opinions about things which happened in the past. A key aspect is that one has to try to travel in time in order to assess what a reasonable person would have done, under the circumstances and given the data set available, at the time. Starting the analysis thinking "they" are evil typically does not produce solid evidence).

It's interesting to note that the "they" people (whoever they are) who act as intermediates between vaccine developers and the end users are also the same "they" people who are trying to define the distribution and allocation strategy for the vaccine. Why is that? From a pure free market perspective, the vaccine should go to (should have gone to?) the highest bidders. No? Or at least, from that same perspective, the vaccines should be offered to the potential (super-)spreaders first (irrespective of the disease potential which is low, overall, in this group) so that restrictions are lifted and the economy gets going. How would that go from a cost-benefit perspective? (i remember your previously documented thought process about individual cost-benefit assessment and the vaccine) Why will the allocation strategy be different? Of course, mistakes for allocation are being made at this point and in 8 to 9 months, 'we' can criticize the process. (personal bias revealed: i tend to respect people who work in the trenches)

[StubbleJumper]

...

There is one area where the US is not resembling a first world country...

On one hand, the virus is oh sooo deadly we need to commandeer peoples lives and livelihoods, suspend common sense so we can cater to these clown scientists....and on the other, we're letting the bureaucrats and academics sit on their asses for 3 weeks and letting guys like Fauci criticize others for "rushing" LOL. You cant even make this kind of shit up....

Last time I checked, urgent, and rush, kind of go together. Instead, lets let everyone else vaccinate first while we sit around exercising our rights to be academics! What a total joke.

Oh, it's even better than that.  Here's a link to an interesting article in New York Mag which notes that we've had the vaccine available since last January, and we elected to not use it:  https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/12/moderna-covid-19-vaccine-design.html

So, what's interesting is that the outbreak in NYC showed a 19% Infection Fatality Rate for people 75 years and older during the outbreak last spring.  Despite the fact that regulators knew very well that the IFR was ridiculous for that age group, there didn't seem to be much of an effort to seek volunteers from the highest risk groups to take an untested vaccine when regulators knew very well how lethal the virus was for them.  In fact, they were operating under the assumption that ~60% of people would eventually catch it unless a vaccine were available, which tells me that they were completely comfortable with the notion of tossing under the bus 19% of 60% of people who were 75+ years of age. 

Fast forward to November 16, when the Moderna vaccine was announced, and they still don't seem to be in a big rush.  On Nov 16, the US had a total of 11.5m cases and yesterday there were 15.4m.  Cases have grown by nearly 4 million since the vaccine announcement.  Plug in whatever population level IFR you think is correct -- maybe 0.4%?  So, they've basically sat back and watched 16k additional Americans die since that announcement, and most of those will be concentrated in the oldest 10% or 15% of the population.  They imposed a population wide risk preference on a sub-group that is at demonstrably higher risk.

If they give it another week, maybe there will be another 1 million new cases and there will be another 4k deaths baked into the numbers.

SJ

Sure, unnecessary delays and institutional inefficiencies should be prevented, identified and improved upon. But why do 'we' have institutions like the FDA?

Personal belief: The development of CV vaccines, overall, represents a great achievement and the result is some kind of a bipartisan (bipartisan in the sense of cost-effective collaboration and cooperation). Still, can 'we' do better? You bet.

@SJ

The assertion that a vaccine should have been used in March and April in the NYC area is interesting. Is it possible that this is a case of retrospective analysis gone too far? (Personal note: i'm still asked periodically to produce motivated opinions about things which happened in the past. A key aspect is that one has to try to travel in time in order to assess what a reasonable person would have done, under the circumstances and given the data set available, at the time. Starting the analysis thinking "they" are evil typically does not produce solid evidence).

It's interesting to note that the "they" people (whoever they are) who act as intermediates between vaccine developers and the end users are also the same "they" people who are trying to define the distribution and allocation strategy for the vaccine. Why is that? From a pure free market perspective, the vaccine should go to (should have gone to?) the highest bidders. No? Or at least, from that same perspective, the vaccines should be offered to the potential (super-)spreaders first (irrespective of the disease potential which is low, overall, in this group) so that restrictions are lifted and the economy gets going. How would that go from a cost-benefit perspective? (i remember your previously documented thought process about individual cost-benefit assessment and the vaccine) Why will the allocation strategy be different? Of course, mistakes for allocation are being made at this point and in 8 to 9 months, 'we' can criticize the process. (personal bias revealed: i tend to respect people who work in the trenches)

 

 

No, clearly "they" are not evil.  Rather, they are risk-averse regulators who are concerned that the voluntary premature use of the vaccine by the 10-15% of highest risk people could be a career-limiting-move.

