Covid 19 CRISIS

While I agree with @eizbaer and @calvinhobbes that tests (or full vaccination) should remain mandatory for everything that's not basic grocery shopping, the way Germany treats the current situation worries me. I understand that being cautious is a good thing, but not even allowing "mass" (over 500 people) events even for September basically hands control to vaccine refusers: If out of fear of a fourth wave we can't go back to concerts and weddings even with everyone who wants vaccinated, the refusers hold society hostage.

This must not happen.

Aren't you the same person who agreed with the Bavarien government this year when I was a bit miffed seeing that Munich's Oktoberfest was postponed again?
 
While annoying, an updated booster mRNA dose would rip through the population fairly quickly. We have the tech, we have the evaluations, and we have the scaled-up production capacities with RNA printers going brrrrrr everywhere, and - unless some not-smart politicians or GP lobbyists manage to tear them down - we have the scaled-up infrastructure to innoculate the people.
No month-long agonizingly-slow ramp-up, full steam ahead.
Yes, but it would still cost us a couple of months yet again. Which is why I’m keeping my fingers crossed for a speedy worldwide vaccination campaign, particularly in locations where people have no real choice but to go to work and not enough space for social distancing.
 
Yes, but it would still cost us a couple of months yet again. Which is why I’m keeping my fingers crossed for a speedy worldwide vaccination campaign, particularly in locations where people have no real choice but to go to work and not enough space for social distancing.
Oh no doubt, not requiring new vaccines would always be preferable. But, in the grand scheme of things, "a couple of months" is amazing.
 
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JJ: 0.8M so far, no 2nd shots necessary, but huge uncertainty in June deliveries, so I'll just ? and say 3M more shots by end of June... so, 3.8M.
Sounds like reality is at least as cautious here as I was, with JJ's vaccine cross-contamination issues it seems we're getting even less than what would be necessary to meet that 3.8M die roll :dunno:


But, good news on the vaccine uptake front... it looks possible that Germany can hit 90% vaccination rates in the 60+ population. Bremen is in the lead here, at 88.1% already... but even huge NRW is at 83% and counting.
Also, we've hit a new rolling-7-day-dose-rate high yesterday.
 
Sounds like reality is at least as cautious here as I was, with JJ's vaccine cross-contamination issues it seems we're getting even less than what would be necessary to meet that 3.8M die roll
Minor deviation though - 3.5M confirmed. That's not even .5% of the general population.
 
Minor deviation though - 3.5M confirmed. That's not even .5% of the general population.
Well, 3.5M for all of Q2 in terms of deliveries, so we'll see significantly under 3M shots-in-arms within Q2... so maybe 1M less than my guess.
 
Well, 3.5M for all of Q2 in terms of deliveries, so we'll see significantly under 3M shots-in-arms within Q2... so maybe 1M less than my guess.
Which is a pity but again, in the bigger picture, a minor inconvenience.
 
Which is a pity but again, in the bigger picture, a minor inconvenience.
Compared to my pessimistic guess, no. Compared to the originally promised 10.xM doses in Q2 it is quite a change, in the "almost 10% of all adults" region. Now would be a perfect time for another surprise BnT drop of additional doses to cement their position as the only meaningful supplier.
 
Compared to my pessimistic guess, no. Compared to the originally promised 10.xM doses in Q2 it is quite a change, in the "almost 10% of all adults" region. Now would be a perfect time for another surprise BnT drop of additional doses to cement their position as the only meaningful supplier.
Well, they already dropped 10 mio doses extra when J&J became wobbly first time, so compared to early Q2 predictions the loss is not 10M, but closer to 2.5 Mio. In fact, the figure I ballparked back in March was 45 Mio. people with a first shot by end of June (and no one believed that back then). According to your prognosis, we're still set to beat this by 9-ish Mio...

On the other hand, compared to interim prognosis in mid-May, it is quite a drop, especially since unlike with similar problems at Moderna it does not look like delivery will simply be postponed into the first week of Q3, but only arrive at an unspecified "later" date.

EDIT: And then there is the saga of the CureVac vaccine, or "Hurensohnium" as I as a soccer fan call it - it seems like they managed to recruit their full phase 3 trial just in time for the second/third wave to end and are still two thirds short of the necessary amount of covid cases in their trial. With the problems at AZ, J&J, and CureVac, the EU strategy of betting on all the horses does not look as haphazard any more...
 
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Got a second shot of moderna and met a guy who had relatives in north of England, that both had Az x2, but when going on holiday, one tested positive for delta/indian variant!

Ministers have been told that a four-week delay to easing all Covid restrictions would probably prevent thousands of hospitalisations, as Boris Johnson prepares to tell the English public they will have to wait up to another month for “freedom day”.
 
Got a second shot of moderna and met a guy who had relatives in north of England, that both had Az x2, but when going on holiday, one tested positive for delta/indian variant!
There will always be people testing positive despite being vaccinated, regardless of the variant and the vaccine.
 
There will always be people testing positive despite being vaccinated, regardless of the variant and the vaccine.
They were surprised when the attempted to go on holiday.

Oxford/Az's Prof Adrian (soon to be Knighted) said Moderna have developed a South African variant vaccine, and Az expect to do so to. Wasn't sure if they needed to do delta/Indian version too.
 
