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Thread: COVID-19 Novel Coronavirus pandemic

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    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/23/b...-skeptics.html

    With coronavirus cases on the rise and communities returning to lockdown across the country, a marketing push is underway to persuade skeptical Americans to immunize themselves once vaccines are ready.

    The federal government, which has sent mixed messages about a pandemic that has caused more than 250,000 deaths nationwide, is not leading the charge. Instead, the private sector is backing a planned $50 million campaign to persuade people to protect themselves at a time when polls have suggested that more than 40 percent of adult Americans are not confident in a potential vaccine.

    The Ad Council, a nonprofit advertising group, led a similar effort in the 1950s, when it urged Americans to get vaccinated against polio. Its Covid-19 vaccination push will be one of the largest public education crusades in history, the group said. On Monday, the Ad Council will announce the new campaign and start testing messaging. It will start rolling out public service announcements across airwaves, publications and social media next year, when vaccines are expected to be approved and made available to the public.

    The White House has collaborated with the Ad Council on previous public health efforts, but it is not currently involved in this one.

    Frankly, this is the biggest public health crisis we?ve ever faced, and we don?t have time to waste,? said Lisa Sherman, the group?s chief executive. ?We?re working in advance, so that once those vaccines are proven to be safe and approved by all the right people, we?re ready to go.?

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    While the pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Moderna have announced promising updates on the vaccines they are developing, President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. has blamed President Trump for causing anxiety about the safety of potential immunization efforts. Anti-vaccine sentiment has been growing for decades, driven in part by a backlash against pharmaceutical companies.

    Fifty-eight percent of American adults said they were willing to take a coronavirus vaccine, according to a Gallup poll conducted between Oct. 19 and Nov. 1. Another poll, conducted last month by Ipsos and the World Economic Forum, found that 85 percent of Chinese adults, 79 percent of British adults and 76 percent of Canadian adults planned to be vaccinated, compared to 64 percent of Americans.

    The Ad Council has joined with a coalition of experts known as the Covid Collaborative, which concluded through its own survey that only one-third of Americans plan to get vaccinated.

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    I don't care if they skip the vaccine. If someone is that stupid, let them skip it. Then I will get the vaccine quicker. I am done with these idiot anti vaxxers and people that think it's no worse than the flu.

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    Quote Originally Posted by raisedbywolves View Post
    I don't care if they skip the vaccine. If someone is that stupid, let them skip it. Then I will get the vaccine quicker. I am done with these idiot anti vaxxers and people that think it's no worse than the flu.
    The problem with that is this. It's quite possible the vaccine will only give immunity for a short time. More like a flu shot than say a measles or mumps shot. If those antivax idiots refuse to get shots and keep wandering around, asymptomatically spreading the Trump virus we'll either all have to get mutiple shots or will end up getting sick because MAGA Mike doesn't give a good god damn about anyone else.
    Quote Originally Posted by bowieluva View Post
    lol at Nestle being some vicious smiter, she's the nicest person on this site besides probably puzzld. Or at least the last person to resort to smiting.
    Quote Originally Posted by nestlequikie View Post
    Why on earth would I smite you when I can ban you?

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    Quote Originally Posted by puzzld View Post
    The problem with that is this. It's quite possible the vaccine will only give immunity for a short time. More like a flu shot than say a measles or mumps shot. If those antivax idiots refuse to get shots and keep wandering around, asymptomatically spreading the Trump virus we'll either all have to get mutiple shots or will end up getting sick because MAGA Mike doesn't give a good god damn about anyone else.
    https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/no-covid-19-casedemic/

    Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic reared its ugly head in China and then made its way to Europe and the rest of the world, conspiracy theorists have had a field day. Whether it was the idea that the 5G rollout in Wuhan, China somehow sparked or accelerated the COVID-19 outbreaks that evolved into the pandemic, that the influenza vaccine makes you more susceptible to COVID-19, or that COVID-19 was bioengineered in a laboratory and thus the pandemic is really a “plandemic” designed to control and subjugate the population (or even to depopulate the earth by over 90% so that elites, working with aliens—yes, aliens!—could exploit the population and its resources), conspiracy theories have been flowing fast and furious since early this year. Meanwhile, antivaxxers rapidly formed an unholy alliance with antimaskers, COVID-19 pandemic minimizers and deniers, and others opposing public health mandates to control the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 (including QAnon believers!) while infusing that movement with antivaccine pseudoscience and conspiracy theories and launching a pre-emptive disinformation war against COVID-19 vaccines. Antivax leader and propagandist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr has gone all-in on COVID-19 minimization/denial, and Del Bigtree, who made the antivaccine propaganda film VAXXED with Andrew Wakefield, has urged his listeners to “catch this cold” in order to build up herd immunity among the “healthy,” because, to him, COVID-19 is not dangerous except to those who deserve to be endangered, specifically those with chronic conditions due to overeating, lack of exercise, excess drink, and the like. It was blaming the victim at its most blatant, very typical of antivaccine activists.