 

The prioritization of the vaccine distribution can be found in any number of documents that have gathered dust in places like Washington and Ottawa (this has been in every pandemic plan since the high-path H5N1 scare).  Since April, it has been pretty obvious that if you vaccinate the 10-15% of people who are over 70 years of age, your covid deaths will disappear almost entirely, and your ICU use will be roughly cut in half.  There is nothing new about the fact that there is a very easily identifiable high-risk group and there has been a paucity of measures developed to acknowledge the demonstrable asymmetry of risk (Quebec was one of the few that tried and failed badly to address the higher risk of the elderly).

 

But, the regulators are preoccupied with the possibility of an adverse reaction from the vaccine.  That surely is cold comfort for the group who face a 10% or 15% chance of dying if they actually catch this virus.  For that group, it's an asymmetric risk to volunteer to be jabbed before the paperwork is complete. 

 

 

SJ

[Cigarbutt]

...

No, clearly "they" are not evil.  Rather, they are risk-averse regulators who are concerned that the voluntary premature use of the vaccine by the 10-15% of highest risk people could be a career-limiting-move.

The prioritization of the vaccine distribution can be found in any number of documents that have gathered dust in places like Washington and Ottawa (this has been in every pandemic plan since the high-path H5N1 scare).  Since April, it has been pretty obvious that if you vaccinate the 10-15% of people who are over 70 years of age, your covid deaths will disappear almost entirely, and your ICU use will be roughly cut in half.  There is nothing new about the fact that there is a very easily identifiable high-risk group and there has been a paucity of measures developed to acknowledge the demonstrable asymmetry of risk (Quebec was one of the few that tried and failed badly to address the higher risk of the elderly).

But, the regulators are preoccupied with the possibility of an adverse reaction from the vaccine.  That surely is cold comfort for the group who face a 10% or 15% chance of dying if they actually catch this virus.  For that group, it's an asymmetric risk to volunteer to be jabbed before the paperwork is complete. 

SJ

OK. That helps.

However accusing that "they" voluntarily and knowingly withheld lifesaving treatments is a pretty severe accusation, perhaps requiring a stronger evidence-based case.

 

BTW, i acknowledge that results have been very poor in my province. You may be interested to know though that i've been personally and professionally involved pre-Covid in describing the appalling status of care in elderly homes and trying to do something about it. It just seemed like such a contrarian proposition then and 2 weeks ago, i had to listen to someone who described how she had done a great job at preparing (organization-wise) for such an event (good thing my side was on mute). Also, when 100% active, fighting bureaucracy was a daily occurrence so the bias aspect (risk taking etc) described is understood.

 

Concerning the obvious to vaccinate aspect in April in NYC (percent positive peaked at 71.17% on March 28th), it would be nice to share credible sources for this or is it more of a hunch?

 

On April 24th, in the FFH 2020 thread you mentioned: "Their restaurant bet via Recipe is simply not financially viable given how restaurants will need to restructure until a COVID vaccine exists." You've come to and shared instructive insights in this thread so i assume that you mean that "they" had material information which was not shared and which would have had a major positive impact on healthcare burden. i don't have access to privileged information but have followed vaccine development quite closely. Please instruct me.

 

On May 1st, i put that in The Day after Tomorrow thread:

^Complementary info:

https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMp2005630

The CV does "behave" like the flu which is relatively a good thing, short term, but a relatively (potentially) bad thing, long term.

A lot of human ingenuity has been concentrated on vaccines and RNA-technology-related vaccines are most promising (many positive aspects including rapidity of the initial phases and building on previous relevant cancer research) but this is difficult to discount in an economic level.

You did not comment on that, then in that thread but, concurrently, you put that in the CV thread:

This is how you crush the virus.

