SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)

[Wibble]

NSW and Victoria have been covid free for 19 and 11 days respectively but South Australia has a cluster of 20 (likely to rise to 22 or a bit more by tomorrow) after a worker at a quarantine hotel was infected and have it to his large family and a few others. Most states have shut the border to SA again and they have just announced a 6 day circuit breaker lock-down to try to kill it before it spreads further and particularly to get on top of contact tracing.


This “circuit breaker” will include a six-day lockdown and a further eight days of lesser restrictions in the state.

Closures in the first six days include:

• All schools except for children of the essential worker and vulnerable children
• Universities
• Takeaway food
• Pubs, cafes, coffee shops and food courts
• Elective surgery except for urgent operations and cancer treatment
• Open inspections and auctions for real estate.
• Outdoor sport and physical activity - You CAN NOT leave you home for exercise
• Regional travel

More to come...

 

[Tony Babangida]

NSW and Victoria have been covid free for 19 and 11 days respectively but South Australia has a cluster of 20 (likely to rise to 22 or a bit more by tomorrow) after a worker at a quarantine hotel was infected and have it to his large family and a few others. Most states have shut the border to SA again and they have just announced a 6 day circuit breaker lock-down to try to kill it before it spreads further and particularly to get on top of contact tracing.


This “circuit breaker” will include a six-day lockdown and a further eight days of lesser restrictions in the state.

Closures in the first six days include:

• All schools except for children of the essential worker and vulnerable children
• Universities
• Takeaway food
• Pubs, cafes, coffee shops and food courts
• Elective surgery except for urgent operations and cancer treatment
• Open inspections and auctions for real estate.
• Outdoor sport and physical activity - You CAN NOT leave you home for exercise
• Regional travel

More to come...

Glad they are taking swift action, better than waiting until it is already too late.

 

[Wibble]

Glad they are taking swift action, better than waiting until it is already too late.

Yes. Can't believe Gladys has been bullied into leaving the NSW border open by Scotty from Marketing.

Have you also noticed how differently the Feds are talking about the SA Premier compared to how they (disgracefully) talked about Dan Andrews?

 

[calodo2003]

900 Mayo Clinic employees have contracted the virus in the past two weeks, a third of the staff.

When will people realize that this is a crucial issue, the collapse of the healthcare systems in any country? Isn’t forgoing a Thanksgiving, a night out, or even a few months of staying in worth it in the long run?

 

[Wibble]

Glad they are taking swift action, better than waiting until it is already too late.

Update on measure coming in at midnight

To recap, from midnight tonight the following restrictions apply in South Australia:

• All South Australians will have to stay put in their house for six days. Wherever they are at midnight tonight, that’s where they have to remain.
• All schools will be shut except for children of essential workers and vulnerable children;
• Childcare will be open only to essential workers, and shut to everyone else;
• People will not be permitted to leave their home to exercise.
• Takeaway food will be shut;
• Universities will be closed;
• Pubs, cafe’s, food courts and other food venues will be closed;
• Elective surgery will be closed, except for urgent operations;
• Cancer treatment will be closed;
• Real estate inspections will be closed;
• All outdoor sport and physical activity will not be permitted.
• Regional travel is not approved. Holiday houses are closed. Schoolies, which police commissioner Grant Stevens said yesterday was still on, is now off;
• Aged care and residential disability care is in lockdown;
• Factories other than for food and medical products are closed, apart from essential maintenance;
• The construction industry is closed;
• Weddings and funerals will be banned for six days;
• Face masks are required when outside the home, although it’s just encouraged not mandatory as many in SA do not yet have masks;
• Families with joint custody arrangements have been asked to find an arrangement that works for the next six days, without moving between houses.

Remaining open:

• Supermarkets will remain open for one visit from one person per household per day;
• Critical infrastructure — power, telecommunications — will remain open;
• Medical services including mental health services will remain open;
• Public transport will remain open;
• Airport and freight services will remain open;
• Petrol stations will remain open;
• Banks and financial institutions will remain open;
• Post offices will remain open;
• Mining, smelting, and large factories will be allowed to continue to operate at a level required to ensure continuity of service delivery or to prevent damage, but not for anything else;
• Veterinary surgeons will remain open;
• Agriculture workers will be able to move around to ensure the safety, welfare and processing of animals and animal products, like dairy

 

[Tony Babangida]

Yes. Can't believe Gladys has been bullied into leaving the NSW border open by Scotty from Marketing.

