February 10, 20214 yr 2 hours ago, Kz! said: Very cool, Johnson & Johnson: Thats right, gotta make money off people, the people that want to control your life love the fact it will never be gone, they can impose restrictions on your life and a large part of society will ok great, and when this virus is only a minor nuisance they will make sure to scare people with talkign about the next possible virus, so make sure you wear your mask and social distance and forget getting together on Christmas, that is too dangerous,you may kill granny be a good citizen and obey
February 10, 20214 yr 15 minutes ago, Joe Shades 73 said: Thats right, gotta make money off people, the people that want to control your life love the fact it will never be gone, they can impose restrictions on your life and a large part of society will ok great, and when this virus is only a minor nuisance they will make sure to scare people with talkign about the next possible virus, so make sure you wear your mask and social distance and forget getting together on Christmas, that is too dangerous,you may kill granny be a good citizen and obey Or it could be like the flu vaccine which you also need annually.
February 10, 20214 yr 1 hour ago, we_gotta_believe said: Just re-watched it, and I think I was confusing Maher's comments as having a slightly anti-vax tone with theirs. Could just be that he's not as familiar with these vaccines and a general fear of the new or unknown is being reflected in his words. To their credit, they go on to correct him with stating these vaccines are "made in the lab" and that the delivery mechanisms are differentiating factors but are not providing actual coronavirus, rather instructions to replicate the spike protein. Though I find her inclination to prefer a viral vector delivery mechanism a little strange when thus far the efficacy is significantly less. In any case, no real issue there with their statements on the vaccines, so I was mistaken. As for the comments I do take issue with: @5:20 he claims this virus was capable of human-to-human transmission "from the get-go" which he implies is conspicuous. We don't know the "get-go" here. We rarely ever do in the definitive sense. By that logic, HIV, SARS, MERS, Influenza, etc are all conspicuous too. @6:08 she states only a "lab-made" virus would mutate to get more virulent whereas wild-type viruses would not. That's misleading. Evolutionary pressures would select for higher transmissibility regardless of virulence. Again, I'd say, what causes rabies and ebola to be so virulent? It wasn't magic, they evolved to be that way, and it didn't require human intervention. @6:58 he says it has a furin-cleavage site that no other coronavirus has, which again, is just flat out false. Cited source below. @7:30 he says a virus that seems to be adapted to indoor transmission is conspicuous. lolwut? Like, that statement alone torpedoes his credibility and kinda undermines everything else they've said to that point. You don't have to be a virologist to know plenty of viruses are adapted to indoor transmission. Furin cleavage site claim: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/09/coronavirus-origins-misinformation-yan-report-fact-check-cvd/#close Thanks for the perspective. I definitely did raise an eyebrow at that indoor transmission comment when I first heard it.
February 10, 20214 yr 3 hours ago, EagleVA said: Are you willing to play Russian Roulette? No way dude. I don't go within 100 miles of the edge.
February 10, 20214 yr There's no doubt in my mind an annual covid vaccine will be required for those who are most at risk. Just like the flu jab. At this point that just seems logical and inevitable.
February 11, 20214 yr 1 hour ago, sameaglesfan said: This cartoon would be funny if it was in any way accurate.
February 11, 20214 yr Just saw this today. Basically, if you take a 75 year old or older to get a vaccine shot, you can get one too. I wonder how much the 75+ people will charge to have someone take them to get the shot. https://www.wcvb.com/article/companions-caregivers-over-75-covid-19-vaccine-massachusetts/35477245
February 11, 20214 yr https://shop.demetech.us/collections/n95-respirator-masks/products/n95-respirator-masks-fold-style US made and available
February 11, 20214 yr 2 hours ago, RPeeteRules said: Just saw this today. Basically, if you take a 75 year old or older to get a vaccine shot, you can get one too. I wonder how much the 75+ people will charge to have someone take them to get the shot. https://www.wcvb.com/article/companions-caregivers-over-75-covid-19-vaccine-massachusetts/35477245 I'm so desperate to get one ASAP, I'll kidnap a blue hair off the street.
