Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

quote:

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

Doctors At University of Pittsburgh Medical Center: We’ve Developed a Vaccine Against Coronavirus
Posted at 4:00 pm on April 2, 2020

quote:

Doctors and researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center have announced amazing news.

They are saying they’ve created a vaccine that can protect against developing COVID-19 and they want federal permission for human trials.

From Penn Live:

They said they began working on it Jan. 21 and found mice had developed antibodies against COVID-19 about two weeks after receiving the vaccine. They said they based the vaccine on work previously done at UPMC that sought to create vaccines to protect against SARS and MERS, which they said are similar to the new coronavirus.

Not only that the doctors say the vaccine is easily deliverable in large quantities.

They further said their vaccine is one that is easily scalable to produce in large quantities. It also includes a unique delivery method in which hundreds of tiny needles are in a patch similar to a Band-Aid, with the needles, made of sugar and protein particles, dissolving into the skin to deliver the vaccine.

https://www.redstate.com/nick-arama/2020/04/02/doctors-at-university-of-pittsburgh-medical-center-weve-developed-a-vaccine-for-the-wuhan-virus/

This was my post from April 2 about the University of Pittsburgh vaccine. How safe is it? Maybe somebody can let us know.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Zorch

quote:

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

quote:

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

From that MSN article about revised projections (linked again: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/key-coronavirus-model-now-predicts-many-fewer-us-deaths/ar-BB12edu1?li=BBnb7Kz):

"The April 5 update predicts the need for 140,823 total hospital beds and 29,210 ICU beds at the peak of the outbreak. Those numbers are down 121,269 and 10,517, respectively." [emphasis added]

Wow.

That model anticipates extension of social discipline through AUGUST
...

By August every member of this forum will be stark raving mad. Except me.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

quote:

ORIGINAL: obvert

quote:

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

quote:

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

quote:

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Dumb Press Headline of the Moment: "DC Mayor says 1 in 7 could be infected."

Context: That's 15%. A week ago, two weeks ago, national and international leaders were predicting 50% to 70% (I saw 80% in one country) infection rate. Assuming the DC mayor is in the right ballpark (big if) that would be hugely encouraging news undeserving of the kind of headline that scares people.

It's DC. Nobody knows what a percentage is

If only 15% of people are infected, that's nowhere near close enough for herd immunity... which means that more than 15% of people will become infected unless the virus is eradicated. Fat chance of that.

Currently no country in the world has a 15% infection rate that we know of, and if they had it would be beyond catastrophic. The US currently is at a 0.11% infection rate according to tests taken. Spain is the highest for large countries (1 million plus) at 0.30% of it's total population, according to tests. Even using some experts estimates of a 10x known infection rate, that is considerably lower than 15%!!

I hope that's a not so dumb headline of the day in the other direction, and he's wildly overestimating so people take this seriously, and that such a high rate doesn't end up happening.

DC's mayor is actually a she, currently.

quote:

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

Key Coronavirus Model Now Predicts Many Fewer U.S. Deaths
2 hrs ago
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/key-coronavirus-model-now-predicts-many-fewer-us-deaths/ar-BB12edu1?li=BBnb7Kz

"A Sunday update of a prominent COVID-19 forecasting model suggests that fewer lives will be lost during the first wave of the coronavirus outbreak than previously thought."

"The University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) now predicts that 81,766 people will die of COVID-19 in the U.S. through early August. When the model was last updated, on April 2, it predicted 11,765 deaths more deaths, for a total of 93,531."

"The April 5 update predicts the need for 140,823 total hospital beds and 29,210 ICU beds at the peak of the outbreak. Those numbers are down 121,269 and 10,517, respectively."

"The model also revised downward the prediction for the number of ventilators needed at the height of the outbreak. It now predicts the need for 18,992 ventilators, down from 31,782."

"Crucially, it also assumes the continuation of social distancing until early August, well beyond the April 30 guidelines currently set forth by the White House."

I also just read this quoted part as part of another story. What really stuck out to me was the bolded part.

