Covid-19 Politics

[broncofan]

I just submitted all my information for vaccine trials. I'll report back once I hear something.

Thanks. That would be cool if you are chosen and get one of the better vaccines. Then (I think) we hope you end up in the active group rather than the control group. Keep us updated.

[Stavros]

We now know how to defeat Covid 19. Just put your lips together, and blow...

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-a9448561.html

[blackchubby38]

While I know wearing masks in the public is important, am I the only person who thinks it wrong to either fine or arrest people for not doing so. The same goes for informing on businesses that aren't enforcing social distancing guidelines.

[broncofan]

I wouldn't be surprised if there are people who agree with you though I disagree.

To start, it doesn't violate a constitutionally recognized liberty interest to require someone to wear a mask during a pandemic and to enforce it with a civil fine. The same goes for businesses that aren't following public health orders. I think part of the social contract is that (within reasonable limits) people can be required to take precautions because of the collective benefit they provide. And if wearing a mask doesn't jeopardize the wearer's health (and may provide some protection) then a mandate isn't unreasonable. How else would we enforce a public health measure that people insist is their prerogative not to follow except with a sanction of some sort?

I think it would be wrong to fine someone for not wearing a mask if they have a respiratory condition that makes it difficult for them to do so and so I would strongly support medically proven exemptions to a mandate. I think people can be required to sacrifice their comfort for a legitimate safety benefit but not necessarily their own personal well-being.

I don't know if it's productive to fine people for not wearing masks given the culture we have and the shocking level of ignorance that's been sown among our public. If we fine people, I think there are enough people with a skewed idea of what our constitution says that we'd just have more people flout the regulation.

[broncofan]

For Stavros: a week or so ago you posted an informative article that included a prediction that it might take longer than people expected for a vaccine to be available. I responded that I had read some of the rebuttals and provided what I thought was the other side of the argument. Of course, I've consistently sought out the most optimistic voices about vaccines and treatments because frankly it makes me feel better. Anyhow, I thought of our exchange when I saw this article, which has comments from a range of experts about what can still go wrong and why it might be a bad idea to convince people there won't be any complications with the phase iii vaccine trials. They do a good job of including some experts who are bullish as well. We'll see!

https://www.vox.com/21311768/covid-19-coronavirus-vaccine-available-moderna-fauci

[broncofan]

Former Republican Presidential candidate Herman Cain died of Covid today. He attended the Trump Tulsa rally and urged people not to wear masks because according to him everyone was "fed up." It's unclear whether he contracted covid at the rally or was there spreading it to hundreds of other people.

Covid has both defined who we are as a society and is changing it for the worse. For my part, I started out wishing everyone well regardless of their choices. I'm at the point where I don't feel much regret that someone who has endangered other people has lost a battle with a disease he showed no concern about. Will Herman Cain's death be a wake up call to people peddling misinformation about the virus? Why didn't Herman take hydroxychloroquine? Couldn't demon sex doctor have gotten him some hydroxychloroquine? We really shouldn't joke about the dead. It's ghoulish and wrong.....but what if the dead were systematically poisoning people with misinformation while they were alive and succumbed to that same poison?

Victims of misinformation and victimizers as well. It's almost like Herman Cain's body decided to issue the correction to his public statements.

[Stavros]

For Stavros: a week or so ago you posted an informative article that included a prediction that it might take longer than people expected for a vaccine to be available. I responded that I had read some of the rebuttals and provided what I thought was the other side of the argument. Of course, I've consistently sought out the most optimistic voices about vaccines and treatments because frankly it makes me feel better. Anyhow, I thought of our exchange when I saw this article, which has comments from a range of experts about what can still go wrong and why it might be a bad idea to convince people there won't be any complications with the phase iii vaccine trials. They do a good job of including some experts who are bullish as well. We'll see!

Thanks for this Broncofan, for some reason I seem to have missed it until today. On the one hand, if I have been guarded in my views on a vaccine, it is because a vaccine against Corona type viruses has not been found. On the other hand, the temporary nature of the SARS pandemic in the early 2000s meant the pool of infected subjected from which to derive enough information for a vaccine was not stable enough, whereas the extensive occurrence of Covid 19 and the large number of scientists across the world working on a vaccine suggests it might be found sooner rather than later.

At this stage I think Government should be looking at intermediate strategies, of which the most crucial now is test and tracing. British tourists arriving back in the UK are not tested at the airport, yet have been told to self-isolate. It is obvious that testing at the airport is the best way to find out if returning tourists are infected not least because most have been in the least affected areas of Spain -its islands- rather than those parts of Spain where there have been new cases.

It is also important that results be rapid, ideally, as with a breathalyser test, immediate, or at least some test to indicate a possible infection -but also for returning tourists to have follow-up tests a fortnight after returning home. With an effective test and trace system, we will know if returning tourists (or travellers for other reasons) are at risk, and save on the inconvience of re-instating lockdowns as a blanket measure (as has happened overnight in the North, the grim North) because the Government, six months into this pandemic, has yet to create an effective reporting system, in spite of the insistence of the WHO from the start on the importance of testing and tracing.

