COVID-19 Megathread 5: The Trumps catch COVID-19

[Pericles]

Isn't 12-18 months the minimum time before a vaccine can be released, if everything goes perfectly? Thinking this can be solved by the end of the year is foolishness, and is just getting people's hopes up for nothing.

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

Isn't 12-18 months the minimum time before a vaccine can be released, if everything goes perfectly? Thinking this can be solved by the end of the year is foolishness, and is just getting people's hopes up for nothing.

That is the scientific consensus, they probably will have it out earlier for health care workers and the most at need first before they release it to the general public.

[emailking]

I don't know. There's so much conflicting information on how long a vaccine takes or could theoretically take.

Given the stakes and the money involved I would not presume a way will not be found to develop a verified safe and effective vaccine much sooner, even if no one has any idea how that would work.

However, I definitely think it's foolish to assume we'll have one by the end of the year.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

It’s so heartbreaking to me that we still don’t seem to have any plans to do human challenge trials for any of these vaccines.  It’s literally the easiest thing we could do to save hundreds of thousands of lives.  If you can give informed consent to volunteer to fight in a an actual war, you can give informed consent to be part of a vaccine trial.  Whoever in a position of authority who is resistant to this needs to be publicly shamed at least as badly as any of the governors opening things up to early.

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

It’s so heartbreaking to me that we still don’t seem to have any plans to do human challenge trials for any of these vaccines.  It’s literally the easiest thing we could do to save hundreds of thousands of lives.  If you can give informed consent to volunteer to fight in a an actual war, you can give informed consent to be part of a vaccine trial.  Whoever in a position of authority who is resistant to this needs to be publicly shamed at least as badly as any of the governors opening things up to early.

Yes risking death for these volunteers is surely the best thing to do, first of all even if they wanted to they would have to get government permission to do it and so far no government would allow that. It's simply too risky to do challenge trials when we don't know the full extent of what this virus can do.

[It’s so Joever]

It’s so heartbreaking to me that we still don’t seem to have any plans to do human challenge trials for any of these vaccines.  It’s literally the easiest thing we could do to save hundreds of thousands of lives.  If you can give informed consent to volunteer to fight in a an actual war, you can give informed consent to be part of a vaccine trial.  Whoever in a position of authority who is resistant to this needs to be publicly shamed at least as badly as any of the governors opening things up to early.

Yes risking death for these volunteers is surely the best thing to do, first of all even if they wanted to they would have to get government permission to do it and so far no government would allow that. It's simply too risky to do challenge trials when we don't know the full extent of what this virus can do.

But considering how risky it is for a few volunteers, think about how much worse/riskier it is to allow this to spread without a vaccine. As long as the volunteers know full-well the ramifications of the virus/exposure (or if they are Trump supporters who think it’s just a flu )
I say we should allow these trials to occur. It is unethical, but I think it is necessary.
I for one, would gladly volunteer provided I am guaranteed healthcare (which most places would)

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

It’s so heartbreaking to me that we still don’t seem to have any plans to do human challenge trials for any of these vaccines.  It’s literally the easiest thing we could do to save hundreds of thousands of lives.  If you can give informed consent to volunteer to fight in a an actual war, you can give informed consent to be part of a vaccine trial.  Whoever in a position of authority who is resistant to this needs to be publicly shamed at least as badly as any of the governors opening things up to early.

Yes risking death for these volunteers is surely the best thing to do, first of all even if they wanted to they would have to get government permission to do it and so far no government would allow that. It's simply too risky to do challenge trials when we don't know the full extent of what this virus can do.

But considering how risky it is for a few volunteers, think about how much worse/riskier it is to allow this to spread without a vaccine. As long as the volunteers know full-well the ramifications of the virus/exposure (or if they are Trump supporters who think it’s just a flu )
I say we should allow these trials to occur. It is unethical, but I think it is necessary.
I for one, would gladly volunteer provided I am guaranteed healthcare (which most places would)

Exactly!

I would definitely encourage anyone who is of this mindset to sign up and express their interest in participating at 1daysooner.org.  Who knows if it will do any good, but at least it will let the relevant authorities know that there is a critical mass willing and enthusiastic to join a human challenge trial.

