Wait, what?I though the asymptomatic carriers were the "Typhoid Mary's" of this Wu Flu and one of the main reasons we needed to LOCK EVERYTHING DOWN!!!!
Wait, what?
No, the reason we needed to lock everything down was Donald Trump. As recently as last Friday, he reiterated his claim that his lockdown actions saved well over a million lives.Originally Posted by Teh One Who Knocks
Wait, what?
If you don't believe him, then there are two scenarios. The first is that he's lying, which, given his history of, shall we say, stretching the truth, is certainly within the realm of possibility. In the alternative, he chose to believe quacks who peddled junk science. If so, why hasn't he repudiated and fired them, instead of just ignoring the rising death counts while leaving them in leadership positions? Neither choice is a ringing endorsement for his reelection.
Of course, if you believe our President, I guess the argument could be made that our country should have done nothing, and traded the additional deaths of so many Americans for the supposed sake of our economy. If this is your premise, then please pause and think what would have happened to the stock market as we approached, and then surpassed the toll of a million+ dead.
lost in melb. (06-10-2020)
DemonGeminiX (06-10-2020), KevinD (06-11-2020), Muddy (06-10-2020), Teh One Who Knocks (06-11-2020)
They make a difference, not 100% proof
By David Aaro | Fox News
Johnson & Johnson, the largest health care company in the world, has bumped the start of human trials for its potential coronavirus vaccine by two months to begin in July, according to multiple reports.
The New Jersey-based company previously projected to have such human trials begin in September. The earlier start date should let J&J take part in a massive clinical trials program planned by the U.S. government, which is aimed at producing an effective vaccine by the end of the year.
“Based on the strength of the preclinical data we have seen so far and interactions with the regulatory authorities, we have been able to further accelerate the clinical development of our investigational SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, Ad26.COV2-S, recombinant,” J&J’s Chief Scientific Officer Paul Stoffels said in a statement, according to CNBC.
The study will start in the second half of July and will test 1,045 healthy volunteers in the U.S. and Belgium. It will involve people 18-55 and over 65, the statement said. The initial study will have a placebo arm to compare results against, with researchers analyzing how safe the vaccine is and if it causes an immune response, Business Insider reported.
J&J is one of several working on a potential vaccine to prevent COVID-19, which has infected more than 7,360,239 people worldwide and killed at least 416,201 as of Thursday morning, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
The U.S. saw its total coronavirus cases surpass the 2 million mark Wednesday night, amid a recent spike in infections due to various factors. More than a quarter of all worldwide fatalities have occurred in the U.S.
The company signed deals with the U.S. government last March to increase its manufacturing capacity in order to produce more than 1 billion doses of its vaccine through 2021, according to Reuters. Such developments occurred before evidence has been shown the vaccine works.
A vaccine is seen as crucial to ending the coronavirus pandemic that has killed hundreds of thousands, severely impacted the world's economy, and resulted in millions of people unemployed at levels not seen since the Great Depression.
Stoffels said last week that J&J hopes to have results of its vaccine efficacy trials in the first quarter next year. He added that the company is “working hard to bring it [that date] back to the end of the year," Reuters reported.
The company started developing a vaccine back in January.
There were at least 126 COVID-19 candidate vaccines in preclinical evaluation, as of Tuesday, according to the World Health Organization, while 10 were currently in clinical evaluation.
Bio-Tech firm Moderna is currently working on a vaccine with the National Institutes of Health and expects to enroll about 30,000 people when it begins a phase three trial in July, according to CNBC.
"We could have a vaccine either by the end of this calendar year or in the first few months of 2021,” Dr. Anthony Fauci said on ABC's "Good Morning America," adding it will depend on how well the process goes for identifying a safe and effective candidate.
“That’s the thing that makes me feel confident that the process is really on track and that’s good news," Fauci said, "again in the context of never being able to guarantee success, things are clearly going in the right direction.”
Chinka-chink. And by that I mean cash
Chinese government removes pangolin scales from approved traditional medicine ingredients list
Well done, only 6 months late...
China locks down 10 more neighborhoods, fires officials amid coronavirus resurgence: reports
By David Aaro | Fox News
Officials in China closed more neighborhoods and fired officials on Monday amid fears of a new coronavirus outbreak linked to a market in Beijing, according to multiple reports.
At least 10 residential communities near the Yuquandong market in Beijing's Haidian District were placed under lockdown after "multiple cases" were found over the weekend.
