Novel coronavirus (COVID-19) resources and discussion thread (Discussion guidelines in OP)

Deleted member 13101 · May 17, 2020

CT reporting 69 deaths and over 10% testing positive. We're over halfway through May now and deaths have barely declined in the state. If it keeps going this way it will no longer be a "lagging indicator". From the press briefings it sounds like the governors of NY and CT are prepared to live with this daily death count without further mention. Disappointing. At least Murphy of NJ is still highlighting the lives of people who died.

This week is CT's reopen week for the source of almost half of its unemployment claims, starting Wednesday. Rain is in the forecast here and there so we'll see how this outdoor dining shift at 50% capacity does, people may just go to the malls instead.

This week is also "expanded" testing week for NY and CT, expecting over 42,000 tests performed a week in each state. Contact tracing is also set to begin in earnest. This is all fine, as is hospital capacity for a flare-up, but without treatment and answers surrounding ailments in both children and adults, it's still a very risky time. Masks are not things people seem to want to wear, unfortunately.

sweetmini · May 17, 2020

Bulletin for the
French situation for today 17/05:

142411 confirmed cases + 120 in 24H
hospital:
19361 hospitalized -71 in 24 H (152 entries)
2087 in intensive care -45 in 24 H (24 entries)
17466 dead + 54 in 24 H

Care homes:
36461 confirmed cases + 286 in 24H
10642 dead + 429 (not a typo, four hundred and twenty nine, most likely lagging reporting)

Total 28108 deaths + 483.

Hospital graphs:

ICU entries:

mario_O · May 17, 2020

Euler said:
The weird part is how it reports these things as facts when they are not, I mean. I have no idea about which Spanish outlets are reliable or not so I'll take your word for that.

Well, France24 is also reporting today about Sweden's failed strategy. And according Lena Einhorn (a Swedish virologist) herd immunity has always been the strategy:

"They [government] have denied it, but under their breaths they have acknowledged a herd immunity strategy. She pointed to Tegnell's comments in an interview with newspaper Aftonbladet in March: He said that the "basic idea" of herd immunity is "probably starting to become more and more relevant the more we see of this virus".

Sweden’s Covid-19 strategy has caused an ‘amplification of the epidemic’

Sweden is famously one of the few countries to have opted against a lockdown to contain the spread of the coronavirus. But given that the country has a much higher death toll per million than its Nordic…

www.google.com

Euler · May 17, 2020

mario_O said:
Well, France24 is also reporting today about Sweden's failed strategy. And according Lena Einhorn (a Swedish virologist) herd immunity has always been the strategy:

"They [government] have denied it, but under their breaths they have acknowledged a herd immunity strategy. She pointed to Tegnell's comments in an interview with newspaper Aftonbladet in March: He said that the "basic idea" of herd immunity is "probably starting to become more and more relevant the more we see of this virus".

Sweden’s Covid-19 strategy has caused an ‘amplification of the epidemic’

Sweden is famously one of the few countries to have opted against a lockdown to contain the spread of the coronavirus. But given that the country has a much higher death toll per million than its Nordic…

www.google.com

You can call it a failed strategy with respect to the number of deaths if you want, the high number of deaths compared to most countries are facts.

What Lena Einhorn says there is still just her opinion, that quote doesn't mean anything more than that. Tegnell says it's the natural end result, by vaccines or not, not the strategy. The strategy is to flatten the curve with restrictions. The healthcare has been strained not been overwhelmed, which shows that the curve has been flattened enough for that. To that specific respect, it has succeeded.
It's still awful that there has been a lot more deaths than all neighboring countries, and that's the important thing in the end.

Your Spanish article was awful since it had a bunch of fact errors. The French one seems a lot better in that regard.

