COVID-19: Chapter 7 - Brags, Beats, and Variants

Russia’s EpiVacCorona vaccine ‘effective against variants’

Russian scientists who have developed the country’s second vaccine against Covid-19, EpiVacCorona, say the shot is effective against variants of the coronavirus, Reuters news agency reports.

Russia began mass trials of EpiVacCorona in November last year.

Three domestically developed Covid-19 vaccines are currently registered in Russia: Sputnik V, EpiVacCorona and CoviVac.

Separately, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he will get the jab himself on Tuesday.

Asked which vaccine Putin would receive, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told state news agency RIA Novosti: “One of our three. All are good and reliable.”

It feels like we don’t talk enough about how incredible it is to have 3 very good vaccines within a year. From my limited understanding of the science, this is one of the most amazing scientific achievements of my lifetime.

18 Likes

Yes, appointments over the next two weeks or so are absolutely going to go unfilled. The change from 60 to 50 is negligible given that basically all public facing jobs and all comorbidities were already eligible anyway. It’s time to open it up to everyone and start concentrating on convincing the vaccine skeptics to get one.

1 Like

I think I’d still rank the Human Genome Project higher, but it’s up there. A cynic could argue that because we got there so quickly in so many different ways, it wasn’t all that hard to do, but something not being as hard as expected does not diminish its value. I think in order to compete for greatest achievement in our lifetimes, one or more of these vaccine approaches would have to be applied to at least one if not more big time killers, like malaria, cancer, etc.

The ruling conservative party recently lost two important state elections. The handling of pandemic certainly contributed.

So I emailed my state rep about having to go to Ohio. I knew they can’t do anything just wanted to add my two cents of displeasure for the governor. The staff person (who I emailed with a lot last year concerning unemployment) replied that one cannot schedule a second shot anywhere in PA.

However being a good Philadelphian if I can get the Moderna shot here, I will just say it’s my first shot until that sweet juice has been injected and then admit it was really my second shot. Better to ask forgiveness.

1 Like

If I get vaccinated and work with a bunch of people that don’t will this be any danger to me?

A lot of ruling parties are gonna be fucked because of covid.

ANO, the ruling party in the Czech Republic, has its lowest approval rating in 5 years. Unless they can attach themselves to some miracle covid receovery before the elections this October, they’re probably going to lose pretty badly to one of the two coalitions working against them.

Guess crushing the regional elections was worth the deaths and permanent disabilities of tens of thousands for ANO though -_-

1 Like

Things are really looking up: vaccines rolling out quicker than expected, travel slowly resuming, and two mass shootings within a week. We’ll be back to normal before you know it.

4 Likes

Germany and Austria did quite well until October but when the second wave came it became obvious that we got our asses saved by the summer. There was no coherent strategy. Lockdowns and reopenings were done with the short term economy in mind instead of being guided by scientific evidence.
It also became obvious that there is no plan for the vaccinations despite having had a year to prepare: Who? Where? How? When? Fuck it! We‘re doing it live.

So is there any chance I will be able to take a planned trip to Europe in early August?

It’s risky. There’s so much that can happen between now and then.

I’m so fucking sick of covid. Just saying.

13 Likes
3 Likes

So as I understand it, assuming you received the Pfizer or Moderna juice, you have likely reduced your risk of contracting a severe covid-19 infection by about 20-fold (95% reduced chance of serious illness give or take yada variants) and have effectively lowered your chance of death to around zero.

If you seek out infected people and huff them I reckon you could still probably make the magic happen, and you might just be the one that hits the 5%er, hence why you should still take distancing and masking precautions around the unvaxxed.

2 Likes

Yes, probably. Like 95% fewer people who got vaccinated still got infected compared to the unvaccinated, but people who got vaccinated still get sick. It’s not clear if those people were just themselves resistant to the vaccine, or if they were some of the people facing the highest amounts of exposure (or some combination of both). If everyone there is wearing a mask, your risk will be much lower.

2 Likes

August sounds a little too early.

Got Moderna yesterday. My hope is that if we are all vaccinated we can have a family reunion in June. Only one that might not be able to have both shots by then is my brother and the kids, but he had Covid already, and the kids are both <2 and home daycare so it seems not too risky to me…

13 Likes

Europe, I doubt. Based on nothing, I’d say there will be sporadic openings for vaccinated folks (e.g., Iceland doing this), but not the primary EU countries.

Countries that are currently open for travel, I would expect to still be so in August. We are planning to go to South Africa in June. Honestly my biggest worry for the whole trip is not getting the negative PCR results required 72 hours before departure.