I think Chinese companies would also make announcement soon. Pfizer has preempted its competitors by making an announcement prematurely and successfully locked in many contracts with many countries. Other companies have no choice but move up their schedule. Otherwise, all the big contracts would be gone. Western media should be more critical about Pfizer's announcement instead of singing praise.
Coronavirus 2019-2020 thread (no unsubstantiated rumours!)
- Thread starter localizer
- Start date
Intrepid
Major
How long does it take from the start of mass vaccination to an effect on the number of infected people? Half a year? From this point of view, it does not matter who starts the vaccination process 14 days earlier or later.
The logistics of a nationwide vaccination is a major challenge. I know that preparations are being made everywhere in Germany, for example. Warehouses for deep-freezing are being built and transport vehicles are being prepared. And in addition to fixed vaccination centers in the metropolises, there should be mobile vaccination centers in the countryside.
The current news about vaccines is only important for the stock market. For anyone who doesn't trade in stocks, one piece of information is important: there will be a vaccine soon. And within the next 12 months, everyone in developed countries who wants to be vaccinated will have the opportunity. In Germany, for example, around half of the population wants to be vaccinated.
Personally, I prefer not to be among the first to be vaccinated. My personal safety assessment tends to prefer to protect me with distance rules for the first two thirds of the vaccination campaign and to have myself vaccinated in the last third.
The logistics of a nationwide vaccination is a major challenge. I know that preparations are being made everywhere in Germany, for example. Warehouses for deep-freezing are being built and transport vehicles are being prepared. And in addition to fixed vaccination centers in the metropolises, there should be mobile vaccination centers in the countryside.
The current news about vaccines is only important for the stock market. For anyone who doesn't trade in stocks, one piece of information is important: there will be a vaccine soon. And within the next 12 months, everyone in developed countries who wants to be vaccinated will have the opportunity. In Germany, for example, around half of the population wants to be vaccinated.
Personally, I prefer not to be among the first to be vaccinated. My personal safety assessment tends to prefer to protect me with distance rules for the first two thirds of the vaccination campaign and to have myself vaccinated in the last third.
manqiangrexue
Brigadier
Yup, the next wave is here...
Also, I have previously thought that in Chinese hospitals, there were a lot of favoritism but the professionalism in American hospitals would not allow it. That's one more myth about American superiority shattered...
A nurse in a strained El Paso hospital says the sickest COVID-19 patients are put in a doctor-less room called 'the pit' where they are given 3 chances to be revived before workers let them die
Ashley Collman•November 16, 2020
"The doctors don't even step foot in those COVID rooms to see those patients ...We as nurses, it's OK for us to be exposed, but you as doctors, you don't even come in there. You can't get exposed, but we can and y'all are making all the money," she said.
Rivers also accused the hospital of giving special treatment to the wife of a doctor once. She said this woman, whom a nurse at one point called a "VIP" patient, was the only person to make it out of the ICU alive during her nearly a month at the hospital.
"They pulled out all the stops for that woman, it was nothing that they didn't do for that woman. And guess what? She was the one patient that made it out of the ICU alive, and was able to downgrade to a longterm acute care. So you mean to tell me because she's a doctor's wife, her life meant more than any of those other patients?"
Also, I have previously thought that in Chinese hospitals, there were a lot of favoritism but the professionalism in American hospitals would not allow it. That's one more myth about American superiority shattered...
A nurse in a strained El Paso hospital says the sickest COVID-19 patients are put in a doctor-less room called 'the pit' where they are given 3 chances to be revived before workers let them die
Ashley Collman•November 16, 2020
- Travel nurse Lawanna Rivers recently recorded a video, where she described her experience treating COVID-19 patients at the University Medical Center of El Paso.
- The city has of the virus, as the nation battles a .
- In the video, Rivers said the hospital's sickest COVID-19 patients were put in a "pit" that doctors don't enter for fear of exposing themselves to the virus.
- "My first day at orientation, I was told that whatever patients go into the pit, they only come out in a body bag," she said, adding that this posting has been her worst during the pandemic.
- The hospital told it "cannot fully verify the events expressed" in Rivers' video but acknowledged the "difficult, physical and emotional toll" the pandemic has taken on health workers.
"The doctors don't even step foot in those COVID rooms to see those patients ...We as nurses, it's OK for us to be exposed, but you as doctors, you don't even come in there. You can't get exposed, but we can and y'all are making all the money," she said.
Rivers also accused the hospital of giving special treatment to the wife of a doctor once. She said this woman, whom a nurse at one point called a "VIP" patient, was the only person to make it out of the ICU alive during her nearly a month at the hospital.
"They pulled out all the stops for that woman, it was nothing that they didn't do for that woman. And guess what? She was the one patient that made it out of the ICU alive, and was able to downgrade to a longterm acute care. So you mean to tell me because she's a doctor's wife, her life meant more than any of those other patients?"