Have you also noticed how differently the Feds are talking about the SA Premier compared to how they (disgracefully) talked about Dan Andrews?

Think the Vic border is still open too. Although they are basically confined to their houses for 6 days so I hope not many people will be going interstate.

Liberals looking after one of their own. I enjoyed the WA premier calling out the Feds for their treatment of Dan Andrews.

 

[Carolina Red]

900 Mayo Clinic employees have contracted the virus in the past two weeks, a third of the staff.

When will people realize that this is a crucial issue, the collapse of the healthcare systems in any country? Isn’t forgoing a Thanksgiving, a night out, or even a few months of staying in worth it in the long run?

And their Covid ICU is at 100% capacity at the same time.

 

[Carolina Red]

SC has been ranging between 1100-1900 new cases per day, with % positives at 13-18%.

In the meantime, more and more schools are going to 100% capacity, 5 days per week, and all winter sports have been told to begin practice... including my sport - wrestling. So yeah... this should be interesting.

 

[Wibble]

Think the Vic border is still open too. Although they are basically confined to their houses for 6 days so I hope not many people will be going interstate.

Liberals looking after one of their own. I enjoyed the WA premier calling out the Feds for their treatment of Dan Andrews.

Scotty and his evil clown posse are utterly despicable. Hopefully SA have in effect shut the border from within and that will help prevent the spread.

 

[Andy_Cole]

This is probably a dumb question but why do you need agents if your buying power rivals any company in the world?

Surely suppliers will be desperate to have a direct conversation and strike a deal? At the end of the day, no business wants to use an agent and pay extra fees if they can avoid it

I have experience with the procurement of one of the biggest fashion companies in UK.

The reason for this is simply because they use a high number small factories in China that they need an agent there to first, find the factories that supply, but secondly because they have the relationship with the factories, the price provided by the agent beats the price provided if they went directly to supplier.

So everyone kicking off about £21m, would you prefer we paid £100m more direct to supplier?

 

[giggs-beckham]

A vaccine cant provoke the immune system any more than the actual disease does. And if it's at the point of being on a ventilator and probable organ failure there's nothing that can be done.

Ah yes I see, thanks.

 

[FireballXL5]

Head of NHS Test and Trace self-isolating

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54985232

Thought and prayers.

 

[Pexbo]

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— Twitter API (@user) date

 

[finneh]

I have experience with the procurement of one of the biggest fashion companies in UK.

The reason for this is simply because they use a high number small factories in China that they need an agent there to first, find the factories that supply, but secondly because they have the relationship with the factories, the price provided by the agent beats the price provided if they went directly to supplier.

So everyone kicking off about £21m, would you prefer we paid £100m more direct to supplier?

This is true. In the private sector agents are used frequently because they add more value than they charge (whether that's to the supplier or the customer).

I think when discussing central government though there is always the potential for cronyism where agents happen to be connected to government and are taking a cut whilst not adding commercial value.

I've no doubt that during the floundering pandemic months there will be instances of opportunist cronyism, outright governmental ineptitude (it's easy to spend someone else's money without prudence) but also commercially equitable agent costs that sound ridiculously exorbitant to the general public.

Where this £21m falls, along with every other pound of pandemic spending, will hopefully be known in the fullness of time via an inquiry.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

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— Twitter API (@user) date

Don’t want to ruin his burn but I’m fairly sure she should only be self isolating for 10 days.

 

[Santos J]

Don’t want to ruin his burn but I’m fairly sure she should only be self isolating for 10 days.

Nope, it's 14 days from last contact with the positive case

 

[golden_blunder]

900 Mayo Clinic employees have contracted the virus in the past two weeks, a third of the staff.

When will people realize that this is a crucial issue, the collapse of the healthcare systems in any country? Isn’t forgoing a Thanksgiving, a night out, or even a few months of staying in worth it in the long run?

Is that from one hospital or seperate campus?