    This brings me to the latest propaganda line being promoted by COVID-19 deniers and antivaxxers, that of the “casedemic”.

    What is the “casedemic”?
    What is a “casedemic”? Last week, ?ber-quack tycoon (worth over $100 million!) Joseph Mercola, DO published an article entitled “Asymptomatic ‘Casedemic’ Is a Perpetuation of Needless Fear“. Amusingly, Mercola prominently lists his article as having been “fact-checked”, to which I can only respond: “Fact-checked? You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

    Before I deconstruct Mercola’s claims, let’s take a moment to consider why “casedemic” has been a buzzword among COVID-19 deniers and antivaxxers lately. As of my writing this yesterday, COVID-19 is spreading out of control throughout huge swaths of the US, with the number of (known) cases hitting 12 million and the number of deaths surpassing a quarter of a million. Hospitalizations are climbing, and in large areas of the US, hospitals and the healthcare system are straining under the load of caring for so many COVID-19 patients. The situation is only getting worse, with hospitals in half the states facing massive staffing shortages, especially shortages of ICU nurses. In the face of such empirical numbers, it’s difficult to deny how severe the COVID-19 pandemic currently is in the US; that is, unless you find a way to redefine your terms. Enter the “casedemic”, in which antivaxxers and COVID-19 deniers try to claim that what we are seeing is an epidemic of positive tests, not of real disease, hence the term. Indeed, if you do a search of the term “casedemic”, you’ll find articles from the usual COVID-19 denying suspects arguing that the now-exponential increase in COVID-19 cases is not due to real disease, but rather an artifact of wider testing.

    Basically, “casedemic” is just a new name for an old COVID-19 denier trope, that increased testing explains the pandemic and that COVID-19 is not dangerous. Indeed, a Google Trends search shows that the term didn’t show up as Google searches until early August, but I’ve been as yet unable to figure out who coined the word: I think that might be the first instance of “casedemic” and that Ivor Cummings might well have been the person who coined the term, but I really don’t know for sure. Ivor Cummings, for those unfamiliar with him, is an engineer who decided he knew more about nutrition and health than actual, you know, nutritionists and physicians and had established himself as a nutrition quack under the title “Fat Emperor” long before COVID-19. Once the pandemic hit, he rapidly pivoted to become a COVID-19 grifter and has become hugely influential among the COVID-19 denial crowd. His shtick has been pretty much this, to claim that COVID-19 numbers are being vastly inflated due to increased testing and that it’s not that dangerous. Cummings rates a post of his own, and I’ve been meaning to do one discussing his pseudoscience about diet and COVID-10, but today is not the day for it.

    Here’s where antivaxxers glom on. After all, if COVID-19 is not dangerous, particularly if it’s not more dangerous than the flu, then there’s no need for masking, no need for social distancing, no need for public health interventions such as restricting activities known to be sources of spread (such as indoor dining at restaurants and having those who can work from home do so), and, above all, no need for a vaccine.

    Now let’s get back to Mercola. Mercola relies largely on a video by Del Bigtree. (It’s always a bad idea to use such an unreliable source, but if there’s one thing that Bigtree is skilled at, it’s crafting science-denying and antivaccine propaganda that sounds convincing to people who are not well versed in the relevant sciences.) I’m not going to embed it or link to it; it’s in the article if you really want to subject yourself to 23 minutes of Bigtree’s rambling. It also amuses me when someone who knows nothing about PCR pontificates about PCR, the way that Bigtree and Mercola do.






    Yes the COVID-19 Truthers and Anti-Vaxxers have a new conspiracy theory up their sleeve for political reasons Casedemic

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    Not again

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    https://ktla.com/news/coronavirus/mo...s-own-journey/

    Noubar Afeyan, an Armenian immigrant from Lebanon and grandson of a genocide survivor, is leading some of the breakthrough U.S. COVID-19 vaccine efforts as co-founder and chairman of Moderna Inc.

    Speaking with KTLA about the latest developments at Moderna, Afeyan highlighted how his journey as an immigrant has impacted his work.

    “One of the only unfortunate advantages Armenians have had by having gone through a genocide and having spread around the world is that we do have an experience of escaping and of immigrating and of constantly restarting,” he said. “That feeling of restarting … turns out, is very similar to what you need to have a startup of a company or to innovate.”

    Born in Lebanon, Afeyan’s family left in 1975 during the Lebanese Civil War and moved to Canada, where he grew up.

    “I hadn’t seen snow. I had never lived in North America,” he said. “That sudden change defined me down the line.”

    Afeyan studied chemical engineering at McGill University and later received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

    In 2000, he started Flagship Pioneering to create and fund startups in health care and sustainability. Afeyan has since launched 40 other companies, including Moderna, which is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

    In early 2020, Moderna was tapped by the Trump administration to fast-track a COVID-19 vaccine. Through “Operation Warp Speed,” Moderna received nearly a billion dollars to develop the vaccine, and is promised another 1.5 billion to buy, manufacture and distribute the first 100 million doses — placing Afeyan’s company at the forefront of the battle against the coronavirus.