Meanwhile, unhinged: https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1260177007490600960?s=21

I'm surprised Trump hasn't released the vaccine already. You know he's smart enough to get it done. ;)

I thought that he made the bleach announcement a couple of weeks ago? 

SJ

i may be just too dumb but i still don't see what was so obvious then.

[StubbleJumper]

 

OK. That helps.

However accusing that "they" voluntarily and knowingly withheld lifesaving treatments is a pretty severe accusation, perhaps requiring a stronger evidence-based case.

 

With respect, what exactly is occurring at this very moment?  You may choose to accept that regulators would be hesitant to make a vaccine available in the summer on the argument that there was limited proof at the time that it actually worked, but once the November 16 announcement was made that it actually did work, they continued with their risk aversion and are using a population-wide approach to assessing risk.  Clearly, that's fine for me personally because for the purposes of covid, I am about as "average" as it is possible to get.  But, the risk preferences of the ~15% of the most vulnerable might be legitimately different than those of the regulators.

 

If you wish to go a step farther, it would be unfathomable that the regulatory agencies have not been in close contact with the pharms over the past 6 or 8 months, and they surely had progress updates on the vaccine tests long before the November 16th announcement.  You may argue that regulatory rigidity and process are important cornerstones of safety, but that is cold comfort for those who are in the higher risk group.

 

 

BTW, i acknowledge that results have been very poor in my province. You may be interested to know though that i've been personally and professionally involved pre-Covid in describing the appalling status of care in elderly homes and trying to do something about it. It just seemed like such a contrarian proposition then and 2 weeks ago, i had to listen to someone who described how she had done a great job at preparing (organization-wise) for such an event (good thing my side was on mute). Also, when 100% active, fighting bureaucracy was a daily occurrence so the bias aspect (risk taking etc) described is understood.

 

No, don't get me wrong, I meant no criticism of the Government of Quebec.  Arruda et al attempted to a few rational moves that were not even considered in other jurisdictions, but they just didn't work.  In particular, the province issued a stay-at-home warning to all people age 70 and over back in the spring, which was well-targeted but poorly supported by other programming (eg, the federal government paid young people to sit on their ass all day, while it was a challenge for the elderly to obtain grocery delivery services...was that an opportunity missed?).  In the end, the 70+ year-olds in my circle all basically told the government "va chier." 

 

 

Concerning the obvious to vaccinate aspect in April in NYC (percent positive peaked at 71.17% on March 28th), it would be nice to share credible sources for this or is it more of a hunch?

 

No, my observation about NYC was merely that the March/April outbreak demonstrated unambiguously that there was a very, very high IFR for the age-70+ group.  There were journal articles published in the summer about it, so my point is that no regulator could possibly claim that the risk to that subgroup was poorly understood or unquantified.  What is more, the notion that ~60% of people would eventually catch the virus unless a vaccine were invented has been clearly understood since the spring.  The decisions taken by regulators over the past 6 months or so have been taken (for better or worse) with that knowledge.  They seem to be comfortable with not offering people the choice of taking Risk A (catching covid with an elevated IFR) or taking Risk B (prematurely taking a vaccine with some unknown level of risk). 

 

 

On April 24th, in the FFH 2020 thread you mentioned: "Their restaurant bet via Recipe is simply not financially viable given how restaurants will need to restructure until a COVID vaccine exists." You've come to and shared instructive insights in this thread so i assume that you mean that "they" had material information which was not shared and which would have had a major positive impact on healthcare burden. i don't have access to privileged information but have followed vaccine development quite closely. Please instruct me.

 

I'm not certain that I follow this argument -- perhaps you had a sentence or two in your mind which would make it all clear, but did not actually type it out.  Yes, in April (and again in November/December), restaurants in Canada were not financially viable because the dining rooms across the country had shut down and they were depending on take-out and delivery.  Given the historical margins in the industry, unless there is a return to "normal" a restructuring will be required.  That return to normal likely won't occur until mass vaccination is well advanced and governments ease restrictions on indoor dining.

 

On May 1st, i put that in The Day after Tomorrow thread:

^Complementary info:

https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMp2005630

The CV does "behave" like the flu which is relatively a good thing, short term, but a relatively (potentially) bad thing, long term.

