Biden gettin 'er done

Discussion in 'Coronavirus (COVID-19) News' started by ronv, Mar 2, 2021.

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  1. LoneStarGal

    LoneStarGal Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    All the manufacturers are operating at "full speed" to fill existing orders. There are some production bottlenecks which you allude to in your earlier post.

    Our tax dollars have likely purchased plenty of vaccines to donate to other countries. At the moment 45% of Americans either don't want the vaccine at all or don't want it "right now".

    I think Pfizer and Moderna price gouged, knowing they would be first to market ahead of competitors. $74 for two doses of Moderna, and $40 for two doses of Pfizer, compared to $10 for a one-dose shot of J&J. The technologies are different so they would have different prices, but if all are effective, hopefully going forward, our government will have a little sense with the citizens' money. Nah. What am I thinking? It's all "other people's money" to the government so it's not as valuable as your money or my money. LOL

    [​IMG]
     
  2. Giftedone

    Giftedone Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Get back to me in a few months ..and we will see if we have a "Third Wave" - I am thinking it has got most of the folks ... and keep in mind that most of the folks that covid targets - are folks that were done for anyway .. these will continue to die from influenza/pneumonia at a rate roughly 50% of the current death rate - as is normal.
     
  3. ronv

    ronv Well-Known Member

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    Oh I think it will be down in a couple of months, but not for the reason you quoted.
     
  4. CenterField

    CenterField Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Daily vaccination rates have nothing to do with THIS goal. THIS goal is to have enough vaccines by the end of May, it doesn't mean they'll be distributed and administered by the end of May. So, the only factor here is production. Biden issued this prediction, not a goal, once Merck said they will help J&J produce the vaccine. So it's production.
     
  5. Giftedone

    Giftedone Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    What percent of people do you think will get the flue in an average year ?
     
  6. Quantum Nerd

    Quantum Nerd Well-Known Member

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    Yes, daily vaccination rates are a good indicator. If production rate is the bottleneck, which it is, then daily vaccination rates are a measure of currently available production capability. If the rate of production doesn't increase dramatically soon, Biden's projection will not be reached. This conclusion would not be valid if distribution or vaccine administration were the bottleneck. However, I haven't seen any good evidence that the latter is the case.
     
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  7. ronv

    ronv Well-Known Member

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    I'm not sure what that has to do with Covid "decreasing in toxicity over time" but I'll bite.
    Around 50,000 die a year depending on the year.
     
  8. Giftedone

    Giftedone Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    It is a fact that viruses tend to get more contagious but less lethal over time . will Covid be the same ?- we hope so.

    The question was not how many folks die in a year - but how many get the flue every year .... what percent of the Population ?

    and your number of deaths influenza/pneumonia is way low. Should be around 23 per 100,000 per year - but no matter .. as this was not the question.
     
  9. ronv

    ronv Well-Known Member

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    CDC estimates that influenza has resulted in between 9 million – 45 million illnesses, between 140,000 – 810,000 hospitalizations and between 12,000 – 61,000 deaths annually since 2010.

    Toxicity and contagious are two entirely different words.
     
  10. Giftedone

    Giftedone Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Correct - and the normal trend is for the Former to decrease and the latter to increase over time.. but why have I had to repeat this now for the 3rd time.. Is there something you wanted to add or do not understand ?

    Not talking about "Influenza" alone - as that is not the correct way to assess .. "Influenza/Pneumonia" not just "influenza"

    but for the third time now .. am not talking about deaths - illnesses - or hospitalizations ...

    The Question is "How many people will get the flue in an average flue season" .. as in what percent of the population.

    When I looked this up a while back .. the range given was from 5% to 20%.

    Unfortunately this range is way big .. so I used the high end in my calculations and assumed that 20% will get this.

    First thing to notice is that most do not get the flue during an average flue season -- virus's simply don't like everyone.. two people in the same bed ... one get's it .. the other does not.

    The next step would be to try and figure out how many people got this thing . but were not tested - asymptomatic .. the numbers I saw - cruise ship - meat packing plant .. 9 out of 10 that tested positive were asymptomatic.

    This means that you could have 9 people who don't get tested for every "Case" that gets recorded. I took half this amount .. calling it 5 - as some of these folks will be tested through contact tracing .. say half of them..

    So then .. take the number of cases in your region - multiply by 5 and divide by the population of that region .. This will give you a guestimate of the percent who have had it so far.

