Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19) (SARS-CoV-2) [2020]

Do we have a large enough sample that proves it with statistical significance?

 

All mutations are protected by the current vaccines FYI.

 

The current known mutations and also new viruses may emerge in the future.

 

It is unlikely that it will mutate enough to evade the vaccines in the short term. Here's a really interesting study showing how one of the human coronaviruses gradually evolved to evade earlier antibodies:



This will obviously occur with Covid-19 and, perhaps more quickly initially as it is such a novel virus which people's immune systems have no experience of dealing with. However, we know that immune memory for SARS is long-lasting (obviously SARS hasn't been mutating in millions of folk, however), so, once exposed, the majority of people will have better protection against the virus in the future.

I'd personally guess that, once everyone is vaccinated, those in wealthy nations will end up having booster shots every year or two for a while until it eventually becomes just another addition to the human coronavirus stable which doesn't cause much more than coughs and colds. And, of course, the research into potential treatments will continue apace and we will undoubtedly be paying a lot more attention to other potentially lethal viruses and working to produce treatments for them (there are some other really nasty viruses in bats as well).

You'd hope that the governments will be more prepared in the future for instant lockdowns if it appears a new virus is in circulation. I'd advocate a UBI even if at just a peppercorn level running in the background. If you then need to shut down the economy for a week or two, it is easy to just pump money into people's pockets (so to speak). But that's a political thing so probably not for this thread.

 

And since we FINALLY (after some 50 years of research) have mRNA vaccines, we are much better prepared for the next pandemic.
Historically there has been ~2 pandemics per century...but since the last one was 1918-1920 we have had some 100 years...which mean peole have forgotten how deadly these can be...and anti-vaxxer retards do not help either...but you cannot fix stupid:

 

Venezuelan people are having serious nutrition problems too.
This may aggravate the problem.

 

MAP: Covid-19 vaccination tracker across the U.S.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/map-covid-19-vaccination-tracker-across-u-s-n1252085

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The wife and I got our first dose of the two-dose vaccine January 23, 2021 at the Fair Park Mega Center in Dallas. The second shot is scheduled for February 19, 2021.

So we are two of the 2,181,310 that have had at least the first shot in Texas and will add to the 2.1% that are Fully vaccinated on February 19th.

 

My sister got her first shot January 5th and second shot was Wednesday, February 3rd. It should have been done on the 2nd but scheduling made it rougher, so it slipped by 1 day. She had no symptoms or reactions to the first shot. One day after her second shot she had a raging fever (yesterday). It went over 103 but then broke later in the day and seemed to drop to 101. I haven't checked yet to see how she's doing today.

So it's progress to know that nurses working at hospitals are receiving their vaccine doses.

 

And probably poor care. They're having economic and political problems so nobody in that family may have had any access to health care.

For instance, the kids might not have died if they got to hospital and they knew how to try to alleviate the symptoms or use some drugs which have some effect on covid, such as dexamethasone.

 

The immune response to the second shot is much stronger, also what gives the high efficacy.

 

Another data point about the susceptibility of young kids to getting infected and infecting others.

Maybe the B117 variant will change the calculus on how vulnerable kids under 10 are.

 

I think the theory is that this variant leads to higher viral load so more obvious infections amongst children. It's probable that a lot of young children have been infected with the earlier variants, but just haven't had enough of a viral load to spread it much or show symptoms. If this is actually the case, it would be good in the longer term as young children will have begun to develop their immunity to this virus which will be with us all the time from now onwards.

I'm assuming that the vast majority (if not all) of these cases among the children in this town will be mild and their parents will most likely be OK due to their age. It is important to watch out for the inflammatory syndrome which a very small proportion of infected children will go on to develop.

 

Well it's not that obvious it seems:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...-vaccinations-over-variant-data-idUSKBN2A70PY

 

You need to read more than headlines.
Try looking at the data from South Africa.

Of those infected with COVID-19 that had the Astra-Vaccine:

- How many died?
- How many needed respirator?
- How many need hospitalization?

The devil is the details once again.

I think you link is wrong, so I cannot see your "source" btw

 

My understanding is that the main problem was/is a too small number of specialized units. And there's little you can do about that: you can't oversize too much or costs will skyrocket. That doesn't mean the health care systems can't get better, it just means that there's only so much that can be done without costing too much and when facing brand new diseases.

I'm convinced no preparation could have prevented the various levels of resitrictions we've had; how do you prevent a contagion? By preventing people from getting close to each others until there's a vaccine, there's no way around that; letting a deadly virus spread hoping we'll be able to cure people in hospitals is silly.

I guess you know I was ironic

 

Holy cow, the link was wrong. Apologies!

I read the article, and it makes sense IMHO.

 

It's bad news that the AZ vaccine doesn't appear to offer much protection against mild disease in this variant, though perhaps not a surprise. If the variant is able to reinfect people who contracted earlier variants (which would be more like the protein spike used in the vaccine), then the same would tend to go for those vaccinated.

It's why we really need to know just how likely severe disease is after reinfection or vaccination. You can understand the SA authorities pausing their vaccination programme until this is known but it is going to take another trial to be sure one way or the other! Not good news.

I had hoped that we would be able to greatly get a grip on the course of the pandemic during 2021, but I'm now thinking that it's likely to take another year.

 

I heard the South Africa decision was made on a small scale study.

It may be that they have access to other vaccines so they decided to skip the AZ, which is cheaper.

 

Israel has has several reports indicating reductions in infection rates among those already vaccinated.

The latest is data from a lab showing much lower viral load among the over 60 cohort:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/vacci...-transmit-coronavirus-israeli-study-suggests/


The overall new case rate of Israel is still very high, much higher than for instance last summer and into the fall.

But they're gradually pushing out vaccinations to younger groups.

 

The question, of course, is what happens when (or perhaps if?) the SA variant hits Israel in the future. Will infections rise quickly once again for another wave, or will the Pfizer vaccine and pre-existing immunity from infection with other variants keep it in check? It has occurred to me that it would be very helpful if infection with the 'UK variant' provided convalescents with good protection against the SA variant. They share some of the same mutations so it would be very nice to see if the spread was slowed when it came across people with antibodies for the UK variant.