Really highlights how businesses are pitting themselves against overall public health. I sympathize - it's an impossible position. Hopefully we get a bit more guidance from the federal level... Now, if only Congress hadn't decided to go on vacation until April 20 as scheduled... Although I understand that business as usual for them would have hundreds of people in close proximity, there's a leadership vacuum right now. Dr. Fauci can't fill it all. Maybe they could've found a way to conduct at least some business while also practicing social distancing.

quote:

Countries with mandatory policies to vaccinate against tuberculosis register fewer coronavirus deaths than countries that don’t have those policies, a new study has found.

The preliminary study posted on medRxiv, a site for unpublished medical research, finds a correlation between countries that require citizens to get the bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine and those showing fewer number of confirmed cases and deaths from Covid-19. Though only a correlation, clinicians in at least six countries are running trials that involve giving frontline health workers and elderly people the BCG vaccine to see whether it can indeed provide some level of protection against the new coronavirus.

Gonzalo Otazu, assistant professor at the New York Institute of Technology and lead author of the study, started working on the analysis after noticing the low number of cases in Japan. The country had reported some of the earliest confirmed cases of coronavirus outside of China and it hadn’t instituted lockdown measures like so many other countries have done.

Otazu said he knew about studies showing the BCG vaccine provided protection against not just tuberculosis bacteria but also other types of contagions. So his team put together the data on what countries had universal BCG vaccine policies and when they were put in place. They then compared the number of confirmed cases and deaths from Covid-19 to find a strong correlation.

Among high-income countries showing large number of Covid-19 cases, the U.S. and Italy recommend BCG vaccines but only for people who might be at risk, whereas Germany, Spain, France, Iran and the U.K. used to have BCG vaccine policies but ended them years to decades ago. China, where the pandemic began, has a BCG vaccine policy but it wasn’t adhered to very well before 1976, Otazu said. Countries including Japan and South Korea, which have managed to control the disease, have universal BCG vaccine policies. Data on confirmed cases from low-income countries was considered not reliable enough to make a strong judgment.

quote:

James Drury, who starred in one of the longest running Westerns in TV history, "The Virginian," has died. He was 85.

His assistant, Karen Lindsey, shared the news on Facebook Monday, writing that he "passed away this morning of natural causes." TheWrap reached out to his agent for additional comment.

While his most famous role was "The Virginian," Drury also starred in Westerns on the big screen, including 1959's "Good Day for Hanging," 1960's "Ten Who Dares" and "Ride the High Country." His other credits include "Love Me Tender," alongside Elvis Presley, and "Bernardine," opposite Pat Boone.

quote:

ORIGINAL: USSAmerica

This thread still contains a wealth of information that I find very useful. Unfortunately, the incessant personal attacks are drowning the usefulness.

I wish you all the best.

quote:

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

RJ, I hope that vaccine research pans out soon, but I have seen so many suggestions that a cure/treatment/immunity method is at hand that I keep my hopes low and my "Show Me" expectations high!

quote:


Share

Vaccination with bacillus Calmette-Guérin leads to a small pustule that can develop into a scar.
Kwangmoozaa/iStock
Can a century-old TB vaccine steel the immune system against the new coronavirus?

By Jop de VriezeMar. 23, 2020 , 6:25 AM

Researchers in four countries will soon start a clinical trial of an unorthodox approach to the new coronavirus. They will test whether a century-old vaccine against tuberculosis (TB), a bacterial disease, can rev up the human immune system in a broad way, allowing it to better fight the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 and, perhaps, prevent infection with it altogether. The studies will be done in physicians and nurses, who are at higher risk of becoming infected with the respiratory disease than the general population, and in the elderly, who are at higher risk of serious illness if they become infected.

A team in the Netherlands will kick off the first of the trials this week. They will recruit 1000 health care workers in eight Dutch hospitals who will either receive the vaccine, called bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG), or a placebo.

