COVID-19 Coronavirus Thread

[jokiin]

Oxford coronavirus vaccine 'does not stop infection', experts warn

All six rhesus monkeys given the vaccine still caught the virus, and had so much in their lungs they may have still been able to pass the virus to others. Vaccine has entered human trials.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[Nigel]

In short, by the time a vaccine is available (if it ever is) the virus will have either infected everyone possible making the vaccine pointless as everyone is either immune or dead or by that time the virus will have gone extinct.

New Zealand, Australia, and China will all benefit, since they are currently holding back the spread of the virus, so the vaccine will free them from continuing lockdowns and closed borders.

No matter who develops the vaccine and where, normal clinical trials take from 12 to 18 months minimum, and that cannot be sped up.

Seems it can be sped up, not sure of the full logic, but one of the features of the Oxford vaccine is that it is a vaccine that has been used before, but has had a very minor modification to the bit that invokes immunity, so the requirement is only to prove the tiny modified bit is safe, and that the tiny change has not made the rest unsafe. The risks are considerably less than normal and the potential life saving considerably higher than normal, which I assume is why the human trials are proceeding very rapidly. Normally there is a large amount of scientific review and checking needed at each stage which takes a lot of time, but in this case the vaccine is being given priority with plenty of manpower available. It is not really a new drug that has effects on the human body, it's only job is to invoke the human body to produce antibodies, what is left behind is all natural human.

Trump news — live: President says he has been taking hydroxychloroquine for weeks. The drug cause a wide spectrum of neuropsychiatric manifestations, including agitation, insomnia, confusion, mania, hallucinations, paranoia, depression, catatonia, psychosis, and suicidal ideation. Stopping the drug could lead to resolution, but symptoms may not quickly resolve.

 

[Nigel]

Oxford coronavirus vaccine 'does not stop infection', experts warn

All six rhesus monkeys given the vaccine still caught the virus, and had so much in their lungs they may have still been able to pass the virus to others. Vaccine has entered human trials.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Poor reporting, it doesn't prevent the cold symptoms caused by infection of the nose, throat and lungs, and doesn't prevent the spread of the virus, but it does prevent the covid-19 disease within the body, so people do not get sick and die. It is doing what it was designed and was expected to do.

 

[jokiin]

It is doing what it was designed and was expected to do.

so they were expected to still be able to catch Covid 19, and spread it?

 

[Nigel]

so they were expected to still be able to catch Covid 19, and spread it?

Yes, you need a different vaccine for the throat since immunity there requires a different type of antibody, one that works outside the body (on the air side of the skin), not antibodies that work within the blood system. This was the expected result, it stops people dying, but not the spread of the virus, so if Australia uses this vaccine then you will be getting a cold at some time!

This is why we have never bothered with a common cold vaccine, most don't stop the cold!

 

[jokiin]

Yes

doesn't sound like much of a vaccine then

 

[Nigel]

doesn't sound like much of a vaccine then

It does stop the infection inside the body, which is the important thing. Everyone develops immunity for the nose and throat when they are exposed to the virus, so the end result is complete protection, without risk of serious illness or death. You can choose to wait for perfection if you like, but I doubt the rest of the country/world will!

The USA seems to be developing a vaccine for the nose/throat, but it is unclear if that will prevent the deaths, might help by reducing the spread of the virus, but I know which one I would choose!

 

[jokiin]

I think I'll wait and see what the scientists come up with rather than relying on internet speculation as to what may or may not be the better solution

 

[SawMaster]

Seems it can be sped up, not sure of the full logic, but one of the features of the Oxford vaccine is that it is a vaccine that has been used before, but has had a very minor modification to the bit that invokes immunity, so the requirement is only to prove the tiny modified bit is safe, and that the tiny change has not made the rest unsafe.

That is the logic being used, but new combinations still need at least one human gestation period (9 months) to be certain of safety. There is no getting past that without assuming a risk, and if you look into some of the clinical drug trials in progress or completed you will find that many have taken several years time to reach a conclusion one way or the other. It is that depth and intensity of trialing that is needed which is why they do it this way

Even with my high-risk status and me not being against vaccines, I'll be damned if I'll have one before it has been in widespread use for at least a year without any issues or questionable effects being found. This is the real "cure worse that the disease" scenario, which has absolutely nothing to do with the economy as some idiots would have you believe. People can survive bad economic times and recover from them, but you can't fix or recover from dead

There are no shortcuts to a job done properly and never will be

Phil

 

[Nigel]

if you look into some of the clinical drug trials in progress or completed you will find that many have taken several years time to reach a conclusion one way or the other.