    “We hope that we will have sometime in December the approval to go ahead and start getting the first doses out in the U.S. as well as hopefully in Europe,” Afeyan said. “That’s where we stand, we’re very excited.”

    Moderna’s vaccine, officially named mRNA 1273, is nearly 95% effective, early data shows. And, it’s not like the traditional flu shot. The vaccine was developed through groundbreaking technology called Messenger RNA (mRNA).

    In January, scientists at Moderna and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) identified the sequence for a key protein on the surface of the virus called the spike protein. The genetic code of the virus is taken and administered into the body. Once it’s injected, it instructs cells to produce copies of the spike protein, triggering an immune response.

    Moderna was the first to invent the field of mRNA for therapeutics, even before the pandemic hit.

    “What’s remarkable is that the technology we have developed was perfectly suited for this type of very rapid deployment. And so within days, we had designed a new vaccine and started testing it,” Afeyan said, adding that it’s rapid but accurate.

    The vaccine has now been tested on 30,000 volunteers, and has shown promising results, according to the company. It requires two doses, four weeks apart. So far, side effects are mild, flu-like symptoms.

    “We don’t view this as a race,” Afeyan said. “There is one enemy … that’s the virus.”

    Afeyan says his goal is simply to help people, and he credited his drive and passion for philanthropy to his immigrant mentality.

    Moderna just wrapped up the third phase of clinical trials and is awaiting approval from the Federal Drug Administration. If all goes well, Moderna could administer 20 million vaccine doses before the end of the year.

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    https://abc7news.com/health/muni-ope...id-19/8243081/

    SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- Muni says one of its operators has died from the coronavirus.

    In a video announcement, the San Francisco transit agency did not release the person's name but said they had been on long-term leave. The head of Muni, Jeffrey Tumlin, added the person had not come into contact with anyone in months. Officials have not released details on how the operator contracted the virus.

    Since the pandemic started, nearly 100 Muni employees have tested positive. In nearly all cases, the employees experienced moderate symptoms, according to Muni.

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    Senior Member of_corpse_not's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Queena View Post
    I'm not sure what you mean by exploited. My town is being hit hard, but I'm from Chicago. I lost my step father today, a friend yesterday, and my aunt lost 3 childhood friends. All within the past 72 hours. I know 6 people that have died and know of many more. I lost 2 cousins within 3 weeks. A childhood friend on her way to the hospital. This is devastating and I'm not sure how this country can recover, unless we shut completely down. I've never seen anything like this in my life. Not even during the 80s and 90s with AIDS. Please be safe.
    I am so sorry for your losses. That is so devastating. I can?t imagine. Hope you?re staying safe.

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    https://www.fiercebiotech.com/medtec...ement-covid-19


    As the COVID-19 pandemic has forced changes in the day-to-day care provided by many clinicians, many medtech companies have worked to adapt their products and programs toward these emergency practices that have become all too common.

    Seeing an opportunity to apply its artificial intelligence technology, GE Healthcare has launched a new algorithm that can read X-rays and help assess the correct placement of ventilator tubes in patients under critical care.

    “Today, clinicians are overwhelmed, experiencing mounting pressure as a result of an ever-increasing number of patients,” said Jan Makela, president and CEO of GE Healthcare’s imaging division.

    The company estimates that as many as one-in-four patients intubated outside of an emergency room may have a misplaced endotracheal tube, which can lead to severe, life-threatening complications such as over-inflating or collapsing a lung, or even cardiac arrest. Meanwhile, up to 45% of patients in intensive care units receive intubation connected to a ventilator.

    The AI program, included in GE Healthcare’s Critical Care Suite, is designed to live on the mobile X-ray scanner itself. It automatically detects the tube in chest X-ray images, provides measurements of its position within the windpipe on the scanner’s monitor, and helps flag and prioritize potentially dangerous cases.


    “The pandemic has proven what we already knew—that data, AI and connectivity are central to helping those on the front lines deliver intelligently efficient care,” Makela said, adding that these advancements will continue to have an impact after the pandemic subsides.

    The AI suite also includes algorithms focusing on improving the quality of the X-ray image, by noting field-of-view errors and automatically rotating the images to the correct orientation.

    https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotec...un-to-approval

    Russia shocked the world in August when it approved a COVID-19 vaccine based on early data, leapfrogging global vaccine players like Pfizer and AstraZeneca. Now, the vaccine’s maker is reporting data from nearly 19,000 people showing it is more than 90% effective.

    The phase 3 study is testing the vaccine, developed by the state-backed Gamaleya Research Center, in 40,000 people. Dubbed Sputnik V after the Russian satellite that beat the U.S. into orbit during the space-race era, the vaccine is given in two doses three weeks apart. So far, more than 19,000 of the volunteers have received both doses.
    Preliminary data taken 42 days after the first shot—and 21 days after the second shot—showed the vaccine was more than 95% effective, the Gamaleya Center said in a statement Tuesday. A second analysis of more than 18,700 people done 28 days after the first dose—and a week after the second dose—found that the vaccine was 91.4% effective.

