Covid-19 miscellany

[Jimmy Higgins]

Today on No Good Deed...

The Texas doctor had six hours. Now that a vial of Covid-19 vaccine had been opened on this late December night, he had to find 10 eligible people for its remaining doses before the precious medicine expired. In six hours.

Scrambling, the doctor made house calls and directed people to his home outside Houston. Some were acquaintances; others, strangers. A bed-bound nonagenarian. A woman in her 80s with dementia. A mother with a child who uses a ventilator.
After midnight, and with just minutes before the vaccine became unusable, the doctor, Hasan Gokal, gave the last dose to his wife, who has a pulmonary disease that leaves her short of breath.

For his actions, Dr. Gokal was fired from his government job and then charged with stealing 10 vaccine doses worth a total of $135 — a shun-worthy misdemeanor
that sent his name and mug shot rocketing around the globe.

This was in late December, so we are in the 'feeling it out' part of the release. This Doctor allegedly has 9 doses that'll expire. I say allegedly because that is how the bosses will see it. He gave his wife a shot, which was probably a mistake, as it appears he is taking advantage of his position and the access it provided. But then on the other reflection of the situation, he is desperately trying not to waste a dose of the vaccine.

This is something that happens when there is prejudice in judgment of a story. If the details at the vaccine public event are accurate, this Doctor was simply working in good faith with the situation he was in... and people were rushing to judgment on him.

 

[TSwizzle]

Late last month, a judge dismissed the charge as groundless, after which the local district attorney vowed to present the matter to a grand jury.

The DA, Kim Ogg, is just an evil, vindictive person. Hopefully two things will happen, if it gets to a grand jury they will dismiss the case and come election time, Ogg gets voted out.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The same general structure, the details vary. That's why the South African variant is partially resistant to the vaccine.

I don't understand your comment. What I said is that if we'd studied it more before we'd have a bigger box of tools to throw at Covid-19. Whatever variants it may develop. We know it will change a lot over time because it's a Corona virus. If we want to be better at defeating an enemy, it's better to have studied it. Your argument seems to be that because Covid-19 is so unique, (which it isn't) there wasn't any point to have studied it more than it was.

You seem to expect us to study something that didn't exist.

We took the study of SARS as far as we could. When Covid came along we took that old research and had a vaccine candidate in two days. What more could we have done??

 

[Loren Pechtel]

A French nun who is Europe’s oldest person has recovered from Covid-19 after it swept through a nursing home in the south of France, and will celebrate her 117th birthday this week. Sister Andrée, born Lucile Randon in 1904, tested positive for the coronavirus last month at the Sainte-Catherine Labouré home near Toulon where 81 of the 88 residents contracted the virus – 10 of whom died. The nun, who will celebrate her 117th birthday on Thursday, was reported to have suffered no Covid-19 symptoms but remained confined to her room, unable to mix with other residents or attend mass. Nursing home staff told reporters her only complaint had been the “solitude”. She told Var-Matin newspaper: “I didn’t even realise I had it.”

Teh Gruaniad

A virus so deadly that you have to be tested to see if you have it.

Continuing your eternal repetition of a deceptive soundbite doesn't make it any more meaningful than it was the first time.

400,000 dead isn't deadly? Probably at least that many more will die from the damage even though they "survived" it. By the time the dust settles I would be amazed if less than a million Americans die of it.

And of course the doctors test for it--otherwise it simply looks like pneumonia. Knowing what bug is causing the illness helps the doctors treat it.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Today on No Good Deed...

The Texas doctor had six hours. Now that a vial of Covid-19 vaccine had been opened on this late December night, he had to find 10 eligible people for its remaining doses before the precious medicine expired. In six hours.

Scrambling, the doctor made house calls and directed people to his home outside Houston. Some were acquaintances; others, strangers. A bed-bound nonagenarian. A woman in her 80s with dementia. A mother with a child who uses a ventilator.
After midnight, and with just minutes before the vaccine became unusable, the doctor, Hasan Gokal, gave the last dose to his wife, who has a pulmonary disease that leaves her short of breath.

