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Covid vaccine: First ‘milestone’ vaccine offers 90% protection

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Re: Covid vaccine: First ‘milestone’ vaccine offers 90% protection

#991

Earlier quoted context omitted.

-80C is dry ice (frozen CO2) temperature. So you can carry vaccine vials around in a cooler with a block of dry ice. Pfizer has a dry ice shipping container good for 10 days. FedEx can ship that. Then the vaccine can be stored at refrigerator temperature for maybe 5 days. Dry Ice costs maybe $3/Kg. The SF bay area has dry ice delivery.[1] Lagos, Nigeria has dry ice delivery.[2] Bismark, North Dakota has a dry ice pla…

Having something is different than having something at scale and being able to effectively implement it. Logistics in less developed countries is already more difficult. Adding in specialty refrigeration requirements further complicates that. Large scale logistics should never be assumed or hand waved away. Mass toilet paper shortages in first world countries this year is a perfect example of how easy it is to massiv…

How many of those dry ice shipping containers does Pfizer have? How quickly can they be manufactured?

That's a big issue. The N95 mask shortage demonstrates that the US manufacturing industry has far less surge capacity for simple items than previously thought.

Re: Covid vaccine: First ‘milestone’ vaccine offers 90% protection

#994

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think one of the reasons people won't wear masks is because they're mandated. Many are worried in the short-term about the spread of COVID-19, but after we come out of it the government has more power. I think it's important to understand and respect that other people have different priorities. In this case, the US was born out of fighting tyranny and that is a bigger concern to some because a tyrannical government…

It's just a mask. The "power" the government is applying to "coerce" you into wearing a mask must be weighed against the burden being imposed (extremely low, less than asking you to at least wear underwear in public/near schools) and the benefits (extremely high, masks work).

Give someone an inch and they'll take a mile. It's not that it's just a mask, it's potentially a small step towards seizing our freedoms.

I agree that it does seem a bit irrational when just focusing on masks, but not necessarily when we take all of the response to COVID-19 that we've seen so far. The goalposts have consistently been moving, so I don't find it unreasonable that people want to rebel against more coercion.

I still hold to my principle that it is better to inform people of the facts and lead by example. Mandates will alienate people and force an underground/blackmarket of activities and ideas.

Re: Covid vaccine: First ‘milestone’ vaccine offers 90% protection

#996
post #511
post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why shouldn't I be afraid? If my parents get infected there's a close to 100% chance that they'll die, due to their existing conditions. And I have to visit them, so do others. There's a real risk of infection there.

Maybe you should be, but if they are in bad shape, the 100% figure will apply to many diseases. On a long enough time line, they will of course die, just like you and everyone else.

Just like the planets and the stars and the universe itself. How is this relevant in any way to the discussion at hand?

Re: Covid vaccine: First ‘milestone’ vaccine offers 90% protection

#997
post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we can eradicate it by contact tracing. With 90% efficiency it will be extremely tough for the virus to spread. For any new cases you simply test everyone in the vicinity of the infected person. But I don't think even that will be necessary. 90% efficiency reduces R so much, it will probably die out on its own. The real problem is mutations that are not covered by the vaccine. If it mutates as efficiently as…

Contract tracing hasn't worked at scale anywhere. It's a nice idea conceptually, but the problem is psychological. People stop caring about tracing when 98% of all trace connections are false positives. If a person is infectious for a week and the r0 is around 1 then only 1 person of all the people they've been in contact with will actually contract the virus on average. The other 50+ people, assuming they can even b…

> Contract tracing hasn't worked at scale anywhere

In South Korea it did. They now have very few cases and deaths in single digits per day.

Re: Covid vaccine: First ‘milestone’ vaccine offers 90% protection

#998

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just a mask. The "power" the government is applying to "coerce" you into wearing a mask must be weighed against the burden being imposed (extremely low, less than asking you to at least wear underwear in public/near schools) and the benefits (extremely high, masks work).

Give someone an inch and they'll take a mile. It's not that it's just a mask, it's potentially a small step towards seizing our freedoms. I agree that it does seem a bit irrational when just focusing on masks, but not necessarily when we take all of the response to COVID-19 that we've seen so far. The goalposts have consistently been moving, so I don't find it unreasonable that people want to rebel against more coerc…

I am truly unworried about an "underground/blackmarket" of maskless events. It's just a mask. Wear it.

Re: Covid vaccine: First ‘milestone’ vaccine offers 90% protection

#999

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly the point of preregistered hypotheses. Odds of conspiracy, with a clear hypothesis and confirmation of that hypothesis, go up drastically. That happened here. It wasn't a super-unlikely hypothesis either. We're talking about announcing a result a few weeks earlier versus later. That's not an unreasonable decision for a blue-leaning businessperson or scientist to make. What reduces odds are the number…

> That's not an unreasonable decision for a blue-leaning businessperson or scientist to make. I just want to make the obligatory point that the way the Trump administration has handled the Covid response in the US goes beyond red and blue ...

Do any down voters want to step up and say they think the Trump Administration has competently handled the pandemic?

It's obvious to anyone willing to look at the facts, and to be honest with themselves, that this administration has done a terrible, terrible job of responding to the pandemic which has probably caused the unnecessary deaths of a lot of people.

And that's not a partisan thing to say. Or rather, it shouldn't be ...

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