Yes, drugs that affect the workings of the body need very extensive testing. A lot of new drugs seem to have very little effect anyway. They end up arguing if tiny percentage improvements to quality of life are worth the side effects, and that needs very long trails!

But this is not a drug, no reasons why it would affect the workings of the body, it is a vaccine and should just stimulate the bodies defences to prepare antibodies and the vaccine itself is then removed from the body very quickly. The only real risk is that it might be able to replicate and spread, but that has already been tested in the MERS version, the changes for Covid-19 version have zero realistic chance of changing that.

Of course vaccination should always be optional, so if you don't want to take it then you can opt out, although you may have to opt out of society too because there is a good case for wiping this virus out 100% before it manages to mutate into something worse! Maybe a good reason to develop multiple vaccines, because then if one vaccine wipes out the population that took it, the world population will not be wiped out!

 

[Dashmellow]

The Plague Continues: 13 USS Theodore Roosevelt Sailors Test Positive Again For COVID-19

The U.S. Navy is reporting that 13 sailors from the USS Theodore Roosevelt who had apparently recovered from the coronavirus and had received negative test results have now tested positive for a second time. These sailors are experiencing "flu-like" symptoms. In a statement released earlier on Saturday when five sailors were found to have retested positive, the Navy said the sailors had "met rigorous recovery criteria, exceeding CDC guidelines," including testing negative for the virus at least twice, but have now retested positive. An additional eight sailors have retested positive for coronavirus, bringing the total to 13. Increasing numbers of people in various countries around the world who have previously recovered from COVID-19 and had tested negative on multiple occasions have relapsed and are testing positive again.

How is it that our self-appointed resident DCT virology expert Nigel keeps getting everything so wrong about this disease?

"This is a common cold virus," he says. " All we need is to wait for "herd immunity", he says. "The virus can't get into the children's bodies, only infect their throat/lungs" he says, but suddenly children all over the world started coming down with horrific body symptoms from COVID-19 and some have died. And now that the monkeys got sick after getting the over-hyped Oxford vaccine, so we need two different vaccines he now says. As of today there are 246,406 cases and just shy of 35,000 deaths reported in the UK so far, so "we're winning!", he says.

 

[jokiin]

"This is a common cold virus," he says. "

yeah it would be nice if people would stop dying from this common cold, it's making him look bad

 

[Nigel]

The Plague Continues: 13 USS Theodore Roosevelt Sailors Test Positive Again For COVID-19

When you stick 5000 people in a steel box, you should expect diseases to spread! On the Ruby Princess cruise liner, some people remained infectious for over a month. Clearly the US quarantine rules are not adequate for use on large ships!

 

[Dashmellow]

When you stick 5000 people in a steel box, you should expect diseases to spread! On the Ruby Princess cruise liner, some people remained infectious for over a month. Clearly the US quarantine rules are not adequate for use on large ships!

Once again, you dodge the question with an answer that avoids the facts. These sailors didn't "remain" positive, they recovered from COVID-19, tested negative multiple times and then became reinfected again, tested positive again and became symptomatic again. Places like South Korea are also reporting reinfections only the individuals reinfected were not on ocean liners.

You keep touting your "herd immunity" theory. Now that the herd immunity theory has been showing some cracks in its armour you're hedging, suggesting that we will need two vaccines. And if, as you claim we can expect people in ships (steel boxes) to spread (re-spread) the disease, what about people on crowded subway cars and buses (steel boxes)? You can't have it both ways Nigel.

 

[kamkar]

So the plagued big stick ( nickname for USS Theodore Roosevelt ) is coming back, maybe it is big boomerang

I might be immune cuz back in the day working the high seas i ate the same pills the US president eat today, though i probably dont get as much Zinck as i should.

 

[Nigel]

Once again, you dodge the question with an answer that avoids the facts. These sailors didn't "remain" positive, they recovered from COVID-19, tested negative multiple times and then became reinfected again, tested positive again and became symptomatic again. Places like South Korea are also reporting reinfections only the individuals reinfected were not on ocean liners.

Those are not the facts!

The scientists have not seen anyone become reinfected, although they have seen people test positive again - the tests are not perfect.

My reading of that article does not suggest that any of them became symptomatic again either, it was others, who had not had the virus that became symptomatic.

