Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Valmy]

Soon Dorsey will be scaling every rock in Georgia.

[alfred russel]

Soon Dorsey will be scaling every rock in Georgia.

Flying to Utah Saturday to scale rocks there. 

[The Minsky Moment]

Minsky, while all that stuff is relevant, I think you are wrong.

It is estimated you only need something like 60% coverage to get to herd immunity. Possibly even less. 80% effectiveness is plenty if you can get this effectively rolled out.

i think your have to consider the whole comment and not just the part.

[Valmy]

Soon Dorsey will be scaling every rock in Georgia.

Flying to Utah Saturday to scale rocks there. 

Won't that be really cold? 

[alfred russel]

Won't that be really cold? 

Honestly, we didn't check the weather when we booked the flights a month ago.

Looks like highs of 50 and lows of 30 most days. Could be worse.

[DGuller]

The problem with doing vaccine tests is you can't measure directly what you want to measure: namely, infection rates of people exposed the virus.   Pfizer had tens of thousands of people in their study but the vast majority presumably had no exposure and thus are irrelevant to the study.  There is no way to track or figure out how many were exposed.  Pfizer can only draw inferences based on the proportions of identified cases in their test vs control group.  So strictly speaking it is not accurate to say their study showed 90% efficacy in the group - it would more accurate to say that the results are consistent with a 90% effective vaccine.  They are also consistent with a 95% effective vaccine or a 90% vaccine or possibly even an 80% effective vaccine.  It is a probability distribution not a single fixed number.  The difference between 80% effective and 90% effective may not seem that big, but it is significant - the former means twice as many expected failures as the latter. One also has to account for the reality that many people will refuse the vaccine or fail to complete the full course properly.

You can't measure infection rates of people exposed, but you can still compare them.  Assuming the control group and the treatment group were exposed equally, then you can still measure how much the infection rate is reduced.  Yes, it's a statistical estimate, but my understanding is that 90% is way higher than what would be considered a success.  Also, because this number is an estimate, there is a set number of people infected that Pfizer is waiting for in order to reach the necessary statistical power (which I think is 160 or something).  This is probably why it's planning to get an early approval, but hasn't gone for it yet.

[Grey Fox]

Won't that be really cold? 

Honestly, we didn't check the weather when we booked the flights a month ago.

Looks like highs of 50 and lows of 30 most days. Could be worse.

It's 2C in SLC right now.

...

Good Luck.

[alfred russel]

We are staying a week in Moab, which seems a bit warmer than SLC.

This is the primary objective, but it looks scary and hard so whether we try is a game time decision. I'm excited though.

https://www.mountainproject.com/route/105717289/kor-ingalls-route

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kor-Ingalls_Route

[Syt]

It's weird times when Deutsche Bank recommends transfer payments to the vulnerable.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/business-54876526

Deutsche Bank: Tax working from home 'to support vulnerable jobs'

Working from home should be taxed to help support workers whose jobs are under threat, according to a new report.

Economists at Deutsche Bank suggest a tax of 5% of a worker's salary if they choose to work from home.

The tax would be paid for by employers and the income generated would be paid to people who can't do their jobs from home.

This could earn $48bn (£36bn) if introduced in the US and would help redress the balance, the bank says.

It argues this is only fair, as those who work from home are saving money and not paying into the system like those who go out to work.

In the UK, Deutsche Bank calculates the tax would generate a pot of £6.9bn a year, which could pay out grants of £2,000 a year to low-income workers and those under threat of redundancy

"For years we have needed a tax on remote workers," wrote Deutsche Bank strategist Luke Templeman. "Covid has just made it obvious."

"Quite simply, our economic system is not set up to cope with people who can disconnect themselves from face-to-face society.

Deutsche Bank Research predicts that workers in the US will now spend 4.6bn days a year at home rather than in the office.

A 5% work-from-home (WFH) tax on an average $55,000 salary works out at about $10 a day in the US. For the UK, the tax equates to about £7, based on a salary of £35,000.

"Those who can WFH receive direct and indirect financial benefits and they should be taxed in order to smooth the transition process for those who have been suddenly displaced."

Millions of people have shifted to working from home as employers closed offices to contain the spread of Covid-19.

Many big employers have said they will allow some staff to permanently work from home either full-time or part-time after the pandemic is over.

However, there are millions more who can't work from home, such as nurses and factory workers for example, and the tax should help support these roles, argues Deutsche Bank.

"The virus has benefitted those who can do their jobs virtually, such as bank analysts, and threatened the livelihoods or health of those who can't," added Mr Templeman.

He also argues that remote workers are contributing less to the infrastructure of the economy "whilst still receiving its benefits".

By working from home, people aren't paying for public transport or eating out at restaurants near their places of work, while expensive offices remain virtually empty.

"WFH offers direct financial savings on expenses such as travel, lunch, clothes and cleaning," he said.

The 5% tax rate "will leave them no worse off than if they had chosen to go into the office".

Research from Deutsche Bank shows that one third of people want to continue working two days a week from home once the pandemic is over.

The tax would be paid directly by employers who choose to let employees work home.

But it would not apply to "the self-employed and those on low incomes".

It also wouldn't apply when people are asked to stay home for a public health emergency or other medical reasons.

The tax revenues would be used for a very specific purpose - to give grants to the millions of workers who cannot do their jobs from home and who make less than $30,000 a year.

Deutsche Bank says its research is designed to spark debate around a series of important topics.

Report author Mr Templeman said he'd had a lot of feedback on the report.

"A lot of people aren't impressed at the idea of another tax, however, some have seen it as an interesting policy that governments can use to redistribute some of the gains from the pandemic which have been unexpectedly accrued by some people while others have lost out."

[Eddie Teach]

I don't like it. WFH should be encouraged.

[celedhring]

As an aside, I was talking the other day to an IT consultant and he was telling me about all the tidal wave of cyber-security emergencies that companies are having due to the sudden way WFH has been implemented.

[The Brain]

WTF Deutsche Bank? A bizarrely retarded suggestion. I suppose it's some kind of misguided virtue signalling?

[Tamas]

Financial incentive for spread of disease and climate change. Exactly what we need!

[Tamas]

Much stricter restrictions in Hungary from today, including an 8PM curfew which Orban has asked the military (!) to help enforce.

In a fashion that surely the envy of the British government, official full list of restrictions was not posted until a few hours before they were to become official at midnight this day.

The government, it seems, was too busy with reducing further the definition of "public funds" (spending of which should be scrutinise) and introducing further barriers to election cooperation between opposition parties. Priorities, I guess, you don't want a good national crisis go to waste.

[Syt]

After last weekend's photos of crowded shopping malls and hardware stores, the health minister has taken firm action today. He urged everyone to please not crowd those places.