Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[crazy canuck]

I think you found a real gem there. Birds of a feather and all that.

It is indeed shocking that AF's circle has a large number of infections.

[DGuller]

So I went shopping just now, and I saw one guy enter the store without a mask.  That doesn't really happen around here, so it was noteworthy.  I made a mental note to avoid him, but somehow I came up face to face with him in an aisle.  Before my shyness could kick in, I asked him to put his mask on.  To his credit, he didn't punch me, but rather went "oh shit" and retreated somewhere.  Maybe he legit forgot, I guess it happens.

As soon as that was sorted out, I saw an old lady walk around with her mask on her chin.  Then I heard someone hacking their lung out in the cheese section, and guess who that was?  Next time I looked at her, she had her mask on, I think.  I couldn't see clearly, I made it a point to immediately increase my distance and get the fuck out of that store ASAP.

If I come down with Covid, it would probably be because 10 months in, some people just make it a point to be fucking stupid.

[The Brain]

Dude. A guy with a very heavy accent and who is clearly an FSB agent asks you to put your mask on, you bet you put your mask on.

[DGuller]

Dude. A guy with a very heavy accent and who is clearly an FSB agent asks you to put your mask on, you bet you put your mask on.

What makes it so clear that I'm an FSB agent?

[The Brain]

Dude. A guy with a very heavy accent and who is clearly an FSB agent asks you to put your mask on, you bet you put your mask on.

What makes it so clear that I'm an FSB agent?

Your quiet confidence and obvious habit of being instantly obeyed.

[DGuller]

Dude. A guy with a very heavy accent and who is clearly an FSB agent asks you to put your mask on, you bet you put your mask on.

What makes it so clear that I'm an FSB agent?

Your quiet confidence and obvious habit of being instantly obeyed.

[mongers]

Looks like we're going to have approaching 1000 deaths reported tomorrow and possibly around 1,500 deaths on Friday. 

[viper37]

In hindsight the only thing that could have effectively stopped a virus like this while preserving a somewhat normal functioning of society are strict border controls with mandatory quarantine for all incoming travelers. It's a pity it was never really attempted by any large European nation.

the first cases of the virus were detected in France in december, for samples tested much later, around May/June.

By the time France decided to close the borders, way too much time had passed.  And since we did not know until April/May that the virus was spreading symptomatically, countries were relying on temperature checks at their airports.  Well, some of them.  Canada wisely chose to do no nothing (sarcasm), until both Quebec and Ontario threatened to take matters into their own hands.

[The Larch]

EMA has received the formal application for the AstraZeneca - Oxford vaccine, and it could be approved by the end of the month.

European watchdog could decide on AstraZeneca vaccine by end-Jan

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Europe's medicines regulator expects drugmaker AstraZeneca to apply for approval of its COVID-19 vaccine next week, it said on Friday.

The Astrazeneca shot, which was developed with Oxford University, was given a green light by authorities in Britain on Dec. 30.

Emergency use authorisation has since been granted in India, Argentina, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Mexico and Morocco for the active immunisation of adults, it said.

The European Medicines Agency's (EMA) Deputy Executive Director, Noel Wathion, last week said that approval of AstraZeneca's vaccine this month looked highly improbable because the company had yet to submit sufficient information.

But the watchdog said on Twitter on Friday that it could possibly reach a conclusion on the vaccine by the end of the month.

It has so far recommended the Pfizer-BioNtech and Moderna vaccines for European Union approval, which was quickly granted for both.

[Sheilbh]

Good news - and a lot quicker than the expectations of an April approval that I'd previously seen.

And from my understanding the rolling reviews mean the regulators see all the data as it comes in and then ask for a formal application once they've seen enough, so it should be relatively quick now.

[The Larch]

Good news - and a lot quicker than the expectations of an April approval that I'd previously seen.

And from my understanding the rolling reviews mean the regulators see all the data as it comes in and then ask for a formal application once they've seen enough, so it should be relatively quick now.

Yes, in fact EMA had already been receiving data and reports from the AZ - Oxford vaccine for a while, it's just that there was no formal application yet.