A lot of human ingenuity has been concentrated on vaccines and RNA-technology-related vaccines are most promising (many positive aspects including rapidity of the initial phases and building on previous relevant cancer research) but this is difficult to discount in an economic level.

You did not comment on that, then in that thread but, concurrently, you put that in the CV thread:

This is how you crush the virus.

Meanwhile, unhinged: https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1260177007490600960?s=21

I'm surprised Trump hasn't released the vaccine already. You know he's smart enough to get it done. ;)

I thought that he made the bleach announcement a couple of weeks ago? 

SJ

i may be just too dumb but i still don't see what was so obvious then.

 

 

Well, that's quite a diverse collection of thoughts and extracts.  First off, you are anything but dumb.  The decision of whether to prematurely make a vaccine available to the highest risk segment of the population is a classic decision under uncertainty.  The outcomes associated with not making it available were well understood painfully well by the summer (ie, the very high IFR amongst the elderly), and the risk associated with the premature use of a vaccine became better understood as testing progressed, culminating in a couple of announcements last month.  The regulatory regime seems poorly adapted to recognize the demonstrably different risks faced by demographic groups.  Maybe it cannot be otherwise for practical reasons.  Maybe it's merely career risk aversion.  Perhaps its the problem of technocrats simply being unwilling to allow individuals to make their own risk decisions.  Whatever the root cause, it's a decision under uncertainty which seems to be driven by population level risk preferences that does not make any concession to the specific problem faced by easily identifiable high risk groups.

 

As we have discussed (excessively!?!) over the past 8 or 10 months, governments around the world have adopted policy measures which have either cost lives or saved lives.  What is occurring right now is yet another aspect of those decisions.  People in the UK are getting the jab right now as I type.  In the US and Canada, the vaccine has been approved and the jabs will begin shortly.  How many people in Canada and the US will die because our regulators were not as fast as those in the UK?  How many deaths could have been avoided by taking a small targetted risk and beginning vaccination of the elderly in November?  How many could have been saved by taking a large targetted risk and beginning vaccination of the elderly even earlier?

 

On a personal note, I perceive that I may have triggered a more emotional than normal response from you.  That certainly was not my intent, and to be completely clear, in no circumstance did I intend any personal criticism.

 

 

SJ

[Libs]

Covid-19 vaccine: First person receives Pfizer jab in UK

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-55227325

 

"Second in line for the jab at University Hospital in Coventry was 81-year-old William Shakespeare from Warwickshire."

 

Not sure if he was deliberately selected to make a splash. But it sure did.

 

The first patient to get the vaccine was patient 1a.  The second patient to get the vaccine was patient 2b or not 2b.

 

Credit: CapCities Radio

 

This deserves some love.

[Cigarbutt]

^No problem, my heart rate remained below 55 the whole time. BTW, i typically 'enjoy' arguing with you 'cause it makes me think. Arguing online has advantages but it's sometimes hard to get a "feel" for the other. Just a few more thoughts.

 

The sentence that appears unclear is simply that you mentioned in late April that the vaccines did not exist even though it was pretty obvious that they did. :)

 

Following the vaccine development here was truly fascinating and the typical "process" was dramatically changed. Instead of sequential parts with pauses, the process was massively transformed to perform several steps simultaneously and to lessen delays. Also, for instance, in order to reach targets or triggers for efficacy, lower numbers were used in order to make progress, assuming previously documented trends continued. It was a massive transformation simply unthinkable a year ago. Can the process be improved more? Likely. i guess if you're the moderator in the game, you want to move fast enough and not too much and of course, things always look easier in retrospect. From my perspective, it became clear that vaccines were slam-dunks only very recently. You may want to remember also that vaccines are coming out way earlier than usual vs longer term safety profile and there may be surprises along the way. And who will be blamed then?. i still see people from a clinical standpoint about a half-day a week and, anecdotally, even if my area is not really conspiracy-prone, many of the population at risk hesitate to take the vaccine or have decided to wait for more data to come in, given the new-normal. True even for those with high risk and their individual self-risk assessment needs to be respected (the "they" call this social acceptance and it can be a pain, especially if negatively reinforced).

 

Thank you for the perspective and the impact could have been significant but i remain unconvinced and, under present circumstances (last few months), it would have been really difficult to compress the process more in order to get more 'uncertain' vaccines out earlier. But i'll keep an open mind, especially if contemporary evidence comes along.