The problem will have simply been that the quarantine period was insufficient, the 2 weeks is known to only cover around 90% of infections, there are some that have taken upto 40 days before testing positive, this easily explains what was observed, and why countries that are close to wiping it out, like Australia are taking a very long time to get the last few cases. 2 weeks quarantine is sufficient in normal life, it brings the R number under 1, but on a ship where everyone is breathing the same air and touching the same surfaces all day, it is not enough.

 

[Nigel]

As the USA reaches 150,000 excess deaths,

What did Trump say?
On Monday, Mr Trump was hosting his first cabinet meeting since the US outbreak began.
"By the way, you know when you say that we lead in cases, that's because we have more testing than anybody else," he told reporters.
"So when we have a lot of cases," he continued, "I don't look at that as a bad thing, I look at that as, in a certain respect, as being a good thing because it means our testing is much better."
He added: "So I view it as a badge of honour. Really, it's a badge of honour. It's a great tribute to the testing and all of the work that a lot of professionals have done."

Is the president right?
While the US has conducted more tests by volume than any other country, it is not first in the world on a per capita basis, according to Our World in Data, a scientific publication based at Oxford University.

Its chart ranks the US as 16th globally in terms of tests per 1,000 people, ahead of South Korea, but less than the likes of Iceland, Denmark, New Zealand, Australia, Russia and Canada.

Trump says US topping world virus cases is 'badge of honour'

He argues having five times as many confirmed infections as any other country shows its testing is the best.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Dashmellow]

Those are not the facts!

The scientists have not seen anyone become reinfected, although they have seen people test positive again - the tests are not perfect.

My reading of that article does not suggest that any of them became symptomatic again either, it was others, who had not had the virus that became symptomatic.

The problem will have simply been that the quarantine period was insufficient, the 2 weeks is known to only cover around 90% of infections, there are some that have taken upto 40 days before testing positive, this easily explains what was observed, and why countries that are close to wiping it out, like Australia are taking a very long time to get the last few cases. 2 weeks quarantine is sufficient in normal life, it brings the R number under 1, but on a ship where everyone is breathing the same air and touching the same surfaces all day, it is not enough.

Even if people are experiencing a reactivation of the virus they are indeed testing positive again after testing negative multiple times since first recovering. Just how imperfect are you claiming these tests to be? False negatives with the currently available molecular and serological SARS-CoV-2 tests are rare. Certainly, you won't get multiple false negatives in a row in multiple patients.

Despite your claim to the contrary, the sailors were indeed symptomatic again. Indeed, the flu-like symptoms they experienced were the very reason they were re-tested. "These five Sailors developed influenza-like illness symptoms and did the right thing reporting to medical for evaluation".

As for your claim that "the quarantine period was insufficient" except that "the Navy said the sailors had "met rigorous recovery criteria, exceeding CDC guidelines,"

According the the World Health Organization, "There is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from COVID-19 and have antibodies are protected from a second infection".

South Korea and China have reported significant numbers of people who have recovered from COVID-19, tested negative for active virus who are again now testing positive for SARS-CoV-2. These patients have not been on an ocean going sea vessel. Researchers are still trying to understand what is going on and its implications and ramifications. It is conceivable that some of these cases may be false positives but there is acknowledged uncertainty among medical professionals at this time.

"Stanley Perlman, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Iowa, recently told NPR’s Nell Greenfieldboyce that patients who recover from the virus may have at least some level of protection from it in the future, but much remains unknown". ... "If you just have a mild COVID-19 infection that involves your upper airway, maybe it will behave like a common cold coronavirus and maybe you can be reinfected again,” Perlman said. “We just really don’t know. It’s even hard to speculate.”

Nevertheless, as always, you claim to have all the answers when even the actual experts state they don't and that further research is required. How could it be that you always know more than the real experts in the field?

 

[Nigel]

the sailors were indeed symptomatic again. Indeed, the flu-like symptoms they experienced were the very reason they were re-tested.

It is normal for people to test positive again, but it is due to bits of dead virus coming out, not because they are reinfected.

I think it is obvious why they are reporting symptoms like headaches, even if they don't have symptoms they will want to get back off the ship:

All sailors on board are provided an N95 mask that must be worn at all times except when sleeping, showering or eating.

That mask is going to get pretty nasty by the end of the cruise, and possibly lead to bacterial infections in the throat and lungs. Maybe that is the cause of the TB?

 

[kamkar]

Seem like just about anything will be open here soon.
irregular antibodies tests indicate less than 2% of Danes have been infected, 60% accurate antibody tests are shipped back to the maker in China, such a test need to be at least 10% better than that.