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.
But that's a complete, uneducated (but I think, logical) guess.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/11/astrazenecas-best-co...
Or it doesn't come out because they are good at keeping it secret.
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.
Being able to go to concerts and sports events and theatres safely is pointless if there aren't any concerts or sports events or theatres open.
If you've got elderly loved ones you want to keep safe, you'd need to vaccinate them, not yourself.
And if all you want to do is go to the shops without a mask, while everyone assumes you're a dumbass? You don't need a vaccine to do that.
If the vaccine substantially reduces viral load, and degree and period of contagiousness for those who receive it, as well as reducing the risk of illness (which AFAIK it does, while falling short of sterilizing immunity), and you are the elderly loved ones main interface to the outside world, getting vaccinated on top of other precautions provides a real benefit.
OTOH, if you have to choose one to be vaccinated, it's them, not you. If you do this for lots of elderly family members, getting yourself vaccinated may be better than getting any one of them vaccinated, though. And, of course, of you are doing an off the books pre-approval use of the vaccine, accepting the risk of unexpected side effects for yourself may be more reasonable than imposing them on, or even suggesting them to, someone else who may be in a more fragile state.
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/12/fda-anal....
> He said the findings reflect an impact on blocking transmission and are very encouraging, hinting at mucosal immunity. "The data aren't conclusive but support this key benefit," he said.
Of course, if in the end vaccines don't prevent transmission, then they don't prevent transmission. But we don't know that they don't do that.
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.
That was hearsay, though, and I don't have access to the internal protocol.
1) CDC reports 5101 deaths for the 35-44 years ago group. I assume YTD with "Date" being "recent".
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm
2) My reading of the 2018 (best I found sorry) mortality table for 35-44 age group would put death by covid as the 5th leading cause of death. Just between suicide (7521) and homicide (3304).
https://www.cdc.gov/injury/images/lc-charts/leading_causes_o...
Note that "flu and pneumonia" for that age group was just 956 - putting it at #9 for leading cause of death in the 35-44 age group.
So I think covid is a bit more than "just the flu".
Don't be afraid of covid killing you. Be afraid of it turning you into a mentally disabled cripple who can't catch his breath until you die of heart failure twenty years before your time.
Edit: Oh and just for kicks, there's recent evidence it causes erectile dysfunction too.
In June estimates were that 1 in 5 people who needed intensive care for covid were left with permanent damage.
> People infected with the coronavirus may be left with permanent lung damage. Doctors are reporting growing numbers of people who still have breathlessness and coughing months after falling ill with covid-19, and whose chest scans show evidence of irreversible lung scarring.
> The numbers of people affected aren’t yet known, but estimates are as high as one in five of those who needed intensive care treatment for covid-19. Permanent damage is sometimes seen after other kinds of chest infections that can cause similar lung inflammation to the coronavirus, such as flu and pneumonia.
> In a study in Italy, which was one of the first European countries to be hit by the coronavirus, doctors are scanning the lungs of people three months after they fell ill. Although the full results aren’t yet in, Paolo Spagnolo at the University Hospital of Padua estimates that 15 to 20 per cent of those treated in intensive care at his hospital for covid-19 have scarring. “We have to be prepared in the future to manage these patients.”
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2247086-the-coronavirus...
What is not shown at all is that it turns you into a “mentally challenged cripple.”
> Because none of this is remotely evidence-based.
I won't be surprised if Covid ends up being slightly more or slightly less correlated with post-infection issues, but we have seen no credible evidence of this at all, much less evidence that we should worry Covid turns you into a "mentally-challenged cripple."
So GP's statement is partially true.
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.
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.
Some of those countries are "not sitting pretty right now" because they ended their lockdowns.
The answer is not "lockdowns don't really do any good." The answer is "don't prematurely end your lockdowns." Now that can be burdensome. You can do a middle ground (limited re-opening). That works too, but you have to be very careful and keep a close eye on case numbers and shut down totally as soon as cases ramp up. California tried to do that in the latest surge, but was a little late in implementing the newly stringent measures and even further So. Cal. "resisted" the newly stringent measures and are now suffering mightily.
True
>All of it is a “limited re-opening.”
Yes, but the issue is how limited was the limited re-opening. I live in the U.S., but ALL of my colleagues are in Europe. It's anecdotal, but my understanding is that the re-openings throughout EU were quite closer to the "unlimited" side than the "total lockdown" side of the spectrum.
>Perhaps respiratory viruses spread much more effectively in the winter versus the summer
The presence of an additional explanatory factor does not prove the absence of an alternative explanatory factor. They could both be true, and almost certainly are true. That is: lockdowns work; without lockdowns, you have Bergamo in Jan-Mar 2020 (mass death); COVID spreads better in winter.
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.