The COVID-2019 Thread

[harrybarracuda]

The baldy orange loser legacy....

And the US passed 200,000 new cases in a day for the first time yesterday.

The United States on Wednesday recorded its single-worst daily death toll since the pandemic began, and on a day when Covid-19 hospitalizations also hit an all-time high, the pace of loss showed no signs of slowing any time soon.
Not since spring, during the pandemic’s first peak, were so many deaths reported. The high point then was 2,752 deaths on April 15. On Wednesday it was at least 2,760.

Covid-19 Live Updates: C.D.C. Warns Against Holiday Travel - The New York Times

[Klondyke]

The baldy orange loser legacy....

And the US passed 200,000 new cases in a day for the first time yesterday.

80 million trustful voters cannot wait to 20 January when the new cases will abruptly stop (similarly as the night 3rd November the votes abruptly stopped for ...please no names...)

[Cujo]

80 million trustful voters cannot wait to 20 January when the new cases will abruptly stop (similarly as the night 3rd November the votes abruptly stopped for ...please no names...)

The votes didn't stop though did they, much to the consternation of Trump and all those Trumpanzees outside the counting stations shouting stop the vote.

[OhOh]

Studies find COVID-19 infections worldwide earlier than previously identified

Source: Xinhua| 2020-12-02 20:26:05|Editor: huaxia

-- COVID-19 was likely in the United States as early as mid-December 2019, weeks before the virus was first identified in China.

-- Growing evidence, such as the detection of the virus genome in waste water samples in March 12, 2019 in Spain, shows COVID-19 was circulating outside of China earlier than previously thought.

-- Virus source tracing is a serious scientific matter. Being the first to report the virus does not mean that the virus had its origin in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

-- Historically, the place where a virus was first reported has not often been that of its origin.

BEIJING/WASHINGTON, Dec. 2 (Xinhua) --

"A newly released study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that COVID-19 was likely in the United States as early as mid-December 2019, weeks before the virus was first identified in China, boosting evidence suggesting that the coronavirus was spreading around the world earlier than previously known.

COVID-19 infections "may have been present in the U.S. in December 2019," about a month earlier than the first case was officially confirmed in the United States, the CDC scientists wrote after finding evidence of infection in 106 of 7,389 blood donations from residents in nine states across the country, according to a study published Monday online in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

EARLIER IN U.S.

In the study, the CDC researchers found antibodies specific to the novel coronavirus in 39 samples from California, Oregon and Washington state collected between Dec. 13 and Dec. 16, and in 67 samples in Massachusetts, Michigan, Wisconsin or Iowa, and Connecticut or Rhode Island collected between Dec. 30 and Jan. 17.

The study also highlighted the value of screening routinely collected blood samples for evidence of viruses spreading in a population, said the researchers, adding the CDC is continuing to conduct ongoing surveillance using blood donations and clinical laboratory samples for COVID-19 infection in multiple sites across the country.

Before this latest report, the earliest case of the novel coronavirus in the United States was reported on Jan. 19 this year, two days after domestic testing was initiated, according to the CDC.

Yet, some reports have suggested the entry of the virus into the United States may have occurred earlier than initially recognized, though widespread community transmission was not likely until late February, the study authors said.

Also, Michael Melham, mayor of Belleville in the U.S. state of New Jersey, said in late April that he had tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies and believed he had contracted the virus in November last year, despite a doctor's reported assumption that what Melham went through was just flu

"My fear is that there are many who dismissed a potentially positive coronavirus diagnosis as a bad flu," the mayor said in his statement.

EVIDENCE WORLDWIDE

Not merely in the United States, more researches have added to growing evidence that COVID-19 was circulating outside of China earlier than previously thought.
In Spain, researchers at the University of Barcelona, one of the European country's most prestigious universities, had detected the presence of the virus genome in waste water samples collected on March 12, 2019, the university said in a statement in June.

These results "suggest the infection was present before knowing about any case of COVID-19 in any part of the world," the statement said.

"Although COVID-19 is a respiratory disease, researchers proved there are large quantities of the coronavirus genome in the excrements that reach waste waters. This situation made the waste water-based epidemiology a potential tool for early detection of the circulation of the virus among the population," the statement said.