 

[golden_blunder]

Update on measure coming in at midnight

To recap, from midnight tonight the following restrictions apply in South Australia:

• All South Australians will have to stay put in their house for six days. Wherever they are at midnight tonight, that’s where they have to remain.
• All schools will be shut except for children of essential workers and vulnerable children;
• Childcare will be open only to essential workers, and shut to everyone else;
• People will not be permitted to leave their home to exercise.
• Takeaway food will be shut;
• Universities will be closed;
• Pubs, cafe’s, food courts and other food venues will be closed;
• Elective surgery will be closed, except for urgent operations;
• Cancer treatment will be closed;
• Real estate inspections will be closed;
• All outdoor sport and physical activity will not be permitted.
• Regional travel is not approved. Holiday houses are closed. Schoolies, which police commissioner Grant Stevens said yesterday was still on, is now off;
• Aged care and residential disability care is in lockdown;
• Factories other than for food and medical products are closed, apart from essential maintenance;
• The construction industry is closed;
• Weddings and funerals will be banned for six days;
• Face masks are required when outside the home, although it’s just encouraged not mandatory as many in SA do not yet have masks;
• Families with joint custody arrangements have been asked to find an arrangement that works for the next six days, without moving between houses.

Remaining open:

• Supermarkets will remain open for one visit from one person per household per day;
• Critical infrastructure — power, telecommunications — will remain open;
• Medical services including mental health services will remain open;
• Public transport will remain open;
• Airport and freight services will remain open;
• Petrol stations will remain open;
• Banks and financial institutions will remain open;
• Post offices will remain open;
• Mining, smelting, and large factories will be allowed to continue to operate at a level required to ensure continuity of service delivery or to prevent damage, but not for anything else;
• Veterinary surgeons will remain open;
• Agriculture workers will be able to move around to ensure the safety, welfare and processing of animals and animal products, like dairy

Wow! Proper lockdown.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Nope, it's 14 days from last contact with the positive case

Ah. Ok. Got mixed up with the 10 days self isolation when you test positive.

 

[Santos J]

Ah. Ok. Got mixed up with the 10 days self isolation when you test positive.

Yeah it's hard to keep up with all the different time scales and the app is slow as shite anyway as seen in her case! When my girlfriend tested positive she updated it in the app within 10 minutes yet I didn't get a notification for 3 days, obviously didn't matter as I knew anyway so was already isolating but if I hadn't have known then I'd have been going about as normal for a few days..

 

[acnumber9]

Isn’t forgoing a Thanksgiving, a night out, or even a few months of staying in worth it in the long run?

People did that already, and our Governments seemingly wasted that time by not getting the proper systems in place.

 

[Anustart89]

Ah come on, whatever way you look at it, he’s personally made an obscene amount of money akin to a football agent transferring a top footballer. It’s a shocking misuse of public funds

And if there wasn’t an economic incentive for him he probably wouldn’t have stopped doing whatever he was doing before the pandemic in order to do this.

 

[Tony Babangida]

New press release from Pfizer after gathering more data from the Phase III: https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-r...ntech-conclude-phase-3-study-covid-19-vaccine

Summary:

• Primary efficacy analysis demonstrates BNT162b2 to be 95% effective against COVID-19 beginning 28 days after the first dose;170 confirmed cases of COVID-19 were evaluated, with 162 observed in the placebo group versus 8 in the vaccine group
• Efficacy was consistent across age, gender, race and ethnicity demographics; observed efficacy in adults over 65 years of age was over 94%
• Safety data milestone required by U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) has been achieved
• Data demonstrate vaccine was well tolerated across all populations with over 43,000 participants enrolled; no serious safety concerns observed; the only Grade 3 adverse event greater than 2% in frequency was fatigue at 3.8% and headache at 2.0%
• Companies plan to submit within days to the FDA for EUA and share data with other regulatory agencies around the globe
• The companies expect to produce globally up to 50 million vaccine doses in 2020 and up to 1.3 billion doses by the end of 2021
• Pfizer is confident in its vast experience, expertise and existing cold-chain infrastructure to distribute the vaccine around the world

Good news about efficacy in over 65s especially. Hope they hurry up and publish their results. Ten cases of severe covid observied in the trial; 9 in placebo group, 1 in the vaccine group.