February 11, 20214 yr Good news on the vaccine front for those of us with young kids... Fauci: Vaccines for first-graders could be authorized by September Despite the need, Pfizer is the only manufacturer whose pediatric vaccine trials are far enough along to potentially have data on elementary-school-age children by the end of the summer. Pfizer has finished enrolling participants in its study of 12- to 15-year-olds and anticipates having data in "the early part of 2021,” according to a spokeswoman. "From there, we will plan to finalize our study in 5- to 11-year-olds,” she added. As Pfizer completes its trials in adolescents, then 5- to 11-year-olds, it’ll need to submit the data to the Food and Drug Administration for review and get authorization for the vaccine’s use in those age groups before it’s available; currently in the US, the vaccine is indicated only for those ages 16 and up. https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/02/fauci-vaccines-for-first-graders-could-be-authorized-by-september/
February 11, 20214 yr https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/11/us/politics/trump-coronavirus.html Quote Trump Was Sicker Than Acknowledged With Covid-19 When hospitalized with the coronavirus in October, his blood oxygen levels had plunged and officials feared he was on the verge of being placed on a ventilator.
February 11, 20214 yr 3 minutes ago, vikas83 said: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/11/us/politics/trump-coronavirus.html Not surprising. I remember the speculation around this photoshoot after he left the hospital.
February 11, 20214 yr 4 minutes ago, vikas83 said: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/11/us/politics/trump-coronavirus.html Yea, that was kinda the feeling I got when his medical team was evasive in the pressers, then we saw photos of an exasperated Meadows with his head in his hands, followed by the news that he was on dexamethasone. I was shocked they discharged him the next day.
February 11, 20214 yr 6 minutes ago, vikas83 said: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/11/us/politics/trump-coronavirus.html And yet he pulled through. My God, he must have the strength of 10 men!
February 11, 20214 yr 2 minutes ago, VanHammersly said: And yet he pulled through. My God, he must have the strength of 10 men! You mean the girth of 10 men?
February 11, 20214 yr 1 hour ago, vikas83 said: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/11/us/politics/trump-coronavirus.html Hate to see it
February 11, 20214 yr 1 hour ago, VanHammersly said: And yet he pulled through. My God, he must have the strength of 10 men! He didn't even need steroids or other medications. They simply surrounded him with American flags and let the patriotism surge through his veins.
February 11, 20214 yr @Joe Shades 73, lol. Quote The coronavirus is going to stick around forever. Get ready for the new normal. Andrew Dunn , Aria Bendix , and Hilary Brueck 5 hours ago The spread of coronavirus variants means COVID-19 will likely be around forever. People might require regular booster shots to fight new variants of the virus. But experts say it's impossible to vaccinate everyone yearly, so the virus will continue to circulate. As the pandemic approaches its second year, the coronavirus has morphed into a tougher foe. Several mutations that scientists have identified in rapidly spreading variants are particularly worrisome. They raise concerns that these strains will be more contagious or be able to at least partly evade protection provided by vaccines and by prior infections. Let's be clear: No one knows how the next phase of the pandemic will play out. Is a new strain already spreading undetected or lurking around the corner? How effective will these vaccines be in the long run? And just when can we think about returning to schools and offices, or getting together with older relatives again? Some of the nation's top infectious-disease experts are hesitant to offer predictions. "The first axiom of infectious disease: Never underestimate your pathogen," Dr. Larry Corey, a virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, told Insider. Despite this uncertainty, most scientists have accepted an unfortunate truth: The coronavirus will likely be part of our lives forever, though the pandemic phase will eventually end. Our best hope is for it to turn into a mild, flu-like illness rather than a deadlier, long-term threat. Here, we'll lay out the key factors that could determine which course the pandemic takes. Some of the most important unanswered questions hinge on what happens to variants next, and how well vaccinations and immunity can keep pace. Four other human coronaviruses are already endemic in our population, meaning they circulate perpetually but don't hit pandemic-level peaks. For the most part, these viruses cause only mild symptoms associated with common colds. Scientists had always feared a new coronavirus might come along that would be deadlier