Teh_Lurv · May 17, 2020

Boston city officials released results of a COVID-19 & antibody test conducted in four Boston neighborhoods. 750 volunteers were selected and tested. The results:

East Boston: 1.1 percent tested positive for COVID-19, 13.3 percent tested positive for antibodies

Roslindale: 2.2 percent tested positive for COVID-19, 7.6 percent tested positive for antibodies

02121 in Dorchester: 2.7 percent tested positive for COVID-19, 6.3 percent tested positive for antibodies

02125 in Dorchester: 4.6 percent tested positive for COVID-19, 12.1 percent tested positive for antibodies

Boston has released the results of its coronavirus and antibody testing. Here's what to know.

Boston officials Friday released the results of the coronavirus and antibody testing performed on 750 asymptomatic residents in some of the city’s neighborhoods hardest hit by the ongoing pandemic. The […]

www.boston.com

Musician · May 17, 2020

Hm. Swedish state run television program Agenda has interviewed Belgian professor Pierre van Damme regarding the swedish model. The interview was neither here, nor there but Jan Albert, a professor at KI, hinted in a response to the interview that the levels of immunity in Stockholm might not exceed 20% at the moment despite earlier indications and predictions. Less virulent but more deadly seems to be the current thought, but I think Jan Albert acted pretty baffled. The numbers don't seem to add up. At least he was honest and more or less sad that their previously predictions of up to 30% at the end of April were simply wrong.

He speculated that maybe current antibody tests, even those which seem to be 100% accurate, are missing a large part of the "dark" number of infected due to... some reason. Not very convincing.

I can't decide whether this is good or bad news. On the one hand, the virus might be easier to contain than previously thought which means that the world will find a way of "living with" the virus a lot sooner, on the other hand it might be more deadly than we'd hoped.

On the whole I'm just feeling very confused and it seems that Folkhälsomyndigheten might be as well.

Kubuh · May 17, 2020

Musician said:
Hm. Swedish state run television program Agenda has interviewed Belgian professor Pierre van Damme regarding the swedish model. The interview was neither here, nor there but Jan Albert, a professor at KI, hinted in a response to the interview that the levels of immunity in Stockholm might not exceed 20% at the moment despite earlier indications and predictions. Less virulent but more deadly seems to be the current thought, but I think Jan Albert acted pretty baffled. The numbers don't seem to add up. At least he was honest regarding their previously predictions of up to 30% at the end of April were wrong.

He speculated that maybe current antibody tests, even those which seem to be 100% accurate, are missing a large part of the "dark" number of infected, but that's neither here nor there I think.

I can't decide whether this is good or bad news. On the one hand, the virus might be easier to contain than previously thought which means that the world will find a way of "living with" the virus a lot sooner, on the other hand it might be more deadly than we'd hoped.

On the whole I'm just feeling very confused and it seems that Folkhälsomyndigheten might be as well.

They've said they'll release information about the recent antibody tests in the upcoming week so we should hopefully know more soon. But as long as the graphs keep going down I guess the actual % doesn't really matter that much to be honest. But it would go along with the fact that they seem to have upped the suspected IFR to 0.6% on Friday.

Doc Kelso · May 17, 2020

Ugh, one of the parks in Jersey already closed back down after reopening; Too many people and not enough room for social distancing. The cat's outta the bag and nobody is going to let it get put back in. I was hoping NYC and North NJ would get their shit together but it sounds like NYC w as a total disaster over the weekend thanks to the warm weather. Stories of people ordering takeout from bars and just hanging out nearby instead of going home.

electristan · May 17, 2020

Norway had its National day today, 17. mai (Gratulerer med dagen!), and there are some great pictures showing what Oslo and other towns look lite normally on the 17th compared with today. I'm very happily surprised we did this well considering this would be like the US and July 4th. restrictions are letting up here slowly, but if we stay this disciplined, together with all the careful work done so far, im more positive we can do well long term.

All Pictures (nrk.no)

This again is from a country that is doing remarkably well numbers wise on their national day. Hope for a more social June increasing :) Heia Norge!