In France, scientists found a man was infected with COVID-19 in December last year, roughly a month before the country confirmed its first cases.

Citing a doctor at Avicenne and Jean-Verdier hospitals near Paris, BBC News reported that the patient "must have been infected between 14 and 22 December, as coronavirus symptoms take between five and 14 days to appear."

Meanwhile, in Italy, a recent research by the National Cancer Institute in Milan showed that 11.6 percent of the 959 healthy volunteers who participated in a lung cancer screening trial between September 2019 to March 2020 had developed COVID-19 antibodies well before February when the first official case was recorded in the country, with four cases from the study dated to the first week in October last year, which means those people had been infected in September.

SCIENTIFIC EXAMINATION

Regarding the new findings, Michael Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization (WHO)'s Health Emergencies Program, said at a press conference on Friday that the WHO is "working with scientists all over the world."

The organization will "take every detection in France, in Spain, in Italy very seriously, and we will examine each and every one of them," he said.

Indeed, virus source tracing is a serious scientific matter, which should be based on science and studied by scientists and medical experts. As far as COVID-19 is concerned, being the first to report the virus does not mean that the virus had its origin in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
Historically, the place where a virus was first reported has not often been that of its origin. The HIV infection, for instance, was first reported by the United States, yet it might also be possible that the virus did not owe its origin to the United States. And more and more evidence proves that the Spanish Flu did not originate from Spain.

As WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said, the WHO is "committed to doing everything it can based on science and solutions to find the origin and that's the basics."

"We need to do the basics and we will not stop from knowing the truth on the origin of the virus but based on science, without politicizing it or trying to create tension in the process," the WHO head observed."

Xinhua Headlines: Studies find COVID-19 infections worldwide earlier than previously identified - Xinhua | English.news.cn

[misskit]

Thailand to launch nationwide Covid-19 vaccination in May

Thailand’s Covid-19 vaccination programme will begin in May 2021, according to the Department of Disease Control (DDC)’s action plan revealed on Thursday.


The country last week signed a Bt6-billion deal to buy 26 million doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine to immunise 13 million people.


The vaccine will first have to pass safety and quality checks applied by the Thai Food and Drug Administration and Department of Medical Sciences under the Public Health Ministry, said DDC director-general Opas Karnkawinpong.

Secondly, the DDC will prepare vaccination centres at more than 10,000 subdistrict health promotion hospitals nationwide to reach communities quickly and prevent crowding in large hospitals.

A cold-chain transport system to maintain vaccine quality is now being prepared, and officials are being trained for the mass vaccination programme.

The first to be called for registration will be medical staff, young children, the elderly, and vulnerable groups.

Local health authorities will then summon registered participants for vaccination at health promotion hospitals or mobile health units. The vaccinations will begin in May 2021, according the DDC action plan.

Thailand to launch nationwide Covid-19 vaccination in May

[harrybarracuda]

Studies find COVID-19 infections worldwide earlier than previously identified

Source: Xinhua| 2020-12-02 20:26:05|Editor: huaxia

-- COVID-19 was likely in the United States as early as mid-December 2019, weeks before the virus was first identified in China.

-- Growing evidence, such as the detection of the virus genome in waste water samples in March 12, 2019 in Spain, shows COVID-19 was circulating outside of China earlier than previously thought.

-- Virus source tracing is a serious scientific matter. Being the first to report the virus does not mean that the virus had its origin in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

-- Historically, the place where a virus was first reported has not often been that of its origin.

BEIJING/WASHINGTON, Dec. 2 (Xinhua) --

"A newly released study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that COVID-19 was likely in the United States as early as mid-December 2019, weeks before the virus was first identified in China, boosting evidence suggesting that the coronavirus was spreading around the world earlier than previously known.

COVID-19 infections "may have been present in the U.S. in December 2019," about a month earlier than the first case was officially confirmed in the United States, the CDC scientists wrote after finding evidence of infection in 106 of 7,389 blood donations from residents in nine states across the country, according to a study published Monday online in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

EARLIER IN U.S.