but still highly transmissible. Enter SARS-CoV-2. "It's safe to say we're not going to eradicate it entirely," said Dr. Becky Smith, an infectious-disease specialist at Duke Health. "Too many people in the world have it. It's too efficient at transmitting." The virus is also zoonotic, meaning it can jump back and forth between animals and humans. Even if we managed to eradicate SARS-CoV-2 in humans, animals could reintroduce a similar infection to our population — perhaps with an even deadlier mutation. To this day, smallpox is the only infectious disease that has ever been eradicated in humans. It has no animal reservoir, so it must spread from human to human to survive. A recent study suggested that SARS-CoV-2 would most likely become endemic within five to 10 years, eventually resembling a common cold that infects people during childhood. That scenario hinges on the notion that pediatric cases will remain mild. If a new mutation makes the virus deadlier in kids, coronavirus shots may become required for young people, similar to vaccines for polio or measles. Still, Mike Osterholm, a leading infectious-disease expert, said it would be nearly impossible to make a yearly coronavirus vaccine available to every person on Earth. "It is going to be with us forever," Osterholm, who directs of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said of the virus. "It is something we can't eradicate from humans." New variants are forcing vaccine-makers to change strategies When the first vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna were authorized for emergency use last year, there was real hope that they could crush the pandemic. The shots were over 90% effective — a stunning achievement — and provided overwhelming protection against mild, moderate, and severe symptoms. Now the goal for vaccines has become more modest: Blunt the worst outcomes, preventing deaths and hospital stays. "I've seen the language changing already from 'We're going to hit herd immunity' to 'Hey, we're going to have something that is going to get us back to normal, from the perspective that our hospitals aren't going to be overloaded,'" said Deborah Fuller, a microbiologist and vaccine researcher at the University of Washington. That's partly because of concerns about a new variant, called B.1.351, that's circulating widely in South Africa. The strain carries 10 mutations in the virus' spike protein, the target of all the leading vaccine programs. The P.1 strain circulating in Brazil has similarly troubling mutations. B.1.351 has already shown partial resistance to Moderna's vaccine, suggesting the shot may be less effective at preventing milder illnesses caused by this strain. Early clinical results from vaccine programs led by Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca, and Novavax have also raised concerns that vaccines won't work as well against B.1.351 or other variants with similar mutations. The quality of these findings is still up in the air: Some laboratory work in petri dishes has been published, but no results from tests in people have appeared in medical journals. Vaccine research is just getting started Still, even if vaccines don't work quite as well against some new coronavirus strains, that "doesn't mean these vaccines are useless," Brian Ward, the medical officer of the vaccine developer Medicago, told Insider. Vaccines remain humanity's best weapon against the coronavirus — and they are already being updated in an attempt to stay ahead of it. Moderna and Novavax are going forward with plans for booster shots tailored to protect against the B.1.351 strain. Pfizer and J&J are monitoring the pandemic to pick the right strains to target next. All told, it seems likely that the most vulnerable people in wealthy countries will get at least one booster shot. Companies haven't said when booster shots might be ready, but if the B.1.351 variant spreads rapidly in the US and elsewhere, booster shots could start rolling out as soon as late spring or early summer, Geoffrey Porges, an SVB Leerink biotech analyst, predicted. Next-generation vaccines are in the works at dozens of drug companies. Some of these aim to neutralize multiple coronavirus variants, while other programs are starting to develop a combination vaccine to protect against the flu and COVID-19. Will the virus keep drifting away from original strains? It's possible that more powerful, infectious variants could drown out old versions of the virus, making the pandemic harder to combat. Virus experts in the US are already predicting that the fast-spreading B.1.1.7 variant, first discovered in the UK, will become the dominant variant in America by this March. But it's impossible to predict what changes the virus might undergo next, or what they'll really mean for us. After all, not all mutations make viruses more dangerous. "Maybe the virus will change and become less contagious," said Dr. Cody Meissner, a respiratory-virus expert at Tufts Medical Center. "Maybe it