outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

FWIW, we're about to have a new presidential administration that actually takes this shit seriously.

last two posts otm

Yeah, I get the despair, we are currently at our lowest point and it's horrible, but there's some very obvious reasons to assume that this will turn around over the next few months.

Hey, I hope so, but I'll believe it when I see it.

Is there a strong reason to doubt it? Vaccinations just started in the last month. It's been a mess but it's actually happening despite an utter void of leadership. Biden is coming in with an actual plan to manage vaccinations effectively and the manufacturers are ramping up production. It won't happen nearly as fast as we'd like, but this stuff is actually happening.

This could be a critical time, with some reasons to be hopeful

- at least some new restrictions potentially having teeth
- holidays over
- vaccinations proceeding (albeit slowly)
- in a lot of places it's still too cold to go do outdoor gathering / concert-type stuff

Well, I mean *gesturing wildly around at the last ten months*, yeah, there is a lot of reasons to doubt it. I mean, obviously having an administration that believes in science and cares about this stuff is very important and will make a tremendous difference. But it's not like waving a magic wand and the hour Biden is inaugurated, things will improve. It is more likely to take months to start by untangling the mess Trump made of everything before we can even start more efficient distribution.

Yes, that's why I said it won't happen as fast as we'd like, but there's a clear change in conditions that will improve things.

My work has sent round an email asking if anyone wants to be a volunteer at the medical research facility that's next door to us and is being used as a vaccination centre. The USP being that you'll be vaccinated youself if you volunteer - Pfizer (you'll also be vaccinated against Hepatitis B too). No-one I'm in contact with seems very enthusiastic.

There are a range of roles people can volunteer for, including marshalling, checking people into the FCI facility, looking after people awaiting their jab, and actually administering the vaccination.

Looking after people waiting for their jab? Must get working on my balloon animal skills.

krautrock song & dance routine

One thing to remember about the vaccine rollout is that once the most vulnerable are at least partially protected, the fatality rates should plummet. Unfortunately this might mean the likes of the UK government triumphantly telling everyone it's all over, but HOPEFULLY it won't be looking nearly as bleak as it is right now.

- in a lot of places it's still too cold to go do outdoor gathering / concert-type stuff

that's probably a negative, since people will just gather inside instead

as little faith as I have in government it seems apparent that vaccinating everyone as quickly as possible is the most important and helpful thing you can do so I don't doubt the incoming admin is going to be taking this seriously. worth mentioning that the vaccine itself only got approved like...last month?

(xp) I obviously wouldn't mind getting the vaccine but I very much doubt I have the bedside manner to reassure some old dear worried about getting the jab.

I just know I'd make some badly formed joek about it having microchips in it and this snowballing to an embarrassing degree

... or Bill Gates. Hard to resist tbh.

there's some very obvious reasons to assume that this will turn around over the next few months.

more money will be forthcoming. vaccine manufacture will run at capacity. weak spots in various state programs will be identified. the amount of direct federal coordination and assistance will increase. the big problem is states are stretched so thin they are always playing catch up as events continually run ahead of them.

(xp) I obviously wouldn't mind getting the vaccine but I very much doubt I have the bedside manner to reassure some old dear worried about getting the jab.

― Waterloo Subset (Tom D.), Friday, January 15, 2021 1:33 PM (twenty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

you could read them ILX posts!

biden has hinted at this previously but 100% should commit to invoking the defense production act to ramp up vaccine manufacturing

Since this is Biden, he'll actually end up only committing to 70% of it then.

Yeaaaah, seeing Biden trying to tamp down expectations for the vaccine already isn't making me feel any better. Undoubtedly it will get better, but seeing the "if necessary" qualifier added to his talk about the Defense Production Act doesn't thrill me.