In the study, the CDC researchers found antibodies specific to the novel coronavirus in 39 samples from California, Oregon and Washington state collected between Dec. 13 and Dec. 16, and in 67 samples in Massachusetts, Michigan, Wisconsin or Iowa, and Connecticut or Rhode Island collected between Dec. 30 and Jan. 17.

The study also highlighted the value of screening routinely collected blood samples for evidence of viruses spreading in a population, said the researchers, adding the CDC is continuing to conduct ongoing surveillance using blood donations and clinical laboratory samples for COVID-19 infection in multiple sites across the country.

Before this latest report, the earliest case of the novel coronavirus in the United States was reported on Jan. 19 this year, two days after domestic testing was initiated, according to the CDC.

Yet, some reports have suggested the entry of the virus into the United States may have occurred earlier than initially recognized, though widespread community transmission was not likely until late February, the study authors said.

Also, Michael Melham, mayor of Belleville in the U.S. state of New Jersey, said in late April that he had tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies and believed he had contracted the virus in November last year, despite a doctor's reported assumption that what Melham went through was just flu

"My fear is that there are many who dismissed a potentially positive coronavirus diagnosis as a bad flu," the mayor said in his statement.

EVIDENCE WORLDWIDE

Not merely in the United States, more researches have added to growing evidence that COVID-19 was circulating outside of China earlier than previously thought.
In Spain, researchers at the University of Barcelona, one of the European country's most prestigious universities, had detected the presence of the virus genome in waste water samples collected on March 12, 2019, the university said in a statement in June.

These results "suggest the infection was present before knowing about any case of COVID-19 in any part of the world," the statement said.

"Although COVID-19 is a respiratory disease, researchers proved there are large quantities of the coronavirus genome in the excrements that reach waste waters. This situation made the waste water-based epidemiology a potential tool for early detection of the circulation of the virus among the population," the statement said.

In France, scientists found a man was infected with COVID-19 in December last year, roughly a month before the country confirmed its first cases.

Citing a doctor at Avicenne and Jean-Verdier hospitals near Paris, BBC News reported that the patient "must have been infected between 14 and 22 December, as coronavirus symptoms take between five and 14 days to appear."

Meanwhile, in Italy, a recent research by the National Cancer Institute in Milan showed that 11.6 percent of the 959 healthy volunteers who participated in a lung cancer screening trial between September 2019 to March 2020 had developed COVID-19 antibodies well before February when the first official case was recorded in the country, with four cases from the study dated to the first week in October last year, which means those people had been infected in September.

SCIENTIFIC EXAMINATION

Regarding the new findings, Michael Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization (WHO)'s Health Emergencies Program, said at a press conference on Friday that the WHO is "working with scientists all over the world."

The organization will "take every detection in France, in Spain, in Italy very seriously, and we will examine each and every one of them," he said.

Indeed, virus source tracing is a serious scientific matter, which should be based on science and studied by scientists and medical experts. As far as COVID-19 is concerned, being the first to report the virus does not mean that the virus had its origin in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
Historically, the place where a virus was first reported has not often been that of its origin. The HIV infection, for instance, was first reported by the United States, yet it might also be possible that the virus did not owe its origin to the United States. And more and more evidence proves that the Spanish Flu did not originate from Spain.

As WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said, the WHO is "committed to doing everything it can based on science and solutions to find the origin and that's the basics."

"We need to do the basics and we will not stop from knowing the truth on the origin of the virus but based on science, without politicizing it or trying to create tension in the process," the WHO head observed."

Xinhua Headlines: Studies find COVID-19 infections worldwide earlier than previously identified - Xinhua | English.news.cn

Utter bollocks the virus was not found in waste samples in March 2019 or the pandemic would have spread through Europe you moron.

The scientists who claimed they found "the virus" in wastewater were found to be misidentifying other virus fragments incorrectly, which is why there are no peer reviewed papers backing up this absurd claim. The Italians made the same mistake.

The chinkies are spreading this bullshit as fast as they can before the world pressures them to let in the experts to find which batmuncher was the first to get infected.

As for "weeks before China identified the virus", it should be "weeks after the chinkies started the pandemic".

[harrybarracuda]

The chinkies are making up so many lies they're going to run out of countries to blame the Wuhan Virus on.