will begin to cause less severe disease, because, remember, a virus doesn't want to kill its host." Another possibility is that the existing variants may be about as troubling as it gets. Some virologists believe that the virus, after infecting hundreds of millions of people, has already reached a high level of fitness, meaning it won't evolve much more. One thing is certain: The best defense against new variants is stopping transmission from person to person. More widespread vaccinations could lend a hand. If we don't vaccinate the whole world, unvaccinated people will keep circulating the virus — and the virus, in turn, will keep changing on its own terms. Is recovering from COVID-19 enough to be immune from new variants? Another troubling pair of questions centers on the body's natural defenses against the coronavirus. Researchers are studying how long this protection lasts and whether people who've been infected once could be vulnerable to new infections from variants. Researchers have found that coronavirus antibodies — blood proteins that protect the body from subsequent infection — fade within a few months. Other layers of immunity may last longer and protect people from emerging strains. White blood cells known as T cells and B cells also remember foreign invaders, often for longer periods than antibodies. A recent study suggested that people who'd had COVID-19 had robust T-cell and B-cell immunity for at least eight months. A study of SARS, which is caused by a similar coronavirus, found that people who recovered had T-cell protection 17 years after their infection. Researchers do expect that infections will be milder the second time around, based on how other human coronaviruses behave. But a reinfected person could still spread the virus. New variants further complicate the matter, since most studies of coronavirus immunity haven't considered strains like B.1.351. A recent study found that B.1.351 infections were just as common among people who'd recovered from COVID-19 as those who had not. In the worst-case scenario, the immune systems of people who've had COVID-19 wouldn't recognize new variants at all. A study published in The Lancet in October, for instance, identified a 25-year-old man who was reinfected with a new variant in June that produced more severe symptoms than his first illness in April. Jennie Lavine, a postdoctoral researcher at Emory University, said she still thinks that leading coronavirus vaccines will offer some protection. When it comes to other viruses like varicella-zoster (the virus responsible for chickenpox), Smith added, vaccines are sometimes even better than natural immunity. People who get the chickenpox vaccine as children are 20 times less likely to get shingles as adults, she said. It's possible that people vaccinated against COVID-19 will be better protected from the virus than those who were previously infected. Basic COVID-19 precautions still matter, perhaps now more than ever We don't know exactly why or how new variants spread so well, so making sure people are wearing masks, distancing, and washing their hands is as critical as ever. Treatments for COVID-19 — especially in its early, mild stages — are elusive. That may remain the case for quite a while. We still don't have good treatments for illnesses caused by many other viruses, including polio, measles, mumps, and rubella. Instead, we rely on vaccinations to prevent them. "This virus is something that we're going to learn to live with, just as we do with influenza," Meissner said. "What we really want to do is stop the hospitalizations, stop the deaths." Dr. Catherine Schuster-Bruce contributed reporting. https://www.businessinsider.com/when-will-the-pandemic-end-depends-on-coronavirus-variants-vaccines-2021-2?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sf-bi-main&utm_source=facebook.com&fbclid=IwAR2mqkzu1hJPZZ7An8x_1R7kAjX_WrDWC8zx71EIvC1LmuWJHDO8vPuMB1Q
February 11, 20214 yr Maybe, I dunno, shut down international travel completely and slow the movement. We now have variants from two different continents here.
February 11, 20214 yr 13 minutes ago, EaglesRocker97 said: @Joe Shades 73, lol. Meh, eradication was never realistic in the short, term. That doesn't mean we can't start to return to a semblance of normalcy. Some media articles drift towards sensationalism or paint outcomes in a binary fashion with their headlines. We don't need to eradicate it to go on vacations again, eat in restaurants, congregate without masks, etc. We just need to get vaccinated to do those things. I'm not fearful of a cat and mouse game with variant strains, our new vaccine platforms will keep up. The only thing that would temper my optimism long-term would be if this thing finds refuge in animal reservoirs. That would allow it to remain more undetected and drastically increase the likelihood that mutations could result in even more dangerous variants than what we currently have.
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