Originally Posted by Bwana:
Once again, don't come in this thread with some kind of political agenda, or you will be shown the door. If you want to go that route, there is a thread about this in DC.
Originally Posted by Dartgod:
People, there is a lot of good information in this thread, let's try to keep the petty bickering to a minimum.
We all have varying opinions about the impact of this, the numbers, etc. We will all never agree with each other. But we can all keep it civil.
Thanks!
Click here for the original OP:
Spoiler!
Apparently the CoronaVirus can survive on a inanimate objects, such as door knobs, for 9 days.
California coronavirus case could be first spread within U.S. community, CDC says
By SOUMYA KARLAMANGLA, JACLYN COSGROVE
FEB. 26, 2020 8:04 PM
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating what could be the first case of novel coronavirus in the United States involving a patient in California who neither recently traveled out of the country nor was in contact with someone who did.
“At this time, the patient’s exposure is unknown. It’s possible this could be an instance of community spread of COVID-19, which would be the first time this has happened in the United States,” the CDC said in a statement. “Community spread means spread of an illness for which the source of infection is unknown. It’s also possible, however, that the patient may have been exposed to a returned traveler who was infected.”
The individual is a resident of Solano County and is receiving medical care in Sacramento County, according to the state Department of Public Health.
The CDC said the “case was detected through the U.S. public health system — picked up by astute clinicians.”
Officials at UC Davis Medical Center expanded on what the federal agency might have meant by that in an email sent Wednesday, as reported by the Davis Enterprise newspaper.
The patient arrived at UC Davis Medical Center from another hospital Feb. 19 and “had already been intubated, was on a ventilator, and given droplet protection orders because of an undiagnosed and suspected viral condition,” according to an email sent by UC Davis officials that was obtained by the Davis Enterprise.
The staff at UC Davis requested COVID-19 testing by the CDC, but because the patient didn’t fit the CDC’s existing criteria for the virus, a test wasn’t immediately administered, according to the email. The CDC then ordered the test Sunday, and results were announced Wednesday. Hospital administrators reportedly said in the email that despite these issues, there has been minimal exposure at the hospital because of safety protocols they have in place.
A UC Davis Health spokesperson declined Wednesday evening to share the email with The Times.
Since Feb. 2, more than 8,400 returning travelers from China have entered California, according to the state health department. They have been advised to self-quarantine for 14 days and limit interactions with others as much as possible, officials said.
“This is a new virus, and while we are still learning about it, there is a lot we already know,” Dr. Sonia Angell, director of the California Department of Public Health, said in a statement. “We have been anticipating the potential for such a case in the U.S., and given our close familial, social and business relationships with China, it is not unexpected that the first case in the U.S. would be in California.”
It is not clear how the person became infected, but public health workers could not identify any contacts with people who had traveled to China or other areas where the virus is widespread. That raises concern that the virus is spreading in the United States, creating a challenge for public health officials, experts say.
“It’s the first signal that we could be having silent transmission in the community,” said Lawrence Gostin, director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law. “It probably means there are many more cases out there, and it probably means this individual has infected others, and now it’s a race to try to find out who that person has infected.”
On Tuesday, the CDC offered its most serious warning to date that the United States should expect and prepare for the coronavirus to become a more widespread health issue.
“Ultimately, we expect we will see coronavirus spread in this country,” said Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. “It’s not so much a question of if, but a question of when.”
According to the CDC’s latest count Wednesday morning, 59 U.S. residents have tested positive for the new strain of coronavirus — 42 of whom are repatriated citizens from a Diamond Princess cruise. That number has grown by two since Messonnier’s last count Tuesday, although the CDC was not immediately available to offer details on the additional cases.
More than 82,000 cases of coronavirus have been reported globally, and more than 2,700 people have died, with the majority in mainland China, the epicenter of the outbreak.
But public health leaders have repeatedly reminded residents that the health risk from the novel coronavirus to the general public remains low.
“While COVID-19 has a high transmission rate, it has a low mortality rate,” the state Department of Public Health said in a statement Wednesday. “From the international data we have, of those who have tested positive for COVID-19, approximately 80% do not exhibit symptoms that would require hospitalization. There have been no confirmed deaths related to COVID-19 in the United States to date.”
CDC officials have also warned that although the virus is likely to spread in U.S. communities, the flu still poses a greater risk.
Gostin said the news of potential silent transmission does not eliminate the possibility of containing the virus in the U.S. and preventing an outbreak.
“There are few enough cases that we should at least try,” he said. “Most of us are not optimistic that that will be successful, but we’re still in the position to try.”
Originally Posted by petegz28:
How effective do you think that vaccine is really going to be? Fauci himself has said he doesn't think that it will be highly effective at frist and a lot of experts have said we are 5-10 years away from a real vaccine in the way of the flu vaccine.
Even so, people can and most likely will still get this even after a vaccine for a while. So I go back to treating it. I mean if I don't get it then great but what happens if\when I do?
Therapeutics......
I am not disagreeing we do need therapeutics badly but doesn't seem to be one on the horizon.
Moderna thinks they can get up to 90% or higher so we will see. The Oxford vaccine will be less than that though. [Reply]
Originally Posted by dirk digler:
I am confidant they will because this virus doesn't mutate much. Dr Fauci said they are preparing human challenges trials just in case though.
