I know it's obvious, but... COVID-19 couldn't have been stopped

[CenterField]

The first case was identified by the CDC on Jan 21st.

Probably the virus was here much before, given that it was found in Brazil in early November. There was no stopping it.

To have shut down the economy at that point would have been totally unacceptable by everyone. Your statement is really ridiculous. You don't shut down the country for an unknown

Nobody, including Democratic governors, would have supported a lockdown in January or February. Monday-Morning Quarterbacking is way easier than playing the game on Sunday. All the people saying that Trump took too long to act, would be going for his throat if he had recommended a lockdown in January or February. Not to forget, he would only be able to recommend it, but the responsibility falls on the governors. I remember when Trump was insisting that New York needed a lockdown, Governor Cuomo said he'd consider it an act of civil war if Trump tried to impose it.

and it would not have sped up the vaccine one second.

Correct, and the US jumped on the vaccine with, indeed, warp speed. On January 13 Moderna received the genetic sequence of the virus and they delivered the first batch of vaccine to start testing, 42 days later. The HHS granted to Moderna almost half a billion dollars to increase vaccine development and production, and gave grants to four other companies too (I know of AstraZeneca; I don't know what the other three are). I somehow suspect that this energetic and fast action to support private initiative in getting a vaccine would not have happened under a Democratic president.

Now, I'm growing a bit less optimistic regarding the vaccine.

AstraZeneca/Oxford have already started phase 3 since June. They are now the frontrunners. Sinovac, the Chinese one, is starting phase 3 on July 20th, and Sinopharm has already started theirs. Moderna is falling behind; once the frontrunner, now in 4th place (which is terrible for their investors). They were supposed to start phase 3 on July 10 but postponed "maybe" to the end of the month, apparently due to disagreements with the NIH regarding the design of the phase 3 trials (Moderna, a small start-up, has never pushed any vaccine or medication through phase 3, and some NIH officials are finding them inexperienced and not willing to listen to advice; apparently they finally did when they realized that the FDA wouldn't be going for approval if they didn't specify some safety details they had been vague about and the NIH advised them to include; redesigning the protocol is causing the delay).

I wanted Moderna to win the race because it's a 100% American company and they would attend to our internal market first. AstraZeneca is not so bad an option because they also got money from the Warp Speed initiative and promised, in exchange, to reserve 300 million doses to the American market. But of course, the two Chinese candidates will tend to their own huge population first.

Worse than Moderna's troubles which ultimately can be resolved, is the study that came out of Spain this week showing that only 5% of their population has antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 (despite their huge outbreak) and some people who had them, retested negative for antibodies only 14 days after they had tested positive.

This means two things: one, antibodies seem short-lived so herd immunity is simply unachievable. Of course there is also T-cell memory but apparently T-cells were not forming enough memory of the virus in asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic patients. Two, it doesn't bode well for vaccines, unless they are repeatedly given, which throws out the calculation of how many doses are needed. If this vaccine needs to be given again, say, every 3 months, then 300 million doses can only cover 75 million Americans. Immunity might fade even before the booster dose.

I feel very discouraged today. If a vaccine fails I'll enter desperation mode, because eventually everybody will be exposed to this virus and when I do, I'm quite sure I won't survive it, given my underlying medical conditions.

[carolina73]

Probably the virus was here much before, given that it was found in Brazil in early November. There was no stopping it.



Nobody, including Democratic governors, would have supported a lockdown in January or February. Monday-Morning Quarterbacking is way easier than playing the game on Sunday. All the people saying that Trump took too long to act, would be going for his throat if he had recommended a lockdown in January or February. Not to forget, he would only be able to recommend it, but the responsibility falls on the governors. I remember when Trump was insisting that New York needed a lockdown, Governor Cuomo said he'd consider it an act of civil war if Trump tried to impose it.



Correct, and the US jumped on the vaccine with, indeed, warp speed. On January 13 Moderna received the genetic sequence of the virus and they delivered the first batch of vaccine to start testing, 42 days later. The HHS granted to Moderna almost half a billion dollars to increase vaccine development and production, and gave grants to four other companies too (I know of AstraZeneca; I don't know what the other three are). I somehow suspect that this energetic and fast action to support private initiative in getting a vaccine would not have happened under a Democratic president.

Now, I'm growing a bit less optimistic regarding the vaccine.