They were surprised when the attempted to go on holiday.

Oxford/Az's Prof Adrian (soon to be Knighted) said Moderna have developed a South African variant vaccine, and Az expect to do so to. Wasn't sure if they needed to do delta/Indian version too.
The efficacy drop does not warrant a "Delta Version". It's 6% so your relative chance of getting covid increase by 1,5 % or so.

The question is rather why except for Brexit infused misguided patriotism to continue working on the Adenovirus platform when at least for covid the mRna platform is vastly superior.
 
The efficacy drop does not warrant a "Delta Version". It's 6% so your relative chance of getting covid increase by 1,5 % or so.

The question is rather why except for Brexit infused misguided patriotism to continue working on the Adenovirus platform when at least for covid the mRna platform is vastly superior.

Isn't it easier to store and cheaper?

I think India is a big producer of this.

The vaccine is stable at refrigerator temperatures and costs around US$3 to US$4 per dose.[43] On 17 December 2020, a tweet by the Belgian Budget State Secretary revealed that the European Union (EU) would pay €1.78 (US$2.16) per dose, The New York Times suggesting the lower price might relate to factors including investment in vaccine production infrastructure by the EU.[44]

As of March 2021 the vaccine active substance (ChAdOx1-SARS-COV-2) is being produced at several sites worldwide,[45] with AstraZeneca claiming to have established 25 sites in 15 countries.[46] The UK sites are Oxford and Keele with bottling and finishing in Wrexham.[45] Other sites include the Serum Institute of India at Pune.[45] The Halix site at Leiden was approved by the EMA on 26 March 2021, joining three other sites approved by the EU.
 
Meanwhile, here in Munich, everything is spiralling out of control slowly:

- Shopping centers and streets are crowded as not seen before Covid
- Youth is going mad in the streets, massive crowds of hundreds of party people vandalizing whole districts while partying, jumping on cars, trash everywhere, police gives up (for those with instagram https://www.instagram.com/stories/munchner.gesindel/2595099827278935082/)
- Soccer games with 14.000 people in the stadium, many who use our already crowded subway system to get to the stadium

Fuck, I will get my holidays in now and pray wave four will not arrive till my kid is born in hospital in November, but I am doubtful.

Meanwhile, our great health minister says the states need to evaluate how to get rid of masks. I agree that Bavaria should drop the FFP2 Mask requirement since we are at same low level of infections as all other states who just use medical masks, but boy, that guy should have been removed from office long ago. After literally sucking the cock of pharmacies by giving them the right to sell masks to any price they want from state money, by letting them go mad with antigen tests and charge whatever they want he now also allows them to charge the state 18€ to create a QR code (for getting digital vaccination pass) by clicking three boxes in a web form.
 
I don't share your pessimistic outlook @D-Fence. See vaccination numbers above, while a small uptick in cases may happen (not sure, though) I don't think a full-blown "fourth wave" is in the cards. There's just too many people taken out of the infection game already, especially since unlike in Britain it's not one homogenous group that's fully vaxxed and one that isn't.

How 14K people in a 75K stadium (with public transport links to match) spell the end of the world as we know it I am unsure about.
 
Novavax reports 91% efficacy, in line with mRNA vaccines. This means they should be able to file for EMA approval soon and hopefully further speed up the EU vaccination campaign by contributing 100 to 200 million doses, and also getting the world vaccinated with a 350 mio dose delivery through GAVI (that's Bill Gates) to COVAX.

CureVac by now are dead in the water unless they can pull a real nifty hat-trick regarding variants. Also, the Novavax vaccine provides all the manufacturing and storage upsides of the Adenovirus platform without the lower efficacy or blood clodding side effects. This means that this is shit news for J&J as well (Oxford/AZ will forever be protected by Tory nationalism).
 
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I don't share your pessimistic outlook @D-Fence. See vaccination numbers above, while a small uptick in cases may happen (not sure, though) I don't think a full-blown "fourth wave" is in the cards. There's just too many people taken out of the infection game already, especially since unlike in Britain it's not one homogenous group that's fully vaxxed and one that isn't.
The biggest risk I see remaining is taking schools back to normal before the summer holidays, ie full on-site classes without masks.
5-24yo have by far the highest infection rates remaining, and obviously the lowest vaccination rates. Spread within schools isn't helped much by high vaccination rates in the 60+/precondition/etc. population except for most teachers taken out of the ball pit.

This is indeed a classic case of "hold out for a few more weeks", considering it's June already. After the summer holidays secondary school kids as well as parents can have high vaccination rates, giving the elementary school kids a lot of buffer around them and school can indeed go back to normal with maybe a bit more handwashing.

blood clodding side effects
To be fair to AZ and JJ, those wouldn't and didn't show the clodding effects either in such small studies. Rates were in the single digits per million, so they are expected to not show up in a 30000 people study, with probably 15000 people getting the vaccine. Even at 10 per million you'd just expect 0.15 cases in the group, so 0 is by far the most likely outcome.
 
A friend of mine is currently living in the US but is originally from India, the rest of his family is still living there, and his mother is a doctor who's been fully vaccinated just tested positive and she's not doing well. Naturally he's worried to death about her and he can tell she's not letting on just how bad it is.
 
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