Last edited:
Intrepid
Major
Believable? I think yes, unfortunately it is.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
Agree with the rest, but it is critically important to be the first ones to have a vaccine past Phase 3 trials and ready for regulatory approval. Even if their vaccine is nothing more than UV blasted bleach, people won’t know for sure until maybe 3-6 months down the line, at which point tremendous damage could have already been done, and enormous sums made, certainly more than enough for you to disappear and live a thousand lifetimes in unimaginable luxury.
BioNtech and Pfizer have already scooped up massive orders, and I think it won’t be long before existing ongoing trials are massively scaled back or cancelled altogether as nations opt to go for the available vaccines rather than continue with trials of others still in development.
On top of that, we have rumours of Trump officials looking to go out of their way to sabotage Chinese vaccine trials by pressuring participating countries to abandon the Chinese vaccine trials and instead buy into western ones, maybe going as far as to get the CIA to hack the trial participants database so they can contact participants directly to get them to pull out or actively sabotage the Chinese trial with fake data.
It looks like Trump and America have learnt zero lessons from their own bungling of the pandemic response, with their first and apparently only instincts to any developments to look for ways to spin and play political games rather than actually dealing with the true threat of the virus.
They fucked themselves by wasting all their time and effort playing petty political games and scoring cheap political points instead of taking concrete and effective steps to deal with the initial outbreak, and now it looks like they are pulling the same BS with the vaccine race, where ‘winning’ is more important than actually making sure you have a safe and effective vaccine. With the attempts to actively sabotage Chinese efforts especially disgusting, because if it turns out the American companies rushed and bungled their own vaccines (Like they did with their own test kits) and Trump’s government managed to sabotage Chinese vaccine trials, then they would have fucked the whole world, and condemned us all to suffer needlessly for months or even years longer than necessary with potentially hundreds of thousand or more needless deaths.
vesicles
Colonel
I think it's more local politicians. People in blue regions tend to be more careful than those in red regions. Houston has been traditional blue, even though Texas is a red state. So we are doing better than those red states. Within the Texas Medical Center, where I work, everyone wears mask at all times (except in our own offices). Some hospitals require face shields in their buildings, while others are less strict with only masks required. I would be shocked to spot a person without their mask on on campus, even walking outside on the streets. However, as soon as you leave the med center, you begin to notice obvious decline in mask wearing. Especially outside, at least half to 2/3 of people still do not wear masks. You get more people with their masks on when you are in a building. You can see the differences between disciplined professionals vs. people who simply don't care.
I honestly have given up trying to understand their rationale for refusing to wear masks. My colleagues and I have discussed this many times in the past and have decided that we simply lack brain power to comprehend their rationale. Gamble your life for a little bit of discomfort? I cannot even convince my own in-law to wear mask outside... It's hopeless.
The vaccine can stay intact for a little bit, like 30 minutes, at room temperature. So it's ok for techs to bring the vaccine out of a -80 freezer and let it warm up before injection. Once it enters your body, your biology will take over and physiological temperature of 37 deg is perfect for vaccine.
vesicles
Colonel
Ideally, yes. I've shipped samples on dry ice many times. Under normal circumstances, occasionally some of my packages got loose and dry ice evaporate and my samples go bad. At the early stages of the pandemic in March and April, two consecutive patches of my samples went bad when whole boxes of dry ice evaporated while waiting in the shipping dock. This kind of accidents will happen much more often when billions of vaccines will be shipped out in a short time. With delivery services under tremendous pressure, you will undoubtedly get warm samples. The problem is how you can control this. They need to install some kind of temperature sensing strip on each vial. As soon as the storage temperature goes above a threshold, like -60 deg, the color of the strip will permanently change. This way, it's easier for the techs to keep track...
Dry ice is for temporary storage during shipping, not for long term storage. Once the vaccines reach their destinations, they will have to be stored in actual -80 freezers. Not many facilities have -80 freezers. I can guarantee you that ordinary pharmacies or clinics do not have them. Even typical big hospitals have only a few of those -80 freezers onsite. And they are typically already packed with other important samples (I once had to call 4 different departments to find some space in a -80 freezer for temporarily storing some of my samples because my own -80 is packed to the rim). I don't see how they can store millions and millions of vaccine shots... COVID-19 is not the only disease hospitals must treat. they will have to solve these issues...
Last edited:
At least with the Moderna vaccine, the double dosage started in september... so it seems this 95% is for people with a fresh vaccine of 1-1.5 months. There is no data on how long it will last. Some of the Chinese vaccine has been in phase 3 since july but they are not announcing results until 6 months later. The western press would be in a feeding frenzy if a Chinse company announces 90% protection rate after 1 month...
Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech should work together to figure out the storage issue. Moderna only needs 4C.