The COVID-2019 Thread

[Troy]

Meanwhile the UK is still registering over 1000 deaths daily, which is rather sad.

Cheltenham down to 109 new infections per 100K, a much lower average than the rest of the UK. My area in Bavaria is just over 53/100K with a couple of weeks of lockdown to go.

Governments are still very concerned about the new mutations and I have a feeling the lockdown might be extended despite figures reducing to within required limits.

[bsnub]

Happy that today I was sent a text from the county public health department that I am scheduled to get my jab next month on the 17th.

Woo-hoo!

[harrybarracuda]

Happy that today I was sent a text from the county public health department that I am scheduled to get my jab next month on the 17th.

Woo-hoo!

And I got a phone call saying my second Pfizer is tomorrow at Noon.

[harrybarracuda]

Meanwhile the UK is still registering over 1000 deaths daily, which is rather sad.

Cheltenham down to 109 new infections per 100K, a much lower average than the rest of the UK. My area in Bavaria is just over 53/100K with a couple of weeks of lockdown to go.

Governments are still very concerned about the new mutations and I have a feeling the lockdown might be extended despite figures reducing to within required limits.

The important thing is that the trend is going very much in the right direction.

[OhOh]

Elsewhere in the world deliveries continue.

World warmly welcomes Chinese vaccines.

chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2021-01-31 15:54

"Hungary has signed a deal to buy China's Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine, which will allow the vaccination of 2.5 million people, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto said on Jan 29. Earlier, Hungarian Chief Medical Officer Cecilia Muller announced that Hungary had authorized the use of China's Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine.


Chilean President Sebastian Pinera on Jan 28 went to the airport to welcome a shipment of nearly 2 million vaccines developed by Chinese firm Sinovac Biotech as the South American country prepares for mass vaccination campaign against COVID-19.

Pinera noted that the Health Ministry approved Sinovac's CoronaVac vaccine as "safe and effective" for immunizing all age groups over 18, including those over 60.


The Malaysian government signed a deal on Jan 26 to procure 12 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine CoronaVac developed by Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac.

The vaccines would be supplied through Malaysia's leading pharmaceutical company Pharmaniaga following the signing of an agreement between the company and Malaysia's Health Ministry, the Health Ministry said in a statement.


Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is willing to receive the Chinese-made Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine shots, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said on Jan 19.

The Philippine government has said that it has secured 25 million doses of Sinovac-developed CoronaVac vaccines, which is seeking an emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration of the Philippines.

The first batch of 50,000 doses of CoronaVac vaccines will arrive in the Philippines as early as February.


Serbian health authorities approved the use of Sinopharm's COVID-19 vaccines on Jan 18, two days after a million doses were imported from China, enabling the country to start mass immunization of its population.

One million doses of Sinopharm's vaccine arrived in Serbia on Jan 16 and were welcomed at the Belgrade Airport by President Aleksandar Vucic, who confirmed that he will receive the vaccine himself.


Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen said on Jan 17 that he will be the first in the country to be inoculated with a COVID-19 vaccine developed by China's Sinopharm to boost the public's confidence in the shot, CGTN reported.

On Jan 15, Hun Sen announced that he had accepted a donation of 1 million doses of the Sinopharm vaccine.

He said apart from the donation, the government will continue to seek more vaccine doses for 10 million or up to 13 million people if there is a need to vaccinate up to 80 percent of the country's population.


Turkey started mass vaccination for COVID-19 on Jan 14 after the authorities approved the emergency use of the Chinese vaccine. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan received a shot of the Sinovac's CoronaVac coronavirus disease vaccine at Ankara City Hospital on the same day.

More than 600,000 health workers in Turkey have received their first doses of COVID-19 shots developed by China's Sinovac during the first two days of the country's vaccination program.

Algeria's Minister of Communication, Government Spokesman, Ammar Belhimer announced on Jan 13 that Algeria would receive a batch of COVID-19 vaccine from China "before the end of January this year," reported Algeria Press Service.

Indonesia, through its Food and Drug Control Agency, approved China's biopharmaceutical company Sinovac Biotech's COVID-19 vaccine for use on Jan 11.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo on Jan 13 received the COVID-19 vaccine shot. After the president, the Indonesian military chief, the national police chief and the Health Minister, among others, were also vaccinated.

Widodo received his second dose of the vaccine on Jan 27, two weeks after the first injection.

The Indian Ocean archipelago of the Seychelles began vaccinating its population against the coronavirus on Jan 10, 2021.