Razgriz417 · May 17, 2020

my friend lives right by the water and missed the season pass for the beach, so pissed right now. Guessing this is what all the NJ beaches will be doing this year. Daily/season passes to the beach

Asbury Park Beaches | Asbury Park, NJ

Asbury Park's mile of sand and water has been drawing surfers, swimmers, sunbathers, fishers, and people-watchers for centuries.

www.cityofasburypark.com

Rockets · May 17, 2020

Seeing more and more of my friends hanging out smh I pray to god they don't get it

darkwing · May 17, 2020

oof malls in a region of our country had to close down again because people were not social distancing

Rhaknar · May 17, 2020

True Savior said:
Make no mistake, most european countries moving forward are following sweden. We are all reopening and we haven't moved an inch in terms of therapy and are now preaching, again, social-distancing like it's going to miraculously solve the problem.

that's what it feels like, and whatever second wave hits, they won't shut down everything a second time.

Chikor · May 18, 2020

This is so bad, we're gonna fuck poor countries so that amazingly profitable pharmaceutical companies in the richest countries in the world can make even more money.

US and UK 'lead push against global patent pool for Covid-19 drugs'

Efforts to dilute world health assembly resolution on open licensing decried as ‘appalling’

www.theguardian.com

US and UK 'lead push against global patent pool for Covid-19 drugs'

"If we can develop a vaccine that is produced by the world, for the whole world, this will be a unique global public good of the 21st century," they said in a statement.

The sole resolution before the assembly this year is an EU proposal for a voluntary patent pool. Drug and vaccine companies would then be under pressure to give up the monopoly that patents allow them on their inventions, which means they can charge high prices, so that all countries can make or buy affordable versions.

In the weeks of negotiations leading up to the meeting, which is scheduled to last for less than a day, there has been a dispute over the language of the resolution. Countries with major pharmaceutical companies argue they need patents to guarantee sufficiently high prices in wealthy nations to recoup their research and development costs.

Remdesivir: Five Indian and Pakistani firms to make drug to 'fight coronavirus'

The deal between Gilead and companies in South Asia will help make the drug for 127 countries.

www.bbc.com

A US pharmaceutical firm has signed agreements with drug makers in South Asia to expand supply of the drug remdesivir for treating Covid-19. The agreement between Gilead and five generic pharmaceutical companies in India and Pakistan will help make the medicine for 127 countries. Under the licensing agreement, the five companies have the "right to receive a technology transfer of the Gilead manufacturing process for remdesivir to enable them to scale up their production quickly", a statement from Gilead said.

The licences would be royalty-free until the World Health Organization (WHO) declares the end of the public health emergency arising out of Covid-19, or until another pharmaceutical product or a vaccine is approved to treat or prevent the disease, the statement said. The agreements allow the Cipla Limited, Ferozsons Laboratories, Hetero Labs Ltd, Jubilant Lifesciences and Mylan to manufacture the drug.

Coronavirus: How India will play a major role in a Covid-19 vaccine

As one of the world's biggest vaccine makers, India could play a big role in stopping the virus.

www.bbc.com

India is among the largest manufacturer of generic drugs and vaccines in the world. It is home to half a dozen major vaccine makers and a host of smaller ones, making doses against polio, meningitis, pneumonia, rotavirus, BCG, measles, mumps and rubella, among other diseases.

Now half a dozen Indian firms are developing vaccines against the virus that causes Covid-19.

One of them is Serum Institute of India, the world's largest vaccine maker by number of doses produced and sold globally. The 53-year-old company makes 1.5 billion doses every year, mainly from its two facilities in the western city of Pune. (It has two other small plants in the Netherlands and the Czech Republic.) Around 7,000 people work for the firm.

Hyderabad's IICT can reverse engineer COVID-19 drug in 3 months

City-based Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT) has the ability to roll out a generic version of the COVID19 vaccine within a few months, in case multinational pharmaceutical companies refuse to sell or share coronavirus vaccine technology with India.

telanganatoday.com

City-based Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT) has the ability to roll out a generic version of the COVID19 drug within a few months, in case multinational pharmaceutical companies refuse to sell or share coronavirus drug technology with India.