    So far, there were 39 cases of COVID-19, which triggered the analysis. Of the 14,095 people who received the vaccine, only eight, or 0.06%, developed COVID-19. As for the 4,699 people who received placebo, 31, or 0.66%, developed COVID-19.

    So far, there were no unexpected side effects, the Gamaleya Center said. Some of the vaccinated volunteers had short-lived side effects, such as pain at the injection site and flu-like symptoms including fever, weakness, fatigue and headache.

    The researchers will publish the interim data in a peer-reviewed journal, according to the statement. The investigators will carry out the next analysis when the study reaches 78 COVID-19 cases.

    RELATED: AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine 70% effective, shares fall

    Russia had approved the vaccine months ago, with less than two months of human testing and without having begun late-stage trials, Reuters reported at the time. The approval was based on “the equivalent of phase 1 data,” former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D., tweeted in response to the news.

    Dismissing critics, Russia's president Vladimir Putin said on state TV the vaccine “works quite effectively, forms strong immunity, and, I repeat, it has passed all the needed checks,” as quoted by Reuters.

    The Sputnik V data come after Moderna, partners Pfizer and BioNTech, and AstraZeneca unveiled late-phase COVID-19 data. Moderna and Pfizer both hit efficacy numbers around 95%, while AstraZeneca’s vaccine was 70% effective. That 70% figure is the average of two dosing regimens—nearly 9,000 people in the study received the same dose for their first and second shots, while a smaller group of more than 2,700 people got a half dose to start, followed by a full booster shot. The latter regimen was 90% effective. But the relatively small number of people in that group make it hard to draw conclusions about the finding.

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    https://www.fiercebiotech.com/resear...omise-hamsters

    Single-domain antibodies, or “nanobodies,” inspired by llamas, have been proposed as potential treatments for COVID-19. Now, one company’s candidates have shown early promise in animal models.

    Two nanobodies developed by Twist Bioscience, dubbed TB202-3 and TB202-63, protected hamsters from weight loss—a key indicator of disease severity—after they were infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, the California biotech said.

    The protection against weight loss was comparable to that produced by plasma from COVID-19 survivors in previous preclinical studies, offering hope that the tiny antibodies could enable new approaches to treatment, prevention and diagnosis of COVID-19, Twist’s CEO Emily Leproust, Ph.D., said in a statement.

    With the positive hamster data, Twist Bioscience, a division of Twist Biopharma, is “considering various options, including licensing out the assets for further development,” a company spokesperson said in an email to Fierce BiotechResearch.

    Conventional antibodies consist of two immunoglobulin heavy chains and two light chains, with variable heavy and light domains that together give the antibodies their ability to target specific pathogens. By contrast, a nanobody only needs a single variable domain to recognize its target. Nanobodies occur naturally in llamas and other camelids.

    Twist chose TB202-63 and TB202-3 from large synthetic antibody libraries, each containing more than 10 billion single-domain antibody sequences. In lab dishes, the two nanobodies neutralized SARS-CoV-2 by binding to the virus’s spike protein receptor-binding domain, which is also the main target of the many other COVID-19 vaccines and monoclonal antibodies in development. During an infection, the spike protein binds to the ACE2 receptors on human cells to gain entry.

    RELATED: Twist Bioscience secures $140M plus a slew of new DNA partnerships

    In the preclinical studies, investigators at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) injected immunodeficient animals with the Twist nanobodies. At all three dosing levels—1 mg/kg, 5mg/kg and 10 mg/kg—the two nanobodies each protected treated rodents against weight loss. By contrast, animals that were infected with the coronavirus and not treated lost an average 11.7% of body weight.

    Because nanobodies are small, they can squeeze into small spaces and bind to antigen areas that would otherwise be inaccessible to human antibodies. Their size also allows for easier manufacturing scale-up.

    “[N]anobodies, with their very small size, may offer an advantage over traditional antibodies. For example, they could be delivered intranasally to prevent infection or reduce transmission; or they could be part of a more conventional therapeutic treatment regimen,” Jay Hooper, Ph.D., head of molecular virology at USAMRIID, said in a statement.

    RELATED: A COVID-19 treatment inspired by llamas

    Single-domain antibodies are being explored against various diseases, including infectious diseases and cancer. A team led by Scripps Research Institute previously isolated broadly neutralizing single-domain antibodies from llamas that, when linked together into a multidomain antibody, protected mice against almost all influenza A and B viruses.

    When the COVID-19 pandemic started, scientists from the University of Texas at Austin, the National Institutes of Health and Ghent University in Belgium quickly pivoted their previous research focused on two related coronaviruses, SARS-CoV-1 and MERS-CoV. They isolated a single-domain antibody from a llama immunized with the coronaviruses’ spike protein. By fusing it to a part of a human antibody, the candidate effectively neutralized SARS-CoV-2 in cell cultures.

