outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

League table of shitty national pandemic responses:
1. US
2. Brazil
3. Mexico
4. UK
5. Belgium, apparently

Certain outliers like Russia and Iran lack robust data for inclusion here.

we were only countering the idea that everything was hunky dory over here and it'll be a breeze handing out vaccines to all and sundry

Forget it. I'll keep out of this thread in future. Another one out of bounds.

> koogs and I would never claim that things were worse in the UK

i might! the death tolls in the uk were like 3rd worst in the world, by population, at one point (and we are still 5th, after belgium, peru, spain, italy)

those things i posted and probably 10 times more would be proper scandals in other years and contributes to the 400+ deaths a day we are currently seeing. but i know they don't make international news and so foreigners might be unaware.

I've been either looking at the Worldometer Coronavirus page (sorted by deaths/1M) or @KagroX's daily top 10 thread daily since May, like some kind of macabre sports rankings. Only SE Asia, Oceania, and in Europe, Scandanavia ex-Sweden, the Baltics, Greece and Germany have been doing well at all. Everywhere else is either a shitshow, or (in the case of most of Subaharan Africa) probably doesn't have reliable stats.

https://calmatters.org/newsletters/whatmatters/2020/11/california-edd-fraud-claims-inmates/

Bloomberg: Astra Vaccine’s 90% Efficacy in Covid Came in Younger Group

The dose of AstraZeneca Plc’s Covid vaccine that showed the highest level of effectiveness was tested in a younger population than a bigger dose that showed less efficacy, according to the head of the U.S. Operation Warp Speed program.

The vaccine being developed with Oxford University was 90% effective when a half-dose was given before a full-dose booster, the partners said on Monday. However, that regime was administered to participants in a group whose age was capped at 55, Warp Speed’s Moncef Slaoui said Tuesday in a phone call with reporters.

Researchers have been puzzling about the AstraZeneca report since it was released, wondering why a smaller dose of the vaccine might have appeared to be more effective than a larger one. Most of the people in the trial received a placebo or the regimen of two full doses, which was 62% effective. That group included people who were older than 55, Slaoui said.

jfc

Britain’s best brains are on it 🇬🇧

Oops.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/25/culled-mink-rise-from-the-dead-denmark-coronavirus

mmmm delicious

astra zentake-a minute to check your work willya??

lol

astra not-zen eca

disastrazeneca

Re the UK, was startled to read that at least one testing site required you to go along and then ineptly do the nasal swab ON YOURSELF while a soldier watched from behind a protective window. The person who did this was understandably not confident when they got a negative test result.
https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2020/november/in-liverpool

JFC that is insane

I think that's par for the course (apart from the soldier) I went for a test (literally at the end of my street!) and I had to do it myself.

I assume it's the same at every testing centre in the UK.

The site was being run by a bunch of enthusiastic young people who looked like they'd just be plucked off the local streets.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/25/business/coronavirus-vaccine-astrazeneca-oxford.html

what a mess

I don't think any of this is getting reported in the UK btw, certainly not on the BBC, the Tories have put all their eggs in the Astra-Zeneca basket and it's being portrayed everywhere as a great triumph for British science and ingenuity.

Basking in the results on Monday, Mr. Johnson said the vaccine “has the makings of a wonderful British scientific achievement.”

haha

like Brexit, and the Garden Bridge, and, and,

I think that's par for the course (apart from the soldier) I went for a test (literally at the end of my street!) and I had to do it myself.

― ILXceptionalism (Tom D.), Wednesday, November 25, 2020 11:15 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I assume it's the same at every testing centre in the UK.

― ILXceptionalism (Tom D.), Wednesday, November 25, 2020 11:15 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

The site was being run by a bunch of enthusiastic young people who looked like they'd just be plucked off the local streets.

― ILXceptionalism (Tom D.), Wednesday, November 25, 2020 11:20 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

We had an option for them to do the test on us the first time we got tested - they did the test on me and my partner and then we tested our 6yo daughter. My partner got tested again a few weeks back and had to administer the test herself - she was going to care for her dad, who was having an operation - and was definitely anxious that she hadn't administered the test properly and would get a false-negative.

LOL misread that as your 6yo daughter had to administer the test herself. Nothing would surprise me tbh.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EnvK99kXUAAvEJM?format=jpg&name=medium

good morning

Now we've got mink zombies to deal with.

i believe you’ll find they prefer the term “nosfurrati”

I wonder if PETA would have any issues about how various government agencies across Europe are treating undead furry lil' bastards!

(xp) Nosferretu surely?

well if you’re using the singular

Will read this later.

It pains me to say this, but... I think the claims made for the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine are on *very* shaky ground. We should wait for a solid large trial. My latest @WIRED https://t.co/BKJfaQS1nc With a timeline & extra sources here: https://t.co/ZaeheAgtEP

— Hilda Bastian (@hildabast) November 25, 2020

LOL misread that as your 6yo daughter had to administer the test herself. Nothing would surprise me tbh.

I almost projectile vomited when they did me, because I am a wuss. She would probably have done a better job!

I would not be able to do it myself. That’s hard.

The tonsil scrape is a nightmare.

That's why, when they show footage of a test being administered on TV (which they do like clockwork), they always show the swab up the nose.

The nose bit ain't fun either. When they administered the nose swab, the woman had to say, 'Sir, could you stop scrunching up your face, we can't get the swab far enough in.'

I'm a wuss, is what I'm saying.

I've only had the nose poke. Going that far back feels unnatural and I would surely not be able to force myself to do it.

I've done my own test several times now, I feel fairly confident, except about how far up the nose I'm going

I'm just going to post that the SCOTUS ruling that came late last night is one of the most infuriating things I've ever encountered, and I'm angry quite a lot.

Yes... this is very, very bad.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/26/us/supreme-court-coronavirus-religion-new-york.html

We just had a secret wedding in Brooklyn with 7000 people so this is just wonderful, can only imagine how Christmas mass will add to the death tolls.

hahaha well at least that won't impact my life oh wait that's walking distance hahaha no problem no problem

Yeah, all of the people on this board saying, "well if these wackos want to do it, fine whatever let them swim in covid" obviously don't know or care for people working on the front lines right now.

Like forks I am mere blocks from the nearest bk enclave so my deploration of this decision definitely includes some fear for my own safety

I just got off the phone with my sister, who is an RN/MBA and hospital administrator at Stanford University Medical Center.

She is on Stanford's vaccine task force, and says the vaccines are real, and will really be happening, within weeks.

They are getting the Pfizer vaccine and it will go first to ED and ICU staff, then to COVID unit staff, then to high-risk patients. After that, ina manner to be determined, to normal people.

She said that even a couple weeks ago she would have been incredulous - said that two weeks ago she would have said it was a year away.

So that's potentially hopeful, maybe?

Yes, it is hopeful news and should not be discounted.

The vaccine will certainly ease some of the emotional burden of nurses, doctors and other frontline workers, but the work will still be emotionally exhausting as they continue to see patient after patient suffering, often dying, the standard of care dropping as medical attention and equipment become triaged, and there is no vaccine available for their families and other loved ones. These people are having their hearts gouged at on a daily basis.

I can see giving them to ICU people first, but I don’t agree with the plan to give them to people with erectile dysfunction at the same time.

Heh, I couldn't figure that out either.