Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Valmy]

My experience working on projects with public organisation(s) is that for the individual working for these orgs, it is predominantly about minimising, nay, removing, any kind of personal responsibility for anything. I mean, that's a thing in the private sector as well but not even close to degree I have seen it in public spaces (my experience, though, is limited). Just absolutely no delay is too much to pay for avoiding having to say anything definitive on anything that has even the most miniscule chance of biting them in the ass later. 

I mean I am embarrassed to say that I certainly attempt to do this because I have seen the great political purges that happen constantly in the public sector. Certainly after Winter Storm Uri there are few people in positions of authority still here.

The counterpoint though is when you do have a brilliant or correct idea you don't get much credit for it either. So it cuts both ways. As an example I fought hard to try to get some power plants being closed down to be kept in reserve for reliability purposes a few years ago that might have saved us a ton of damage in Uri but I was shut down because it would have been too expensive...of course none of this was put into writing (hey everybody! I disagree strongly with our administration...is something none of us would ever say too publicly...) and even if it was it is not like I can expect a big promotion for having been right on something. Nobody cares.

[Sheilbh]

The private sector gets an A+. They bio and pharma industry developed a set of vaccines in record time that have been shown to be safe, and incredibly effective. Hell, if I were Pfizer I would not care if I made a nickel off of the vaccines - their public goodwill for one of the most hated industries in the world has to be worth billions.

Yes - but

It is worth noting the private sector company that is selling a safe and effective vaccine at cost has had their reputation really damaged during this crisis. They have obtained no goodwill as far as I can see - outside of the UK and India, and perhaps the developing where they will be the most commonly used vaccine. And politicians and some regulators have eroded confidence in it for no good reason - I think Macron saying it looked like it was "quasi-ineffective" for the over-55s is one of the most disgraceful incidents in this entire pandemic and, to me, inexplicable. So I actually think the lesson learned will be the PR might be awful, so we might as well make money which I think is a shame. It is still the most important vaccine in the effort to vaccinate the world and they should have public goodwill worth billions - and instead they have neither that, nor the actual billions.

The other key point is Pfizer, Moderna, AZ, J&J are the manufacturers - and we shouldn't forget the research side. For Pfizer it's Biontech which is a private company, but for AZ it is Oxford University, for Moderna it is, I think Emory University, and I think that applies for Sputnik, Sinopharm and J&J as well. So it's not just the private sector - the public sector support for research and higher education has driven this and I think that's an important lesson.

Plus, of course it's different in the US, but in the UK the roll-out of the vaccine has been by the public sector - 89% of eligible people have had at least one dose and 73% have had two doses, which is an incredible achievement in basically just over 6 months that belongs to the public sector.

But the public sector from top to bottom gets a D-. As a dress rehearsal for how to handle a pandemic, governments everywhere, but most certainly in the US, have failed badly.

I don't agree that governments everywhere have failed. The really interesting thing is that it is difficult to see a pattern from which we can draw an easy conclusion. There's no clear lesson about types of government - in the early days there were lots of pieces about "populist" failures but even at a higher level some authoritarian states have really struggled, some have really contained it; the same goes for democracies. Really lean states have managed well and badly, just like generous well-funded social democracies. Same goes for diverse v homogenous societies and rich v poor. At this stage there is no easy lesson.

In the UK I think the government failed in its early response, made a catastrophic decision in autumn/winter last year; I think they've failed in education; I think they've failed on test and trace. But I think their economic response has worked and was in place very quickly; the welfare system didn't collapse which I thought it would; and they did well on vaccines. I think the NHS has managed well given the circumstances of always managing to find extra capacity and rolling out the vaccine well; but I think the public health authorities failed - especially at the start of the pandemic.

I think the failures and the successes are complicated. I imagine there'll be a public inquiry and it may even be quite helpful but I think it'll probably be ignored by both sides because it won't fit either of their narratives. I suspect it will point to systemic failures (which will frustrate Labour/the left who want a narrative of Tory wrong-doing) as well as chronic mismanagement/political failures (which will obviously frustrate the Tories/the right who want to say they did as best as they could in the circumstances).

[Sheilbh]

My experience working on projects with public organisation(s) is that for the individual working for these orgs, it is predominantly about minimising, nay, removing, any kind of personal responsibility for anything. I mean, that's a thing in the private sector as well but not even close to degree I have seen it in public spaces (my experience, though, is limited). Just absolutely no delay is too much to pay for avoiding having to say anything definitive on anything that has even the most miniscule chance of biting them in the ass later.

My experience is that it is often true in the private sector too but not always.

I think it's true of big private sector organisations where you just have a million stakeholders/committees who you need to have a meeting with to do anything and the meeting agrees the action course with no "owner" of what you're doing. I think it's also true for heavily regulated entities - so in my experience financial services absolutely love a meeting for the same reason.