Now it's India's turn.



Shifting The Blame: New Chinese Research Claims Coronavirus Originated in India in Summer 2019 | India.com

[Cujo]

over 2000 deaths yesterday, a new record. So much winning.
Meanwhile glorious leader is MIA. Or should I say AWOL.

[misskit]

^ It’s worse than that.

New CDC Data Suggests True Coronavirus Death Toll is Now Near 400,000

As the United States broke another grisly record with over 3,000 coronavirus deaths in a single day, data from the Centers for Disease Control suggests the true cumulative U.S. death toll is near 400,000 souls lost.


According to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University, the official confirmed U.S. coronavirus death toll for Wednesday was 3,157. The official confirmed U.S. total death toll is now 273,847 as of Wednesday.


But according to an analysis of CDC data on “excess deaths related to COVID-19,” the true death toll is at least 100,000 more. From The New York Times:



The data show how the coronavirus pandemic, which is peaking in many states, is bringing with it unusual patterns of death, higher than the official totals of deaths that have been directly linked to the virus.


Deaths nationwide were 19 percent higher than normal from March 15 to Nov. 14. Altogether, the analysis shows that 345,000 more people than normal have died in the United States during that period, a number that may be an undercount since recent death statistics are still being updated.



During the period that NYT analyzed against the CDC data, the official confirmed death toll from the coronavirus was 246,206. Since then, the official confirmed death toll has increased by more than 27,000. Even using just the raw number of excess deaths in the CDC data would place the true current death toll at over 372,000, but it’s certain that deaths continued to be undercounted.


And the current spike in record daily deaths is likely to increase, as the explosion in cases that began over a month ago begins to show up in the death count. Those case counts continue to soar, with 4 or 5 months to go before a vaccine will be widely available.


CDC Data Suggests True Coronavirus Death Toll Near 400,000

[OhOh]

Utter bollocks

Awaiting the UN/WHO investigation to may be prudent.

[harrybarracuda]

Awaiting the UN/WHO investigation to may be prudent.

Getting the UN/WHO investigators into Wuhan to investigate the source of the Wuhan Virus would be prudenter...er.

[harrybarracuda]

You would like to think a 9/11 every day would give pause to these dumb trumpanzees, but I doubt it.

• On Wednesday, the US recorded 3,157 coronavirus deaths, marking a new single-day high, according to Johns Hopkins University.
• More people died from COVID-19 in the US on Wednesday than the number of people killed in the 9/11 terror attacks: 2,977.

More Americans died of COVID-19 on Wednesday than the number of people killed on 9/11

[harrybarracuda]

And there are still dumb fuckers trotting out the "it's just like the 'flu" bullshit.

(Reuters) - Over 1.5 million people have lost their lives due to COVID-19 with one death reported every nine seconds on a weekly average, as vaccinations are set to begin in December in a handful of developed nations.

Coronavirus claims 1.5 million lives globally with 10,000 dying each day | Reuters

[harrybarracuda]

(Reuters) - Moderna Inc said on Thursday it expects to have between 100 million and 125 million doses of its experimental COVID-19 vaccine available globally in the first quarter of 2021.
The company said 85 million to 100 million of those doses would be available in the United States, with 15 million to 25 million available outside the country.
The first-quarter doses are within the 500 million to up to 1 billion doses the company expects to manufacture globally in 2021, Moderna said.
Results from an early-stage trial showed that the vaccine, mRNA-1273, produced high levels of binding and neutralizing antibodies that declined slightly over time, but remained elevated in all participants three months after the booster vaccination, the company said.
The drugmaker’s shares were down about 2% at $154.4 after the bell.

I think I can live with 2% for day.





Moderna to supply up to 125 million COVID-19 vaccine doses globally in first quarter | Reuters

[misskit]

Hackers targeting Covid-19 vaccine supply chain, IBM warns


With multiple vaccines close to becoming available in a world gripped by the coronavirus pandemic, manufacturers have become the target of hackers trying to steal trade secrets or disrupt supply chains.


IBM warned Thursday that it had uncovered a series of cyber attacks, potentially carried out by state actors, against companies involved in the effort to distribute vaccine doses, which must be kept cold.