The country's president, Wavel Ramkalawan, was the first to receive the jab, an event broadcast on live television at a hospital in the capital Victoria. Several dozen public figures joined him.

The country is using the Chinese vaccine developed by the Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinopharm with its subsidiary the China National Biotec Group.


Peru has signed an agreement with Chinese pharmaceutical firm Sinopharm to acquire its vaccine against COVID-19, with the first 1 million doses to arrive this month, Peruvian President Francisco Sagasti announced on Jan 6.

In a nationwide address, Sagasti said Peru's cooperation in Sinopharm phase 3 trials placed the country "in a better position to access vaccines" and to "verify their effectiveness in the national population."


The UAE announced on Dec 9, 2020, the official registration of a COVID-19 vaccine developed by the China National Pharmaceutical Group, or Sinopharm, the official WAM news agency reported.

The UAE became the first country to offer Chinese-developed COVID-19 vaccines to all citizens and residents for free, on Dec 23. The trials in UAE shows the Chinese vaccine provides 86 percent efficacy against COVID-19 infection.

The vaccine was granted Emergency Use Authorization in September by the health ministry to protect frontline workers most at risk of COVID-19.


Bahrain's health regulator on Dec 13, 2020, announced it has officially approved the registration of a COVID-19 vaccine developed by the China National Pharmaceutical Group, or Sinopharm, according to Bahrain News Agency.

The National Health Regulatory Authority made the decision to approve and use the vaccine after thorough review and evaluation of the clinical trials data.

Bahrain, which has participated in Phase III clinical trials of the vaccine in August, authorized the emergency use of Sinopharm's vaccine in November to cover those frontline professionals in contact with COVID-19 patients.

Several ministers and senior officials have already received the vaccine in Bahrain, including Bahrain's crown prince."

World warmly welcomes Chinese vaccines - Chinadaily.com.cn

[Buckaroo Banzai]

Happy that today I was sent a text from the county public health department that I am scheduled to get my jab next month on the 17th.

Woo-hoo!

Unfortunately I live FL Republistan
I am 63 and with a heart condition that places me in a high risk category and even my cardiologist with whom I met last week has no idea when, or was given any instructions yet.
Boo-Hooo

[OhOh]

New clinical trials raise fears the coronavirus is learning how to resist vaccines

Emily Baumgaertner

Sat, January 30, 2021, 11:08 AM



"New data showing that two COVID-19 vaccines are far less effective in South Africa than in other places they were tested have heightened fears that the coronavirus is quickly finding ways to elude the world’s most powerful tools to contain it.

The U.S. company Novavax reported this week that although its vaccine was nearly 90% effective in clinical trials conducted in Britain, the figure fell to 49% in South Africa — and that nearly all the infections the company analyzed in South Africa involved the B.1.351 variant that emerged there late last year and has spread to the United States and at least 30 other countries.

Johnson & Johnson announced Friday that its new shot was 72% effective against preventing moderate or severe illness in the United States, compared with 66% in Latin America and 57% in South Africa.
Laboratory tests had suggested that the vaccines authorized in the U.S. — one from Pfizer and BioNTech, the other from Moderna and the National Institutes of Health — trigger a smaller immune response to the South Africa variant.

Now there is evidence from tests in people that some variants are less vulnerable to certain vaccines.
“From an evolutionary biology perspective, this is totally expected and anticipated,” said Dr. Michael Mina, a Harvard epidemiologist. “But it never feels good to be validated on something so scary.”
Researchers once believed it would take several more months, or even years, for the virus to develop resistance to vaccines. They said the speedy evolution is largely a result of the virus’ unchecked spread.
More than 100 million people have been infected worldwide, and each of those infections is an opportunity for the virus to randomly mutate.

A mutation that happens to give the virus an advantage — the ability to resist the body’s natural defenses, for example — can become the basis for a heartier variant.
One early sign that this process was underway was the significant number of people who were contracting the coronavirus a second time. It appeared that the training their immune systems received during the first infection was failing to protect them from new versions of the virus.

Scientists at Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech worried that the same thing could happen with immunity induced by their vaccines. In laboratories, they took several versions of the virus and exposed them to blood samples from a small number of people who had been vaccinated.

The neutralizing antibodies produced in response to Moderna’s vaccine were equally effective against the original coronavirus and the B.1.1.7 strain that emerged in the United Kingdom but were far less effective against the South Africa strain. Pfizer’s vaccine was only slightly less effective against the South Africa variant compared with the others.
Experts had cautioned that laboratory tests were an imperfect model for understanding the immune response in people.
Other parts of the immune system, such as T-cells, might play a role in fighting a variant, even when neutralizing antibodies fall short, said Marc Lipsitch, a Harvard epidemiologist.