Residents were ordered to go under home quarantine and take nucleic acid tests for the virus. All of the infections reportedly had ties to the Xinfadi market in Beijing’s southern Fengtai district -- identified as the center of a new cluster of cases.
“The risk of the epidemic spreading is very high, so we should take resolute and decisive measures,” Xu Hejian, a spokesman for the Beijing city government, said at a press briefing on Monday, according to the Guardian.
Authorities announced 49 new cases on Monday, 36 of which were linked to the Xinfadi market, which was closed on Saturday and prompted the lockdown of 11 other residential communities in the area.
The wholesale food market is considered the biggest in Asia and accounts for about 80 percent of Beijing’s farm produce supply, according to Reuters. Xinfadi is roughly 20 times larger than the seafood market in Wuhan -- where the coronavirus was said to have originated.
At least two-party officials in Fengtai district were fired on Monday, as well as the manager of the market “failing to implement” proper virus prevention and control work, according to state media.
The city had also ordered testing for all of its workers and required anyone who traveled there to self-isolate for two weeks.
The National Health Commission has now reported 177 people in treatment for COVID-19. Meanwhile, 115 people were in isolation after showing signs of the illness or testing positive without giving off symptoms.
Beijing had previously gone 55 days in which the only new infections were citizens returning from other countries. They've now reported a total of 79 cases in the past four days, according to the news organization.
On Sunday, authorities said that 59 people had tested positive out of the roughly 70,000 that were given tests, the Guardian reported. The same day, Hejian said Beijing had entered “an extraordinary period."
The new cases reported in the past few days mark China’s highest daily total of coronavirus cases in two months, prompting Beijing to suspend the restart of some classes and reverse the relaxation of some social isolation measures.
They are considered alarming due to the strict travel restrictions and quarantine measures that had been implemented in the city.
Beijing health officials said gene sequencing showed the virus strain causing the new outbreak was related to that in Europe, though it wasn’t clear if it was being spread by the movement of people or transportation of food.
China has reported at least 84,335 confirmed coronavirus infections and more than 4,638 of the virus, although some have argued those numbers have been under-reported, which the country denied.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
They don't muck around. Immediate lockdown. #onlychina
Teh One Who Knocks (06-17-2020)
lost in melb. (06-17-2020)
So, we're 7th worse in the World? (Make that probably 8th behind China) Not a whole lot to be proud of, despite Trump's statement on this past Monday that vaccine or no vaccine, the virus will "just go away".
By Jackie Salo | New York Post
An Italian infectious disease doctor believes the coronavirus has become less dangerous — and could disappear on its own without a vaccine.
Dr. Matteo Bassetti, the head of the infectious diseases clinic at the San Martino hospital, said the virus appears to have become less potent, possibly due to genetic mutations, the Sunday Telegraph reported.
“The clinical impression I have is that the virus is changing in severity,” Bassetti told the outlet.
“In March and early April the patterns were completely different. People were coming to the emergency department with a very difficult to manage illness and they needed oxygen and ventilation, some developed pneumonia.”
But he said in the past month, “the picture has completely changed in terms of patterns.”
“It was like an aggressive tiger in March and April but now it’s like a wild cat,” Bassetti said. “Even elderly patients, aged 80 or 90, are now sitting up n bed and they are breathing without help. The same patients would have died in two or three days before.”
He said one of the reasons for the virus becoming weaker could be that it has mutated in response to social distancing measures.
“I think the virus has mutated because our immune system reacts to the virus and we have a lower viral load now due to the lockdown, mask-wearing, social distancing,” he said. “We still have to demonstrate why it’s different now.”
It’s possible that the virus will be eradicated before researchers find a vaccine, he said.
“We have fewer and fewer people infected and it could end up with the virus dying out,” Bassetti said.
But another expert was less optimistic about the prospect of the virus disappearing soon, saying it could take years, the outlet reported.
“I don’t expect it to die out that quickly,” said Dr. Bharat Pankhania, a professor at the UK’s University of Exeter Medical School, according to the report.
“It will if it has no one to infect. If we have a successful vaccine then we’ll be able to do what we did with smallpox. But because it’s so infectious and widespread, it won’t go away for a very long time.”
RBP (06-22-2020)
How are things going in the US? I'm reading imminent explosion of cases in a few states
well, my Hiatal Hernia has been acting up and gout flare ups are killing me
but other than that , not bad.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