At present, there are over 50 major pharma companies worldwide that have joined the race to develop a drug for the novel coronavirus. While the drug is still at least a year or 18 months away from the actual launch, the IICT researchers on Friday said that once the drug is launched they would be able to reverse engineer the technology and transfer it to Indian pharmaceutical companies for mass manufacturing.

So Indian scientists say they need 3 months to reverse engineer any future drugs.

And yeah, I agree that greedy Western big pharma will try to exploit this to make money like they have always done. Poorer countries like India with huge populations living in poverty just cannot afford to do that and will quickly do their own thing to get around any obstacles that American/European pharma countries try to put in legally. I am sure China will do the same considering they currently have a monopoly on a lot of the ingredients needed to make these drugs

Chikor said:
That's how you get sanctions and tariffs.

Well, yes. But India has been able to get away with it for a long time now through a set of laws and loopholes. Plus considering the US depends on India and China for their generic drugs, I am not sure how effective Tariffs and Sanctions will be. Trump may do it - but it would not be easy.

The coronavirus exposed the US' reliance on India for generic drugs. But that supply chain is ultimately controlled by China

Phife Dawg · May 18, 2020

Chikor said:
This is so bad, we're gonna fuck poor countries so that amazingly profitable pharmaceutical companies in the richest countries in the world can make even more money.

US and UK 'lead push against global patent pool for Covid-19 drugs'

Efforts to dilute world health assembly resolution on open licensing decried as ‘appalling’

www.theguardian.com

more at the link.

Yeah, this is infuriating on many levels, esp. since R&D for treatments and vaccines is partly funded by government stimulus around the world. It's also very shortsighted bc in our globalized world it's of utmost importance that we beat the pandemic asap on a global scale. And that's not even discussing obvious moral issues.

Xando said:
Reverse engineering will take time which means people will die because the UK and US are profit sharks.

Article also mentions Switzerland and other countries which have pharmaceutical interests.

Chikor · May 18, 2020

Phife Dawg said:
Yeah, this is infuriating on many levels, esp. since R&D for treatments and vaccines is partly funded by government stimulus around the world. It's also very shortsighted bc in our globalized world it's of utmost importance that we beat the pandemic asap on a global scale. And that's not even discussing obvious moral issues.

100% agreed.
Even from a cynical STONKS! point of view, not mobilizing all global resources toward vaccine research and production seem in-fucking-sane to me.

Joni · May 18, 2020

Belgium: 28 new deaths, of which 16 in the hospital and 12 in retirement homes. Total deaths is now 9.080. Seems like the situation in retirement homes is stabilizing, probably because deaths are much more frontloaded there. 43 new hospitalisations, but only 27 discharges. It is however clear weekend effect on the latter. Means that currently 1.614 beds are used. 3 people have been discharged from intensive care, which means 342 beds are used.

derFeef · May 18, 2020

Was hat the hospital today.
Mostly civilized and people playing by the rules. But some just don't get.
No mask, no distance, shout angry stuff at nurses at checkpoint because they don't understand the situation at all.

Joni · May 18, 2020

Macron and Merkel are planning to present a plan to recover the EU in terms of health care, economic repair and environment. That is going to be interesting.

KushalaDaora · May 18, 2020

"Do you fear corona ma'am"
"Yes sir, I really fear corona, I really do"
"Then why are you here?"
"I haven't bought a new clothes for my son to wear for the upcoming Eid Mubarak holiday sir"

viral-video-ribuan-warga-tumpah-ruah-di-pasar-anyar-bogor-rgb.jpg

Indonesian in a nutshell regarding the pandemic.

We are fucked.

sweetmini · May 18, 2020

Joni said:
Macron and Merkel are planning to present a plan to recover the EU in terms of health care, economic repair and environment. That is going to be interesting.

It's dearly needed.
For healthcare alone, the fiasco of the Discovery tests (stalled for more than a month) are the latest of a long string of shameful events during the pandemic... it's as if they DID NOT WANT for us to find therapy within a proper scientific framework.