BCG contains a live, weakened strain of Mycobacterium bovis, a cousin of M. tuberculosis, the microbe that causes TB. (The vaccine is named after French microbiologists Albert Calmette and Camille Guérin, who developed it in the early 20th century.) The vaccine is given to children in their first year of life in most countries of the world, and is safe and cheap—but far from perfect: It prevents about 60% of TB cases in children on average, with large differences between countries.
Related

A medical personnel member takes samples of a woman at a drive-through coronavirus testing lab
Mass testing, school closings, lockdowns: Countries pick tactics in ‘war’ against coronavirus
a person in protective gear feeds macaques in a room of enclosures
Respirators, quarantines, and worst-case scenarios: Lab animal facilities grapple with the pandemic

See all of our coverage of the coronavirus outbreak

Vaccines generally raise immune responses specific to a targeted pathogen, such as antibodies that bind and neutralize one type of virus but not others. But BCG may also increase the ability of the immune system to fight off pathogens other than the TB bacterium, according to clinical and observational studies published over several decades by Danish researchers Peter Aaby and Christine Stabell Benn, who live and work in Guinea-Bissau. They concluded the vaccine prevents about 30% of infections with any known pathogen, including viruses, in the first year after it’s given. The studies published in this field have been criticized for their methodology, however; a 2014 review ordered by the World Health Organization concluded that BCG appeared to lower overall mortality in children, but rated confidence in the findings as “very low.” A 2016 review was a bit more positive about BCG’s potential benefits but said randomized trials were needed.
.
.
.
Eleanor Fish, an immunologist at the of the University of Toronto, says the vaccine probably won’t eliminate infections with the new coronavirus completely, but is likely to dampen its impact on individuals. Fish says she’d take the vaccine herself if she could get a hold of it, and even wonders whether it’s ethical to withhold its potential benefits from trial subjects in the placebo arm.

quote:

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

No more P**sy Galore
Mon 6 Apr 2020 13.57 EDT

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/apr/06/honor-blackman-james-bond-****-galore-avengers-dies-aged-94


"Honor Blackman, the actor best known for playing the Bond girl P**sy Galore, has died aged 94.



Blackman, who became a household name in the 1960s as Cathy Gale in The Avengers and had a career spanning eight decades, died of natural causes unrelated to coronavirus."

-------------

I'am happy with just one.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Korea has had low levels of new cases and comparatively few mortalities for many, many weeks, as we've noted previously.

They got it under control well but can't quite eradicate the stubborn critter.

Would it be expected that other countries are likely to have the same issue?

P.S. Many weeks ago, Cpt. Beefheart noted that Korea schools were set to reopen in early April (I think he said the 8th). I wonder if that plan held.

quote:

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

And if Covid-19 doesn't get you, maybe Chernobyl will. A forest fire near the reactor site has raised radiation levels in the air 16X normal. I hope they do a better job of protecting their firefighters this time!

England expects that every man will do his duty. Horatio Nelson October 1805

quote:

ORIGINAL: warspite1

quote:

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

And if Covid-19 doesn't get you, maybe Chernobyl will. A forest fire near the reactor site has raised radiation levels in the air 16X normal. I hope they do a better job of protecting their firefighters this time!

warspite1

For those with some expertise in this area, I am curious to know how the fire in the forest around Chernobyl has raised the radiation levels.

Thank-you.

"To meaningless French Idealism, Liberty, Fraternity and Equality...we answer with German Realism, Infantry, Cavalry and Artillery" -Prince von Bülov, 1870-

quote:

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

Can we change the name of the thread to China Virus?


"Hall monitor"

quote:

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

Grocery workers are beginning to die of coronavirus
1 hr ago

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/grocery-workers-are-beginning-to-die-of-coronavirus/ar-BB12eFSF?li=BBnb7Kz


"Major supermarket chains are beginning to report their first coronavirus-related employee deaths, leading to store closures and increasing anxiety among grocery workers as the pandemic intensifies across the country."

"Those efforts are likely to take on new urgency, analysts said, as supermarket workers across the country begin to see colleagues fall ill from covid-19. More than 356,000 Americans have tested positive for the coronavirus as of Monday afternoon, and nearly 10,500 have died. "

quote:

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy


There have been enough mentions by Senators and Congressmen/Congresswomen about "working on ways to have sessions electronically" that it would not surprise me if the "vacation" is a break in face-to-face meetings so they can install some hardware for teleconferencing hundreds of people and hiring techs to run it during sessions. I hope they find a way. Canada is working on the same issue.