Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Duque de Bragança]

To be noted that the initial article I saw only quoted 70% efficacy, as the 90% is achieved tinkering with the dossage, apparently. It also seems to be much cheaper and easier to store and transport than the other two:

Yeah - I don't think it needs the very cold storage like the Pfizer one and, as you say, is much cheaper. I hadn't realised but apparently this vaccine is really important because it makes up the bulk of orders by low and middle income countries. For richer countries it's great that we've now got three viable sounding candidates, for everyone else this is great news.

Yeah, it's cheaper to manufacture and easier to transport because it's basically an evolution on traditional vaccices, based on controlled dosages of atenuated existing viruses (virii?), rather than the innovative mRNA vaccines that Pfizer and Moderna developed. So yeah, this one is much more useful for poorer countries than the expensive and difficult to handle ones.

Viruses is fine, there is no attested plural in classical latin for Virus.
Virii is wrong in any case since it's neutral (would be vira), not masculine (viri in this case).   

[Maladict]

Let's hope there won't be a Covid-21 that bypasses the vaccine. Or a Covid-20 for that matter, knowing 2020 that would be a perfect end to the year.

[Zanza]

I really hope that these vaccines and the supply chains hold what they promise.

The AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine does not need cooling, costs $4 a shot and they plan to make up to five billion doses next year, but need two per patient. A real game changer not just for the richest countries.

[Admiral Yi]

God bless Big Pharma. 

[Sheilbh]

Big pharma will never have a better news cycle

Having said that worth pointing out that most of the research side of things was done by Oxford University (AstraZeneca), Emory University (Moderna) and BionTech. So also God bless biotech companies and university researchers

[Valmy]

Big pharma will never have a better news cycle

Having said that worth pointing out that most of the research side of things was done by Oxford University (AstraZeneca), Emory University (Moderna) and BionTech. So also God bless biotech companies and university researchers

Yeah lots of public money and public effort went into that research. We need big pharma to manufacture it though.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah lots of public money and public effort went into that research. We need big pharma to manufacture it though.

Yeah - they're essential for the manufacture and distribution/supply chain.

[The Larch]

It was always going to be a necessary collaboration between industry, researchers and public sector. Neither one of them has the necessary resources to finance, research, manufacture and distribute a vaccine from scratch in such a short time, let alone the whole raft of them that are being developed.

[DGuller]

The advance orders of yet unproven vaccine to cut the lag and mitigate financial risk was also only something that the government could do.

[Sheilbh]

The advance orders of yet unproven vaccine to cut the lag and mitigate financial risk was also only something that the government could do.

I think it's an interesting example of the sort of thing we'll need on climate. Only the state is big enough to take that kind of financial risk/have those resources.

[The Larch]

The advance orders of yet unproven vaccine to cut the lag and mitigate financial risk was also only something that the government could do.

Also necessary as I believe that many of the pharmaceutical companies pledged to commercialize the initial, more urgent batches of vaccines at cost. At least AstraZeneca did.

[Sheilbh]

The advance orders of yet unproven vaccine to cut the lag and mitigate financial risk was also only something that the government could do.

Also necessary as I believe that many of the pharmaceutical companies pledged to commercialize the initial, more urgent batches of vaccines at cost. At least AstraZeneca did.

I feel like AstraZeneca should get credit for this, from the FT today - but, even as a fan of big pharma, I don't really believe it

[Tamas]

One thing I remember from late spring/early summer was a speculation that maybe Eastern Europe was doing better because of a more strict vaccination regimen (I can't remember the exact jab they potentially attributed to better resistance). I guess with the second wave that can be dismissed. As it turns out, it was an early and rapid lockdown that largely spared the Visegrad Fours. Now that they refused to repeat that lockdown the second time, they are as awash in the virus as the Western Europe.

[Syt]

The Austrian health minister has announced the plans for vaccinations.

Starting January, people in health professions and risk groups, plus their relatives are to be vaccinated first (about 1 million doses). From April, when additional vaccines, and esp. ones that don't require extreme refrigeration are more widely available, vaccinations are made available for free for the general populace. The vaccination will be voluntary, but they hope a rate of at least 50%, ideally a lot more.

He warned that distancing measures might take longer, because apparently it's not entirely clarified if a vaccinated person can still spread the disease?

[Barrister]

Apparently Alberta now has the most active cases of Covid-19 in Canada - which makes our per capita rate even worse as other provinces have much larger populations (I believe Manitoba and/or Nunavut might be worse than us per capita).

Premier is set to make an announcement this afternoon - we're all just wondering to what degree we get locked down.  It seems almost certain schools will stay open - but beyond that everything is fair game.