Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[The Larch]

The Lancet (the world's foremost peer-reviewed medical publication) did analysis of the Sputnik vaccine trials and gave it its blessing. They're not regulators but they should know what they're doing.

The Sinopharm one, on the contrary, has no non-Chinese study on it, AFAIK. It does have full authorization in China, though, which the Sputnik one doesn't have in Russia (it only has emergency authorization).

Getting the Russian or Chinese vaccines still beats not getting any, in any case. If they were unsafe it'd be known by now.

Wasn't there a Brazilian study of Sinopharm?

There are a number of phase III trials on it being run at the moment, but results won't be available until the summer.

The Brazilian study you mention is on the Sinovac vaccine, which is a 2nd Chinese vaccine being developed, that is different from the Sinopharm one, which is the one delivered to Hungary and Serbia. AFAIK the Sinovac one is only used in Asian and South American countries.

[Sheilbh]

Ah okay - helpful, thank you

[Sheilbh]

Also just saw this on the Guardian blog:

Slovakia asks EU for help due to 'tragic' Covid-situation

Slovakia's foreign minister called on EU partners on Monday to send an advance vaccine shipment to the central European country, which he said was in a "tragic" coronavirus situation with record numbers of cases.

Reuters reports:

The country of 5.5 million has suffered about 100 deaths per day recently, the highest in the world relative to population on a one-week basis and ahead of neighbouring Czech Republic, according to data tracker ourworldindata.org.

Slovakia had 3,672 patients in hospital with confirmed coronavirus as of Sunday.

"I will inform my foreign minister colleagues about the very serious and what can be called tragic situation we have with Covid," Ivan Korcok told reporters ahead of a foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels.

"I will turn to them to ask them, if they have a vaccine they cannot use at the moment, to provide it to us.

"I believe it would be a very good sign of cooperation on the EU level. I fully realise that other countries have a vaccine shortage as well but Slovakia now, also based on the fact that we have the highest death rate, at the moment needs it most."

Slovakia has asked through the EU's emergency mechanism for the help of 10 doctors and 25 nurses from abroad.

The country has reported 6,577 deaths from coronavirus. It had vaccinated 272,341 people with at least one dose as of Sunday, according to government data, slightly ahead of the European Union average. /quote]

This is another really sad example of countries in Europe who had done quite well in the first wave who have now been hit as badly in this second wave as countries like the UK, France, Spain and Italy in both waves

[celedhring]

Imho, a lot of those countries that did "quite well" in the first wave were just lucky they didn't get an outbreak before all of Europe eventually locked down. Places like Slovakia or the Czech Rep weren't as exposed to UK, Italy, France or Spain to foreign travel.

[Sheilbh]

That's probably true - and they locked down very quickly and very aggressively with very few cases. I remember being on a call with Polish colleagues when the UK and Poland were both locking down and they had about 200 cases a day while we were on the edge of being overwhelmed.

I think there's probably some countries that did actually do interesting stuff that was effective - Greece has been very innovative.

[celedhring]

There are a few success stories, for sure, although I tend to look at small countries successfully containing it with a little hesitancy. There are some big ones that have done well: Canada, Australia and Germany (despite Zanza's occasional panic posts  ) have all done better than the majority of big western nations. Yes, Canada and Australia are super-large with low-ish population compared to the others, but AFAIK their population is fairly concentrated in small areas.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah - that's fair. To be honest I look at the Europe and the Americas and think there are just degrees of failure. Germany and Canada have definitely done better than our countries but it's the APAC countries big and small, rich or poor who have really done very well.

I think there'll be a lot of analysis and breaking down what went wrong in the months to come and there'll be those two levels of why did this become such a sort of Atlantic pandemic of Europe and the Americas and then within that what went wrong within everyone's own country. And there is a bit of me that just wonders if part of it recent experience of epidemics/public health crises. I wonder if we'll all retain the sort of cultural muscle memory to reach for a mask and start meeting outdoors or keep our distance a little bit more when we next see news of a pandemic emerging in China or wherever else?

I look at South Korea or Japan which are similar sized populations to the UK, similarly dense, in the case of Japan a similarly older population and our paths have been so different. I hope

[alfred russel]

There are a few success stories, for sure, although I tend to look at small countries successfully containing it with a little hesitancy. There are some big ones that have done well: Canada, Australia and Germany (despite Zanza's occasional panic posts  ) have all done better than the majority of big western nations. Yes, Canada and Australia are super-large with low-ish population compared to the others, but AFAIK their population is fairly concentrated in small areas.