AstraZeneca/Oxford have already started phase 3 since June. They are now the frontrunners. Sinovac, the Chinese one, is starting phase 3 on July 20th, and Sinopharm has already started theirs. Moderna is falling behind; once the frontrunner, now in 4th place (which is terrible for their investors). They were supposed to start phase 3 on July 10 but postponed "maybe" to the end of the month, apparently due to disagreements with the NIH regarding the design of the phase 3 trials (Moderna, a small start-up, has never pushed any vaccine or medication through phase 3, and some NIH officials are finding them inexperienced and not willing to listen to advice; apparently they finally did when they realized that the FDA wouldn't be going for approval if they didn't specify some safety details they had been vague about and the NIH advised them to include; redesigning the protocol is causing the delay).

I wanted Moderna to win the race because it's a 100% American company and they would attend to our internal market first. AstraZeneca is not so bad an option because they also got money from the Warp Speed initiative and promised, in exchange, to reserve 300 million doses to the American market. But of course, the two Chinese candidates will tend to their own huge population first.

Worse than Moderna's troubles which ultimately can be resolved, is the study that came out of Spain this week showing that only 5% of their population has antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 (despite their huge outbreak) and some people who had them, retested negative for antibodies only 14 days after they had tested positive.

This means two things: one, antibodies seem short-lived so herd immunity is simply unachievable. Of course there is also T-cell memory but apparently T-cells were not forming enough memory of the virus in asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic patients. Two, it doesn't bode well for vaccines, unless they are repeatedly given, which throws out the calculation of how many doses are needed. If this vaccine needs to be given again, say, every 3 months, then 300 million doses can only cover 75 million Americans. Immunity might fade even before the booster dose.

I feel very discouraged today. If a vaccine fails I'll enter desperation mode, because eventually everybody will be exposed to this virus and when I do, I'm quite sure I won't survive it, given my underlying medical conditions.

I need to hear about this from more studies before I will believe it. I am convinced that the tests are not that accurate and we are seeing false positives just like they did in South Korea, when they determined people were getting it twice and then decided that was not true. I also believe we are seeing false negatives.

[CenterField]

I need to hear about this from more studies before I will believe it. I am convinced that the tests are not that accurate and we are seeing false positives just like they did in South Korea, when they determined people were getting it twice and then decided that was not true. I also believe we are seeing false negatives.

Hopefully. But false negatives are in a tiny percentage of patients. It wouldn't account for this devastating finding of only 5% of immunity after such a huge outbreak in Spain. Even if tests had a HUGE 20% of false negatives (they don't) this would push their numbers to a meager 6% (20% of 5% = 1%). It is also consistent with what Sweden found; without lockdown measures, they found only 7% of their population developing antibodies.

These are not some unreliable countries like China (because they lie) and Brazil (because they not as developed). Spain and Sweden are advanced European countries with strong public health.

[Peter1469]

China does Belt and Road work in Brazil.

Actually I'm not that sure that it could be contained even if our government had acted earlier. Maybe it was here even before January. See, they found it in Brazil in early November!!! And Brazil is much less of a travel destination for the Chinese (both tourists and businessmen) than the United States. If it was there in November, likely it was here in November too, completely undetected, with a few deaths being attributed to the flu or "viral pneumonia" given that the virus wasn't even known yet, much less named, much less having detection tests.

So if this virus was circulating in China undetected, say, in late October, what exactly could we have done to avoid multiple import points, which later caused multiple epicenters?

Testing? Tests weren't even available at the time. The genetic sequence was only found on January 12 and 13. Quarantines, travel bans? About what? From where? Nobody knew the virus even existed! Did you read the article I mentioned, about how travel bans didn't work at all in China and abroad? So what exactly was the early action that could have contained it?

I think that chances are that if we had acted earlier, THOSE cases that popped up in certain places might have been caught... but inevitably OTHER cases would have popped up in other places, from these much earlier imports that are now being looked at. Maybe we'd have had a delay in our curve... say, a 3-week delay. But the shape and numbers of the curve might have been about the same.

We'll never know, because all the calculations involved in this are models. A.K.A., speculations.

The bottom line is, this is a highly contagious virus, with a long incubation period, and it features a period during which asymptomatic transmission is possible. Containing something like this is virtually impossible, which is why it hasn't been done anywhere. Well, except in ONE place in this entire freaking planet: Vanuatu.

How did they do it? Well, they are so isolated that the virus was headlining everywhere but wasn't there yet, so they shut down the entire country to all travel. No planes or boats or ships can enter Vanuatu. So they remained COVID-19 free. They had a devastating hurricane in the meantime and other countries offered aid workers. They said no.

But not even another very isolated country stopped it: the Falkland Islands. Nobody knows how the virus got there since they also shut down travel... but it still did.

[CenterField]

China does Belt and Road work in Brazil.

