COVID-19: Chapter 4 - OPEN FOR BUSINESS

Tough to support anything that guy says considering he wrote this:

https://www.salon.com/2016/04/29/a_liberal_case_for_donald_trump_the_lesser_of_two_evils_is_not_at_all_clear_in_2016/

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No I think only in cells in a lab, so far. That’s up next, I assume.

I see your insane Lake of the Ozarks video and I raise ya. All in.

https://twitter.com/maxbaker_15/status/1264386140720771076?s=09

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Not really up to date with thread but when is the US spike expected? Surely the fudging of numbers can’t be this crazy in USA? Or is it just that more of the country is still fairly locked down than I understood? Weather? It is strange to see European cases going down as lockdowns ease.

In front of Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate a politically incongruous crowd of protesters gathered on Saturday. They wore flowers in their hair, hazmat suits emblazoned with the letter Q, badges displaying the old German imperial flag or T-shirts reading “Gates, My Ass” – a reference to the US software billionaire Bill Gates.

Around the globe, millions are counting the days until a Covid-19 vaccine is discovered. These people, however, were protesting for the right not to be inoculated – and they weren’t the only ones.

For the ninth week running, thousands gathered in European cities to vent their anger at social distancing restrictions they believe to be a draconian ploy to suspend basic civil rights and pave the way for “enforced vaccinations” that will do more harm than the Covid-19 virus itself.

Walking towards the focal point of the protests down the Straße des 17. Juni boulevard, one woman said she believed the Covid-19 pandemic to be a hoax thought up by the pharmaceutical industry.

“I’d never let myself be vaccinated,” said the woman, who would give her name only as Riot Granny. “I didn’t get a jab for the flu either, and I am still alive.”

The alliance of anti-vaxxers, neo-Nazi rabble-rousers and esoteric hippies, which has in recent weeks been filling town squares in cities such as Berlin, Vienna and Zurich is starting to trouble governments as they map out scenarios for re-booting their economies and tackling the coronavirus long term.

Even before an effective vaccine against Covid-19 has been developed, national leaders face a dilemma: should they aim to immunise as large a part of the population as possible as quickly as possible, or does compulsory vaccination risk boosting a street movement already prone to conspiracy theories about “big pharma” and its government’s authoritarian tendencies?

Preliminary results of a survey by the Vaccine Confidence Project and ORB International, carried out when infections in Europe were still rising rapidly in early April, show resistance to a vaccine to be especially high in countries that have managed to avoid the worst of the pandemic.

In Switzerland, where immunologists have proposed that mass vaccinations could take place as early as October, 20% of people questioned said they would not be willing to be vaccinated. In Austria, vaccine scepticism was similarly rife, with 18% of those questioned saying they would reject vaccination.

In Germany, where 9% opposed vaccination in April, the figure may have since increased as the virus has claimed fewer victims relative to other countries. A parallel survey by the university of Erfurt found the number of Germans asked whether they would take a Covid-19 vaccine when it became available had dropped from 79% in mid-April to 63% last week.

In the UK, where ORB International surveyed opinions from 6 to 7 May, 10% of respondents said they were unwilling to be vaccinated.

While scientists predict that immunising about 70% of the population could be sufficient for the virus to vanish, there are concerns that a noisy minority could seize the narrative around vaccination.

There’s a real fear of an unholy alliance between esoteric leftwingers, the far right and the ReichsbĂŒrger movement

Natalie Grams, doctor

Germany’s foreign minister Heiko Maas has jokingly advised the public to “keep a lot more than just a 1.5-metre distance” from those spreading conspiracy theories, but fears of the movement growing into a force equivalent to the Pegida protests against Angela Merkel’s asylum policy seem to be shaping the thinking in Berlin’s seats of power.

In spite of some scientists calling for mandatory vaccination against Covid-19, health minister Jens Spahn has said he would favour a voluntary programme, while the mooted introduction of “immunity passports” for those who have been vaccinated or developed antibodies was withdrawn from a new “pandemic law” that passed through the Bundestag this month.

“There’s a real fear of an unholy alliance between esoteric leftwingers, the far right and the ReichsbĂŒrger movement,” said Natalie Grams, a doctor and author who specialises in debunking claims about the effectiveness of alternative medicine.

“When it comes to people strongly opposed to vaccinations, you are usually looking at 2-4% of the population in Germany. But with this alliance you are looking at broader resistance among the population.

“While there isn’t a vaccine but everyone is talking about one, the anti-vaccination movement has found a perfect environment to flourish”, said Grams, who used to practise homeopathy herself. “Virologists are weighing up evidence and come up with slightly conflicting advice, while the big health bodies take weeks to formulate their messages. Anti-vaxxers are exploiting this uncertainty.”