 

Anecdotal:

Today, i'm preparing a report about a 'situation' where two 'experts' have reached diametrically opposed 'opinions' (that's usually when i come in). Typically in these 'cases', i come up with my own conclusion which may side with one side or the other. Interestingly, in this specific case, the opinion that is crystallizing is that both opinions are diametrically wrong. ??? Some people consider this last scenario to be a form a bipartisanship. It's not.

BTW, personal criticism is fair game, if done fairly and for constructive purposes.

[Investor20]

New York times Coverage of Senate Hearing on Early treatment: (The article left out Dr. Pierre Kory testimony on Ivermectin that I posted earlier)

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/08/technology/a-senate-hearing-promoted-unproven-drugs-and-dubious-claims-about-the-coronavirus.html

 

"Dr. Orient also cited “192 studies compiled on hydroxychloroquine with all showing some benefit when used early.”

 

"That appeared to be an exaggerated reference to a database of studies gathered by an anonymous group. Of those studies, about 40 were categorized as researching use of hydroxychloroquine as an early treatment, and about two dozen of those concluding that the drug demonstrated “positive” effects.""

 

However clicking on the link in the article (https://c19study.com/) to the above database referred gave a link to the website stating:

 

"195 HCQ studies

130 peer reviewed

Early treatment shows high efficacy;

Early treatment: 100% of studies report positive effects. 64% is the median improvement."

 

And gives below figure.

 

[Gregmal]

MSM has pulled the wool over the eyes of the naive liberal...but this highlights who and what the issue is....one man? Nope. hundreds and thousands of bureaucrats and academics. lazy, moving to the beat of their drum. feet dragging.

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/11/white-house-threatens-to-fire-fda-chief-unless-covid-vaccine-oked-friday-report.html

 

Thankfully theres a few more weeks of DJT. Joe would have been angry to get woken from his nap and then told one of his aids to tell another aid to schedule something for next week.

[Cigarbutt]

Vaccine distribution is the next hurdle.

-It's a challenge from a logistics point of view (how to get the product from A to B to C etc).

-It's also a challenge in terms of 'strategy'. The demand will outstrip the supply for a while. So, questions raised about 'equity' (...), how to balance central 'message' with local 'adaptation' (...).

 

An interesting input which lays out choices:

https://vaccineallocation.ariadnelabs.net/

 

[cubsfan]

No need to worry about this kind of thing:

Depression Among Children Has Increased ‘Substantially’ Under Lockdown: Study

 

Rates of depression have skyrocketed among children under COVID-19 lockdown, according to a new study from the University of Cambridge.

 

https://www.dailywire.com/news/depression-among-children-has-increased-under-lockdown-study

 

And don't worry about all those small businesses being destroyed by our politicians - it's just meaningless collateral damage.

 

[Gregmal]

No need to worry about this kind of thing:

Depression Among Children Has Increased ‘Substantially’ Under Lockdown: Study

 

Rates of depression have skyrocketed among children under COVID-19 lockdown, according to a new study from the University of Cambridge.

 

https://www.dailywire.com/news/depression-among-children-has-increased-under-lockdown-study

 

And don't worry about all those small businesses being destroyed by our politicians - it's just meaningless collateral damage.

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/12/tony-hsieh-mental-health-help-covid-pandemic-isolation.html

 

But dont worry. "They" believe in science!

 

It is funny but for all the whining about Trump, when its all said and done, when folks ask themselves what's more deadly than a once in a 100 year virus...the answer will clearly be...Liberals. They take your freedom. Your friends. Your family. Your business. Your restaurants. Your schools. And worst of all, your peace of mind....

[Gregmal]

Bout to get a special Covid Christmas edition of MeToo!

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/13/ex-cuomo-staffer-accuses-governor-of-sexually-harassing-her-for-years-he-denies-it.html

 

Will we believe all women? I heard one of the allegations may have been that he tried performing cunnilingus without a mask on!

 

The only thing that remains to be seen is whether the moral crusaders and voices of anti corruption who stand up to men who abuse their powers show up. The ones that made it their sworn duty to cry enough tears to drown Trump; will they show up for Cuomo?