New Donker · May 18, 2020

So...the us is likely to hit 100k deaths by the end of the week, right? This is tucking awful.

darkwing · May 18, 2020

HenryEen said:
"Do you fear corona ma'am"
"Yes sir, I really fear corona, I really do"
"Then why are you here?"
"I haven't bought a new clothes for my son to wear for the upcoming Eid Mubarak holiday sir"

Indonesian in a nutshell regarding the pandemic.

We are fucked.

noooo :( all those weeks of lockdown will be for nothing

Joni · May 18, 2020

SeanR1221 said:
So...the us is likely to hit 100k deaths by the end of the week, right? This is tucking awful.

No, it should manage to miss that this week.

sweetmini · May 18, 2020

darkwing said:
noooo :( all those weeks of lockdown will be for nothing

Even in the worst cases it's never for nothing... it's little solace, but the ICU protocols that are in place globally have cut death rates by a big amount ... it varies on case by case basis, but still experience has been gathered and for some the risk has been divided by 3 or more (curative anti clotting for intubation alone had a big big impact) ... the more you push back the arrivals, the better the care because we have a better understanding.

Xando · May 18, 2020

Witness · May 18, 2020

Xando said:

Everyone developed antibodies as if they were infected and a few people had high doses with some side effects so they also figured out how much is too much. This is fantastic news! Probably thread worthy. On to phase 2 and phase 3 in July. This may end up needing to be 2 doses completed 1 month apart, similar to MMR. This is the vaccine that the NIH was talking about that could be ready for primetime by end of year or the beginning of 2021.

RocknRola · May 18, 2020

Portugal:

29209 confirmed cases.
+ 173 since yesterday. 0.66% growth.
1231 deaths.
+ 13 since yesterday.
6430 recoveries.
+ 1794 since yesterday. Massive bump here.

628 people hospitalised.
- 21 since yesterday.
105 in the ICU.
- 3 since yesterday.

---------------

Sunday numbers, but that's a pretty big recoveries bump right there.

RocknRola · May 18, 2020

CJohn said:
An outbreak seems to be starting in some regions in the Setubal district, namely Moita, Barreiro, Montijo, Seixal and Almada which are having big bumps every day. And I live in one of those...

Yeah, the Lisbon area/region still has an R of 1 (or sightly above), which is an issue. Especially given our general aptitude to.. you know....ignore rules >.>

CJohn · May 18, 2020

RocknRola said:
Portugal:

29209 confirmed cases.
+ 173 since yesterday. 0.66% growth.
1231 deaths.
+ 13 since yesterday.
6430 recoveries.
+ 1794 since yesterday. Massive bump here.

628 people hospitalised.
- 21 since yesterday.
105 in the ICU.
- 3 since yesterday.

---------------

Sunday numbers, but that's a pretty big recoveries bump right there.

I am kinda worried by that jump of new cases on a Sunday. The last couple of Sundays were both under 100 new cases. Hopefully the adjustment tomorrow and Wednesday won't be too drastic.

RocknRola said:
Yeah, the Lisbon area/region still has an R of 1 (or sightly above), which is an issue. Especially given our general aptitude to.. you know....ignore rules >.>

People here on Moita almost act like the pandemic doesn't exist.

Joni · May 18, 2020

UK aiming for 30 million coronavirus vaccine doses by September if trials succeed, Business Secretary Alok Sharma says

UK aiming for 30m vaccine doses by September if trials succeed- Sharma

The Government is aiming for 30 million coronavirus vaccine doses to be made available by September if UK trials succeed, Alok Sharma has said.

www.standard.co.uk

sonder · May 18, 2020

MA new guidelines regarding opening up should be coming out very soon. From other articles this morning it looked like construction, manufacturing, and the good ol 'places of worship' were slated to open up first starting today.