    Twist believes that its candidates hold potential as “a preventive daily nasal spray that would block aerosolized particles of the SARS-CoV-2 virus from entering the nasal passage and therefore the body,” Leproust said in the statement.

    Twist also showed that a traditional antibody called TB181-36, which was discovered in collaboration with Vanderbilt University Medical Center, was also able to protect hamsters against weight loss at 5 mg/kg and 10 mg/kg doses. The company said it intends to move all three candidates forward for further testing either internally or with partners.

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    https://www.fiercebiotech.com/resear...omise-hamsters

    Single-domain antibodies, or ?nanobodies,? inspired by llamas, have been proposed as potential treatments for COVID-19. Now, one company?s candidates have shown early promise in animal models.

    Two nanobodies developed by Twist Bioscience, dubbed TB202-3 and TB202-63, protected hamsters from weight loss?a key indicator of disease severity?after they were infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, the California biotech said.

    The protection against weight loss was comparable to that produced by plasma from COVID-19 survivors in previous preclinical studies, offering hope that the tiny antibodies could enable new approaches to treatment, prevention and diagnosis of COVID-19, Twist?s CEO Emily Leproust, Ph.D., said in a statement.

    With the positive hamster data, Twist Bioscience, a division of Twist Biopharma, is ?considering various options, including licensing out the assets for further development,? a company spokesperson said in an email to Fierce BiotechResearch.

    Conventional antibodies consist of two immunoglobulin heavy chains and two light chains, with variable heavy and light domains that together give the antibodies their ability to target specific pathogens. By contrast, a nanobody only needs a single variable domain to recognize its target. Nanobodies occur naturally in llamas and other camelids.

    Twist chose TB202-63 and TB202-3 from large synthetic antibody libraries, each containing more than 10 billion single-domain antibody sequences. In lab dishes, the two nanobodies neutralized SARS-CoV-2 by binding to the virus?s spike protein receptor-binding domain, which is also the main target of the many other COVID-19 vaccines and monoclonal antibodies in development. During an infection, the spike protein binds to the ACE2 receptors on human cells to gain entry.

    RELATED: Twist Bioscience secures $140M plus a slew of new DNA partnerships

    In the preclinical studies, investigators at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) injected immunodeficient animals with the Twist nanobodies. At all three dosing levels?1 mg/kg, 5mg/kg and 10 mg/kg?the two nanobodies each protected treated rodents against weight loss. By contrast, animals that were infected with the coronavirus and not treated lost an average 11.7% of body weight.

    Because nanobodies are small, they can squeeze into small spaces and bind to antigen areas that would otherwise be inaccessible to human antibodies. Their size also allows for easier manufacturing scale-up.

    ?[N]anobodies, with their very small size, may offer an advantage over traditional antibodies. For example, they could be delivered intranasally to prevent infection or reduce transmission; or they could be part of a more conventional therapeutic treatment regimen,? Jay Hooper, Ph.D., head of molecular virology at USAMRIID, said in a statement.

    RELATED: A COVID-19 treatment inspired by llamas

    Single-domain antibodies are being explored against various diseases, including infectious diseases and cancer. A team led by Scripps Research Institute previously isolated broadly neutralizing single-domain antibodies from llamas that, when linked together into a multidomain antibody, protected mice against almost all influenza A and B viruses.

    When the COVID-19 pandemic started, scientists from the University of Texas at Austin, the National Institutes of Health and Ghent University in Belgium quickly pivoted their previous research focused on two related coronaviruses, SARS-CoV-1 and MERS-CoV. They isolated a single-domain antibody from a llama immunized with the coronaviruses? spike protein. By fusing it to a part of a human antibody, the candidate effectively neutralized SARS-CoV-2 in cell cultures.

    Twist believes that its candidates hold potential as ?a preventive daily nasal spray that would block aerosolized particles of the SARS-CoV-2 virus from entering the nasal passage and therefore the body,? Leproust said in the statement.

    Twist also showed that a traditional antibody called TB181-36, which was discovered in collaboration with Vanderbilt University Medical Center, was also able to protect hamsters against weight loss at 5 mg/kg and 10 mg/kg doses. The company said it intends to move all three candidates forward for further testing either internally or with partners.

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    https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotec...inese-approval

    BioNTech and Fosun Pharma have begun a phase 2 trial of their COVID-19 vaccine in China. The trial will generate data to support a filing for approval of the vaccine, which is nearing authorization in the West, in China.

    Fosun partnered with BioNTech in March in a deal worth up to $135 million. In July, Fosun advanced mRNA vaccine BNT162b1 into phase 1, only to follow BioNTech’s lead and prioritize another asset after getting a look at data from the global development program. The phase 2 trial will assess the performance of that second vaccine, BNT162b2, in the Chinese population.

