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

After plateauing, NY’s COVID hospitalizations and raw numbers are definitely declining again. This is the same pattern we saw in Israel as vaccinations shot up. Lots of plateau’s/slight upticks, followed by declines. No sharp upticks/waves.

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Why is the media so fucking bad at reporting on Covid-related risks:

Are you fucking kidding me? They think the vaccines being 90 percent effective mean that 10 percent of vaccinated people who fly will get Coronavirus? Jesus Christ.

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To be fair it was not a good joke by me.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Mar. 16, 2021-- Moderna Inc. (Nasdaq: MRNA), a biotechnology company pioneering messenger RNA (mRNA) therapeutics and vaccines, today announced that the first participants have been dosed in the Phase 2/3 study, called the KidCOVE study, of mRNA-1273, the Company’s vaccine candidate against COVID-19, in children ages 6 months to less than 12 years. The study is being conducted in collaboration with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), part of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

“We are pleased to begin this Phase 2/3 study of mRNA-1273 in healthy children in the U.S. and Canada and we thank NIAID and BARDA for their collaboration,” said Stéphane Bancel, Chief Executive Officer of Moderna. “It is humbling to know that 53 million doses have been administered to people in the U.S. We are encouraged by the primary analysis of the Phase 3 COVE study of mRNA-1273 in adults ages 18 and above and this pediatric study will help us assess the potential safety and immunogenicity of our COVID-19 vaccine candidate in this important younger age population.”

This Phase 2/3 two-part, open label, dose-escalation, age de-escalation (Part 1) and randomized, observer-blind, placebo-controlled expansion study (Part 2) will evaluate the safety, tolerability, reactogenicity and effectiveness of two doses of mRNA-1273 given 28 days apart. The Company intends to enroll approximately 6,750 pediatric participants in the U.S. and Canada ages 6 months to less than 12 years.

In Part 1, each participant ages two years to less than 12 years may receive one of two dose levels (50 μg or 100 μg). Also in Part 1, each participant ages six months to less than 2 years may receive one of three dose levels (25 μg, 50 μg and 100 μg). An interim analysis will be conducted to determine which dose will be used in Part 2, the placebo-controlled expansion portion of the study. Participants will be followed through 12 months after the second vaccination. Vaccine effectiveness will either be inferred through achieving a correlate of protection, if established, or through immunobridging to the young adult (ages 18-25) population. Evaluation of vaccine safety and reactogenicity is also a primary endpoint of the study.


Damn, sounds like it is going be a year or more before we start jabbing under 12 years old.

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The first crucial piece of information needed to contain this disease has been the fact that it transmits from people without symptoms. In the HBO documentary, the ship’s doctor reiterates that by February 9th, he was sure that people without symptoms were infecting others. That fact had already been reported in scientific papers, urgently proclaimed by China’s minister of Health in January of 2020, apparent from multiple epidemiological reports already in the record. But many experts in the Western world found that difficult to believe (a topic I covered before for this newsletter), and we did not act upon this crucial piece of information until much later in the pandemic (I wrote about transmission from people who were not sick, and thus could not know they were infected, in March of 2020 in my first op-ed calling for masks—it was so clear even then that I had no problem convincing the fact-checkers at the New York Times ).

Take a look at the Skagit Valley Choir case in Washington state. Careful, pandemic-aware people showed up at a huge space—distanced, no hugs, hand-sanitizers everywhere—and 53 of them got infected in one evening. They had even propped the door open to avoid knob touching. And yet, this event was not seen as definite evidence of aerosol transmission. It was not even seen as a definite evidence of rare aerosol transmission—a position that would still be wrong, but at least > plausible, essentially arguing that happened but it was a one-time thing.

I am not linking to all those who argued against the facts, because focusing on individuals is not correct. But multiple experts insisted for a long time that the infections might have resulted from close contact or fomite transmission during break, or been the result of snack sharing. The CDC report on the Skagit case mentions aerosols as a possibility, but just that: a possibility and emphasizes how fomites and contact were possible as well.

However, as a recent Times article on choir case notes, aerosol scientists had immediately noticed what had happened, and what was actually likely, and what was really a stretch:

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?