That’s why the Novavax trial — the first to test the interactions between variants and vaccines in the real world — was so concerning.

“Whether people who have been vaccinated get infected with the variant — that’s the real proof in the pudding,” said Dr. Otto Yang, an infectious-disease researcher at UCLA.

Novavax cautioned that its South Africa study, which included about 4,400 patients, was too small to offer a precise measurement on the vaccine’s efficacy.

The Johnson & Johnson results provided further evidence that the problem was serious.
Experts said the weaker performance of the vaccine in South Africa — where it was tested on about 6,500 people — almost certainly was a result of the predominance of the variant circulating widely there. Researchers believe that it is more contagious than other variants and that it has become more common in South Africa and elsewhere since the trial began in September.

Researchers said variants were also likely to blame for the subpar showing of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in Latin America — where it was tested in more than 17,000 people in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru.

The mutations of greatest concern are on the spike protein on the surface of the virus, because the current crop of vaccines train the immune system to recognize that protein. Mutations there increase the likelihood that the virus will slip by undetected.

Mina, the Harvard epidemiologist, likened the process to searching for a criminal by memorizing the appearance of only his nose and mouth. At first, this may prove sufficient. But if the criminal gets a nose job, investigators will wish they learned about his eyes, ears and hair as well.

Mina said a more diverse arsenal of vaccines, employing a variety of approaches, is needed.

In the meantime, Moderna has announced efforts to develop a booster shot to add to its current two-shot regimen in order to fend off the South Africa variant. The company also plans to test whether a third shot of the original formula could help with other strains.

BioNTech, the company that worked with Pfizer on its shot, is also considering developing an adjusted vaccine.
The United States reported its first known cases of the South Africa variant Thursday, in two people in South Carolina. The U.K. strain, which is also thought to be more contagious, is also circulating here.

In a briefing for reporters Friday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the confirmation that more transmissible strains are now in the U.S. is a “wake-up call” that underscores the need to rapidly vaccinate Americans.

“Vaccinating as many people as we can, as quickly as we can” is the key to slowing the ability of the virus to mutate, he said. “Viruses cannot mutate if they cannot replicate.”

The U.S. is vaccinating an average of 1.2 million people a day, said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Experts say that is far too slow, because there’s no knowing what kind of advanced variants will exist by the time the vaccination campaign reaches critical mass.

They stress that vaccination must be accompanied by defensive tactics such as masking and social distancing until case numbers are negligibly low.

“If you think you’re going to simply vaccinate your way out of this, it’s going to be like whack-a-mole,” said Susan Butler-Wu, director of clinical microbiology at L.A. County-USC Medical Center.
An effective vaccination campaign must eventually stretch around the world. If an impressive strain were to pop up next year in, for example, Brazil, even a fully vaccinated U.S. could be in danger.

“You can vaccinate the hell out of America,” said Mina, but “until everyone is protected, we’re all still at risk.”

Fauci called for bolstering the government’s ability to detect new viral mutations. Genetic sequencing efforts have been fragmented, relying on academics and other groups to voluntarily upload their findings. The U.S. sequences just 1% of the millions of positive samples collected during routine coronavirus testing.

“We’re shining a flashlight around in the dark, hoping we spot dangerous variants,” said Anne Rimoin, an epidemiologist at UCLA. “What we really need to do is flip on the lights.”

https://www.latimes.com/science/stor...shows-pitfalls

[harrybarracuda]

Elsewhere in the world deliveries continue.

World warmly welcomes Chinese vaccines.

No it doesn't.

In fact Brazil said it's barely 50% effective.

Which the chinkies seem to have missed from this particular piece of propaganda.

[harrybarracuda]

New clinical trials raise fears the coronavirus is learning how to resist vaccines

How can a virus "learn"? It doesn't have a brain.

Pfizer’s vaccine was only slightly less effective against the South Africa variant compared with the others.

That's why you should get a Pfizer vaccine and not a silly chinky one.

[bsnub]

And I got a phone call saying my second Pfizer is tomorrow at Noon.

You rockstar living in Dubai.

I am getting the Pfizer jab too. Just have to wait a touch longer.

My buddy has a girlfriend who is a member of a native tribe here in Washington...

The Muckleshoot reservation. If you look at their Facebook they are wide open for vaccinations if you work at their Casinos or are actually dating one of them. Actually you do not even need that.

Federal law does not apply on the reservation.

[lom]

How can a virus "learn"? It doesn't have a brain.