With about 10 years of life expectancy lost for every covid death, the US has lost about 5 million years of life due to covid. With a population of 330 million, that means we lived through 330 million years of this shit. If you are writing an article about the negative effects of covid and want to provide balance , it seems to me the loss of enjoyment of life dwarfs any mortality, and the downstream effects of the response is probably going to exceed it as well (for example, some studies indicated a year's education extends life expectancy by 6 months, and we just closed a bunch of schools for a year).

If our loss of life was down at the per capita levels of Canada and Germany, our 5 million years of life lost would be reduced by maybe half.

I think when we look back it is Sweden that should get the gold star.

[Barrister]

There are a few success stories, for sure, although I tend to look at small countries successfully containing it with a little hesitancy. There are some big ones that have done well: Canada, Australia and Germany (despite Zanza's occasional panic posts  ) have all done better than the majority of big western nations. Yes, Canada and Australia are super-large with low-ish population compared to the others, but AFAIK their population is fairly concentrated in small areas.

Canada has really shat the bed when it came down to vaccines though.

[Sheilbh]

Canada has really shat the bed when it came down to vaccines though.

Interestingly Australia and New Zealand have a little bit too.

[Legbiter]

I think there'll be a lot of analysis and breaking down what went wrong in the months to come and there'll be those two levels of why did this become such a sort of Atlantic pandemic of Europe and the Americas and then within that what went wrong within everyone's own country. And there is a bit of me that just wonders if part of it recent experience of epidemics/public health crises.

Yeah, be a small paranoid island nation.

[DGuller]

There are a few success stories, for sure, although I tend to look at small countries successfully containing it with a little hesitancy. There are some big ones that have done well: Canada, Australia and Germany (despite Zanza's occasional panic posts  ) have all done better than the majority of big western nations. Yes, Canada and Australia are super-large with low-ish population compared to the others, but AFAIK their population is fairly concentrated in small areas.

With about 10 years of life expectancy lost for every covid death, the US has lost about 5 million years of life due to covid. With a population of 330 million, that means we lived through 330 million years of this shit. If you are writing an article about the negative effects of covid and want to provide balance , it seems to me the loss of enjoyment of life dwarfs any mortality, and the downstream effects of the response is probably going to exceed it as well (for example, some studies indicated a year's education extends life expectancy by 6 months, and we just closed a bunch of schools for a year).

If our loss of life was down at the per capita levels of Canada and Germany, our 5 million years of life lost would be reduced by maybe half.

I think when we look back it is Sweden that should get the gold star.

I think people corrected you about 100 times before about making these sorts of comparisons.  If you want to compare costs with benefits, you have to compare the costs of measures against the benefit of prevented outcomes, not against outcomes that happened anyway.  It appears that you're being deliberately dense by continuing to ignore this again and again.

[Legbiter]

Canada has really shat the bed when it came down to vaccines though.

Can't the local pharma industry in Canada set up vaccine production facilities? 

[alfred russel]

There are a few success stories, for sure, although I tend to look at small countries successfully containing it with a little hesitancy. There are some big ones that have done well: Canada, Australia and Germany (despite Zanza's occasional panic posts  ) have all done better than the majority of big western nations. Yes, Canada and Australia are super-large with low-ish population compared to the others, but AFAIK their population is fairly concentrated in small areas.

With about 10 years of life expectancy lost for every covid death, the US has lost about 5 million years of life due to covid. With a population of 330 million, that means we lived through 330 million years of this shit. If you are writing an article about the negative effects of covid and want to provide balance , it seems to me the loss of enjoyment of life dwarfs any mortality, and the downstream effects of the response is probably going to exceed it as well (for example, some studies indicated a year's education extends life expectancy by 6 months, and we just closed a bunch of schools for a year).

If our loss of life was down at the per capita levels of Canada and Germany, our 5 million years of life lost would be reduced by maybe half.

I think when we look back it is Sweden that should get the gold star.

I think people corrected you about 100 times before about making these sorts of comparisons.  If you want to compare costs with benefits, you have to compare the costs of measures against the benefit of prevented outcomes, not against outcomes that happened anyway.  It appears that you're being deliberately dense by continuing to ignore this again and again.

You are wrong on this--read what I wrote more carefully.

The first part was comparing costs with costs: I specifically laid out a scenario where you are writing a balanced article about the costs of covid.

The second part was comparing differential country comparisons and assuming similar responses could have achieved similar outcomes (whether fair or not).

[crazy canuck]

Canada has really shat the bed when it came down to vaccines though.

Can't the local pharma industry in Canada set up vaccine production facilities? 

It is being built.  The main issue has been getting the licensing agreement to have permission to produce.