♫ But I still haven't found the new covid cure ♫

No shots here, but I live in Texas - we hit 1990 and started trying to turn the clock back, so we're a little behind the curve.

Maybe that's why my voices haven't really changed - they still don't like my brother-in-law.

1990 was a good year. I was in my twenties :cheers:

We hit the 90s and went into psychological reverse. One downside is we're now back to the late 70s disco era. I was in my 20s then. I REALLY hated the BeeGees.

I was born...

Haha. Born in 82, and I like the BeeGees. One of the most successful bands ever. And disco wasn’t bad. So many songs have been sampled and turned into hip-hop.

If we are reversing then eventually we will be back to FDR’s time. We will pass the Green New Deal and raise the top marginal tax rate to 90%. Then when we hit the roaring 20’s we will have open tolerance of gay parades and women will give VD to sailors. Eventually marijuana will be legal, and I’ll be able to buy a suit for $2. This is great!

Really curious how they're deciding which care homes/hospices to distribute the vaccine to. Haven't heard anything about if/when my grandfather should get it and we've already had a few "scares" where people in the facility contract COVID or come into contact with someone who has.

Really? Have you listened to any of their stuff that wasn't Disco (they go back to the late 50's). Massachusetts, To Love Somebody, New York Mining Disaster, all good stuff.

Admittedly, I like their disco stuff too, but the earlier (and later) catalog had more substance.

They also wrote and/or produced a lot of other big talent hits along the way.

Got my test results back for those that care about my testing odyssey. I tested negative for covid-19 on the pcr test. Yay. All my coworkers who got sick also tested negative on the antigen test.

Yayy! The common cold still exists! Congrats on passing your test.

Well, thanks to a combination of extra doses in the bottle and first line personnel that opted out, they opened the vaccine to all employees today after arranging for the other Phase II they needed to do. So, I'm on my way to qualifying for Xavier Institute.

Because I have NSAID and Penicillin alergies I had to "sit for observation" longer than others (30 minutes), but two hours after the shot, no side effects so far.

Sorry lads. No giblets here. Congrats to the recipients of the vaccine. Best of luck to those of us still waiting.

My grandfather's hospice was cleared this week after the COVID exposure in the past couple weeks.

So of course my dad went to visit him yesterday (very controlled, isolated environment outside with temp checks, masks, distancing, etc.) and now my parents tell me they heard there's been another exposure at the facility, so my grandfather is back on lockdown.

Not only that, but it's ridiculous they allowed visitors so soon IMO even with all the precautions.

Still no news on if/when they're getting the vaccine for residents.

I hope hes good. Sending prayers man.

My aunt died in a nursing home in NC a couple months ago, was bed ridden and on lock down (no visitors, not allowed to leave the room for 2 months prior) and somehow she contracted it and died. We were not even allowed to ID her for 4 days.

What is Qanon? A new treatment?

Can't tell if trolling or srs. Torn between high-five, or legit answer.

Mental stability form question

Attachment 195942

with enough effort, anything is a treatment!

If there was a treatment to cure irrationality then QAnon would be the opposite of that.

I should have said that there was a second symptom. I have IBS, so I didn’t connect the vaccine with the mild laxative event that happened, but in light of this article, it could have been the vaccine. Specifically, it could have been the polyethylene glycol (PEG). It also could have been just something I ate, which is highly likely. Regardless, it was a mild, singular event.

Anaphylactic reactions seem to be a literal 1 in a million event. Nevertheless, if someone has a known PEG allergy then they might want to consider a different vaccine. With that said there is this:

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020...rgic-reactions

Other than a sore arm the next day (probably from sleeping on it) I haven't had any adverse reactions. My son pretty much the same, although he said he felt a bit flush for a few hours.

One or two jabs?

First jab. Second jab will be in 2.5 weeks.

Great news, the Oxford University/ AstraZeneca vaccine has been approved for use in the UK. The period between first and second dose is greater therefore more people can be vaccinated.

Yes, but unfortunately the AstraZeneca vaccine had problems in its Phase 3 clinical trial:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03504-w

https://www.statnews.com/2020/12/08/...rate-efficacy/

In my mind, the difficulties call the results into question. First, it seems that the mixed dosing regimen (low first dose + full second dose) was unintentional. It was given in error. This raises the question of what other errors might have occurred?

Second, the results are counter-intuitive. The low + standard dose gave greater effectiveness (90%) than the planned two standard dose regimen (62%). This suggests an inverted U-shaped dose-response curve. I spent my career in drug development, and while there are certainly examples of drugs with such inverted U-shaped dose-response curves, they are often problematic. At a minimum, it calls for questioning and looking into both whether the results are genuine, and why the lower dose regimen worked better than the higher standard dose.

The world desperately needs more SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. I fear that this dire need is pushing regulators to approve something that by customary clinical trial standards would otherwise be required to repeat the Phase 3 trial. The AstraZeneca vaccine is promising because of the easier storage conditions and lower cost, but the downside could be vaccinating millions of people with a product that turns out to be less effective than thought - putting those people at greater risk of infection.

Yes, I was aware of the Phase 3 challenges, did find it rather strange that half dosage was giving better results...The first jabs start on the 4th Jan, unsure if the patient will get to choose which one they get.