    Jiangsu Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention will run the trial and recruit 960 people aged 18 to 85 years. Recruitment in the placebo-controlled trial will take place online. Three-quarters of participants will receive the vaccine.

    The primary endpoint is looking at humoral immune responses one month after the administration of the second dose of BNT162b2. Specifically, the investigators are interested in seroconversion rates and the geometric mean titer of SARS-CoV-2 serum neutralizing titers. Other endpoints are looking at the safety and tolerability of the vaccine seven and 14 days after each vaccination.

    Working with Pfizer, BioNTech has already generated a large body of data on the immune responses and adverse events seen in Western populations. The new phase 2 trial will show whether BNT162b2 performs comparably in Chinese people.

    Fosun has previously said a successful bridging study could enable it to extrapolate global data to the Chinese population, potentially setting it up to leverage BioNTech and Pfizer’s successful phase 3 to win approval in its home market. Fosun sees benefits to the study beyond the generation of results to support a filing for approval in China.

    “The phase 2 clinical study with BNT162b2 in China will not only provide key data for the launch of the vaccine in China, but also may play a positive role in the widespread promotion and use of the vaccine throughout Asia and around the world,” Aimin Hui, M.D., Ph.D., chief medical officer at Fosun, said in a statement.

    BNT162b2 is already on the cusp of approval, at least on an emergency basis, in the U.S., Canada, the EU and the U.K. on the strength of a phase 3 trial that found a 95% efficacy rate in stopping symptomatic COVID-19.

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    One of my mom's friends has worked at the same local restaurant for 37 years. She was bartending one night, and saw some patrons walking around without masks. One of the customers was the owners son. She asked him to please put on a mask. He told her to leave, that she was fired. I would be so pissed if I were her.

    "The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man" -Charles Darwin

    Quote Originally Posted by bowieluva View Post
    Chelsea, if you are a ghost and reading mds, I command you to walk into the light.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Angiebla View Post
    One of my mom's friends has worked at the same local restaurant for 37 years. She was bartending one night, and saw some patrons walking around without masks. One of the customers was the owners son. She asked him to please put on a mask. He told her to leave, that she was fired. I would be so pissed if I were her.
    Don't you guys have a mask mandate? I would be suing if I were her.

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    Quote Originally Posted by raisedbywolves View Post
    Don't you guys have a mask mandate? I would be suing if I were her.
    Thats the thing, we do. She has already been snagged up by another restaurant because shes such a good employee. I think shes moved on.

    There will be a massive walk out of waitresses at her former job though. People are pissed. More mad than her.

    "The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man" -Charles Darwin

    Quote Originally Posted by bowieluva View Post
    Chelsea, if you are a ghost and reading mds, I command you to walk into the light.

  17. #892
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    Quote Originally Posted by Angiebla View Post
    Thats the thing, we do. She has already been snagged up by another restaurant because shes such a good employee. I think shes moved on.

    There will be a massive walk out of waitresses at her former job though. People are pissed. More mad than her.
    I would be super pissed. I hope that place can't find employees if they treat them like that.

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    History looks back in the 1918 flu.

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    https://www.cleveland19.com/2020/11/...-dying-mother/


    CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) - A United States representative from Nevada said she has tested positive for the coronavirus following a recent trip to Ohio.

    U.S. Rep. Susie Lee shared news about the infection on Wednesday, announcing that the positive test result came after traveling to Ohio to visit her dying mother.

    According to U.S. Rep. Lee, she traveled to Ohio on Monday after her mother started to receive in-home hospice care. She said she maintained social distance, wore a mask, and took a COVID-19 test before traveling.

    The test on Sunday was negative, but U.S. Rep. Lee said a positive result confirmed the coronavirus when testing again on Wednesday.

    Tragically, U.S. Rep. Lee said her mother died on Tuesday night following months of deteriorating health.

    The congresswoman said she is currently feeling no symptoms and plans to participate in funeral services for her mother and for her legislative work remotely while isolating.

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    https://www.khon2.com/news/national/...inmate-deaths/

    MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — At the Bibb Correctional Facility in Alabama, the old prison chapel has been turned into a quarantine zone. The sound of coughing is constant. And some people appear afraid to enter the room.

    An inmate described life in the quarantine to The Associated Press, speaking anonymously for fear of retaliation. The prison system has enforced the wearing of masks among inmates, but he said crowded dormitories like his offer nowhere to hide from the virus.

    He said he became so weak he could not stand.

    “He said they are just laying around like flies,” said Bonita Jackson, whose brother is a Bibb inmate who was hospitalized. “You can’t hardly hear him. He is gasping for breath.”

    As coronavirus cases skyrocket nationwide, they are also rising again in prisons, which are plagued by close contact and lack of good hygiene. In Alabama prisons alone, 34 people — 32 inmates and two staff members — have died from COVID-19 since the pandemic began. That ranks ninth in the country for the number of COVID-19 deaths per 10,000 inmates, according to figurescompiled by The Associated Press and the Marshall Project.

