Coronavirus COVID-19 - Global Health Pandemic #89

[sds71]

[URL]https://twitter.com/JenniferJJacobs
@JenniferJJacobs[/URL]

Trump, Pence and other top U.S. officials will be offered the newly-approved coronavirus vaccine starting tomorrow, sources say. Essential personnel in WH and certain officials in three branches of govt vaccinated within next 10 days.

Covid-19 Live Updates: White House Staff Will Be Among the First to Get Vaccinated

 

[weepingangel]

you’d think some of them would be still carrying immunity. Why waste the precious....

@JenniferJJacobs

Trump, Pence and other top U.S. officials will be offered the newly-approved coronavirus vaccine starting tomorrow, sources say. Essential personnel in WH and certain officials in three branches of govt vaccinated within next 10 days.

Covid-19 Live Updates: White House Staff Will Be Among the First to Get Vaccinated

 

[Reasonable & Just]

you’d think some of them would be still carrying immunity. Why waste the precious....

Exactly. At least that was their story, right?

Secret Service, assistants, housekeeping - 100% they should get it first. The rest of those party animals? Sketchy, especially when they turned down the chance to buy more doses, and then tried to spread it through their revelry.

 

[SouthAussie]

Swartzberg said some vaccines prompt functional immunity, meaning recipients can contract a virus and transmit it but not develop a disease. If that were the case with the new inoculations, there would still be a need for preventive measures such as social distancing and mask wearing until about 70% of the general public were protected, thereby achieving herd immunity.

If the vaccines produce what’s known as sterilized immunity, as the measles and polio vaccines do, recipients wouldn’t get sick or spread the virus. Obviously, that’s the ideal scenario.

Swartzberg said data from Pfizer “suggests that the vaccine may tilt toward sterilized immunity, not completely, but it may tilt there. Let’s say it protects 95% of the people from getting sick and maybe it will prevent 90% or 85% of the population from being contagious. That would be fabulous.”

COVID deaths: US nears 300,000 deaths, fatalities expected to increase

 

[SouthAussie]

An assembly line of workers began in the early hours, pulling doses out of a freezer, boxing the vaccine and loading the units onto pallets so they could be placed on trucks at a Pfizer plant in Michigan.

Dry ice, shipping labels and packing tape were on hand as the workers — donning masks, face shields and gloves — put together the packages inside the warehouse.

The US expects to have immunised 100 million people with the coronavirus vaccine by the end of the first quarter of 2021, the chief US adviser for efforts on COVID-19 vaccines said.

He said the United States hopes to immunise 40 million people this month and another 50 million to 80 million in January.

Pfizer shipments begin in biggest vaccine rollout in US history

 

[CrimeAway]

The latest TWIV from the team behind www.virology.ws
The podcast is hosted by Vincent Racaniello, a virologist at Columbia University.
It is also available on www.microbe.tv
but I watch/listen on YouTube, so I can speed up to 1.25

 

[nightowl1975]

Exactly. At least that was their story, right?

Secret Service, assistants, housekeeping - 100% they should get it first. The rest of those party animals? Sketchy, especially when they turned down the chance to buy more doses, and then tried to spread it through their revelry.

If they choose not to take it, they’ll be slammed for spreading doubt/questions/etc about the safety of the vaccine. If they take it, they’re taking a vaccine from someone more worthy/needy/deserving. Seems to be a bit of a conundrum. I would be surprised if Trump took it, for a variety of reasons. But I’m not at all surprised that he’s being offered it. Biden will supposedly get vaccinated tomorrow as well.

FWIW, two of my four children have had covid so far. If I were going to vaccinate them, I wouldn’t vaccinate the two who have already had covid. To my knowledge, there’s no research on doing so. I’m not vaccinating them, or myself, anytime soon, so it’s not an issue either way. I have access to be vaccinated myself as early as the end of this week, but I have declined for now.

 

[dixiegirl1035]

I haven't time to go down that rabbit hole yet, but I can say that Katalin Karikó was the one who started the mRNA investigations and experimentations back in the 1990s, with Drew Weissman collaborating, then others.
This article briefly mentions scientific papers that may be available out there to read.

I also read that a new technology allowed the further development.

The story of mRNA: From a loose idea to a tool that may help curb Covid

What a great article, thanks for sharing. So interesting! Again, example as to how the exponential learning curve for technology is happening with this pandemic MOO

A bit of trivia to share at your next cocktail conversation (12 months from now ) from the article is the derivation of the name Moderna. the firm Moderna — a new word combining modified and RNA

 

[acutename]

Question for all. If you see an article/study/report on how mRNA vaccines are done/grown large scale, can you post as I would like to learn how the mRNA is replicated in such quantity. It's not cell culture like the old ones I'm familiar with the technology (or going further back in eggs!)... wondering minds want to know and educate.

And furthermore, how does having a computer sequence of the virus in January get taken from the coding, into a computer, and then to real life making a snippet in quantities. (or heck, for the antibodies development also)

I can't wrap my mind around how this is done. And with Dr. C and Dr. S backgrounds here, perhaps it could be understood if a technical paper?

I haven't seen anything on such on threads...

Thanks.

ETA: I said before and will again.. this is like the moonshot in the 60's.. the scientific community is doing an exponential learning phase for this virus which can be used for other diseases perhaps. I firmly believe such.

as per Dr Google, grow it in bacteria?