[Sheilbh]

Incidentally I've been freaking out about the observation rooms/queues for vaccines here - and this article is exactly why. I'm not sure if it's all correct or if this is the right approach but given that we are rolling out vaccines to the most vulnerable people, it feels like we should be extra careful about this:

I volunteer at a vaccine centre, and I'm worried
Vaccination centres are at risk of becoming coronavirus hotbeds

I spent Sunday volunteering at a vaccination centre, and I'm seriously worried that some vaccination hubs are at risk of becoming superspreader sites.

The day began at a youth centre. All the volunteers took lateral flow tests, which all came out negative. These detect Covid-19 in only half of asymptomatic people but they are better than nothing. However, once we got into the building, my heart sank.

The whole operation was set up in an indoor basketball court. Half of it was dedicated to vaccinations and the other half was full of blue plastic chairs. There were large windows, but if they could be opened, they weren't. The only source of ventilation were the doors in and out.

The blue chairs were not quite two metres apart and when we started bringing people in, it got worse.

The NHS guidance says that people should wear surgical masks when coming into the vaccine centre. On the surface, this seems sensible. It is because we don't know if people have been washing their cloth masks frequently enough. In practice, this means asking elderly people, many with arthritis, to very slowly change masks indoors, surrounded by other vulnerable people.

Once in a centre, a patient goes through four stages. First, the patient queues as someone makes sure they are eligible to join the next queue. Second, they queue to be registered. Third, they queue to be vaccinated. Then, after being vaccinated, they sit and are observed. Each of these queues are rows of chairs, because we cannot expect everyone from the 80+ cohort to stand for too long. Most of these chairs were about a metre and a half from each other.

The average patient going through one of these centres spends a significant amount of time within two metres of about ten different people. This isn't even accounting for the fact that very vulnerable people often struggle with the system. They walk in the wrong direction, use the bathroom a lot, take their masks off, lean in very close when talking, and often they have carers who add to the room's body-count.

We gave out about 400 vaccinations yesterday. That's pretty impressive. Considering how high the infection rate is, and how vulnerable the people we were vaccinating are, we may have saved twenty lives. But I have spent the whole day worrying that, in the process, we may have given an additional twenty coronavirus infections.

We now know that Covid-19 can linger in the air for hours in a poorly ventilated space; we also know that after a physically distanced choir practice in the USA, one Covid-positive person infected a further thirty one singers. The BMJ estimates that a high occupancy, poorly ventilated space, even with face coverings and complete silence, is a high risk. So to gather large numbers of vulnerable people into a poorly ventilated space to be vaccinated seems unwise to say the least.

This is not the fault of the people setting up the vaccine hubs. The woman who was directing volunteers has been working over twelve hours every day this week, working in the centre from 8am to 8pm. She is following the NHS guidance to the letter and knows exactly what she's meant to do on distances, masks, observation times, and one-way systems.

Public Health England and the NHS could start by updating the guidance on how to run a Covid secure centre. Activities like wiping down the seats for vaccination (but not for queueing), offer minimal value. Instead they should try to move post-vaccination monitoring outdoors. We could try to minimise the number of checks people go through so they decrease their exposure to staff and volunteers. And we could learn from Israel's example, and start doing drive-through vaccination centre like some of the Covid-test sites.

We're still in the process of setting up all our vaccination hubs, so there is still time to make adjustments before this gets worse and we end up with full blown outbreaks.

Aria is a policy researcher and the founder of "TheTakeMachine".

I do not understand how 12 months into this pandemic we're still focusing on wiping things down and not ventilation and closed spaces. Especailly as we know we'll have lots of very vulnerable people with no immunity either waiting for their vaccines or being observed after it.

[Josquius]

How does the vaccine work if you get the full virus at the same time?
Not at all I guess?

[Sheilbh]

I don't think the vaccine is effective in getting an immune response for 1-2 weeks. So it would matter that you'd had the vaccine if you caught covid at around the same time?

[alfred russel]

I don't think the vaccine is effective in getting an immune response for 1-2 weeks. So it would matter that you'd had the vaccine if you caught covid at around the same time?

The guy I was climbing with last Tuesday that got covid had gotten the first vaccine shot (he is a doctor). He had just gotten it though so it was too early for immunity to kick in. He theorized it may help him have a lighter case.