As of Sunday evening, Baker was planning to announce that offices would be permitted to open May 25 at 25 percent capacity

Live MA update with Gov Baker starting soon:

COVID-19 Update: Reopening Massachusetts Report

Today, the Baker-Polito Administration released Reopening Massachusetts, the Reopening Advisory Board’s report, which details a four-phased strategy to respo...

www.youtube.com

Here is the slide deck for today:

https://www.mass.gov/doc/reopening-massachusetts/download

sweetmini · May 18, 2020

Joni said:
UK aiming for 30 million coronavirus vaccine doses by September if trials succeed, Business Secretary Alok Sharma says

UK aiming for 30m vaccine doses by September if trials succeed- Sharma

The Government is aiming for 30 million coronavirus vaccine doses to be made available by September if UK trials succeed, Alok Sharma has said.

www.standard.co.uk

It's that vaccine candidate:

ClinicalTrials.gov

clinicaltrials.gov

with estimated completion date of the phase 1/2 trial for may 2021 (completion date is always farther than actual conclusion of the test since you have to send the papers for publications, wait review etc).
Recruitment for the tests is ongoing.

Deleted member 32822 · May 18, 2020

I have an opportunity to participate in one of the larger trials for the Moderna vaccine this summer. Would you guys do it? I'm still mulling over whether or not I should. My anxiety and paranoia has been consuming me in regards to covid-19 since last November. I just want the peace of mind knowing that I'll have some sort of defense up in place.

My concerns are 1) somehow the vaccine ends up putting me in serious health danger (which it doesn't seem to be a possibility, given that there's no part of the virus in the vaccine) and 2) that my information is given to the press/public and anti-vaccers start harassing me.

darkwing · May 18, 2020

Sega Dreamcast said:
I have an opportunity to participate in one of the larger trials for the Moderna vaccine this summer. Would you guys do it? I'm still mulling over whether or not I should. My anxiety and paranoia has been consuming me in regards to covid-19 since last November. I just want the peace of mind knowing that I'll have some sort of defense up in place.

My concerns are 1) somehow the vaccine ends up putting me in serious health danger (which it doesn't seem to be a possibility, given that there's no part of the virus in the vaccine) and 2) that my information is given to the press/public and anti-vaccers start harassing me.

I'd do it

TheDestructiveSquirrel · May 18, 2020

Sega Dreamcast said:
I have an opportunity to participate in one of the larger trials for the Moderna vaccine this summer. Would you guys do it? I'm still mulling over whether or not I should. My anxiety and paranoia has been consuming me in regards to covid-19 since last November. I just want the peace of mind knowing that I'll have some sort of defense up in place.

My concerns are 1) somehow the vaccine ends up putting me in serious health danger (which it doesn't seem to be a possibility, given that there's no part of the virus in the vaccine) and 2) that my information is given to the press/public and anti-vaccers start harassing me.

Do it

Joe Shlabotnik · May 18, 2020

Sega Dreamcast said:
I have an opportunity to participate in one of the larger trials for the Moderna vaccine this summer. Would you guys do it? I'm still mulling over whether or not I should. My anxiety and paranoia has been consuming me in regards to covid-19 since last November. I just want the peace of mind knowing that I'll have some sort of defense up in place.

My concerns are 1) somehow the vaccine ends up putting me in serious health danger (which it doesn't seem to be a possibility, given that there's no part of the virus in the vaccine) and 2) that my information is given to the press/public and anti-vaccers start harassing me.

No one can really tell you about your concerns. Except that it seems unlikely your info would be made public. There is some degree of inherent risk in undergoing a vaccine trial--the entire point is to assess the safety and effectiveness for the general public--you'd have to learn as much as possible about the potential risks from the people conducting the trial itself. If it's a large-scale phase its short term safety and tolerance has probably been established, though.

You also, of course, may receive a placebo, so I wouldn't do it for "peace of mind" so much as helping the research along for public good.

The Last One · May 18, 2020

Xando said:

This is all over the news here in Brazil. Isn't a little thread worthy?

Culex · May 18, 2020

The Last One said:
This is all over the news here in Brazil. Isn't a little thread worthy?

I'd say it's thread-worthy.

I will keep my expectations tempered, as phase 2 could still fail.

At this point- the earlier the positive results, the better chance we have at a vaccine before next summer.

Novel coronavirus (COVID-19) resources and discussion thread (Discussion guidelines in OP)

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