    Criminal justice reform advocates have called for the release of vulnerable and elderly inmates and an increase in paroles to alleviate extreme overcrowding, as well as the mass testing of inmates.

    “These numbers are so disturbing, but not at all surprising given the culture and conditions in Alabama prisons. The Department of Corrections has failed to provide for the basic safety of people in its custody for years and COVID has escalated those failures,” said Carla Crowder, executive director of Alabama Appleseed Center for Law and Justice.

    “What people should understand is that it did not have to be this bad,” she said.

    TheAlabama Department of Corrections said in a statement that is has taken multiple steps to combat the virus behind bars.

    “As we continue to monitor the impact of COVID-19 in our facilities, the primary goal and concern of the ADOC is protecting the safety, security, and well-being of our inmates and staff,” the prison system said in a statement emailed from spokeswoman Samantha Rose.

    The agency said each inmate was given four masks, more than 200 floor-mounted hand sanitizer dispensers have been installed, and room foggers, backpack sprayers and other equipment are used to sanitize areas.

    Asked about the conditions described by inmates and their families, the prison system said the old chapel at Bibb is serving as a quarantine for symptomatic inmates awaiting COVID-19 test results, but the inmates are being closely monitored.

    “Using these non-traditional housing areas allows the ADOC to use all available space to quarantine positive cases, while protecting other inmates from exposure,” the system said.

    Since the pandemic began, nearly 800 inmates have tested positive for COVID-19, according to prison systemnumbers. The pandemic has also taken a toll on those that work in prisons. More than 600 Alabama prison employees have reported testing positive for COVID-19 since the pandemic began. Most inmates and staff have recovered.

    Most deaths, like those outside prison walls, have occurred in inmates with preexisting health conditions, the prison system said.

    State Sen. Cam Ward, who was recently appointed by the governor as the new director of the Parole Bureau, said prison conditions where inmates are often “warehoused” in large rooms is a factor.

    “When you have 400-something people in one big room, it is going to spread disease,” Ward said.

    More than 1,000 people age 65 and older are behind bars in state prisons. Ward said older populations in prison include those sentenced for single violent crimes and those sentenced under the state’s habitual offender act before it was changed.

    “Because of that stringent three strikes, you’re out, you have a lot of people in there life without parole, and that population in there is getting older,” Ward said.

    Kenneth Glasgow, founder of the Ordinary People Society dedicated to ending mass incarceration, said he is fielding calls from inmate families daily. He agreed with Crowder that the state should have pursued the release of some offenders and increased testing early in the pandemic.

    “We’ve got family members calling out the yin-yang. They are scared. They say their family member got a two- or three-year sentence for drugs, not a sickness sentence or a death sentence from COVID,” Glasgow said.

    January Corbitt said she has underlying health conditions and feared catching the coronavirus before her release from Tutwiler Prison for Women this fall. One inmate and two employees at the Wetumpka prison have died from COVID-19.

    “It’s scary. Right now, it’s scary,” Corbitt said.

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    Quote Originally Posted by puzzld View Post
    The problem with that is this. It's quite possible the vaccine will only give immunity for a short time. More like a flu shot than say a measles or mumps shot. If those antivax idiots refuse to get shots and keep wandering around, asymptomatically spreading the Trump virus we'll either all have to get mutiple shots or will end up getting sick because MAGA Mike doesn't give a good god damn about anyone else.
    From what I have read, there may not be herd immunity with this one. We may have to get multiple shots, but from my reading it seems that even people that have the vaccine can transport the virus to others. So if you don't get your vaccine, herd immunity may not protect you with this disease. You either get it or you deal with the consequences.

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    https://www.reuters.com/article/heal...-idUSL8N2IC2QU

    LONDON (Reuters) - Suspected North Korean hackers have tried to break into the systems of British drugmaker AstraZeneca in recent weeks, two people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters, as the company races to deploy its vaccine for the COVID-19 virus.

    The hackers posed as recruiters on networking site LinkedIn and WhatsApp to approach AstraZeneca staff with fake job offers, the sources said. They then sent documents purporting to be job descriptions that were laced with malicious code designed to gain access to a victim’s computer.

    The hacking attempts targeted a “broad set of people” including staff working on COVID-19 research, said one of the sources, but are not thought to have been successful.

    The North Korean mission to the United Nations in Geneva did not respond to a request for comment. Pyongyang has previously denied carrying out cyberattacks. It has no direct line of contact for foreign media.

    AstraZeneca, which has emerged as one of the top three COVID-19 vaccine developers, declined to comment.

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    The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss non-public information, said the tools and techniques used in the attacks showed they were part of an ongoing hacking campaign that U.S. officials and cybersecurity researchers have attributed to North Korea.

    The campaign has previously focused on defence companies and media organisations but pivoted to COVID-related targets in recent weeks, according to three people who have investigated the attacks.

