121–130 of 339 posts
I wonder if any, or if many, Moderna employees have been walking around off-the-books immunized since January. I know I would've been tempted.
They probably could have finagled themselves into a trial. I know a friend that got the Moderna vaccine that way. Technically, it was double blind, but it is fairly obvious whether you got the real vaccine or not.
Yes. We need accelerated testing. In the case of a pandemic, we need to make better use of volunteers. I believe that as the history of this one is reckoned with, one of the more interesting moral failures to be acknowledged will be the failure to utilize challenge testing protocols with willing volunteers (give them the vaccine and then deliberately expose them to the virus. It is a calculated risk.) Earlier phases…
How would you attract volunteers for these less-safe clinical trials? Pay them money?
The layman's explanation I've seen about how these mRNA vaccines work is that they get some of your cells to manufacture a protein that is characteristic of the virus, which the cells release and the immune system takes care of. Then later if you get the virus, the immune system already recognizes that protein and takes care of the virus. Question: why do we need to have our cells make the protein? Couldn't we synthe…
It's not just proteins. The cells infected with the mRNA present those proteins on the outside of the cell to be recognized by other cells which start a chain process. Skip to around 12:30 in here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35Idb_lCU4o He goes through the entire biochem process. Even the cells infected with the mRNA will need to be removed by the immune system using cytotoxic T-cells, so they need to get the ch…
I don't think that this is accurate.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also the death rate as a catchall metric completely ignores people who here in absolutely critical, life-or-death condition but were only saved from death by incredible medical intervention and/or just pure luck.
Another terrible metric comes in here, money. What does the annual flu season cost versus the covid cost? Money is a bad metric but it does boil things down to one measure. I’m sure these aren’t measured the same way but the effects haven’t been similar. Flu $90b per year versus the covid cost of $16t. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1885332 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2771764
I mean that miiiight have something to do with the fact that we basically ignore the flu despite tens of thousands of deaths every year. Whereas with Covid we collectively decided to shut down the entire world.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a sci-fi example of this in the TV show Counterpart. Kind of surreal watching it and then becoming a part of a real life pandemic.
What does "non-hypothetical sci-fi" mean? Surely all sci-fi is hypothetical, in that "fi" stands for "fiction"?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
High lethality is often associated with reduced transmissibility. Which makes sense - dead people certainly aren't going to cough on you. In a Sci Fi movie maybe the virus has a long delay, you're infectious for a month with no symptoms, then drop dead in seconds. But in the real world that's less likely the more extreme it gets. One thing that did make this virus more dangerous was that many humans became infectious…
I've been wondering - would it be possible that something like HIV comes along, only airborne? This would be a nightmare scenario obviously, but is it possible?
For example, by “something like hiv” do you mean something that acts very slowly, but eventually kills you? That indicates a low viral reproduction rate - which means you’re spreading far fewer virus particles than something like covid, thus a low transmission rate, even if airborn.
Do you mean “attacks the immune system”? How does it get airborn, if it’s in the relatively few immune cells in the lungs? I suspect if you inhaled an aerosol of hiv particles you might catch it, but it doesn’t have a way of getting in the air.
Again, not an expert/wild speculation, but I think the risk of something fast acting, highly transmissible, and highly lethal, is more of a concern than a slow-acting lethal virus.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Elimination strategy works If the strategy is 'everybody stay at home' then it work in the same way shot gun works in eliminating cancer. It works but the cure is worse than the disease.
It’s normal here in NZ and with the exception of borders, restrictions were removed a fair while ago. The economy is considerably better off than most expected too. https://i.stuff.co.nz/business/123696832/gdp-jump-of-14-per-...
Also from the article:
However, Stats NZ national accounts manager Paul Pascoe said the effects of Covid-19 on different industries had varied “and for some industries these may persist for some time”.
The rebound was not enough to make up for the lost activity during the lockdown period, with GDP in the 12 months ended on September 30 down 2.2 per cent on the prior year.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably not since January, but maybe after the phase 1 trials and the dosing schedule was figured out. To be honest, if it doesn't come out that they were using it off the books, either they're suckers or we are.
Would it even be a problem if they did? Like presumably people are generally free to do things to themselves. If they self-administered and they were allowed to consume the resource (e.g., it wasn't theft) who was harmed?
I wonder if any, or if many, Moderna employees have been walking around off-the-books immunized since January. I know I would've been tempted.
What’s the death rate of COVID-19 compared to for example common flu for working age people (30s, 40s)?
I'm 35, and am not super-worried about dying of covid; it's certainly possible, but not hugely likely. However, I'm extremely worried about being a vector.
I wonder if any, or if many, Moderna employees have been walking around off-the-books immunized since January. I know I would've been tempted.
Probably not since January, but maybe after the phase 1 trials and the dosing schedule was figured out. To be honest, if it doesn't come out that they were using it off the books, either they're suckers or we are.
Considering high-level officials in the government apparently never received the vaccine, I would be surprised if the people involved in the research took the vaccine.
Then again, maybe secret was kept extremely well. My intuition is, if POTUS knew about it, he would have been telegraphing such on twitter back in the summer months.