Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[rob_shadows]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/boris-johnson-flatly-rejects-letting-123700874.html

So wait... Now the academic community is advocating a herd immunity approach? When did that start?

[LETSGOBROWNIES]

10 minutes ago, Fl0nkerton said:

well, that part wasn't the joke. pretty sure you can infer which part of it was though.

anyways, you mentioned that Remdesivir wasn't what you were referencing. I've got nothin' on Regeneron.

$2,300+ is a lot for treatment though, is it not?

Oh sweet summer child...

Google the cost of MS treatments if you really wanna hate someone.

[SwAg]

Now, as I was saying.

[vikesfan89]

18 minutes ago, Fl0nkerton said:

well, that part wasn't the joke. pretty sure you can infer which part of it was though.

anyways, you mentioned that Remdesivir wasn't what you were referencing. I've got nothin' on Regeneron.

$2,300+ is a lot for treatment though, is it not?

Yes I figured that out. I could be wrong but I thought  Bobby was referencing  Remdesivir. 

It is a lot but I imagine it's not compared to spending weeks in the hospital

[BobbyPhil1781]

NVM

Edited October 7, 2020 by BobbyPhil1781

[vikesfan89]

I do feel like they've come along ways though.  Would a 74 year out of shape man with a bad diet been in and out of the hospital in a few days even if costs was no object a few months ago?

It's possible that they are under stating his symptoms and he will still be getting a lot of treatment,  just in a different location. The British prime Minister was in a lot worse shape and he is quite a bit younger.  

 

[BobbyPhil1781]

Just now, vikesfan89 said:

I do feel like they've come along ways though.  Would a 74 year out of shape man with a bad diet been in and out of the hospital in a few days even if costs was no object a few months ago?

It's possible that they are under stating his symptoms and he will still be getting a lot of treatment,  just in a different location. The British prime Minister was in a lot worse shape and he is quite a bit younger.  

 

Yes, we have come a very long ways. Still more to go but we're substantially better off than even a month ago. It will be interesting to see what happens in the winter months when viruses tend to peek. Fingers crossed these vaccines get the nod as well as the plethora of treatments in phase 3 right now. I'm going to suspect we have a firm grasp on this thing by spring. Maybe not in the sense that it's eradicated but in the sense that we can prevent majority of people from going to the hospital who otherwise might have to w/o the treatments.

[vikesfan89]

1 minute ago, BobbyPhil1781 said:

Yes, we have come a very long ways. Still more to go but we're substantially better off than even a month ago. It will be interesting to see what happens in the winter months when viruses tend to peek. Fingers crossed these vaccines get the nod as well as the plethora of treatments in phase 3 right now. I'm going to suspect we have a firm grasp on this thing by spring. Maybe not in the sense that it's eradicated but in the sense that we can prevent majority of people from going to the hospital who otherwise might have to w/o the treatments.

I keep hearing more about vitamin d helping.  I imagine people being bundled up or just not going outside as much along with shorter days isn't going to help

[ramssuperbowl99]

48 minutes ago, Deadpulse said:

Maybe never? Herd immunity is hard to predict for a variety of reasons. Keep in mind vaccines are not eradicators. The flu vaccine is about 60% effective each year. In 2017 it was 10% effective because the CDC guess BADLY about the strains that were coming. (PLEASE READ; to caveat what I just said about vaccines, THEY DO MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE. Even in 2017 for the flu, if you got the flu your symptoms were lessened, your recovery time was quickened, you were less contagious for less time, and your chance of hospitalization or other complications such as pneumonia are drastically decreased. In short, even if the vaccine doesn't completely protect you it does help you fight off the disease). 

Phew ok back to COVID

With the speed of which of this virus spreads and how easily it does, it mutates quicker than any other virus we know of. This means vaccines WILL be yearly or even more frequent and they WILL be probably on average 40% effective because of strains developing so quickly and in numbers. Again, I will caveat this with it is STILL imperative that EVERYONE get a vaccine when a proven SAFE vaccine is released (currently the White House has WAIVED the usual vaccine testing/approval of the FDA to fast track a vaccine before election day, which is reckless, careless, and horrid IMO). Herd immunity will be impossible if people are unsure of a vaccine whether it be because it was fast tracked without proper testing/approval making people concerned about the safety, or if it's classic anti-vax, or if it gets politicized like masks, without about 90% vaccination rate, we will see COVID-19 continue to spike. 

Now let's say everything is ideal. A vaccine is released with no safety concerns, completely vetted by the FDA, and everyone is willing to get it. For arguments sake, let's say its released in December. First and foremost, hospitals will get the first shipments for front line people in the medical community. In January, it will start getting shipped out to the public. Now, there CANT be one magical day that everyone gets vaccinated. Logistics come into play in getting vaccine produced and shipped where it needs to go. Not only that, there are only so many medical professionals who can/will be giving the vaccine (mostly nurses, you wont see Docs doing this). It will probably be like March by the time 90% of the population is vaccinated. 