How are mRNA vaccines produced?
mRNA synthesis

Functional synthetic mRNA may be obtained by in vitro transcription of a cDNA template, typically plasmid DNA (pDNA), using a bacteriophage RNA polymerase. Hence, the preparation of pDNA is the first step in the production of mRNA.

not sure that is the only way....

 

[acutename]

If they choose not to take it, they’ll be slammed for spreading doubt/questions/etc about the safety of the vaccine. If they take it, they’re taking a vaccine from someone more worthy/needy/deserving. Seems to be a bit of a conundrum. I would be surprised if Trump took it, for a variety of reasons. But I’m not at all surprised that he’s being offered it. Biden will supposedly get vaccinated tomorrow as well.

FWIW, two of my four children have had covid so far. If I were going to vaccinate them, I wouldn’t vaccinate the two who have already had covid. To my knowledge, there’s no research on doing so. I’m not vaccinating them, or myself, anytime soon, so it’s not an issue either way. I have access to be vaccinated myself as early as the end of this week, but I have declined for now.

why do you not want it ?

 

[mickey2942]

They can't make you take a vaccine, but I definitely see "Tier One" and "Tier Two" in society, based on who has been vaccinated against Covid.

 

[24Roses]

Iowa numbers today: As of 10:00 a.m., we had 1,239 new confirmed cases for a total of 256,248 confirmed cases of which 188,924 are recovering (IMO +1,461). 1 more had passed away for a total of 3,213. 95 were hospitalized in the last 24 hrs. for a total of 749 (IMO -71). Iowa COVID-19 cases, deaths Dec. 13

 

[dixiegirl1035]

The latest TWIV from the team behind www.virology.ws
The podcast is hosted by Vincent Racaniello, a virologist at Columbia University.
It is also available on www.microbe.tv
but I watch/listen on YouTube, so I can speed up to 1.25

Thanks for the reminder to speed up Youtubes. I watch so many everyday, and this would help.

 

[Yvettea]

“A 15-year-old from Meadowbrook, Pennsylvania is making waves this week for her catchy holiday song, “Lonely Christmas.”

Wallis Schriver, whose stage name is simply Wallis, released her debut single on Dec. 3 without realizing she had a hit on her hands.

The young talent collaborated on the song with her dad, Gene Schriver, writing and recording the entire song last month as a way to channel their thoughts and feelings about the pandemic. Her younger sisters, Maren, 13, and Soleil, 10, accompanied her on the song to harmonize, making it a full family affair.“

Pennsylvania teen, 15, captures 2020 in catchy original holiday song

I hope she writes something more. This is great. IMO

edited to add link

 

[acutename]

I respectfully and strongly disagree. We NEVER shut the virus down. Every chart will show that fact in a visual form.

Some countries may have used their knowledge to contain the virus, but America is definitely not one of them. The data makes that crystal clear.

I should have said in my State/local area- we had no new cases for awhile and a transmission rate below 1 at the end of the summer. It seemed as if the virus was really in decline. The US is a big country and while things were improving in the east, they started getting worse in the south and west. I also note that countries that were doing well for awhile- South Korea and Germany- got bad again. The idea that you can shut down and then partially re-open with precautions.... I dunno... virus seems to flare back up.

 

[margarita25]

 

[SouthAussie]

I also note that countries that were doing well for awhile- South Korea and Germany- got bad again. The idea that you can shut down and then partially re-open with precautions.... I dunno... virus seems to flare back up.

Shutting down and partially re-opening with precautions is certainly a much better way to go than 'sort of' shutting down and then opening everything back up before the virus has been controlled.

The key is to stop everyone moving around and spreading the virus everywhere. The virus cannot spread by itself, it needs human hosts to do that.

South Korea did not lockdown ...
South Korea has managed to avoid locking down the country and has instead relied on voluntary social distancing measures alongside an aggressive track, trace and test strategy to combat the virus.
Coronavirus: South Korea confirms second wave of infections

And Germany has not locked down properly .....
On 2 November the country entered a “soft lockdown” that tried to heed the concerns of industry, with rules tightened on gatherings and bars and restaurants closed, but shops and schools remaining open.
Compromise lockdown struggles to subdue Germany's Covid second wave

 

[SouthAussie]

NBA star Karl-Anthony Towns says he has lost 7 family members to coronavirus

The star NBA player, who is preparing to start his sixth season in the NBA, said that the death of his uncle on Thursday marked the seventh death in his family connected to the coronavirus.

 

[SouthAussie]

A $908 billion bipartisan COVID-19 relief plan set to be introduced in the U.S. Congress as early as Monday will be split into two packages in a bid to win approval, a person briefed on the matter said.

One will be a $748 billion measure, which contains money for small businesses, the jobless and COVID-19 vaccine distribution. The other will include some key sticking points: liability protections for business and $160 billion for state and local governments.

U.S. lawmakers plan to split $908 billion COVID-19 plan into two parts: source

 

[acutename]

you’d think some of them would be still carrying immunity. Why waste the precious....

wonder if you get Regeneron or some other monoclonal antibody, how long it protects you and if it is not as long as if you did (or could?) produce your own anti bodies.

if you read this article:
Covid antibody treatment helps improve symptoms, early results show

it seems that it really only mimics, but does not, exceed, a healthy human's own immune response... so unless they have found out more, Regeneron can work in place of a human's own immune response, but it is no faster or more effective than a natural healthy immune response.