You are right. I guess I underestimated the Chinese presence in Brazil.

http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/201..._137925230.htm

Still, we have 3.8 million Chinese expats in the United States and according to this source it is the largest overseas Chinese community outside Asia, so my point remains, that if the virus got to Brazil in early November via Chinese people traveling to Brazil, with more likelihood it was probably here too.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...rseas-chinese/

There are only 200,000 Chinese expats in Brazil. That's 19 times fewer than in the US.

So I was wrong in one aspect of my point, but the spirit of the point remains.

I'm quite sure that if we look up the number of Chinese nationals that flew to other countries between, say, early October 2019 and late January 2020, we'll find multiple times more travelers to the US than to Brazil. The sheer different in size of the two populations (3.8 vs. 0.2 million) of expats will mean that these people will visit the motherland and come back, relatives will come to visit them, etc., in much bigger numbers.

[carolina73]

Probably the virus was here much before, given that it was found in Brazil in early November. There was no stopping it.

Now, I'm growing a bit less optimistic regarding the vaccine.
I feel very discouraged today. If a vaccine fails I'll enter desperation mode, because eventually everybody will be exposed to this virus and when I do, I'm quite sure I won't survive it, given my underlying medical conditions.

Many of us are in that boat. I'm just not in a mood to run from fate.

I think most of us here grew up in a time when 50 thousand people were killed every year in auto accidents.
Over 2 million people get injured every years doing the same thing.

But we still went to work or schools every day. The MSM wants us paranoid and that is also very harmful to people including the fact that stress also reduces the effectiveness your immune system.

[CenterField]

Many of us are in that boat. I'm just not in a mood to run from fate.

I think most of us here grew up in a time when 50 thousand people were killed every year in auto accidents.
Over 2 million people get injured every years doing the same thing.

But we still went to work or schools every day. The MSM wants us paranoid and that is also very harmful to people including the fact that stress also reduces the effectiveness your immune system.

You are right. The way I've been living the last few months is no life.

Here are the things I like to do the most:

Have friends over for brunches, or swimming pool parties, or dinner - lots of them.
Go to stadiums with male friends to watch sports, go to a bar afterwards
Go to restaurants and breweries with my wife, either just the two of us (when it's a more romantic place) or with friends
Go to concerts with my favorite genres of music with my wife (we have exactly the same musical taste)
Travel for fun, something we do at least once a month (for a romantic weekend in a bed and breakfast or resort, or to a big city for a show and fancy restaurant), with major travel at least twice a year (usually either Europe or South America)

100% of the above, I can't do right now! And when will I be able to resume? Maybe never, if I don't want to die from this virus??? That's no life.

But I'm scared because the kind of medical conditions I have, I saw in an Italian study, this particular combination gives me a likelihood of dying from COVID-19 of at least 48% if I catch it. One in two, is no fun. And yes, I'm stressed out.

The one good thing is that I love my job. I actually look forward to going to work because I'm busy and with my mind occupied there, and it's interesting and challenging. At home I'm getting bored. Well, the other good thing is that I love my wife and she seems to love me back. Unlike some stories we've seen, being together more often due to staying put at home, has not put any strain on our excellent relationship. We've been very supportive of each other during this crisis, and it's very important. But I worry a lot about her, because her job is more exposed to the virus than mine. She is healthier than I am, though, so that's reassuring (still, it's becoming clearer that this virus has a high potential for long-term consequences for those who don't die). But every time she tells me of another co-worker of hers who tested positive, it drives me crazy.

My daughter is extremely exposed to the virus, by the nature of her work, and so is her husband. My son, not at all, and he can work from home, but his fiancée is very exposed. Of course, all four are young and healthy but I've seen some horror stories about consequences even for young people (strokes being the scariest one). Sure, statistically unlikely for their age group but one never knows.

My brother caught it, had an asymptomatic case, and then a week later had a bad stroke. His wife and three kids are devastated.

[CenterField]

@carolina73

Coincidentally, I just got a call from a friend 5 minutes ago, and he invited me to have dinner at his place on Friday. Normally, scared as I am, I would have declined... but thinking of what you just told me, I said yes. He swears that he and his wife are taking precautions... but both have jobs that expose them a lot, to the point that he's been tested 4 times already... So it *is* somewhat risky to frequent their home...

But I thought, screw it. This paranoia, this isolation, is no life. Can't I enjoy the friendship of one of my best friends because of this freaking virus? So I accepted the invitation, and I look forward to it. It should be lots of fun.

I haven't told my wife yet... she is asleep, was tired and went to bed early. I'm a little concerned that I made the decision for the two of us without asking her... but I think she'll support it.