Eh count me out on human challenge trials. That’s a bioethics nightmare [Reply]
Originally Posted by petegz28:
We need therapeutics before a vaccine. I know the word "vaccine" makes everyone feel all warm and fuzzy. It's like watching the movies when the Villain is the only one with the "anti-dote".
The reality is if we can find ways to treat it like we have ways to treat influenza and such then a vaccine is gravy and won't need to be rushed so much thus hopefully getting us something better sooner.
Prevention is always going to be better than therapeutics, influenza still kills people that would potentially have survived with a vaccine.
Not getting it >getting it and getting treated [Reply]
I know someone whose wife's family in the Philippines is in trouble. One uncle has died. Her aunt is very sick. They had to spend 3 days calling around to find a hospital who would take the aunt - and only finally got in through some connection to a local politician.
The Philippines supposedly only has some 2700 deaths for a country of 106M. That has to be complete bullshit. [Reply]
Originally Posted by : Andrew Dunn:I wanted to start with the question I get most from friends and family: When are we getting a coronavirus vaccine? Given what we know today, August 19, when do you anticipate a vaccine will be widely available in the US, meaning low priority people can get the shot?
Moncef Slaoui: I think if things go according to plan, I would say in the second quarter of 2021. We will probably have immunized all of the high-risk population, which I assume to be around 70 or 80 million people.
In the second quarter, as of April, May, June, we will be immunizing the broader population.
Now this is contingent on the fact that the vaccine efficacy of course for the various vaccines we are developing, at least I would say two-thirds of them is demonstrated and the plans are without unpredictable accidents. I feel pretty confident we'll be there.
Dunn: How does that correlate with a return to normal? When do you expect people can go back to living like pre-pandemic times?
Slaoui: I'd say the second half of 2021, in line with the fact that the second quarter of 2021 we will have all the vaccines needed to immunize everybody.
An important point there is we need a large percentage of the population to accept and agree to use a vaccine. The mission of addressing the hesitancy is absolutely vital for our lives to go back to normal.
Dunn: Thinking ahead to delivery logistics. What can you tell me about the plan to actually distribute a vaccine? Do you expect it to look more like the traditional flu vaccine rollout, with retail pharmacies, schools, workplaces, or could there be drive-throughs or mobile vans?
Slaoui: As we speak it's being discussed and designed. The one thing I would say is don't think about mass-vaccinating 300 million people in five weeks. That's not what's going to happen.
The complexity of distribution is looked at from the perspective of huge mass vaccination over a very short period of time. But if you think about vaccinating 300 million people over a period of six months, where you have particular populations using particular vaccines. The various six vaccines are not all going to demonstrate efficacy at the same time.
One has to look at this as a continuous process where various populations that are probably present across the country from a geographic standpoint are going to be immunized serially.
Dunn: Given the pre-purchase deals and manufacturing happening now, what happens if two vaccines both pass the FDA's bar but one has clearly better efficacy? Say vaccine A is 70% effective and vaccine B turns out to be 55% effective, with similar safety profiles. Will some people get vaccine B?
Slaoui: Those are very important decisions to put into context of the benefit-risk for the population and the timing.
I think, definitely, the operation is not going to be the one making those decisions. Those are huge decisions that will need to be taking into account the risk in the population, the amount of vaccine doses available, and the performance of the vaccine.
But a few points. This is something that is difficult to convey, vaccine efficacy is always a point estimate around a confidence interval. When we say a vaccine is 75% efficacious, there's probably a confidence interval around that number 75 that goes from 100 to say 62. I'm just inventing a number, okay? Which means actually there's a 95% chance the real efficacy is anywhere between 62 and 100.
If you compare that with another vaccine that has a point estimate of 87 with an as-wide confidence interval. They are actually the same statistically. The problem is how are we going to be able to convey that information to the population is a super important point.
I think it's important for people to start discussing in general how vaccine decisions are made, how do we compare vaccines? Now that we have completed our major agreements, we can talk. We are going to talk nonstop about everything: How we're doing it, what the data are, and the data will be available.
So how are going to compare? Two things: First, the efficacy is not going to come at the same time. It's going to come in succession.
So some decisions, if the pandemic continues as is, are going to be taken before we know which one is the best. We'll have the first two probably more or less at the same time and we're going to have to make a call about them because there's 1,000 people dying per day.
The second point is we have designed the trials in such a way that the endpoints in the trial are the same, the definition of the case is the same. An apple is an apple, an orange is an orange across trials. This is almost never the case when things are designed by independent companies.
Secondly, the antibody assays, the neutralizing assays, the virological assays, are standardized and run in the same laboratories to help us identify immune correlates of protection to be able to not only have the level of efficacy achieved but also potentially a) accelerate other vaccines that could be approved on the basis of immune correlates and b) optimize the vaccines with a slightly different immunization schedule or improve the dose.
Originally Posted by Monticore:
Prevention is always going to be better than therapeutics, influenza still kills people that would potentially have survived with a vaccine.
Originally Posted by suzzer99:
I know someone whose wife's family in the Philippines is in trouble. One uncle has died. Her aunt is very sick. They had to spend 3 days calling around to find a hospital who would take the aunt - and only finally got in through some connection to a local politician.
The Philippines supposedly only has some 2700 deaths for a country of 106M. That has to be complete bullshit.
The Philippines medical care is tragically poor. [Reply]