For his actions, Dr. Gokal was fired from his government job and then charged with stealing 10 vaccine doses worth a total of $135 — a shun-worthy misdemeanor
that sent his name and mug shot rocketing around the globe.

This was in late December, so we are in the 'feeling it out' part of the release. This Doctor allegedly has 9 doses that'll expire. I say allegedly because that is how the bosses will see it. He gave his wife a shot, which was probably a mistake, as it appears he is taking advantage of his position and the access it provided. But then on the other reflection of the situation, he is desperately trying not to waste a dose of the vaccine.

This is something that happens when there is prejudice in judgment of a story. If the details at the vaccine public event are accurate, this Doctor was simply working in good faith with the situation he was in... and people were rushing to judgment on him.

I don't see a rush to judgment here. Rather, I see a bureaucrat more bound to obeying the rules than taking sensible actions. Give the bureaucrat a hand grenade sans pin and point to the trash can 20 seconds away. Thou shalt not litter!

The ideal approach would be a waiting list for any such leftover doses. However, this was right at the start, there are always glitches to iron out and he hit one--no provisions had been made for such leftover doses. There's no right answer, he took the least wrong answer.

 

[Elixir]

400,000 dead isn't deadly?

Every single one of them would have survived, except they stopped breathing. Respiratory failure, not COVID.
All those "excess deaths" and "reduced life expectancy" statistics are just because of Democrats eating babies.

(Eating just one baby can reduce the average lifespan of three octogenarians by decades!)

 

[TSwizzle]

Cuomo and his administration are as crooked as they come.

Andrew Cuomo – New York’s governor who was once hailed the king of the US Covid-19 response – was facing fresh calls for his removal from office on Friday after new allegations emerged that he and senior staff covered up the extent of the virus deaths in the state’s nursing homes.
On Friday, however, New York’s 14 Democratic state senators released a joint statement calling for the repeal of Cuomo’s emergency executive powers to deal with the pandemic. “While Covid-19 has tested the limits of our people and state … it is clear that the expanded emergency powers granted to the governor are no longer appropriate,” they wrote.
It emerged earlier this week that New York’s nursing home coronavirus death toll was far higher than Cuomo’s administration had initially admitted. New figures were released following a court order in response to a freedom of information request by the Empire Center for Public Policy showed a significant rise from about 9,000 to close to 15,000 once the previously omitted deaths of nursing home residents who died in hospitals were factored in.

“Who cares [if they] died in the hospital, died in a nursing home? They died,” Cuomo said at a news conference in January after New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, released a damning report stating nursing home deaths were 50% higher than his administration had claimed.

Teh Gruaniad

Not only an arrogant piece of shit but an uncaring piece of shit to boot. It is only right that he gets booted out.

 

[ZiprHead]

Not only an arrogant piece of shit but an uncaring piece of shit to boot. It is only right that he gets booted out.

I'm sure you know about arrogant and uncaring for those stricken by this disease.

 

[Trausti]

Shot

Chaser

 

[TSwizzle]

They are both scumbags.

 

[bleubird]

https://financialpost.com/pmn/busin...cruises-until-2022-shutting-down-alaska-trips

I don't work directly in the tourist industry,but it has been a big blow to the local economy.

 

[barbos]

So, british variant is more contagious and now they say more deadly as well (got new receptor)
Are we too late with current vaccines?

 

[DrZoidberg]

So, british variant is more contagious and now they say more deadly as well (got new receptor)
Are we too late with current vaccines?

We don't know that. It's confusing causation and correlation. The fact that the British variant is spreading faster and kills more people doesn't mean that it's more contagious or deadlier. Newspapers are running with this story, because it's scary. But viruses are typically spread via super spreader events. If one variant of a virus is in circulation at an event that virus will spread explosively in a population, without necessarily being more contagious. It's odd how this virus starts spreading explosively at a time when people are sick of the isolation and are starting to behave more risky.

It's going to take a long time before we know for sure that it really is more contagious or deadlier.