400 is their full time staff. According to Wikipedia circa Dec 2020 they have a million people doing deliveries. They also say they have made over 900 million deliveries but I suspect that number is seriously out of date. I couldn’t find US numbers for total delivery orders in 2020 but I saw a number for Australia: 68 million. The population here is 24 million. A billion deliveries worldwide in 2020 is likely lowballing it by a lot.

At a meeting on Friday night, Irish government ministers discussed concerns over Covid-19 variants.

“These variants pose a significant risk to our fight against this disease and our vaccination programme,” said Irish Health Minister Stephen Donnelly.

The “high-risk” list is subject to change at any time, and currently mainly comprises countries in South America and Africa, although Austria is also on the list.

Other countries include: Angola, Argentina, Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Burundi, Cape Verde, Chile, Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Lesotho, Malawi, Eswatini, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Rwanda, Suriname, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, Venezuela, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

Countries added to the list on Friday are: Bangladesh, Belgium, France, Italy, Kenya, Luxembourg, Pakistan, Turkey, the USA, Canada, Armenia, Bermuda, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Curaçao, Maldives, Ukraine.

lol you read the word “could”? they dont say 100k will get it

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In germany the advice is that people who had covid shouldnt get a vaccine for at least the next 6 months.

Is that because of availability or is there an actual medical reason for that?

When my mother mentioned 3 months, I suspected that availability was the reason.

If there was a scientific reason, the wait would probably be more consistent.

I’m not sure how consistent people are in checking things but if it’s like it is with health conditions I’m sure my mother can walk in and get a vaccine so long as she isn’t symptomatic.

According to our “Ständige Impfkommission” its a bit of both. They assume that people who had Covid should at least be partially immune for some time and to prevent an excessive immune reaction as well as the the lack of vaccine doses.

Es ist davon auszugehen, dass Personen, die von einer SARS-CoV-2-Infektion oder COVID-19 genesen sind, zumindest vorübergehend über einen gewissen Schutz vor einer Erkrankung verfügen. Aufgrund dieser anzunehmenden Immunität, zur Vermeidung überschießender Nebenwirkungen (überschießende systemische Impfreaktionen) und in Anbetracht des bestehenden Impfstoffmangels sollte eine einmalige Impfung von Personen mit durchgemachter Infektion (labordiagnostisch gesichert) nach Ansicht der STIKO unter Berücksichtigung der Priorisierung frühestens 6 Monate nach Genesung erwogen werden
RKI - Impfen - COVID-19 und Impfen: Antworten auf häufig gestellte Fragen (FAQ)

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It’s far more likely it’s because you have to jump through a lot more hoops with regulators and IRBs when you work with kids. Regardless, what you pointed to is definitely a reason why it doesn’t matter as much

Moderna is behind Pfizer on getting approved for kids. Right now, Moderna isn’t even approved for ages 16 and 17, while that age range was part of Pfizer’s initial approval.

Pfizer could be approved for ages 12-15 any week now, but last I checked it seems like approvals for young children may not come until early 2022.

SHOUT OUT TO ALL MY PFIZZY BOYS AND GIRLS

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This should not really be a significant concern. As far as we know, the immune response from the vaccine might make you feel like shit for a couple of days, but it’s not going to kill you or land you in the hospital. I think the optimal way to handle that is to just provide informed consent about the fact that one might feel shittier after the vaccine if you recently had COVID, but otherwise there should be no reason not to get it.

My guess is that availability is the primary concern and they just listed this other one to prevent people from trying to conceal their COVID history and get one soon anyway.

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Even “could” there is wildly misleading and incorrect. Whoever wrote that article doesn’t understand what the vaccine effective percentage actually means. It’s not the percentage of vaccinated people who will get the virus. It’s the percentage of vaccinated people versus unvaccinated people who will get the virus. If a million vaccinated people fly there is no way that 100k of them will ever get the virus from flying. That would imply a fucking 100 percent chance of an unvaccinated person getting covid every time they step on a plane.

My two very young children are enrolled in a Pfizer trial due to start any day now. Based upon the timetable of that trial I think Pfizer is going to get approved for use in the the youngest of children sometime this fall. It’s going to be sooner than 2022. (Edit: Actually the trial has already started, I shoudl have said, due to start in my location any day now).

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Jman is correct. If you’re going to interpret “could” like that, then they could say that all 1 million “could” get it. I mean, they’re not saying that all 1 million will get it. But it is theoretically possible.

Pfuck the pfizer pfreaks!

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