IBM said the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Taxation and Customs Union was one target of the attacks, as well as European and Asian companies involved in the supply chain, whose names have not been disclosed.


“Our team recently uncovered a global phishing campaign targeting organizations associated with a COVID-19 cold chain,” Claire Zaboeva and Melissa Frydrych, analysts for IBM X-Force, a cyber security working group, wrote in a blog post.


The purpose “may have been to harvest credentials, possibly to gain future unauthorized access to corporate networks and sensitive information relating to the COVID-19 vaccine distribution.”


It was unclear if the attacks were successful, IBM said, and while it could not identify those behind the attacks, the precision of the operation signals “the potential hallmarks of nation-state tradecraft.”


The vaccine developed by Pfizer and German company BioNTech, which on Wednesday got the green light from Britain to distribute its vaccine, must be stored below -70 degrees Celsius to ensure its effectiveness.


That means it will require specialized logistics companies such as Haier Biomedical, a Chinese-owned cold chain supply company working with the World Health Organization and the United Nations.


Hackers impersonated an executive from Haier Biomedical, and “disguised as this employee, the adversary sent phishing emails to organizations believed to be providers of material support to meet transportation needs within the COVID-19 cold chain,” Zaboeva and Frydrych wrote.


Moderna also has developed a vaccine that must be stored at -20 degrees Celsius, while AstraZeneca’s version can be stored in a normal freezer.





– Wave of attacks –


Cybercriminals also have tried to attack several pharmaceutical companies developing vaccines including Johnson & Johnson, Novavax, AstraZeneca and South Korean laboratories, according to the Wall Street Journal.


Spanish laboratories also reportedly have been attacked by Chinese cybercriminals, the El Pais newspaper reported in September.


Cold storage giant Americold last month reported a hack into its computer systems to the US stock market regulator, without specifying whether the attack was related to the group’s role in vaccine storage.


“The intellectual property relating to mass market pharmaceuticals has tremendous value and so is a significant prize for a cybercriminal,” said Mark Kedgley, chief technology officer at New Net Technologies (NNT), a Naples, Florida-based provider of cybersecurity and compliance software.


And Covid-19 vaccines draw “Nation State level hacking.”


The countries experts most often linked to cyber attacks are Russia, China and North Korea, although there is no formal proof of their involvement in the recent incidents.


But cybersecurity firm Kapersky notes the use of “false flags” including Russian-linked email addresses, in a possible move to deflect blame for the attacks.


There also could be financial motives behind the attacks.


Brett Callow, threat analyst at Emisoft, said the attacks are not surprising.


“States or non state actors will try to use any situation that they can to obtain an advantage, whether it’s a political or a financial advantage,” he told AFP. “It’s pretty much inconceivable that anything Covid-related wouldn’t come under attack.”


The US federal cyber security agency, CISA, said the IBM report should be taken seriously by organizations involved in the vaccine supply chain.


“CISA encourages all organizations involved in vaccine storage and transport to harden attack surfaces, particularly in cold storage operation, and remain vigilant against all activity in this space,” Josh Corman, a CISA strategist, told AFP.


The labs, too, will be on alert.


“Much of the large pharma companies have the skills and cybersecurity organizations to be able to detect this malicious type code and to protect against it,” Marrene Allison, chief information security officer for Johnson & Johnson, said Thursday during a conference hosted by the Aspen Institute.


But, she said, “unfortunately, not everyone has that in the health care industry.”

Hackers targeting Covid-19 vaccine supply chain, IBM warns | Thai PBS World : The latest Thai news in English, News Headlines, World News and News Broadcasts in both Thai and English. We bring Thailand to the world

[harrybarracuda]

That is a complex supply chain for the Pfizer one. I can't see how intercepting shipments would help anyone unless the plan is to keep countries in disarray (so the chinkies probably).

A bigger concern is the chinkies knocking out fake vaccines like they knock out fake everything else.

[harrybarracuda]

Talking of which, I wonder if the chinkies are ever going to share their Phase III data?

Especially as they have supposedly stuck this shit in a million people.

[OhOh]

fake everything else

Every little helps.