[Grassroots]

I’m not as concerned about the human challenge trials. They are testing directly on monkeys and they have a 95% biological similarity to us.

[Tender Branson]

The 3rd major prevalence study in Austria will start next week, involving 3.500 households.

It will once again try to estimate the „shadow“ rate of infections in the population relative to the official number of cases and how many already have antibodies.

In early April, the „shadow“ figure was not all too much higher than the official number of cases in the country and somewhere between 1.4% and 8% of the population had antibodies, with 4.7% being most likely.

https://orf.at/stories/3166557

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1263251326596796418

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

2.44 million new weekly jobless claims (vs. 2.40 expected), unemployment up to 17.2%. 

https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1263448114880548865

[Tintrlvr]

414k tests today, 21,600 new cases today - 5.2% positive rate

New York's positive rate today was just 4.0%, for what it's worth.

I wonder if the herd immunity threshold is a lot lower than we thought. Michigan was another early hot spot, and now its positive rate is really low too. Same for some other early hot spots. I think Rhode Island is another.

Rhode Island never actually was a hotspot of cases, they just had way, way more testing than any other state (almost by an order of magnitude) so caught a larger percentage of their cases.

It does seem a bit surprising, given predictions, how quickly things have fallen off in New York. But the hints about exposure to other coronaviruses maybe causing immunity might explain things a bit if a large portion of the population was actually immune to begin with because they had a coronavirus-induced cold within the last couple of years.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

National Guard deployments to end 1 day before benefits would kick in

The Trump administration is ending deployment for 40,000 National Guard members helping with the coronavirus response. For many, it will end the day before they are eligible for federal benefits, according to a report from Politico, citing a senior FEMA official.

The "hard stop" is set for June 24. For thousands of Guard members, that will be 89 days into a deployment that started in late March to help states at nursing homes, setting up field hospitals and working at testing sites.

Politico reports that for every 90 days of serving during a federal emergency, Guard members can move up their retirement by three months (they must serve 20 years to qualify for a pension at age 60). They also can qualify for 40% off tuition at a public college or university after 90 days of service.

[Person Man]

Damn...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/new-coronavirus-outbreaks-push-china-to-impose-wuhan-style-lockdown-in-the-northeast/ar-BB14oIbf?li=BBnb7Kz

[Tintrlvr]

New York had a new record of number of tests today (49,219), surpassing the previous high on April 24 when the state dumped the result of many backlogged tests. This resulted in a slight increase in the number of positive results (to 2,088) compared to recent days, but the positive rate (4.2%) remains at a near record low (higher only than yesterday's 4.0% since the beginning of the outbreak). Deaths fell to a new record low since March (107).

New York City is pushing to be conducting 60,000 tests a day by the beginning of June, and that doesn't even include tests elsewhere in New York state, and today's high test number is indicative of that push.

[T'Chenka]

Damn...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/new-coronavirus-outbreaks-push-china-to-impose-wuhan-style-lockdown-in-the-northeast/ar-BB14oIbf?li=BBnb7Kz

So It Begins Theodin Two Towers dot gif

Scientists told us a second wave was extremely likely. Here we go I guess...

[Grassroots]

Damn...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/new-coronavirus-outbreaks-push-china-to-impose-wuhan-style-lockdown-in-the-northeast/ar-BB14oIbf?li=BBnb7Kz

So It Begins Theodin Two Towers dot gif

Scientists told us a second wave was extremely likely. Here we go I guess...

This isn't a second wave, it's a result of the flaw of just trying to control a localized outbreak and leave it at that.

[Mr. Reactionary]

National Guard deployments to end 1 day before benefits would kick in

The Trump administration is ending deployment for 40,000 National Guard members helping with the coronavirus response. For many, it will end the day before they are eligible for federal benefits, according to a report from Politico, citing a senior FEMA official.

The "hard stop" is set for June 24. For thousands of Guard members, that will be 89 days into a deployment that started in late March to help states at nursing homes, setting up field hospitals and working at testing sites.