 

[groovyalbert]

Secondary school my fiance teaches in seems to be feeling the effects now. Huge chunks of year groups being sent home as well as teachers. She's just been asked to head home after being in contact with a colleague who has tested positive. Asked to take a same day test, decent chance we'll be in the flat for the next couple of weeks.

 

[jojojo]

New press release from Pfizer after gathering more data from the Phase III: https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-r...ntech-conclude-phase-3-study-covid-19-vaccine

Summary:

• Primary efficacy analysis demonstrates BNT162b2 to be 95% effective against COVID-19 beginning 28 days after the first dose;170 confirmed cases of COVID-19 were evaluated, with 162 observed in the placebo group versus 8 in the vaccine group
• Efficacy was consistent across age, gender, race and ethnicity demographics; observed efficacy in adults over 65 years of age was over 94%
• Safety data milestone required by U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) has been achieved
• Data demonstrate vaccine was well tolerated across all populations with over 43,000 participants enrolled; no serious safety concerns observed; the only Grade 3 adverse event greater than 2% in frequency was fatigue at 3.8% and headache at 2.0%
• Companies plan to submit within days to the FDA for EUA and share data with other regulatory agencies around the globe
• The companies expect to produce globally up to 50 million vaccine doses in 2020 and up to 1.3 billion doses by the end of 2021
• Pfizer is confident in its vast experience, expertise and existing cold-chain infrastructure to distribute the vaccine around the world

Good news about efficacy in over 65s especially. Hope they hurry up and publish their results. Ten cases of severe covid observied in the trial; 9 in placebo group, 1 in the vaccine group.

Terrific news and seeing it expressed as 8 v 162 somehow makes the story feel even better

It's still early days of course, and this is based on people who were only recently vaccinated (so we don't know how long the immunity lasts) but it still starts to give some reassurance that there will be a vaccine that works and we just need to look after ourselves and each other until we get there.

 

[legolegs]

Nope, it's 14 days from last contact with the positive case

Still seems like a weird burn to me. If it's 14 days from the day you last came into contact with someone who tested positive all that means is that 5 days ago she met someone who was later tested positive.. but no one knows if that person tested positive 5 days ago, yesterday or just 10 minutes ago, right?

 

[Pogue Mahone]

New press release from Pfizer after gathering more data from the Phase III: https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-r...ntech-conclude-phase-3-study-covid-19-vaccine

Summary:

• Primary efficacy analysis demonstrates BNT162b2 to be 95% effective against COVID-19 beginning 28 days after the first dose;170 confirmed cases of COVID-19 were evaluated, with 162 observed in the placebo group versus 8 in the vaccine group
• Efficacy was consistent across age, gender, race and ethnicity demographics; observed efficacy in adults over 65 years of age was over 94%
• Safety data milestone required by U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) has been achieved
• Data demonstrate vaccine was well tolerated across all populations with over 43,000 participants enrolled; no serious safety concerns observed; the only Grade 3 adverse event greater than 2% in frequency was fatigue at 3.8% and headache at 2.0%
• Companies plan to submit within days to the FDA for EUA and share data with other regulatory agencies around the globe
• The companies expect to produce globally up to 50 million vaccine doses in 2020 and up to 1.3 billion doses by the end of 2021
• Pfizer is confident in its vast experience, expertise and existing cold-chain infrastructure to distribute the vaccine around the world

Good news about efficacy in over 65s especially. Hope they hurry up and publish their results. Ten cases of severe covid observied in the trial; 9 in placebo group, 1 in the vaccine group.

First time I’ve seen mention of the study recruiting people who might have had a prior infection to include as a second primary endpoint.

From press release:

Analysis of the data indicates a vaccine efficacy rate of 95% (p<0.0001) in participants without prior SARS-CoV-2 infection (first primary objective) and also in participants with and without prior SARS-CoV-2 infection (second primary objective), in each case measured from 28 days after the first dose, 7 days after the second dose.

There’s also some waffle in there about how they hope to overcome the very cold storage requirements.

 

[Santos J]

Still seems like a weird burn to me. If it's 14 days from the day you last came into contact with someone who tested positive all that means is that 5 days ago she met someone who was later tested positive.. but no one knows if that person tested positive 5 days ago, yesterday or just 10 minutes ago, right?