[harrybarracuda]

I haven't got my glasses on. Is that a graph of bats and pangolins munched each year?

[panama hat]

Every little helps.

Excellent to see that the fuckers who started the pandemic ball rolling are doing well . . . but - they're still in China. Apropos - when are you returning to the mainland?

Talking of which, I wonder if the chinkies are ever going to share their Phase III data?

Especially as they have supposedly stuck this shit in a million people.

As soon as they can falsify the data . . . and a million out of 1.3 billion . . . chump change

[harrybarracuda]

Turns out the chinkies preferred way of doing business is to buy off regulators.

That's why no-one trusts them, and why they won't release their data.

I'd give that chinky shit a wide berth. I was offered it weeks ago but laughed and walked away.

Chinese coronavirus-vaccine maker Sinovac Biotech is good at getting its products to market. It was first to begin clinical trials of a SARS vaccine in 2003 and first to bring a swine flu vaccine to consumers in 2009.

Its CEO was also bribing China’s drug regulator for vaccine approvals during that time, court records show.

Yin Hongzhang, who shares a surname with Sinovac’s CEO but is no relation, was sentenced in 2017 to a decade in prison for taking bribes from Sinovac and seven other companies. Sinovac’s Yin Weidong, now 56, was not charged and continues to oversee the company’s coronavirus-vaccine drive this year.

For Sinovac, that case was not a one-off: At least 20 government officials and hospital administrators across five provinces admitted in court to taking bribes from Sinovac employees between 2008 and 2016.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...81f_story.html

[Troy]

Meanwhile, the UK passes 60,000 Covid deaths and almost 70,000 with Covid on death certificate.

Here's hoping the vaccine is good and it is distributed quickly and efficiently.

[harrybarracuda]

Meanwhile, the UK passes 60,000 Covid deaths and almost 70,000 with Covid on death certificate.

Here's hoping the vaccine is good and it is distributed quickly and efficiently.

Vaccine(s).

Pfizer and Moderna are looking good, Astrazeneca are doing further Phase III trials.

Russia and the chinkies won't even share their data, which tells you they are shit.



It's safe to say that Putin and the chinkies can't buy off most Western democracies, so they are likely to only get approval in their own bent systems or in countries where they are buying the authorities off.

So it's best to stick to vaccines approved in the UK, US, Germany, France, etc. which might mean waiting a bit longer but also means you can trust the results.

And before hoohoo and the puppy start bleating, the Pfizer virus has been approved for EMERGENCY use, so if people don't want it, they don't have to have it.

As someone said, vaccine manufacturers tend to relax when 3 million vaccinations have been performed with no major incidents.

There are still lots of issues that need to be clarified, like interactions with other drugs, pregnancy, etc. The Pfizer vaccine wasn't tested on anyone under 18, too.

This is a bit of a fucking cheek:

With no clarity on when a COVID-19 vaccine would be available in the country, many Indians are mulling a visit to the UK where the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is being rolled out next week after the British government approved its use on Wednesday, becoming the first country to do so.

Travel agents have started receiving enquiries from Indians who want to travel to the UK as soon as possible to get vaccinated, according to an NDTV report.

A Mumbai-based travel agent told PTI that some people on Wednesday raised queries on "how and when and if" they can travel to the UK to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

NDTV quoted Nishant Pitti, Co-founder and CEO of EaseMyTrip.com as saying that he has already received queries from some Indians who have got UK visas and can afford to go to London. He said his company is planning to launch a three-night package for those interested in travelling to the UK for the purpose of vaccination only.

On Wednesday, a Bengaluru-based travel company said Indians are asking if a short trip, without quarantine, to the UK to get the Pfizer vaccine was possible.

If the UK has spares, it should charge these fucking scroungers a small fortune and put it into the NHS.

With vaccine status in India unclear, many Indians mulling UK trip for Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine

[baldrick]

bonus about Aust being just about covid free is we can sit back and watch the vaccine guinea pigs do some large scale testing

[harrybarracuda]

bonus about Aust being just about covid free is we can sit back and watch the vaccine guinea pigs do some large scale testing

I'll do my testing on a Bali beach in January the way it is going.