It is not learning but it mutates and then comes survival of the fittest (mutation).

[bsnub]

Unfortunately I live FL Republistan
I am 63 and with a heart condition that places me in a high risk category and even my cardiologist with whom I met last week has no idea when, or was given any instructions yet.
Boo-Hooo

But you claim that NYC is a bigger shithole than Floriduh. Your governor is a total subhuman trashbag who worships drumpf. I would have got out of that state as soon as this virus was a thing. Now you will pay a price for massive state wide incompetence administered by your shit governor.

I hope you survive.

[Buckaroo Banzai]

But you claim that NYC is a bigger shithole than Floriduh. Your governor is a total subhuman trashbag who worships drumpf. I would have got out of that state as soon as this virus was a thing. Now you will pay a price for massive state wide incompetence administered by your shit governor.

I hope you survive.

NY is not a bigger shithole, it is a colder shithole LOL
I would have no problem being in NY, lots of nice places outside NYC. If I didn't have to freeze by balls for a a good part of the year, and pay close to $1,000 a month in property taxes for the privilege's of doing so.
Everything you said about FL is true, except for a few miles on either coast, and Orlando, the rest is a bigoted , sweaty , inbreed, shit hole.
When this pandemic hit . we were preparing to return to Thailand , I sat the wife down and we had a talk , about what to do, We decided that if we came to Thailand and the shit hit the fan, we would be trapped there, better to stay in FL with its superiors medical infrastructure, and laws , at least as far as it applied to me .
WRONG!!! I might not be bigoted, but it looks like I am just as big a shithead as those I make fun of. Just in different ways.
But If anyone survives it would be me, I bathe in Purell, I rarely go out, and when I do the wife makes me take off my shoes and cloths in the garage and take a shower. A bit of overkill if you ask me . I am so sick of taking showers, when this thing is over I am not showering for a week.
Hopefully I will be vaccinated soon and get the hell out of here.

[harrybarracuda]

You rockstar living in Dubai.

Who said I live in Dubai?

And the UAE are having a massive surge in cases at the moment. Maybe all those flights from South Africa.

Would explain why they are on the UK's quarantine list now.

[harrybarracuda]

The CDC spent $44m on a vaccination management system and states are abandoning it because it's shit.

Deloitte were given the contract without any bids. I wonder how much baldy orange loser trousered for that one?

What went wrong with America’s $44 million vaccine data system? | MIT Technology Review

[harrybarracuda]

Heard from two different Middle East countries today that the SA variant has thrown them a curveball. I would imagine the UK has similar fears.

Ties in with todays news that certain vaccines are not as effective against it.

[harrybarracuda]

LONDON - British centenarian Captain Tom Moore, who raised millions of pounds for the health service by walking laps of his garden in last year’s lockdown, has been admitted to hospital after testing positive for Covid-19, his daughter said on Sunday (Jan 31).

https://www.asiaone.com/world/britains-captain-tom-moore-hospitalised-after-testing-positive-covid-19

[cyrille]

Who said I live in Dubai?

You've strongly suggested it whenever anyone says you live in Saudi.

Jumeirah, I think it was.

[harrybarracuda]

You've strongly suggested it whenever anyone says you live in Saudi.

Jumeirah, I think it was.

I have done nothing of the kind. I have neither confirmed or denied I live in any Middle East country.

I've only ever confirmed I live in the sandpit. Make of that what you will.

[cyrille]

I have neither confirmed or denied I live in any Middle East country.

Righto, harriet.

Whatever you say.

[harrybarracuda]

Righto, harriet.

Whatever you say.

I do say.

Plus I move around lot.



However, I am pleased to announce I am now Pfizer'd up and will get a certificate in two weeks to say I am immune.

That does narrow my current location down to a few countries.

[misskit]

^ Congratulations. Waiting on my call for the second jab appointment. Supposed to hear from the health department this week.

[harrybarracuda]

My 5G signal is crystal clear... the chip is working!

[misskit]

^ If only!

[harrybarracuda]

More jaapie mayhem. The UK has locked down several postcodes and is even going door to door to test and trace.

Urgent coronavirus testing will be taking place throughout parts of England after the discovery of more cases of the South African Covid variant.

Over 16s across areas including London, Kent and Southport will be taking part in door to door testing, even if no symptoms are showing, in a bid to stop the spread of the virus any further.

The mass testing comes after two South African Covid cases have been discovered in Surrey despite no link to travel or previous cases of the strain.

Door to door coronavirus testing: How it works and what areas will be tested for South... - LBC