Coronavirus Updates

[Ashiri]

Innula, did you score some swag? Novavax was giving this out. What are ginger nuts???

Ginger snap - Wikipedia

 

[Free]

 

[Sovereignty]

 

[Ashiri]

And it was just my luck to have been one of the few to get the flu (and a test to make sure it wasn't covid19). I'd like to think that people will learn from this for the next flu season, but I doubt it.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

The Lancet reports the first confirmed case of Covid-19 re-infection in the US, a 25-year-old man in Nevada.

According to The Guardian,

This is the first confirmed case of reinfection in the US. The two infections in this one patient occurred six weeks apart.

Reinfections are rare – there are only five such cases documented worldwide. But much is still unknown about how or why this happens. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention currently advises that those who have recovered from Covid-19 generally appear to be protected from reinfection for three months – but this newly documented case bucks that expectation.

 

[Free]

*sigh*

 

[Free]

Hey President Trump, want to pay this man a visit?

Coronavirus: First case of Covid-19 reinfection confirmed in the U.S.

A 25-year-old man in the U.S. state of Nevada has contracted the coronavirus on two separate occasions, a study in the Lancet Infectious Diseases journal showed, with the patient becoming seriously ill following the second infection.

It is the first confirmed case of a U.S. patient becoming re-infected with Covid-19, and the fifth known case reported worldwide.

The resident of Washoe County, who had no known immune disorders or history of significant underlying conditions, required hospital treatment on testing positive for Covid-19 for the second time.

He has now recovered, though the case raises further questions about the prospect of developing protective immunity against the coronavirus.

 

[danielravennest]

Hey President Trump, want to pay this man a visit?

Coronavirus: First case of Covid-19 reinfection confirmed in the U.S.

One out of 8 million US cases is pretty good odds. There's always that one weird person with a genetic defect in their antibody-making genes, or some such thing. They should sequence his DNA to see if that's the case. It could prove helpful in fighting it.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Covid: Remdesivir 'has little or no effect' on survival, says WHO

Drug manufacturer Gilead has questioned the findings, from a clinical study by the WHO.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Covid reinfections 'to be expected' as virus spreads, say government scientists

Reports suggest timeframe between recovery and reinfection ‘relatively short’ for those who contracted virus twice

www.theguardian.com

It's thought that people who are re-infected are generally asymptomatic but they're still infectious without realising it.

 

[Free]

 

[Sid]

'On the brink of disaster': Europe's Covid fight takes a turn for the worse

As France imposes curfews, even countries that previously managed well are struggling badly

www.theguardian.com

 

[danielravennest]

My county went back to in-person classes this week. Predictably one high school has already had to go back to virtual because they had six positive cases.

I think part of the third wave is kids going back to school, passing the virus around, then taking it back home. They get symptoms less often, so they can spread it without anyone knowing.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Verifying Device

Evernote link because paywall

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Evernote link because paywall

Van-Tam gave a briefing to MPs on Monday afternoon in which he said: “We aren’t light years away from it. It isn’t a totally unrealistic suggestion that we could deploy a vaccine soon after Christmas. That would have a significant impact on hospital admissions and deaths.”

The first vaccines will be given to the elderly and vulnerable and to vaccinate those most at risk will take several months. Most people will not be given the jab.

An MP who attended another briefing with Van-Tam said he was “very bullish about the third stage AstraZeneca results, which he expects between the end of this month and the end of next”. The MP said: “Van-Tam expects it to protect the elderly and vulnerable. He gave us to understand that it stopped the virus ‘shedding’ in the young. He said he would expect vaccination to start in January.”

ETA: Though a vaccine, if and when one becomes available, doesn't mark an end to anything:

How do pandemics end? In different ways, but it’s never quick and never neat | Mark Honigsbaum

Just like the Black Death, influenza and smallpox, Covid-19 will affect almost every aspect of our of lives – even after a vaccine turns up

www.theguardian.com

 

[Innula Zenovka]

The pursuit of herd immunity is a folly – so who's funding this bad science?

Links between an anti-lockdown declaration and a libertarian thinktank suggest a hidden agenda, say scientists Trish Greenhalgh, Martin McKee and Michelle Kelly-Irving

www.theguardian.com

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Understanding how ‘overdispersion’ works is key to controlling Covid | Kyra Grantz and Justin Lessler

A small number of people and events are responsible for most virus transmission – that is why tracing them is so vital, say Kyra Grantz and Justin Lessler of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

www.theguardian.com

 

[Free]

 

[Sovereignty]

ETA: Though a vaccine, if and when one becomes available, doesn't mark an end to anything:

How do pandemics end? In different ways, but it’s never quick and never neat | Mark Honigsbaum

Just like the Black Death, influenza and smallpox, Covid-19 will affect almost every aspect of our of lives – even after a vaccine turns up

www.theguardian.com

It's over when it's over. Complicating factors:

The virus is widespread and giving injected vaccines on a really large scale (requires trained staff for injections) is problematic especially when they require cold storage and require two rounds of injections.

Then there are questions about the type of immunity (sterilizing vs. protective), durability of immunity, and effectivenss (50%, 75%, 99.9%?) in providing whatever immunity a vaccine confers.

One nasty possibility that has arisen before is a vaccine that works fine in people who have never had the virus (no antibodies of their own) but leads to worse disease in people who have previously been infected. Antibody Dependent Enhancement. That happened recently with a dengue fever vaccine and was not discovered until after the vaccine had passed all trials and was in use--though experts warned against approving that vaccine. Lawsuits are in progress about that. (TWIV)

SARS-CoV-2 can roam and pillage for a while after vaccines are developed.