Politico reports that for every 90 days of serving during a federal emergency, Guard members can move up their retirement by three months (they must serve 20 years to qualify for a pension at age 60). They also can qualify for 40% off tuition at a public college or university after 90 days of service.

Makes sense. Better to avoid the added costs when no longer apparantly needed.

[ON Progressive]

Damn...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/new-coronavirus-outbreaks-push-china-to-impose-wuhan-style-lockdown-in-the-northeast/ar-BB14oIbf?li=BBnb7Kz

So It Begins Theodin Two Towers dot gif

Scientists told us a second wave was extremely likely. Here we go I guess...

This isn't a second wave, it's a result of the flaw of just trying to control a localized outbreak and leave it at that.

Every single small local outbreak being called a second wave by the press is quite frankly irresponsible.

[It’s so Joever]

130 cases in a US region with similar population would be considered a success story....

It just goes to show you how much the Overton Window surrounding the virus has shifted here.

[GeorgiaModerate]

National Guard deployments to end 1 day before benefits would kick in

The Trump administration is ending deployment for 40,000 National Guard members helping with the coronavirus response. For many, it will end the day before they are eligible for federal benefits, according to a report from Politico, citing a senior FEMA official.

The "hard stop" is set for June 24. For thousands of Guard members, that will be 89 days into a deployment that started in late March to help states at nursing homes, setting up field hospitals and working at testing sites.

Politico reports that for every 90 days of serving during a federal emergency, Guard members can move up their retirement by three months (they must serve 20 years to qualify for a pension at age 60). They also can qualify for 40% off tuition at a public college or university after 90 days of service.

Makes sense. Better to avoid the added costs when no longer apparantly needed.

That reminds me a lot of a period early in my career, when I worked as a civilian contractor on a specialized military instrumentation ship.  We contractors got a temporary pay boost for time at sea with the ship.  For cruises less than 30 days, it was a decent increment over base pay.  But for 30 days or more, it was a much larger increment, and retroactive to the beginning of the trip.

Most of the cruises lasted 27 to 29 days.  In fact, I don't think we ever hit the 30-day threshold.  Sometimes we'd be out 28 or so days, come back to home port for a weekend (which reset the clock) and then go out again.

[Joe Republic]

https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1263515455869857801?s=21

[ProudModerate2]

Former White House butler who served 11 presidents dies after contracting coronavirus.

Wilson Roosevelt Jerman, a former White House butler who worked under 11 US Presidents, has died after contracting coronavirus. He was 91 years old.

https://us.cnn.com/2020/05/21/politics/wilson-roosevelt-jerman-trnd/index.html

[Politician]

Damn...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/new-coronavirus-outbreaks-push-china-to-impose-wuhan-style-lockdown-in-the-northeast/ar-BB14oIbf?li=BBnb7Kz

So It Begins Theodin Two Towers dot gif

Scientists told us a second wave was extremely likely. Here we go I guess...

This isn't a second wave, it's a result of the flaw of just trying to control a localized outbreak and leave it at that.

Shh, he doesn't understand much about real science and is just thinking based on "orange man bad".

[It’s so Joever]

It’s abundantly clear we are entering a new stage of fighting the disease. As we continue to lift lockdowns, we must have several things to prevent further spread of the virus in our country.
Mandatory masks orders are a must. If we lived in a society where people actually listened to the government advice instead of instinctively doing the opposite like little children, we wouldn’t need to enforce such orders, but Americans have proven to be little children and must be treated as such.
Next, we need contact tracing. Countries such as South Korea and Taiwan (yes it’s a country) have already been using apps to trace who has been near a case and who is at risk. We should look into something like that in areas with outbreaks.
Finally, we do need to being reopening outside of known hotspots. It pains me to say this, but we can’t stay locked down forever. While I think certain posters on here are absolutely insane and short-sighted,
allowing some people to go back to work is necessary by now. I do not support a quick reopening, but it’s time we start to move into a new phase. We need to continue to improve testing, use masks, and contact trace while allowing our economy to reopen gradually.

Social distancing still must be enforced, and people who don’t follow the rules still should be severely punished.