It alerts people you had "close contact" with in the 48 hours prior to symptoms/test so 9 days is still a poor show really all things considered. If you had contact with someone Monday who then got tested Tuesday evening/Wednesday morning, it shouldn't take until Saturday for you to be told to isolate if needed.

 

[UnrelatedPsuedo]

Still seems like a weird burn to me. If it's 14 days from the day you last came into contact with someone who tested positive all that means is that 5 days ago she met someone who was later tested positive.. but no one knows if that person tested positive 5 days ago, yesterday or just 10 minutes ago, right?

I think so too.

The better point of analysis is whether all of her contacts are notified that they have came into contact with someone that’s isolating.

I think not. But that second degree of messaging to give that second tier a heads up to be more cautious and wary, would probably add value.

I also think that anyone that gets an isolation alert should get tested. If Dido tested yesterday then all of her contacts should be given that result as quickly as possible.

 

[11101]

You know things are bad when the Swiss are struggling to cope.

The Swiss Society of Intensive Medicine... said the 876 ICU beds for adults that it certifies across the wealthy Alpine nation "are practically all full".

https://www.thelocal.ch/20201118/swiss-sound-alarm-as-icu-beds-fill-up-with-covid-patients

 

[Pogue Mahone]

You know things are bad when the Swiss are struggling to cope.



https://www.thelocal.ch/20201118/swiss-sound-alarm-as-icu-beds-fill-up-with-covid-patients

They opened up way to quick and way too much, so that’s not really a surprise.

 

[F-Red]

At the risk of prompting Jose memes, how is Sweden doing now anyway? I’m reading about a surge in cases? Are they hitting the hospitals yet? Any talk of some sort of lockdown?

Just read this on the FT, lockdown in place now - https://www.ft.com/content/67fc5152-d500-4b9e-ad5c-79e1bf2b68e2

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Speaking of Switzerland, I like the way this guy is thinking...

 

[TheGame]

High deaths compared to previous days, they seem to fluctuate quite a bit:

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— Twitter API (@user) date

 

[Smores]

I'm not following this that closely anymore so i could be lazy and enquire with you good people, any progress or signs of UK cases starting to level off at all?

 

[F-Red]

I'm not following this that closely anymore so i could be lazy and enquire with you good people, any progress or signs of UK cases starting to level off at all?

Cases are dropping, deaths are rising.

 

[berbatrick]

Hypothetically, if the vaccine has mutated to not have an S protein and this was then found in a small percentage of people, would this be an absolute disaster for the vaccines?

not a virus expert, but in bacterial/animal biology a mutation leading to the total removal of an important protein (like the S protein) is both very rare and very very very unlikely to lead to a viable virus - i.e. a virus without that protein would not be able to do its usual functions, and would likely "die" (whether viruses are living in the first place is itself a question).

mutations, especially on the short time-scale we are dealing with here, usually change the sequences of the genomic material, some change the compositon of a protein and fewer still change the structure of a protein. most mutations that affect a protein are basically DOA - they create some problem with the protein that kills off that virus and the mutation disappears from the population.

so, the few mutations that do affect protein structures without destroying its function totally are the ones relevant to a virus escaping vaccine-delivered immunity. i think this is more of a problem for antigen-based viruses and less for RNA ones, since the vaccine RNA sequence is relatively easy to change if needed.

 

[redshaw]

753 deaths in Italy.

Poland is still badly affected with 603 deaths

 

[Tibs]

UK Data:

17th: 598 deaths / 20k
18th: 529 / 19k cases

If by 2nd December, let's say the R rate is between 0.8-1.0 - with a guess of 15k cases a day, and the reopening sprint to the shops that will last until Xmas Eve...I really don't see how they will then be able to allow a normal Xmas?

Either this lockdown gets extended by another 10-14 days, or, we go back into lockdown from early Jan?

 

[Brwned]

UK Data:

17th: 598 deaths / 20k
18th: 529 / 19k cases

If by 2nd December, let's say the R rate is between 0.8-1.0 - with a guess of 15k cases a day, and the reopening sprint to the shops that will last until Xmas Eve...I really don't see how they will then be able to allow a normal Xmas?

Either this lockdown gets extended by another 10-14 days, or, we go back into lockdown from early Jan?

I'd expect both to happen, but not a full lockdown in either case (e.g. non-essential shops open pre-christmas but closed early Jan)