    By my guestimate .. at least in my region .. looks like wave 2 got us close to the 20% number .. it should then be no surprise that it is fading away.

    Sure it may get to 25% .. but unlikely it will get to 35%..

    Point being .. we should be through the worst of it..
     
    Last edited: Mar 3, 2021
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  11. ronv

    ronv Well-Known Member

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    I'm not sure what point you are trying to make, but I'm pretty sure I should have followed my own advice and left you alone. :)

    What point are you trying to make? That we are close to herd immunity?
     
  12. James California

    James California Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    :eekeyes: ~ Up next : the "systemic racism" pandemic . :whisper:

    ~ Neither is CNN. They are never sure how true their reporting is . :confuse:´
     
    Last edited: Mar 3, 2021
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  13. CenterField

    CenterField Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I think production is already going up for Moderna and Pfizer and will dramatically go up for J&J with Merck's help.
     
  14. CenterField

    CenterField Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I don't know why you're using the flu (not "flue") to make inferences about Covid-19. The flu is caused by the influenza virus. Covid-19 is caused by the SARS-CoV-2. These are vastly different viruses. They have a very different impact on the body and on different organs. They have a very different disease course (with some overlap). They have different sequelae. And furthermore, the two viruses are very different in infectiousness. So your idea that if we get 20% of people with the flu, we won't get much more than 35% of people with Covid-19, has no bases in Virology whatsoever, given that the SARS-CoV-2 is about 2.5 to 5 times more infectious than the influenza virus, and new strains of the SARS-CoV-2 seem to be even more infectious than that, given that the P.1 for example is 2.2 times more infectious than the ancestral strains, which were already much more infectious than the influenza virus.

    Your point of influenza/pneumonia is ill-taken (pun intended). The CDC *estimates* cases of flu and get them together with pneumonia stats because many go undiagnosed by testing. They collapse these categories, but you should realize that there are many causes of pneumonia other than the influenza virus (and they are VERY frequent causes, most of them). Here are some of the other causes of pneumonia:

    Human metapneumovirus
    Human parainfluenza virus
    Legionnaire's disease
    Mycoplasma pneumonia
    Pneumococcal disease
    Respiratory Syncytial Virus (a.k.a. RSV)
    Rhinovirus
    and... influenza virus (as well as the SARS-CoV-2)

    So, no, not all deaths from pneumonia are deaths from the flu so you can't use the total to infer how many people die of influenza-related viral pneumonia.

    Yes, viruses have a general trend of becoming more infectious and less lethal as a survival strategy (if a virus kills the host, the virus dies too) in terms of survival of the fittest.

    But that doesn't happen for all viruses. As a matter of fact, the newer variants of the SARS-CoV-2 that are way more infectious than the original (ancestral) strains, the B.1.1.7, the B.1.351, and the P.1, are at least as lethal as the ancestral variants, if not more (the one that does appear more lethal is the B.1.1.7, but the other two have given some indication of that too, still unconfirmed; but like I said, if these other two are not more lethal, then they are at least just as lethal).

    So, don't count on one individual virus behaving exactly the way most viruses do. It's not obligatory. Viruses are different from each other and have different mutation paths, different virulence, and difference infectiousness.

    Are you through the worst of it? Possibly, especially as we beef up the vaccines more and more. But we can't be absolutely sure yet, due to the variants. If the variants don't cause a 4th surge and we don't see even more variants with higher capacity for antigenic drift (that is, resistance to vaccines), then the worst of it is behind us. If the opposite occurs, then the worst of it is not behind us. We'll see.

    Remember, at the end of the first and second waves people also said the worst was behind us... just to be disappointed when the next wave hit. Now we're seeing the tail end of the third wave. Whether or not we'll have a fourth wave remains to be seen. I certainly hope not, but it's not impossible.

    If you like flu comparisons, then look at this one: the more infectious H1N1 that got humankind between 1918 and 1919, known by the misnomer Spanish Flu. Well, it went on for two years, and each wave was worse than the preceding one.

    The vaccines make a difference, so, hopefully we will avoid a 4th wave, but as of now the jury is still out.
     
    Last edited: Mar 3, 2021
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  15. Giftedone

    Giftedone Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    No need to have posted all this - as I did not claim they were "The Same" .. they are however similar in many ways .. a human walks on two legs - has 5 fingers - and so does an Ape .. but a human is not an ape.