When they call a mutation a variant then we know there's little cause for alarm. Variants among viruses means that the virus behaves the same way. Ie the changes in the DNA/RNA is somewhere harmless. Usually mutations are just random noise. If it does change the behaviour it usually makes it less dangerous. Occasionally it does truly become different in behaviour, and then we start calling it a different "strain". As long as researchers are referring to this as a "variant" and not a "strain", we can chill.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

So, british variant is more contagious and now they say more deadly as well (got new receptor)
Are we too late with current vaccines?

Current vaccines seem to work against it as well (at least, those tested so far pass), so not too late.

 

[barbos]

So, british variant is more contagious and now they say more deadly as well (got new receptor)
Are we too late with current vaccines?

Current vaccines seem to work against it as well (at least, those tested so far pass), so not too late.

There is African variant, which is worse than British and current vaccine is even less effective.

 

[DrZoidberg]

So, british variant is more contagious and now they say more deadly as well (got new receptor)
Are we too late with current vaccines?

Current vaccines seem to work against it as well (at least, those tested so far pass), so not too late.

There is African variant, which is worse than British and current vaccine is even less effective.

It still works against serious Covid-19. With that vaccine you won't die from it nor have a serious disease. Which, arguably, is what we really care about.

We still don't know how well any of the vaccines prevent asymptomatic infection and spread. And it was always estimated to be something like 20% of the carriers. So it's always good to get vaccinated, no matter what.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

So, british variant is more contagious and now they say more deadly as well (got new receptor)
Are we too late with current vaccines?

Current vaccines seem to work against it as well (at least, those tested so far pass), so not too late.

There is African variant, which is worse than British and current vaccine is even less effective.

Yes, that one is a problem for the Oxford - Astra-Zeneca vaccine. The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine still seems to work well-enough iirc. In any case, from what I've read the kind of platform used by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech allows them to come up with an update for a new variant in a very short time if needed. Others can do so as well, but not nearly as fast. So, my guess would be that if new variants appear more quickly than expected, those two will likely dominate the market, or else someone else will use the same kind of tech.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

It still works against serious Covid-19. With that vaccine you won't die from it nor have a serious disease. Which, arguably, is what we really care about.

Okay, so it works but not as well. However, it doesn't prevent transmission, and that's a difficulty because other, not yet vaccinated people would get it (it's not clear how much the vaccines work against infections, though it probably does better against other variants than the South African one).

 

[DrZoidberg]

It still works against serious Covid-19. With that vaccine you won't die from it nor have a serious disease. Which, arguably, is what we really care about.

Okay, so it works but not as well. However, it doesn't prevent transmission, and that's a difficulty because other, not yet vaccinated people would get it (it's not clear how much the vaccines work against infections, though it probably does better against other variants than the South African one).

We still haven't any data om whether any of the vaccines prevent transmission. Anybody, at this stage, making a statement is speculating.

Worth noting is that we have no idea about how many were asymptomatically infected and are now immune. This means that when the vaccine starts being spread in the population, we won't know if the fall in numbers of infected is because of the vaccine or because of a high number of immune asymptomatics. Making any calculation about the efficacy of the vaccine questionable. Add to that any number of other factors we have yet to discover. The efficacy numbers we do have are all from in vitro, ie test tubes. Certainly encouraging. But from test tubes to the real world, it can differ a lot.

So for all we know the vaccine could be worthless at preventing spread, yet as people are vaccinated the spread decreases to match, falsely giving the impression that the vaccines protect against spread.

People vaccinated might become assymptomatic spreaders. So vaccinating might make the numbers of infected carriers shoot through the roof and increasing spread. There's just so much we don't know.

All we really can say is that it's better to be vaccinated than not.

edit: Me and some friends were discussing this and someone got frustrated and asked why we don't know more yet, and a doctor friend said, "vaccines usually take twelve years to develop. If we'd taken twelve years on this we'd know all this".

 

[barbos]

Worth noting is that we have no idea about how many were asymptomatically infected and are now immune.

Recent rather sharp drop in US and GB and less sharp in other countries suggests massive herd immunity.
Nothing really changed to explain this improvement. I suspect careless part of the population is either dead, in the hospital or got through asymptotically and now immune. So no more spreading.