Remember, this is only in an IDEAL scenario where everyone wants to get a vaccine. From March 2021, it will probably take about 6 months to a year for herd immunity to kick in, and it will only stick if people all get the second round of vaccine that is likely inevitably going to be necessary. So by mid 2022 we might be able to abolish social distancing, however it should still be suggested with strangers. It will likely still be recommended but not required to wear a mask still at like the grocery store.

TLDR: If everyone gets a vaccine and the required 90% vaccination rate is hit for Herd Immunity than maybe summer 2022 things will be closer to normal. BIG if's though and not all that likely to see 90% vaccination required to get to herd immunity.  

This is an overly pessimistic take. We have no idea if the mutations seen in COVID would impact vaccine efficacy of any one of the candidates we have, much less all of them. The reports of re-infection are still inconsistent, with questions whether the person was symptomatic both times or whether cross reactivity in the mAb screening assays caused a false positive. I'm not saying it's impossible, but today the most reasonable position based on what we know is that immunity to COVID will last years after infection.

[LETSGOBROWNIES]

25 minutes ago, vikesfan89 said:

I do feel like they've come along ways though.  Would a 74 year out of shape man with a bad diet been in and out of the hospital in a few days even if costs was no object a few months ago?

It's possible that they are under stating his symptoms and he will still be getting a lot of treatment,  just in a different location. The British prime Minister was in a lot worse shape and he is quite a bit younger.  

 

Not really, he received preferential treatment.

Assuming his symptoms were as mild as he said, he had no reason to be admitted other than the fact he’s the president.

Like, no one else gets this treatment for mild s/s, so it’s not really a fair example to use for current treatment.

[BobbyPhil1781]

18 minutes ago, vikesfan89 said:

I keep hearing more about vitamin d helping.  I imagine people being bundled up or just not going outside as much along with shorter days isn't going to help

Vitamin D seems to be a huge factor in the severity of the virus' impact on the body. This is true for all viruses to the best of my knowledge which is why winter months are far worse than anything else. There's also the fact that mask wearing substantially decreases the viral load one will be introduced to and Australia has said they basically didn't even have a flu season this winter. We can expect the same thing to happen here, I'd think. One drawback I've thought of is that your body needs introduced to viruses in some capacity to help build up your immune system and wearing a mask will hinder the body's ability to do that but it's just something I thought of w/ no real proof or whatnot behind it.

[vikesfan89]

1 minute ago, LETSGOBROWNIES said:

Not really, he received preferential treatment.

Assuming his symptoms were as mild as he said, he had no reason to be admitted other than the fact he’s the president.

Like, no one else gets this treatment for mild s/s, so it’s not really a fair example to use for current treatment.

That's why I said if cost was no object but maybe him getting in that quick was the difference 

[Deadpulse]

27 minutes ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

This is an overly pessimistic take. We have no idea if the mutations seen in COVID would impact vaccine efficacy of any one of the candidates we have, much less all of them. The reports of re-infection are still inconsistent, with questions whether the person was symptomatic both times or whether cross reactivity in the mAb screening assays caused a false positive. I'm not saying it's impossible, but today the most reasonable position based on what we know is that immunity to COVID will last years after infection.

Maybe the efficacy of the vaccine is a tad pessimistic, however I don't think the time frame is. Given the myriad of questions and concerns about a rushed vaccine without traditional FDA approval among the common anti-vax crowds, I think achieving herd immunity at all with the aid of a vaccine would be overly optimistic, let alone in less than 2 years.

[ramssuperbowl99]

Just now, Deadpulse said:

Maybe the efficacy of the vaccine is a tad pessimistic, however I don't think the time frame is. Given the myriad of questions and concerns about a rushed vaccine without traditional FDA approval among the common anti-vax crowds, I think achieving herd immunity at all with the aid of a vaccine would be overly optimistic, let alone in less than 2 years.

The percentage of the population required for herd immunity is based on the R0, and is nominally somewhere around 2/3rds of the population based on the best estimates for R0 we have now. There are obviously fairly larger error bars on that, at least in part because our behavior can influence the R0, but that is not an unreasonable target at all when you have multiple vaccine candidates showing immune system responses in > 90% of subjects on trial. 

Unless there are manufacturing disasters or the vaccine candidates all fail, we really should be herd immune by the end of the year 2021. Whether that's more March or September depends on the logistics of getting the entire world vaccinated, which you noted are not a simple thing.

[BobbyPhil1781]

Touching on herd immunity, we can't believe the number of infections is the real number. I may be stupid w/ this stuff but there's absolutely no way that is true. There are countless people who are asymptomatic and the only reason they knew they had it was due to forced testing for whatever reason. I'd be lead to believe the number of people who have actually contracted the virus is substantially higher than total number indicates. I believe studies came out that suggested over 20k people had been infected before the first case in the US even surfaced. 

But. again, I'm an idiot w/ this **** so my opinion is just that.