There has been an overload of regulation, but a deficit of prophylactic tactics designed to aquire information on the basis of which to quarantine, or not as the case may be -saving anxiety, time, and lots of money. I wish I could express my confidence in the manner in which this pandemic is being handled in the UK -I can't. I don't think Boris Johnson is as absorbed in this crisis as he is in a crisis of his own making, namely Brexit.

[filghy2]

Will Herman Cain's death be a wake up call to people peddling misinformation about the virus?

Not much chance of that. These people seem to have almost unlimited capacity for spinning anything that happens to fit their existing narrative. For example, I just saw this story about a Republican Congressman who claims he may have got the virus because he started wearing a mask after resisting previously. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-...trump/12506114

Meanwhile, the situation in Australia is a little worrying. The outbreak in Melbourne is not under control after 3 weeks of lockdown, and cases are now starting to rise again in Sydney. Social-distancing fatigue seems to have set in, as people are being less cautious than they were in the first wave. A recent survey found that 90% of people were not self-isolating after first experiencing symptoms, and only half were doing so between being tested and receiving their results.

One issue the current surge has highlighted is problems in the running of private aged care homes, where most of the deaths have occurred. There have been fewer problems in state-run homes, which have more stringent staffing standards. Inadequate care of the aged has been a long-running issue, but the virus has really brought it home. It seems that as a society we have chosen to prioritise keeping taxes low over the welfare of the elderly.

[broncofan]

It is also important that results be rapid, ideally, as with a breathalyser test, immediate, or at least some test to indicate a possible infection

Testing efficiency is improving and is one very important way to control outbreaks. One reason it was fairly obvious that people without symptoms were spreading the disease is that it would presumably be pretty easy to control a disease that only people with significant symptoms could spread. Even without contact tracing, you could tell covid wasn't controlled just by isolating people once they develop a sore throat or something.

In the U.S., major league baseball has started a season. They are testing their players regularly, limiting staff, and hosting games without fans. They're still experiencing outbreaks because they have not properly isolated the players and the season will probably end up being canceled. Within two weeks there have already been two major team outbreaks and it looks like some futuristic contest of attrition. Lots of testing and common sense can go a long way.

Filghy-I'm sorry to hear there are outbreaks in Australia. I had been following for the first several months but haven't paid attention lately. I can only imagine you have responsible officials who are at least trying to control what's going on. Even countries that have been vigilant and guided by science such as Germany (and now Australia) have had some outbreaks simply because this disease is so tough to contain. In the long run intelligent efforts are rewarded though. But quarantine fatigue is real.

As for assisted living or private aged care centers, it's a tough problem. Residents have lots of medical needs, frequently go to hospitals, and are exposed to nurses, doctors, and other staff. Wherever there are outbreaks here there seem to be problems within these facilities and they need a bit of luck not to be hit. My uncle is in one of these facilities and we just got a letter saying they had their first two cases of covid.

[broncofan]

Thanks for this Broncofan, for some reason I seem to have missed it until today. On the one hand, if I have been guarded in my views on a vaccine, it is because a vaccine against Corona type viruses has not been found. On the other hand, the temporary nature of the SARS pandemic in the early 2000s meant the pool of infected subjected from which to derive enough information for a vaccine was not stable enough, whereas the extensive occurrence of Covid 19 and the large number of scientists across the world working on a vaccine suggests it might be found sooner rather than later.
.

One reason I'm cautious in my expectations is that I've read about therapies and been optimistic before only to learn that the drug and vaccine development process is slow and can seem even slower with 1000+ people a day dying in this country. I also haven't found there is a consensus with respect to a timeline for a vaccine, as some scientists believe it will be successful and others anticipate some pitfalls.

One thing I can say is that I'm more likely to be optimistic because I haven't watched this slow process unfold before and therefore am not aware of all of the pitfalls that can hinder vaccine efforts. I will read one study about rhesus monkeys developing immunity to viral challenge and won't even consider that humans might not have the same response, both to the vaccine and to the disease. Scientists are still trying to figure out what the "correlates of immunity" are but it's guesswork until people are vaccinated and go out in the world.

I do think our epidemiological controls should be based on the premise that there will be a vaccine by February or so of next year, even if it ends up not being the case. If there are lots of failures and other pitfalls then public health strategies can be revamped then. But if you tell people that there is a possible light at the end of the tunnel, they then can tell themselves they're not committing to being cautious their entire lives.

Finally, I also had been interested in monoclonal antibodies simply because it seemed exciting and short of re-purposing drugs designed for other diseases it is the only way to develop a tailored treatment in a short period of time. As I said before, they were very effective in Ebola, though they don't have a long track record of use in infectious diseases (pitfalls here involve "viral escape" and the development of viral resistance to the monoclonal antibody; interestingly people can even develop antibodies to the synthetic antibody which is not ideal either). I think data from some of the human trials for these antibodies are expected to be released by the end of the summer, so whether it's false optimism or a real treatment, at least we'll have some idea.