I mean, if this pandemic doesn't make the DPA "necessary", what's the fucking point?

agreed, but i assume the problem with the DPA as written is the companies it applies to will sue the federal government if it's invoked and they might win.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/15/nyregion/nj-vaccine-smokers-covid.html

🤦‍♂

ahhaha are they serious? ffs

this seems like a preview of what we're going to see when everyone is eligible https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-01-16/more-than-40-of-l-a-firefighters-still-unvaccinated

I wonder how much of that 40% is made up of the 25% who've already had it, thinking they don't need the shot if they've already developed antibodies.

cf

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/16/covid-vaccine-black-people-unlikely-covid-jab-uk

Ugh at that LAFD article.

Firefighters are on the front lines of the pandemic, with many working as paramedics and emergency medical technicians. More than 830 city firefighters — nearly one-quarter of the force — have tested positive thus far. Two have died, most recently Capt. George Roque, 57, a 22-year veteran.

i wonder if a quarter of them already testing positive affects things - the fallacious "i've already had covid-19, i'm immune now" line of hopeful thinking

Wonder if 25% of firefighters testing positive already has something to do with this

Yeah if 25% of them have already had it that has to make a difference.

i do wonder as well

but alas, there's no way to know

So many people have died in Los Angeles County that officials have temporarily suspended air-quality regulations that limit the number of cremations. Health officials and the L.A. County coroner requested the change because the current death rate is “more than double that of pre-pandemic years, leading to hospitals, funeral homes and crematoriums exceeding capacity, without the ability to process the backlog,” the South Coast Air Quality Management District said Sunday.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-01-17/covid-19-coronavirus-vaccine-update-pandemic

And meanwhile indoor shopping malls are open. Thank you for your leadership mayor garcetti and governor newsom.

Although there’s good news: positivity rate is down. Cases seem to have plateaued.

The bad news (well, good news if only half of people will bother to get the vaccine?!) is that the county estimates 1/3 of la county residents have had covid (10% that we know about, and a factor of three is a good rule of thumb to get actual infections from recorded cases, but they’ve done real modelling).

here (belgium) it looks like there's some panic Re: The British Variant suddenly breaking out in a couple of locations (2 school kids have it: whole school closed for a week)

+ everyone who gets out of the Eurostar is escorted to a mandatory testing location by police right now, otherwise nobody would do it

Not stating anything we haven't known for a while, but a sobering read nonetheless.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/17/us/covid-deaths-2020.html

Longer-term effects of Covid infection look like being a public health crisis we'll be dealing with for a long time:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jan/18/almost-30-of-covid-patients-in-england-re-admitted-to-hospital-after-discharge-study

A total of 47,780 individuals who had a hospital episode between 1 January 2020 and 31 August 2020 with a primary diagnosis of Covid-19 were compared with a control group who did not have Covid-19.

Of the 47,780, 29.4% were readmitted within 140 days of discharge and 12.3% died. The rate of readmission was 3.5 times greater, and the death rate seven times higher, than those in the control group, the researchers found.

The risk of post-discharge illness – such as respiratory conditions, diabetes and problems with the heart, liver and kidneys – in Covid-19 patients was higher compared with the control group. That risk was also greater in younger and ethnic minority individuals compared with those aged 70 and above and white people.

I've been so irritated by the (very common) attitude that 'you're not going to die from it if you're under 60 so what's the problem'. The severity of long covid has been documented at least anecdotally for months but I haven't really seen specific large-scale data on it like this.

The USA will surpass 400,000 deaths by tomorrow. Officially. Since the tabulation always lags a bit, we are probably already there. Seems absolutely certain the US will lose more than 500,000 lives to this virus, no matter how fast they push out the vaccines.

And yet I bicycled through throngs of students today, not realizing that they actually are doing in-person classes at UPenn this spring. Absurd and scary.

Last time I take that route, for real

I just skimmed that paper and it seems like it compares people hospitalized with covid against matched controls who were not necessarily hospitalized, which makes valid comparison challenging

Remains the case that I’m pretty sure nobody I really know has had covid and I don’t even know of any friends of friends who have. The closest thing to a covid death in my life is the owner of a taco truck I used to go to dying early on.

half of my friends have had it and said it's pretty miserable.

I know some people who've had it. No one too close— but many of the people I am close with are taking pretty reasonable precautions all the time, and have been since the beginning.