    Cyberattacks against health bodies, vaccine scientists and drugmakers have soared during the COVID-19 pandemic as state-backed and criminal hacking groups scramble to obtain the latest research and information about the outbreak.

    Western officials say any stolen information could be sold for profit, used to extort the victims, or give foreign governments a valuable strategic advantage as they fight to contain a disease that has killed 1.4 million people worldwide.


    Microsoft said this month it had seen two North Korean hacking groups target vaccine developers in multiple countries, including by “sending messages with fabricated job descriptions.” Microsoft did not name any of the targeted organisations.

    South Korean lawmakers said on Friday that the country’s intelligence agency had foiled some of those attempts.

    Reuters has previously reported that hackers from Iran, China and Russia have attempted to break into leading drugmakers and even the World Health Organisation this year. Tehran, Beijing and Moscow have all denied the allegations.

    Some of the accounts used in the attacks on AstraZeneca were registered to Russian email addresses, one of the sources said, in a possible attempt to mislead investigators.

    North Korea has been blamed by U.S. prosecutors for some of the world’s most audacious and damaging cyberattacks, including the hack and leak of emails from Sony Pictures in 2014, the 2016 theft of $81 million from the Central Bank of Bangladesh, and unleashing the Wannacry ransomware virus in 2017.

    Pyongyang has described the allegations as part of attempts by Washington to smear its image.

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    I just got a text from my dentist's office. They had a COVID outbreak (they said "exposure") and cancelled my monday app. Im relieved bc I really didnt want to go, but I guess Im just going to chill here with the hole in my tooth. The shitty thing is my mom was just there and got her teeth cleaned.

    Sorry if Im posting personal stuff in this thread but most of my stories are COVID related.

    "The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man" -Charles Darwin

    Quote Originally Posted by bowieluva View Post
    Chelsea, if you are a ghost and reading mds, I command you to walk into the light.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Angiebla View Post
    I just got a text from my dentist's office. They had a COVID outbreak (they said "exposure") and cancelled my monday app. Im relieved bc I really didnt want to go, but I guess Im just going to chill here with the hole in my tooth. The shitty thing is my mom was just there and got her teeth cleaned.

    Sorry if Im posting personal stuff in this thread but most of my stories are COVID related.
    Hope your mom is not COVID-19 Positive but expect the worst to happen sadly.

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    https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/artic...o-15756086.php

    UC San Francisco is one of seven California hospitals chosen by the state's Public Health Department to be among the first in the world for early distribution of Pfizer's COVID-190 vaccine. Health care workers and first responders will be first in line for inoculations amid a pandemic that has changed life as we know it since March. (The department didn't respond to a request for a list of the other six hospitals before this article was published.)

    The wheels are already in motion at the public research university where a task force of clinical and pharmaceutical experts have been working with state public health officials to plan for distributing any and all safe and effective vaccines or therapeutics, according to a statement from UCSF.

    The exact timeline for the first allocation is unknown but UCSF said it expects to begin administering the Pfizer vaccine as early as December.

    Pfizer said its contracts in the early distribution are with governments and the first vaccines will be allocated through country and state's preferred channels and designated vaccination locations.

    "Our goal is to start the first shipment as soon as possible, possibly within hours of receiving authorization or approval from any regulatory agency," said Francesca Marzullo, manager of Pfizer Global Supply Communications. "In some countries, health authorities may also issue vaccine recommendations immediately before distributions. We can only supply countries once regulatory authorization or approval has been granted and we will supply each country with vaccine doses through a robust process, consistent with supply agreements we’ve entered into with individual countries."

    In recent weeks, both Pfizer and Moderna announced that the COVID-19 vaccines they had developed were found to be 95% and 94.5% effective, respectively, in phase 3 human trials. Pfizer last week asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for emergency authorization to begin distributing its vaccine, and Moderna is expected to do the same any day. Federal officials say the first doses will ship within a day of authorization.


    This week, AstraZeneca became the third vaccine maker to say early data indicates its shots are highly effective. AstraZeneca said Monday that late-stage trials showed its vaccine is highly effective, and unlike the others, this one doesn’t have to be stored at freezer temperatures, making it potentially less expensive and easier to distribute.

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom said at a Monday press conference the state is preparing for delivery and distribution, but widespread availability to the public is still months away.

    "Mass vaccination is unlikely to occur any time soon," Newsom said. "March, April, June, July, that's where we start to scale."

    The state launched a community advisory committee of community groups, school leaders and nonprofit organizations to advise on distribution and allocation. A draft of the Phase 1a allocation, targeting 2.4 million health care workers across the state, is due Dec. 1.

    Next, the committee will look at allocation of vaccines to individuals in congregate care, the medically vulnerable, medical first responders and those involved in safety infrastructure.

    "The first round of vaccinations will be extraordinarily limited," Newsom said. "We begin with a framework of scarcity."

    SFGATE contacted the California Department of Public Health for a list of all seven state hospitals that will be the first to issue the vaccine. The story will be updated when we receive this information.

    The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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