    If you look at the calculation I put up - unlike what anyone else has done in support of their claims - you can see very quickly that I would have never predicted the first wave was the end of it .. nor did I hear anyone of significance saying this.

    You seem to have badly misunderstood my post..
     
  16. James California

    James California Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    :sleeping: ~ Some folks on the internet like to make themselves feel important. :aww:
     
  17. Giftedone

    Giftedone Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I don't mind a long post - if it is coherent and relates to something I have said . This one was arguing against a position I did not make - and went downhill from there.. as if giving the name of some new mutation tells us something useful.
     
  18. James California

    James California Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    ~ Long posts rarely - if ever - do .
     
  19. ronv

    ronv Well-Known Member

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    Are you trying to make the argument we are close to herd immunity without the vaccine based on the flu numbers?
     
  20. Giftedone

    Giftedone Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You need to read more of my posts :oldman::oldman::oldman:
     
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  21. Giftedone

    Giftedone Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    That would be one way of doing it - but yes .. something like that.
     
  22. ronv

    ronv Well-Known Member

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    Okay, I got it.
    In that case here is the CDC estimate on the total number of cases,
    upload_2021-3-3_16-9-57.png

    Estimated Disease Burden of COVID-19 | CDC

    The R0 of Covid 19 is estimated at ~ 2.5.

    Explicit estimates of the time-varying or effective reproducton number, R (often referred to as Rt or RE), can identify changes in transmission over time as a result of interventions and acquired immunity. Mean estimates of R before January 23 generally fall within the ranges of 2.3–2.6 (peer-reviewed [26,27]) and 3.9–6.2

    Early Insights from Statistical and Mathematical Modeling of Key Epidemiologic Parameters of COVID-19 - Volume 26, Number 11—November 2020 - Emerging Infectious Diseases journal - CDC

    So for herd immunity 60% would need to have had it. So about 198 million. 1-1/R0.

    Now R0 can vary depending on a lot of factors which is why mitigation works.

    The typical flu on the other hand has an R0 of about 1.5.

    • The reproductive number, R0 (pronounced R naught), is a value that describes how contagious a disease is. For the flu, the R0 tends to be between 1 and 2, which means that for every person infected with the flu, one to two additional people become infected. For COVID-19, the R0 is higher, between 2 and 3. With COVID-19, there are also some documented examples of “superspreaders” who can infect a large number of people.
    COVID-19 and Influenza Surveillance – Coronavirus (virginia.gov)

    This gives us about 100 million for herd immunity.

    There are several flavors of flu, so sometimes the vaccine is better than others.
     
    Last edited: Mar 3, 2021
  23. CenterField

    CenterField Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You didn't see anyone of significance saying this? LOL. What about one Donald J. Trump? He kept saying "it's going away" "we are turning the corner."
    No, I haven't misunderstood anything at all. I simply pointed out to your errors, for example, trying to use percentage of infection for the influenza virus to predict percentage of infection for the SARS-CoV-2 (and putting the two in the same order of magnitude), when their infectiousness is so vastly different. You said not more than 35%... we have real life examples of world cities that got 76% of their people infected.
    Calculations, unlike anyone else? Dear, I've mentioned several calculations of mine in many posts, including, teaching people how to calculate the Herd Immunity Threshold. Look up my posting history, using the advanced search and these key words and me as the author, and you'll see.

    It's not that I misunderstood you. It's just that you are wrong.
     
  24. CenterField

    CenterField Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Of course the names of new variants (not mutations, mutations are something different) tell us something useful. They have several characteristics of concern and we can predict their behavior from it.
    Here, learn a little, from my Variants thread:
    http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/sars-cov-2-variants.584511/

    My post didn't go down hill. It just flew over your head.

    Pray tell, what is incoherent about my post? It is based on sound knowledge of Virology.
     
    Last edited: Mar 3, 2021
  25. CenterField

    CenterField Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You're on the right track but not entirely, ronv.
    First of all, the variants of concern have a much higher R0.
    Second, the heterogeneity of herd immunity doesn't allow us to predict the number with as much certainty as you seem to indicate ("this gives us about 100 million for herd immunity").
    We don't even know if herd immunity will be possible. A variant like the P.1, way capable of re-infection, can easily defeat it, like it did in Manaus, Brazil.
     
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