I remember working on a project for a bank and you know I was talking about how there are different options and basically depends on whether or not they want to take a risk decision and the response was they wanted "zero risk and zero liability" which I think is probably impossible

And I think a lot of it is probably process that was designed with good intentions but has now become a thing in its own right and no-one likes it or think it works, but no-one has the power to change it I once worked at an investment bank and they'd basically set up committees for everything in the post-financial crisis, because before then lots of people were sort of free-lancing and making decisions that had quite big impacts. But when I was there it had gone to the other extreme of almost everything being decided by consensus. So what started as a sensibe risk control or mitigation had become a force of pure entropy.

Having said that - I've worked with private sector organisations that are really clear about who owns/can authorise x risk and there may be those stakeholder meetings but they're just to form a view and the person who is responsible/business owner of x will make the decision (unless it's so serious it needs to be escalated). But I'd say that's the exception not the rule.

[Tamas]

And I think a lot of it is probably process that was designed with good intentions but has now become a thing in its own right and no-one likes it or think it works, but no-one has the power to change it

Oh yes, that's totally a thing.

[DGuller]

The ramp up of alarm regarding Delta brings me back to March 2020, where it seems like things get worse by the hour.  My workplace just suspended the requirement to be in the office twice a week, and now I'm thinking that I should stop coming.  I remember how slow I was to catch on to the danger in the two weeks preceding March 13, and I don't want to make the same mistake again.

[celedhring]

I'm shooting a cameo in a friend's film this Friday. I'll be maskless around dozens of people for several hours straight. 

Feels like the saving throw will carry hefty maluses. At least it's outdoors.

[Tamas]

The ramp up of alarm regarding Delta brings me back to March 2020, where it seems like things get worse by the hour.  My workplace just suspended the requirement to be in the office twice a week, and now I'm thinking that I should stop coming.  I remember how slow I was to catch on to the danger in the two weeks preceding March 13, and I don't want to make the same mistake again.

If you are double vaccinated you should be fine. As I understand the danger of delta apart from easier spread is that single-vaccinated people have a decent chance of developing symptoms. Not the end of the world as long as you can manage to stay out of hospital.

[Sheilbh]

If you are double vaccinated you should be fine. As I understand the danger of delta apart from easier spread is that single-vaccinated people have a decent chance of developing symptoms. Not the end of the world as long as you can manage to stay out of hospital.

But a single dose still significantly cuts your chance of hospitalisation/serious infection.

I think the danger in the US is they have quite a significant number of people not getting vaccinated - and there are pockets with very low rates. So I think the real risk isn't the people who've only had one dose but the significant number who've had none. If those pockets include the elderly or the vulnerable and delta then it will be worse (on a localised level) than last spring because of how much more infectious it is and there's signs it is more lethal in the unvaccinated.

Hopefully delta starts freaking people out enough to get them getting jabs.

[viper37]

I think Macron saying it looked like it was "quasi-ineffective" for the over-55s is one of the most disgraceful incidents in this entire pandemic and, to me, inexplicable.

From a sample of a few dozen French citizens I know, leaning from very left wing to centre-right, Macron is, himself, quasi-ineffective.  So there's your explanation.
Seriously, looking at it from afar, he seems just as aloof as Justin Trudeau.

[Sheilbh]

Other data that Sinovac is a good and effective vaccine - Chilean public health officials have released their analysis. They vaccinated around 8.5 million people with Sinovac.

It's only 58% effective at preventing symptomatic covid, but 86% effective at preventing hospitalisation, 89% against going into the ICU and 86% against death.

Obviously very good news because many millions and hundreds of millions around the world will be getting this vaccine.

Edit: Also - re American media not covering themselves in glory - I'm seeing a lot of reporting of a pre-print of a study from Wisconsin (of 79 vaccinated people in Provincetown, MA) which suggests that vaccines don't cut your risk of transmitting delta because there's no difference of viral load between vaccinated and non-vaccinated. This is really striking because I saw in the Guardian earlier that there is also a pre-print from the UK/NHS's REACT work (which is based on random samples) with a sample size over over 50k that suggests there's a lower viral load in double vaxxed people so they are less likely to transmit delta. Hopefully over the course of the day the media will correct themselves to focus on the UK report which seems more scientifically and statistically relevant - but who knows.

Edit: As Mike Bird from the Economist put it:

But how could we possibly focus on the data from a very highly vaccinated population which has just seen a very large delta outbreak, while we still have a week of freaking out about anecdotes from a small Massachusetts town to get through?

[garbon]

What a headline from the Guardian: Fit and healthy man, 42, from Southport, who rejected vaccine, dies of Covid

[jimmy olsen]

Finally was able to get an appointment for a vaccine on the 23rd

[HisMajestyBOB]

Finally was able to get an appointment for a vaccine on the 23rd

Nothing available earlier in SK?
Well, better than nothing!

[Sheilbh]

What a headline from the Guardian: Fit and healthy man, 42, from Southport, who rejected vaccine, dies of Covid

Reading the story and it's pretty harrowing - feels like the family cooperated

[garbon]

What a headline from the Guardian: Fit and healthy man, 42, from Southport, who rejected vaccine, dies of Covid

Reading the story and it's pretty harrowing - feels like the family cooperated

As it is such a common story these days (basically templated script for anti vaxxer who dies of Covid) , my sympathy has been dulled.