In France, anti-vaccination sentiments are seen as a phenomenon of the current millennium, fed by a wider distrust of central government. In German-speaking countries, by contrast, wariness of vaccination programmes dates back to the 19th century.

In the first half of the 20th century, anti-vaxxer views converged with anti-semitism: the Third Reich was rife with conspiracy theories presenting vaccination programmes as a Jewish plot to either poison the German nation or “submit humanity to Jewish mammonism”.

Some historians believe that voluntary vaccination programmes against Covid-19 would not only be less politically risky but also more effective at protecting the population from coronavirus.

“When it comes to vaccination programmes, the debate is rarely about the disease itself but about the relationship between the individual and the state”, said historian Malte Thiessen, who runs the Institute for Westphalian History in MĂŒnster. “In Germany this is a question that goes back to the 19th century: can the government force people to be healthy?”

Once (if) a vaccine is readily available to all people refusing it do so only at their own risk, and frankly the rest of the population is better off without these dangerous fuckers.

My understanding is that most vaccines are not 100% effective, and thus rely on herd immunity. So, we probably need those dangerous fuckers to get their shit together and take the vaccine.

These people are nuts. There’s no way I’d do that even pre COVID-19.

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This fuckin’ year, man.

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There are really four things masking or still preventing the increase in cases:

  1. NY/NJ used to be roughly 50% of the new cases/deaths. They are now 10%. Most of the country’s numbers are flat or increasing over the last few weeks but this is mostly hidden in the national data by the dramatic decrease in cases/deaths in NY/NJ.

  2. Restrictions remain in effect in the hardest hit places which also happen to include some of the biggest cities in the US.

  3. In places where restrictions have been lifted R likely remains way less than on March 1st. No school, lots of WFH still, mask wearing, no sports/concerts, some people still staying home and possibly the warmer weather all make the rate of infecfion lower even though Chili’s is open.

  4. Significant lag between infection and positive test results and death. Restaurants weren’t opened anywhere until May 1. Bars weren’t really open anywhere until about May 15th(and remain closed lots of places). Add up the fact that it takes 7-14 days to get symptoms and probably a couple more days to decide to get tested and then up to a week to get results and new positive cases we are seeing right now were infected at the very end of April or beginning of May. Most of the country was still closed or just beginning to reopen. As far as the death stats go, the people being reported now as dead from Covid-19 almost all got it prior to the end of lockdown.

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Yup, it’s going to be a weird few weeks. A lot of people are going to be convinced we are in the clear, we’re probably going to have a lot of doubt ourselves at some point, then wham.

Unfortunately, all the people who are convinced we’re in the clear will go parrrrrtay and drive that R up, giving us a nice little bit of acceleration right before everyone realizes.

We’re basically trying to go runner-runner: weather keeps us at or below R=1 and then we moonshot a vaccine early enough to bail us out.

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Seems likely that we have basically status quo through the summer, people get bored / slowly believe the threat is overblown, then absolute carnage come Fall.

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We kept waiting for the “wham” in Florida and it hasn’t happened. (I know the data from FL is bogus, but I think we all expected to see the hospitals tipping over and I’m pretty sure that hasn’t happened.) Not sure what to expect anymore TBH.

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Hope you and the wife have a great hike buddy. Thanks again for your excellent posting ITT.

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As someone who has spent a lot of time over the last three months trying to make sense of the Covid-19 data even I have some doubt as to whether or not we will see an increase in cases even though I know it is nonsensical. I imagine for the denialists or people on the fence about how serious this is the urge to throw caution to the wind must be enormous let alone the rational people in the population.

It is really easy right now to say “well we re-opened and there wasn’t any significant surge in cases” and have that be the end of the analysis. I’m guessing that is what the majority thinks right now.

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That was definitely not a mistake. They knew masks would be super helpful, I mean looking back its fucking obvious. Of course everyone wearing a mask would slow the spread.

They lied because they didn’t have enough masks.

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Also not everyone is able to get vaccinated even of they want to. My sister can’t get the flu shot because she is allergic to something in it. If everybody who can safely get the flu shot did, hr chance of getting sick go way down. She was hospitalized for 8 days, on oxygen, and very sick with the flu year. Fuck anti-vaxxers.

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Meanwhile Ohio legislator doing Ohio legislator things

https://www.dispatch.com/news/20200524/capitol-insider-gop-smackdown-at-ohio-statehouse-representative-tells-senator-im-64-290pds--wont-be-pushed-around

Early study w potential for early intervention. Not controlled as they note.

This one looks a little more robust

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31042-4/fulltext

All-in-all seems similar to Remdesivir- shortens duration in these studies. Well tolerated.

I suspect we will see something like this in common usage soon.

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I don’t think the common cold uses the same receptors. That’s the big deal about this thing. Very common receptor across tissues and seriously enhanced binding.

Maybe going to get your hair done during a pandemic is not such a good idea.

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