I'm all for it as we need to get the economy back on track with people out and about doing stuff..

Therein lies the problem. A vaccine with relatively low effectiveness against a highly transmissible virus might actually make things worse. This is especially worrisome in the U.K. where a more contagious SARS-CoV-2 mutation is becoming widespread.

The vaccine has been approved at the intended 2x standard dose regimen, that showed only 62% effectiveness in the clinical trial. While this ostensibly passes the goal of at least 50% effectiveness, think about how this might play out.

A person getting this vaccine has a 38% chance of not being protected. If 20 million people are vaccinated with the AstraZeneca product, that means close to 8 million of them could become infected with SARS-CoV-2. If those 20 million vaccinated people are out and about thinking they're 'immune' and 8 million of them fall ill - which seems likely, given the increased transmissibility of the new mutation - that could result in more ill people, more people in hospitals, and more deaths.

A vaccine that only provides 62% effectiveness will also not advance the goal of achieving 'herd immunity'. To break the cycle of infection, around 90% of people need to be immune, to no longer be capable of transmitting infection (again, especially with the more contagious new mutation). 62% protection won't provide that.

This vaccine could be beneficial to the community at large only if people would keep practicing other containment measures - wearing masks, observing social distancing, and continuing with closures of places where people gather indoors unmasked (such as restaurants, pubs, etc.). If that's what will be done in the U.K., then yes, even a modestly effective vaccine like this one will be helpful.

But that's the danger. Many people won't do that, and the government may feel under pressure to 'open things up for the sake of the economy'. It's a false pretense that could backfire. If a large number of people receive the AstraZeneca vaccine and then throw away their masks and gather in restaurants and pubs, the 'boost' to the economy will be very short term. If millions more become ill, people won't be well enough to be out and about, and the costs to the U.K. of caring for all of them could end up being higher than continuing with containment measures.

It's not a choice of 'lives' or 'money' (though a lot of politicians seem to think that). Experiences in other countries around the world have shown that economies thrive not only when people feel safe, but actually are safe enough to go out and spend money.

A number of countries have successfully contained the SARS-CoV-2 virus without a vaccine - New Zealand, Australia, Taiwan, Japan, Finland, and even China. They did it the same way the 1918 Spanish influenza was ultimately controlled - with a proper lockdown for a long enough time that the cycle of transmission was broken. Then life was able to start returning to some semblance of (the new) 'normal', but only after the cycle of infection was stopped.

Sometimes, the urge to 'do something' and thinking that 'anything is better than nothing' only makes things worse.

Who did/do you work for?

PM me if you would like - or not - ;)

"One fact that should sow concern at the end of any recession is that keeping a lean workforce is a time-honored way of driving profit growth. But for anyone counting on jobs to roar back as vaccinations proliferate, a subtler threat lies in the nature of the lockdown itself, a period when companies were rewarded grandly for figuring out ways of minimising the role of humans."

Stock pickers' tech addiction delivers a harsh blow to workers


Nothing new but covid may have accelerated the trend.

They took away our YT when the vid started and everyone went to telework.
Thankfully FB still works and I can relax to this.
(Santana Full Concert Circa 1970)

https://www.facebook.com/sabinerosga...erp_videos_tab

It seems like supply is outpacing delivery. Obviously things will ramp up, but at the current rate, it will take 5-10 years to vaccine everyone. While 14-20 million doses will be delivered to the states by the end of the month, only 2.6-3 million doses will be given. Part of that is because of the holidays and weather, but it needs to improve quickly.

Meanwhile, yesterday saw 235,775 new cases and 3,882, and we crossed the 350k deaths mark.

On a separate note, all of the precautions for COVID has dramatically reduced our cases of the flu. In fact, I haven’t seen a single flu positive patient. A coworker says she saw one back in November. We have been doing a rapid COVID/FluA/B/RSV panel on all admits and suspected patients, yet we really haven’t seen any flu cases. Typically we have 3-5 of 26 ER rooms with positive patients mid day. In 2018 we saw one day with 12 of 26 beds with flu positive patients. It seems like with vaccines and masks, we could relatively eliminate flu cases and dramatically reduce deaths. Proportionally deaths wouldn’t fall as much, but would still greatly drop. Not saying we should all mask every winter—just pointing out that if there was any doubt that masks were effective then that has been resolved.

Definitely anecdotal, but I can believe it.

Plus, while others may not like this idea, Asian countries have been doing the mask thing for flu/hay fever season for a long time. I'm sure, COVID or not, if we started trying to do the same thing we'd be better off.

Anecdotal, but backed up by the evidence. We vaccinated more people:


https://www.healthline.com/health-ne...al-disparities


And the labs seem to be reporting a wide spread drop in cases:


https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6937a6.htm

Discovered FluView. Interesting.


https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/fluview/fl...dashboard.html

Good find.

He ought to be tarred and feathered - :mad0260:

You misspelled drawn and quartered.

The Police were busy last night, raiding parties.. lots of fines from £100 to £15k... People don't care.. oh and Wuhan partied like it was 1999!!

Edinburgh celebrated with a very tasteful light show using drones..
https://youtu.be/nV4jNWZlmEU
https://www.edinburghshogmanay.com/w...re-well-part-1